The Dragon's Cave

CHAPTER I

Megan Meredith waited for the familiar clutch of nervousness that always seized her just before she stepped on to the stage. Supposing her voice failed? Supposing she tripped over her long skirt? Supposing Tony gave her the wrong beat and she didn’t come in at the right place? It mattered more that evening than it had ever mattered, for her parents had come to hear her sing. She glanced over to where they were sitting, crouched over the tiny table that was lit by a single candle, looking the picture of discomfort mixed with despair.

For the first time Megan saw the room as they would see it. Dark, not particularly clean, the atmosphere laden with second-hand cigarette smoke, and the noise, amplified electronically, thudding out the beat to the detriment of the rhythm that was supposed to be supplied by the lead guitar.

The group,
her
group, was not the best available in London—she knew that without being told—but they were the only ones who had been prepared to give her an opening. They paid her very
little
, but they allowed her to sing with them and that, for the moment, was enough for her.

‘
—the lovely Megan Meridith
!
’

Megan took a step forward, flashed a smile round the room, trying not to look at her parents, and picked up the microphone. She had a soft, growly voice that was never going to be great, but which was charming and peculiarly feminine.

‘Megan, my love, that was super
!
’ Tony said, not to her but to the room, when she had come to the end of her song. ‘We’ll have to ask you again—say, in about ten minutes’ time?’

She nodded her head, allowing the long length of
her loose hair to fall forward, hiding her face. Whatever her parents said, she knew that she was the best thing that had happened so far that evening. Even the rowdiest among them had stood
silently
listening to her, not even bothering to dance while she was singing. She wished if her parents would recognise the compliment they had paid her just
by being quiet, but she knew that they wouldn’t.

Megan went over to their table and sat on the free chair, her back as stiff as a ramrod.

‘Well?’ she said gruffly.

‘Very nice, dear,’ her father murmured, embarrassed.

Her mother merely looked at her, her eyes wide with dismay and—could it be
sympathy
?

‘They listened to me, didn’t they?’ Megan went on abruptly.

‘Meg, you’re coming home with us
tonight
!
’ her mother decided.

‘No,’ Megan said firmly. ‘I’m committed. I
want
to sing and this is the first opportunity I’ve had. It isn’t much, I know, but it’ll lead to better things.’

‘When?’

‘S-soon,’ Megan stammered, sounding remarkably unsure.

‘I don’t believe it
!
’ her mother retorted with all the confidence that her daughter had sought. ‘We’ve argued about it quite long enough, Megan. You’re coming home with us tonight
!
’

‘You can’t make me
!
’ Megan said stubbornly, feeling unexpectedly childish.

‘No,’ her mother agreed, ‘we can’t make you. You’re eighteen and you can do as you please. You can disappear and nobody will even look for you, presuming that you have enough sense to know what you’re doing, if you want things that way. I don’t think you’re such a fool—’

‘My dear,’ Mr
.
Meredith interrupted her nervously,
‘I don’t think you’re putting this very well.’

‘Megan and I understand one another,’ Mrs
.
Meredith said grimly. ‘How often is this place raided?’ she added meaningly.

Megan started. ‘Raided?’ she repeated.

‘
I
’m sure it is,’ her mother went on, her confidence verging on the arrogant. ‘Next thing will be us having to bail you out on a drugs charge or something.’

‘I d-don’t smoke,’ Megan reminded her.

Her mother smiled suddenly. ‘Megan, don’t be a fool,’ she said softly. ‘I understand that you want to sing, but this isn’t the place for you. You wouldn’t have had your father and me coming here so much if it were
!
’

Megan wondered mutinously how her mother could have known how reluctant she had been to invite them to the Witch’s Cauldron, as the small club was known. She bit her lip and their eyes met.

‘All right, I’ll come home,’ Megan agreed dubiously.
‘But I have to finish off tonight and, whatever you say, I
won’t
settle for a secretarial course.’

Her mother actually grinned. ‘I don’t think anyone would employ you in an office anyway. You look as scatty as a hen with all that hair all over the place! And your idea of making up is enough to make an artist’s palette shudder.’

Megan made a face at her. ‘The lights are very dim in here,’ she explained. ‘I want to be seen!’

Her parents pushed back their chairs, exchanging looks of vivid relief that they were finally leaving.

