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‘All right.’ He let her go. ‘Now what the hell is the matter?’

‘I don’t want to stay here tonight, if that was what you were thinking.’ He gave a small rueful nod, and she gabbled on, ‘It’s too fast for me. I don’t rush into affairs, not even brief affairs. Up at the lodge things were sort of mixed up and crazy, but this is real life here and I’m used to sleeping in my own bed and I want to go home, please, now.’

‘You won’t even stay for a drink?’

She had had enough. Very little more could melt her resistance so that she couldn’t think of next week or next month, only of tonight and the agonising sweetness of dark hours with Duncan.

‘No, thank you,’ she said, sounding like a prim child.

‘Not even if I promise to take you home afterwards, untouched?’ He was laughing at her. To his mind she must seem both prudish and ridiculous, and she said wretchedly,

‘I’m sorry. It was a lovely meal, a lovely evening, but I’ve had enough to drink and I would like to go home.’

‘Then you shall.’ He drove her back to her apartment. Neither said much, but when the car stopped he asked, ‘Can I see you tomorrow?’ and Pattie blurted, ‘Oh,
yes
!’

She had been terrified he wouldn’t ask. He didn’t kiss her goodnight, but he got out of the car and walked with her to the door, and as her key turned and the door swung in he said quietly, T wish you’d stayed.’

He went then and Pattie climbed the stairs to her empty flat. If she had stayed she would have been wrapped in his arms now. She remembered how warm it had been, how comforting, and she felt so lonely that she went across to the rock cat, sat down on the floor and put a hand on it. ‘Will you keep me warm when I’m old, if there’s just the two of us?’ she had said earlier, and tonight she felt old. And a fool, sitting here stroking a rock for company.

Perhaps she was crazy not to take what was offered, and let tomorrow look after itself. She had come near. If Duncan hadn’t stopped kissing her she would have started to kiss him. If he had been less amenable about bringing her home the moment she asked she could have ended up spending the night in his bed.

Which showed he wasn’t all that bothered. Oh, he wanted her, but with his sex appeal there would always be other girls. Just as there would always be the shadow of Jennifer Stanley falling between them. Pattie had shown some sense, some control. If she had stayed she would have regretted it by morning. But that didn’t stop her crying into her pillow as though her heart was breaking ...

I won’t see him again, she decided, gulping her first cup of coffee. She longed and longed for him, but once she gave way again she would never know another moment’s peace. She would do whatever he wanted, go wherever he went. She would be caught like a moth in a flame. So she would finish it now before the flame consumed her.

She rang his number at once before she changed her mind and after a while he answered, sounding as though he was yawning. ‘It’s Pattie,’ she said. ‘About tonight. I’m sorry, but I can’t make it after all, I’ve got to work late.’

‘How late?’ he said. ‘Doing what?’

Stupidly she hadn’t got her answer ready, and she stammered, launching into a rambling account of having to meet a much-married actress who was passing through London and leaving early in the morning. She had forgotten about that last night, but now she remembered, and on Wednesday she had to go away herself.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Duncan. ‘I’ll be at your place at half past seven. If you’re not there I’ll wait.’

She panicked a little that day. It wasn’t so much that Duncan was closing in on her as the force of her own longings that frightened her. Roz had warned her to keep her cool, but if she had told Roz, ‘I want him so badly that it hurts all the time,’ Roz would probably have said, ‘Then have him, for goodness’ sake—he fancies you, doesn’t he?’ ‘But it won’t last, will it?’ ‘Oh no.’ Roz knew that, everybody knew that. The advice most of them would give her would be to have a fling if she wanted, a raging affair if she was mad for the man. Take what she wanted and pay for it. But nobody would offer any hope that it was going to last.

So she told no one how she felt. She got through
her work and a typical office day, and when she came back to the flat she put through a call to her mother. They phoned each other often and wrote regularly. Pattie’s stepfather was a nice man, her mother was lucky in husbands. Both had been kind, and proud of her pretty youthful looks. Pattie had visited her mother’s house and been welcomed and assured by her stepfather that she could make a home with them any time she wished.

