Singing in the Wilderness

by Isobel Chace

  ‘Are you ready?’ Cas Ruddock asked her.

  He was closer than she had expected and his camera was one of the most impressive she had ever seen, with more dials and changes of lens than she would ever have been able to cope with. She smiled across the space between them and he held up his hand to signal her to stand still and began to take a series of about a dozen photos almost before she had time to draw breath.

  ‘Now, we’d better see about getting you home,’ he said. ‘Can we get a taxi from here?’

  ‘Yes, but the buses are more fun. They stop almost outside where I live and they only cost two rials. You have to buy the tickets before you get on from one of those little grey kiosks. Do you mind?’

  ‘Not if that’s the way you want to travel.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll see you home and pick you up again at about seven-thirty. Will that do you? I have a yen to see the inside of the mosque today. I guess it must be one of the best known buildings in the world and once I’ve started work I won’t have as much time as I’d like to see the sights.’

  Now that the moment had come, she didn’t want to leave either. If he wanted to see the mosque, why shouldn’t she go inside with him? Her father wasn’t expecting her back yet, though she would have to be back in time to see him off at the airport. Meanwhile, why shouldn’t she enjoy herself while she could?

  ‘I’d like to see it too,’ she murmured. She stole a look at him and looked hastily away again from the amused admiration in his eyes. Was it possible that he really did find her pretty?

  ‘Now?’ he mocked her.

  She was tongue-tied in the face of his assured acceptance of the fact that she would much rather be with him than packing for her father. He saw too much, she thought. If she weren’t careful he would know about the fountain of joy he had inspired within her, a sensation that was still too new for her to do anything about but wonder at. He might have guessed at it already, but she didn’t think he had. She stiffened her backbone and managed a quick, light smile.

  ‘Why not now?’

  ‘Why not indeed! Your father will have to make the best of his own ham-fisted efforts to get everything into his grip!’

  And a fine mess he’d make of it, but somehow Stephanie found she didn’t care as much as she should. She didn’t even feel a trace of guilt at the thought of him struggling alone with his possessions. He had said he wanted it that way and although she hadn’t believed him at the time, why should he have said it if he hadn’t meant it?

  It was fun showing the mosque to Cas Ruddock. He listened to everything she told him with a concentration that made her think she was a better guide than she had previously known. She pointed out the relief of heraldic peacocks above the central door; the two minarets, both a hundred and ten feet high; the pool, the colours of which echoed the surrounding tiles; and the great doors themselves which Shah Safi had had covered with beautifully fashioned silver plates.

  Then, inside the mosque itself, passing through the half-right turn that led into the courtyard and was made necessary so that the alignment of the court and the mihrab pointed towards Mecca, the direction which all faithful Moslems face when they make their prayer five times each day, she allowed him to digest the beauty of the court in silence for a few minutes.

  ‘It’s typical of the Persian four-iwan mosque,’ she told him when he seemed ready to go on. ‘An iwan is one of those open-sided, semi-domed verandah things. It isn’t a very good description, but you can see them for yourself. And look, if you stand here, you can see the huge turquoise dome that you can see when you first come into Isfahan. It’s a symbol of the whole city—the glory of the Safavid monarchs who dominated the building of the city. Shah Abbas was the one who really built Isfahan and made it what it is. But the best mosque of them all, much more exciting than this one, is the Friday Mosque, and he had nothing to do with it at all. It’s one of the most glorious buildings I’ve ever seen!’

  He smiled at her enthusiasm. ‘I’ll get you to take me there one day—when I’ve found out the worst about how late we are delivering the goods on this contract. Telecommunications are the very devil to put straight when they’ve been allowed to get out of hand.’

  Stephanie felt as though the ground had gone soft beneath her feet. ‘But it’s a British company that won the telecommunications contract,’ she said.

  ‘We’re an international company. The British division is doing most of the work out here because we’re using two of the most modern British techniques in our installations. We’re using their inter-city land cables that can carry eight hundred and twenty-five circuits and more, and also trying out the Post Office fifty millimetre diameter copper waveguide. But I don’t want to bore you with my work. What does your father do?’

  ‘Telecommunications.’

  ‘I see.’ He could hardly help but see it all, she thought. He had to know exactly why her father was at that very moment packing his bags and going back to England. He probably knew more about it than she did herself. Would he like her less because of it? He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, I don’t start work until tomorrow, so we’ll leave it till then, shall we?’

  ‘Can we?’ she said doubtfully.

  He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. “I think so. Unless I mistake the situation from tomorrow onwards you are going to be my secretary, as you were your father’s before me, but for today you’re just a girl I met in Isfahan and I’m no more than someone who’s determined to make you notice him in the short time he has at his disposal.’

  ‘Yes, but tomorrow, it won’t be easy for either of us, will it? I should tell you that I’ve never worked for anyone besides my father. You may expect too much from me.’

  ‘Are you such a bad secretary?’ he asked her.

  She threaded her fingers together. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘But you think my standards may be higher than your father’s? Well, without wishing to offend you, my dear, you’re very probably right. If you don’t come up to what I expect from my secretary I shall have no hesitation in replacing you. There are other people in the company for whom you can work without having to go back to England immediately. But I’d rather worry about that tomorrow, if you don’t mind? Who knows, you might be better than you think!’