‘You don’t have to hurry into anything, my dear,’ her father said uncomfortably over his shoulder. ‘I’m prepared to support you for a while yet until you get started decently.’

Megan pushed her hair back behind her ears. ‘You don’t understand!’ she complained. ‘I’m old enough to support myself! You’d have me accepting money from you until I’m doddering
!
And I
can
sing, whatever you think
!
’

‘If it were only singing—’ her father smiled at her. ‘This place looks like a whole way of life. Is it yours?’

Megan shook her head, feeling near to tears. ‘You’ve made your point
!
’ she sighed. ‘I’m coming home! Isn’t that enough?’

Her father squeezed her arm. ‘Anything you say
,
’ he said gently.

Megan’s eyes travelled to her mother’s face. Her mother gave her a guilty look. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ she said. ‘It’s only because we love you very much, you know that
!
Darling, don’t do anything
less
than the best you can. That’s all we’re asking
!
’

Megan threaded her fingers together. ‘I’ve got to live my own life. I’m coming home when I’ve finished here, but I shan’t give up trying to sing
!
’

‘If that’s what you want to do,’ her mother agreed immediately.

‘I do!’ Megan insisted.

She watched her parents leave without getting up from her seat at the table. What else had she expected? she asked herself morosely. She had known that it would be a disaster to ask her parents to hear her sing. It was also something of a relief to know that after this one evening she would never have to see the inside of the Witch’s Cauldron ever again.

She had gone to the party knowing that she would hate every minute of it. Alice, the girl who rented the flat above Tony’s, had asked her to drop in and sing to her guests round about midnight, adding that the idea was to get rid of all the people that she didn’t want to stay on into the small hours.

‘Think you can do that?’ she had asked Megan.

‘I don’t know,’ Megan had said, wondering if she was complimented to be asked to sing after all.

‘You have to wake them up, darling,’ Alice had explained.

‘I can do that,’ Megan had said positively.

‘Well then, no difficulty
!
’ Alice had laughed.

And she had woken them up. She had sung her heart out, knowing that Tony was there and that he would hear her, and that he might think her good enough to sing with, his group.

It had worked out exactly as she had hoped. Tony had heard her and he had asked her to sing. He had also kissed her as they had made their way down the stairs past his flat to the bus stop outside. Megan hadn’t liked being kissed, but Tony had told her that it was expected of any girl singer to give as well as take, and at least she had gone home by herself on the bus.

The first night she had sung at the Witch’s Cauldron, Tony had asked her to come along again.

‘You have something,’ he had told her. ‘It’s mostly your looks and the promise that you have something special to offer to anyone discerning enough to mine for it. Your voice is only pretty and different.’

‘Is that good enough?’ she had asked him, rather overawed at being summed up in such terms.

‘If you play your cards right.’

She had worried about that quite a bit. ‘I don’t know—’ she had said.

‘Leave it to your Uncle Tony
!
’

Alice had come in with a friend later that evening. ‘I don’t think this is you,’ she had said frankly to Megan. ‘I suppose you know what you’re doing?’

‘Tony does
!
’ her friend had said with a meaning look.

Alice had hesitated. ‘Do you know about Tony?’ she had asked Megan.

Megan had been plainly confused. Alice had shrugged her shoulders and had turned to her friend. ‘You tell her, love
!
’ she had commanded.

‘Okay,’ he had agreed. ‘Tony eats little girls like you,’ he had said, laughing. ‘Run along home while you’re still in one piece and welcome in the respectable neighbourhood where you were obviously brought up
!
’

Megan had thought him unkind. ‘I can look after myself
!
’ she had claimed defiantly.

‘If you say so,’ Alice had said, an edge to her voice.
‘
B
ut do me a favour, will you? Ask your parents to come and hear you sing! It’ll give them a fillip to know you’re making out on your own.’ She had turned away and smiled at her friend. ‘I owe the Merediths something,’ she had added meaningly.
‘They used to take me out with Megan when we were at school together.’

Megan had wondered what she had found so funny about that, but she had done what Alice had suggested and had asked her parents and, in doing so, she had done herself out of a job.

She stepped out on to the platform for the last time. Tony was angry with her and he deliberately bruised her wrist with his fingers as he announced her. It was strange, she thought, that he should mind so much when he had thought she was worth so little to his group.