She was wondering now if she might do that for a while. She liked her job, but she could freelance, and a change of everything might be the answer when she no longer had Duncan. If she had a fresh start planned at least there would be somewhere to run.

Her mother had just received Pattie’s letter, written in the lodge, but Pattie hadn’t mentioned the lodge, and now she said, ‘I was snowed up in Yorkshire a few days ago.’

‘Oh, Yorkshire’s so pretty,’ said her mother.

It hadn’t been pretty. It had been terrible and beautiful. ‘There was a man,’ Pattie began.

‘Michael?’ said her mother. ‘I must say, I do like the sound of Michael.’ She gave a delicate little sniff and began to talk about a troublesome head cold that was making her look an absolute sight. ‘It’s the storms from Alaska,’ she explained. ‘They’re so cold and quite wild,’ and Pattie realised that nothing here would matter as much to her mother as the red nose she was dabbing now with a soft handkerchief.

Her mother was the child. She couldn’t take problems to her mother, much less heartbreak. Whatever happened to her she would have to fight for her own survival. So nothing was going to happen. Nothing more than friendship.

They hadn’t discussed what they were doing tonight, so she changed into a lighter dress and wondered whether she should be providing a meal. Yesterday’s steaks were still in the fridge, but she was apprehensive about staying in, just the two of them, and she checked the What’s On columns for films.

The street door was closed tonight. She saw Duncan walking from where he had parked his car, and she went down and opened the door and said, ‘Hello,’ then walked a little ahead of him back up here. She began to talk. ‘Are we doing anything in particular? I mean, you just said you’d be around. I didn’t know how to dress, I didn’t know what we’d be doing.’

‘But you know one thing we won’t be doing,’ said Duncan.

Pattie turned, half way across the room, and he was laughing and she said, ‘That’s right.’

Suddenly he looked serious. ‘I agree, what happened at the lodge doesn’t count here. That was an exceptional situation and you were in a state of stress.’

He meant that she was hysterical. He must think she was an excitable nervous type, which wasn’t true. ‘No,’ she said, ‘It doesn’t count.’ But she would never forget a minute of it. Then he smiled again and his nearness pierced her to the heart.

‘Personally,’ he said, ‘I enjoyed our time together immensely, after the first two days. But I promise you, no passes. Of course if you should care to make a move I’ll be here. Well, for the next two weeks.’

He was amused by her Puritan stand but not involved enough to do anything about it. Perhaps he thought she would come round to him. His record must have taught him all the tricks, including the waiting game, and it was really no compliment to be guaranteed hands-off. She heard herself say, ‘Two weeks?’

‘I’m off to New Zealand in a fortnight.’

So she didn’t have to run away because he was going. She could surely get through two weeks without making a fool of herself, and she took a deep breath and managed a smile. ‘Don’t you get around? Where are we going tonight? There’s a film.’

‘There’s a party,’ he said.

It was a very good party, given by one of his television colleagues to celebrate the sale of a TV series to America. There were well-known faces mingling with unknowns, but although everybody looked successful and most of them attractive, Duncan dominated the scene. Physically he was taller and bigger than most of the men, and he had a charisma that meant he was never on the fringe, always in the centre of any group he joined. People made way for him, looked at him and listened to him. But more than once she felt the black churning jealousy when some girl or other touched and flirted. She had no rights of course, no claim, so she tried to ignore and pretend not to notice.

She knew some of the guests, and the ones who didn’t know her knew her magazine and accepted her as part of the show-biz scene. She and Duncan stayed together all evening and she sensed the sidewards glances as she was assessed, and once she heard someone say, ‘She’s pretty enough but not up to his usual standard,’ and she was sure they were talking about her.

He drove her back home. On the way they discussed folk who had been at the party, and he kept her smiling, and when they reached her flat he said goodbye to her and asked, ‘All right for tomorrow night?'

‘Yes, I suppose.'

‘Goodnight, then.' Pattie watched the car draw away, the memory of a final smile and wave with her, and reflected that he hadn't given her a chance to say, ‘Coming up for a coffee?' or even to lift her face to be kissed. He was sticking to his part of the bargain, offering nothing unless she asked, and that suited her because she couldn't compete with his usual run of girl-friends and she would be out of her mind to try.