  The most pressing problem for her was what he wanted from her now. She looked him straight in the face, unaware that her uncertainty was written clearly in her wide hazel eyes.

  ‘Do you still want to take me out to dinner?’ she demanded. ‘If I’m going to be your secretary you may not want to know me socially as well. I shall quite understand if you’d rather not.’

  ‘I’m not a snob, Stephanie Black,’ he warned her.

  ‘No. But you’re not to know that I won’t take advantage—’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘I’ll try not to.’ Her eyes flickered over his large frame and she tried to imagine herself doing the same things for him she had done for her father, and she knew then and there that it wouldn’t work. ‘I’d rather work for somebody else,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said comfortably. ‘I don’t eat my secretaries for breakfast, not unless they provoke me unbearably. Nobody who’s worked for me has ever accused me of being the tyrant you seem to be afraid I’ll turn out to be.’

  Stephanie managed a dignified gesture of disapproval. ‘It isn’t that! I think I might manage the work, only when we’re not working, what then? With my father it was different. I looked after him in the office and I looked after him at home and the two roles ran into each other—’

  ‘I’m not your father,’ he drawled.

  He didn’t have to tell her that! ‘Wouldn’t you find it confusing?’ she murmured.

  ‘Not in the least!’ he assured her, an edge to his voice. ‘As far as I’m concerned my secretary will be one person called Miss Black. Any time I spend with Stephanie will be with quite a different person, and Miss Black would be very ill advised to mention my relationship wit
h her, or with any other of my girl-friends. Is that clear?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She didn’t like the thought that he might have other girl-friends to amuse him when he wasn’t working. ‘It sounds a bit cold-blooded to me. You may be big enough to be two people, but I’m sure I’ll get you muddled up sooner or later!’ She cast him a swift glance to see how he was taking that, hoping he hadn’t noticed that she had taken his continued interest in Stephanie Black rather for granted. ‘I’ll try to be an adequate secretary,’ she went on hastily, ‘if you’ll just be a bit patient at first. I haven’t had much to do since we came here. I’m rather out of practice.’

  He smiled at her and she was quite dazzled by the ironic amusement in his eyes. ‘In which capacity are you asking me to be most tolerant?’

  She swallowed. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ she denied crossly.

  ‘No?’ He raised an eyebrow, putting a friendly hand on her shoulder. ‘I have to admit I prefer Stephanie to Miss Black,’ he confessed. ‘Is that what you wanted to know?’

  She muttered something completely incomprehensible, a little scared by the pleasure his words had given her.

  ‘I think I prefer Cas too,’ she mumbled under her breath. ‘At least—’

  His laughter brought the colour racing up her cheeks. ‘Oh, don’t go and spoil it!’ he begged her. He touched her lips with his fingers, daring her to withdraw her preference. ‘Come on, honey-child, it’s time I took you home to say goodbye to your father!’

  CHAPTER II

  The evening wasn’t at all as she had expected it to be. It seemed that Stephanie had barely recovered from the rush of seeing her father off when Cas Ruddock was at the door, smiling and assured as he dwarfed the living room which her father and she had made their own in the last few weeks.

  ‘Was it a tough parting?’ he asked her.

  ‘So-so. I hope he finds things all right at home. I’ve never seen him really depressed before.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I can’t help thinking that there’s more to it than he’s told me.’ She turned to the large man beside her. ‘Do you know exactly what happened?’

  ‘More or less,’ he answered.

  ‘Then tell me!’

  ‘Not tonight. What I need is a drink, honey—’ He stressed the word slightly, knowing that she was inclined to take it personally as a reference to the colour of her hair and the honey-coloured tan her skin had gained in the Persian sun—‘with ice, if you have it?’

  She poured him a vodka and tonic, piling in the ice with a generous hand. ‘I’m sorry it isn’t whisky, but it’s too expensive here. Will this do?’

  ‘Thank you.’ He accepted the glass from her hand and toasted her silently, taking a deep sip of the sparkling fluid. ‘Mmm, it’s not bad. How about you? You look as though you could do with something.’

  Stephanie shook her head. ‘A glass of wine is about my limit.’ She tried to dismiss the image of her father from her mind, but the picture of his harassed expression and drooping shoulders refused to go away. Why, she wondered for the umpteenth time, had he made her stay behind?

  ‘No head for it?’ Cas teased her.

  ‘It isn’t that,’ she explained, her mind obviously somewhere else. ‘No taste for it!’

  ‘I gather,’ Cas observed dryly, ‘that you had quite a hassle at the airport. Want to tell me about it?’

  She brushed the tears out of her eyes with her fingers. ‘He looked old! And he wouldn’t listen to anything! But it wouldn’t be fair to talk to you about it, would it? It wouldn’t be fair to him!’

  ‘It depends whom you’re telling, Cas, or Mr. Ruddock. I won’t hold anything you tell me here against either your father or yourself.’