She sang a sad little protest song, her voice full of the tears she was longing to shed. Then she bowed, almost ran off the stage, came back and bowed again, hating the smell of stale cigarettes and stale beer that assaulted her nostrils. She felt quite sick and, without stopping to say anything to Tony, she pushed her way through the dancers and the small, crowded tables, up the stairs and into the cold night air. It was snowing, but she didn’t care. It fell softly on her face, tickling her skin. It was very white and
clean
!

Megan didn’t know how long she stood there, breathing in the cold air, but she did know that she resented Tony’s presence when he stood in front of her, pushing a couple of pound notes into her hand.

‘What’s that for?’ she asked with distaste.

‘I’d like to say you earned it, but you didn’t!’ You’ve ruined it for us all
!
’ They won’t put up with us now without you
!
’

‘I thought you were doing me a favour
!
’ Megan sniffed.

‘So I was! People as innocent as you shouldn’t be allowed out on their own. I’d be doing mankind a favour to wake you up
!
’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Megan said with dignity.

‘I believe you
!
’

She winced, sure that he was referring to her youth and inexperience, neither of which could be immediately rectified, so she felt he had an unfair advantage.

‘But you were working here before last night
!
’ she reminded him wryly.

‘That was before they heard you,’ he retorted bitterly. ‘Couldn’t you feel the change that came over them? The guitars are okay, so far as they go, but you send them, honey, that’s the difference
!
’

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised.

‘Heavens above
!
I should think you ought to be
!
’

Megan shivered as a cold wind blew down the street. ‘Yes, but—’

‘Half the audience in there are men,’ Tony went on harshly. ‘I don’t suppose
that
even occurred to you?’

‘Why should it?’ she responded sulkily.

He lifted his eyes to the skies. ‘You’re a pretty girl, my dear. Every man in the place would like to have you to themselves. I’m not above it myself
!
’

She gasped and blushed, wishing that she had more aplomb.

‘Oh, but I—’

She felt his arms reach round her and his lips on hers. For an awful moment she thought she was going to be sick and told herself it was only the cold and the fright he had given her.

‘Please, Tony
!
’ she said when she could.

‘You’ll have to say please more prettily than that
!
’ he retorted. He kissed her again, ignoring the dry sobs that shook her. ‘What’s the matter with you anyway?’ he demanded. ‘Haven’t you ever been kissed before?’

She didn’t like to admit that she never had been, or that she disliked it very much.

‘Please, Tony,’ she said again.

‘You’re a cold little piece, aren’t you?’ he muttered.

She shivered. ‘It
is
snowing,’ she stammered.

‘All the more reason to warm up a bit
!
’ He pulled her even closer against him, his mouth closing once again over hers. Megan turned her head away, but he was too strong for her and she began to think she would never escape him.

But no sooner had his lips met hers than a strong arm came between them, forcing Tony away from her. Megan turned away, leaning against a lamp-post, her teeth chattering.

‘Are you all right?’ a deep, masculine voice asked her. She thought she detected a foreign accent, but she might just as easily have imagined it.

‘No, I’m not
!
’ she exclaimed frankly.

‘It is hardly surprising,’ the man went on, sounding amused. ‘Have you no coat on a night like this?’

‘I came out for some fresh air.’ She shuddered, looking about her and surprised to discover that Tony had gone. ‘Wh-where’s Tony?’ she asked.

‘The young man? He went into the Witch’s Cauldron. Are you with him?’ He sounded disapproving.

‘Not exactly. I was singing with his group, only my parents came to hear me and they don’t think I should—’

‘Where are your parents now?’ he interrupted her.

‘They went home. I promised I’d go home—to their home, I mean—as soon as I finished here.

‘They would have been wiser to take you home
with
them,’ he observed.

‘They couldn’t! I—I had agreed to sing tonight, you see.’

‘I’m not sure that I do,’ he said gently, and she was quite sure now that he was a foreigner, though he spoke English very well. ‘Where do you live? I will fetch your coat for you and then I will take you home.’

She glared at him suspiciously. The orange light was enough to make anyone look ill and ghostly, but he stood up to it surprisingly well. His hair was jet black, and he was tall and thin, with expensive clothes and a solid gold watch of the sort that you never have to wind.

Megan put a hand up to her hair and pushed it back behind her shoulders. ‘I must look a mess,’ she said, blinking up at him.

‘You will be quite safe with me,’ he assured her.

‘Oh?’