She saw a lot of Duncan in the following days. Everybody took it for granted that they had an affair going. Pattie was teased and envied, and she loved going around with him. He had so much energy, such a talent for brightening the greyest day. She spent almost all her free time with him, he liked her company, there was no doubt of that, and it was like being young all over again.

Not that she was old, at twenty-two for heaven's sake, but after her father died she had never been without care. She had had her mother to worry about, then her career, shouldering every responsibility herself. She had never again felt young-at-heart but she did with Duncan. When he collected her from work, which he did most evenings, she felt as light as a gas-filled balloon, as though she could go sailing over the rooftops unless somebody grabbed hold of her and held her down. Duncan didn’t grab her, but she always slipped her hand through his arm and that kept her feet on the ground.

Some nights he took her to fabulous restaurants, other nights they had hamburgers and chips. They went around with his friends
—
he knew everybody, she decided. They mixed with crowds. Sometimes they stayed in his apartment and listened to music and talked like old friends, but even then he took her home when she glanced at her fob watch, which was usually around midnight. Not once did he even kiss her.

It wasn’t all that long, of course. Just a week and a half, and when she was in her own bed, alone, she spent sleepless hours wondering if Duncan had decided to leave things the way she had said she wanted them. To give sex a miss, which was probably a novelty for him. She was probably his first platonic girl-friend, but there would always be plenty of the others around. Or if he believed that before he went she would capitulate of her own free will. Say 'I'll stay tonight,' or flirt like the girls she saw eyeing him, getting a blatant message across.

She didn’t think she could do that, because surely if he had really wanted her he would have taken her by now. He hardly touched her. He treated her as though they had been friends for years. I could be his
sister
, she thought. He gives me a wonderful time, when I’m with him it’s fantastic. It’s the nights when I’m alone that I know how much more I want.

But then she remembered Jennifer, and what they were telling her already
—
that her ‘affair’ with Duncan Keld wouldn’t last
—
and this was safer, and better, she supposed. He could brighten a grey day, but losing him would blacken the sun, and if she was going to miss him that much as a friend how would it be if she had been losing a lover?

She marked off the days in her mind. Not on a calendar, she would have hated to literally cross them out, as though they were finished and done with, but as each day ended she thought, one day nearer goodbye. And as it came close she knew that Duncan had taken her at her word and was going to keep his.

They spent their last evening together in Joe’s restaurant and she was trying to forget that after tonight it would be months before she saw him again. She was especially gay, putting on a brave face because she mustn’t let anyone she how miserable she felt.

She had had enough sympathy that day. It was common knowledge that Duncan was going away. ‘What a shame!’ everybody in the office kept saying, and she had had a phone call from Clare, for the gossip page, asking how she felt about it.

‘It’s a small world,’ Pattie had said, and Clare had retorted, ‘Not that small,’ adding, ‘Will you be waiting for him when he comes back?’

I hope not, Pattie thought, but I think I might be waiting for the rest of my life. She said, ‘Of course, it’s always nice to see friends again, and although I know it sounds corny that’s all we are, good friends.’

It was all they were. It was just bad luck that Pattie was obsessed by him. She told him about the phone call and he said, ‘They must be short of copy. By the way, I’ve got some news for you.’ For a moment she wondered if he wasn’t going after all, but he said, ‘About your car. They’ve finally got it to a garage.’

‘The poor old thing! What’s the verdict?’

‘Barney said he had hopes for it, I’ll give you their number.’ Pattie wrote down the phone number of the Bruntons’ farm in her little notebook, and resolved to ring tomorrow and thank them for going to the trouble of hauling her car out of the gorge. The weather was still bad up there, it couldn’t have been easy.

If I go up to collect it, she thought, I could drive back to the lodge. But I wouldn’t be able to get in and Duncan wouldn’t be there, it would just be empty and cold. From tonight Duncan wouldn’t be here either and every day was going to be empty and cold, and he asked, ‘Are you all right?’