  Stephanie sat down, eyeing him ruefully. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘You may be able to play silly games about having two separate identities, but I can’t! I know who you are. You’re the man who’s replaced my father out here, and there isn’t anything you could say that would make me forget that!’

  To her disappointment, Cas merely shrugged his shoulders. ‘If that’s the way you want it. I shan’t force your confidence against your will. I can probably guess most of it anyway.’

  She wondered if he could. Of one thing she was quite certain: her father had more on his mind than being recalled to England because he had failed to make a go of things in Iran. But, if he was in trouble, why had he insisted that she should stay behind and work for his successor?

  ‘They haven’t sacked him, have they?’

  His blue eyes looked straight at her and she moved uncomfortably beneath their regard. He saw too much, she thought, and she didn’t want him to know how much she would have liked to have turned the whole problem over to him and let him settle the whole thing for her, telling her what to do for the best.

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ he said.

  ‘And you would know, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  She bit her lip. ‘Perhaps he’s worried about Mother. He didn’t like leaving her on her own to come out here, but her work didn’t allow her to come with us. She doesn’t look after herself properly half the time.’

  ‘What does she do?’ he asked her.

  ‘She’s a musician. She plays the violin a bit, and composes a bit—mostly signature tunes and background music for the television, things like that.’

  ‘She must be an unusual lady,’ Cas commented.

  ‘She is,’ Stephanie agreed, without much enthusiasm. ‘The trouble is she gets carried away with some new effect and forgets everything else for hours together, Father included. I only hope she remembers to meet him at Heathrow tomorrow.’

  ‘It must be a nice gift if you have it. Don’t you like her music?’

  He was far too acute! Stephanie smiled reluctantly. ‘Some of it. I enjoyed her Indian phase, full of sitars and quarter-tones, but I don’t like computerised music much. It’s too soulless. All we had for weeks was screaming mechanical sounds while she tried them all out. After a while I could hear them clearly in the marrow of my bones and I didn’t like that at all!’

  Cas grinned. ‘And what are your talents, Miss Stephanie Black?’

  She shook her head at him. ‘I haven’t any—unless you count a gift for housekeeping as a talent?’

  ‘What about your work?’

  She made a face at him. ‘You’ll see for yourself. Most of the time I’d sooner be doing something else, though.’ Her thoughts returned to her father. ‘That’s why I can’t understand why he’s gone home alone. They’ll never be able to cope with getting meals and so on on their own!’

  He laughed at her, swallowing the last of his drink. ‘You sound as though your maternal feelings are badly outraged. I thought you were the daughter in the house!’

  She flushed. ‘That’s what he said. He said they needed to stand on their own feet.’

  ‘But you don’t like it?’ Cas accused her.

  ‘I like to have things nice,’ she excused herself. ‘Neither of them ever notice when things get in a mess. They need someone to clean up after them all the time!’

  ‘But not you,’ he said with quiet certainty. ‘They can hire someone if things get too bad, and they probably will. You need a man of your own to cook for and clean up after—’

  ‘I want more out of marriage than that!’ she exclaimed.

  His eyes glinted dangerously. ‘So will the man you marry,’ he said quietly. ‘Most men worth their salt don’t want their emotions neatly tidied out of the way with the trash. People come before houses in my book. I never settle anywhere for long and my wife will have to pack and follow me wherever I go. It won’t do either of us much good if she’s too busy plumping up the cushions!’

  ‘If she’s a good housekeeper she may be a good packer too,’ Stephanie put in.

  His eyes crinkled with amusement. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘as a matter of fact I am.’

  ‘I’ll remember that!’ He stood up,
glancing round the room. ‘Do you mind that I’m taking over this apartment from you?’

  ‘Of course not!’ She was glad to be able to assure him of that. ‘I’ll leave it all ready for you,’ she promised. ‘Shall I stock up the refrigerator for you?’

  ‘No,’ he snapped. ‘You’ll leave well alone. The last thing I want is for you to start mothering me! I’m used to doing for myself.’

  She was hurt that he should be angry when she had only been trying to help. ‘Then I won’t remind you that you’ve just had most of the ice and that you’ll need to make some more?’ she asked him sweetly.

  ‘No, please don’t. If I don’t get around to it, I’ll do without. Satisfied?’

  ‘If you are,’ she said.

  He reached out a long arm and hooked her neatly into the circle of his arms. ‘I plan to make you an expert in something much more exciting than housewifery,’ he told her. ‘It’s time you tried your hand at something more adventurous than your parents’ washing-up!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she denied.

  He bent his head, running his nose down the length of hers and putting his lips very gently to hers. ‘Don’t you?’ he muttered.

  It was the most unbearably exciting thing that had ever happened to her. She opened her eyes wide with shock and stepped quickly away from him. ‘I thought we were going out to dinner,’ she said, making a determined effort to breathe naturally and not as though she had just sprinted up four flights of stairs. ‘Hadn’t we better be going?’

  He picked up her wrap from the back of the sofa and put it round her shoulders, carefully arranging it to his complete satisfaction. ‘Don’t look so frightened,’ he said. ‘I shan’t make love to you until I’ve fed you—and maybe not then, unless you look a little bit more sure of yourself. Okay?’