Fire

by Deborah Challinor

  When he didn’t say anything for over a minute, Irene asked, ‘Vince? Are you all right?’

  He looked up, his face a picture of disappointment. ‘I don’t know what to suggest, Irene, I really don’t. And I want to be with you so much, you have to understand that. You mean…’ He trailed off, staring at the floor again.

  Irene hung on for as long as she could, but finally had to ask, ‘I mean what, Vince? What were you going to say?’

  Vince swept his hand back through his hair, took a deep breath and turned to face her. ‘I wasn’t going to say this in case it frightened you off, but bugger it. Irene, you mean the absolute world to me. I think about you night and day, and every time I see you I go weak at the knees and I want to take you in my arms and make love to you. I can’t help it, darling, you’re just so beautiful and so bloody sexy.’ He thumped his thigh angrily with a closed fist. ‘God, why couldn’t I have met you earlier! But I didn’t and I’m married to someone else and…and wanting you is driving me insane and we can’t bloody well do anything about it!’

  Shocked at his passionate declaration, and reeling from the sense of power it gave her, Irene felt both elated and panicked. This was it, this was what she had wanted all along, and now she was going to lose it, all because they couldn’t find a bloody bed!

  ‘What if we got a hotel room?’ she suggested desperately.

  ‘No, Irene, those rent-by-the-hour places are flea-pits and you’re worth more than that,’ he said, echoing her earlier words. He shook his head in anguished resignation. ‘No, it’s no good, I’m going to have to get a job somewhere else. I can’t go on like this, seeing you every day and not being able to have you.’

  Irene made a decision. She picked up his hands and settled them around her waist. ‘Well, we’ll do it here then.’

  Vince’s face lit up. ‘Are you sure?’

  Irene nodded.

  Vince kissed the tip of her nose. ‘God, girl, you have no idea what this means to me.’

  He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her passionately, this time on her mouth, and running his hands across her naked back and over her buttocks. After a minute he eased her skirt up to her hips and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her pants, then slid them down her legs. They dropped to the floor and Irene stepped neatly out of them. Vince pushed her gently backwards and she sat down on the edge of the carton, shivering as he parted her legs so that the tangle of her black pubic hair was exposed between white skin and the pale beige gleam of her silk stockings.

  Vince gave a low whistle of appreciation, then, standing before her, shrugged out of his suit jacket and loosened his tie. Shaking visibly, he placed Irene’s hand on his belt buckle, groaning slightly as she undid it, then with more fervour as she opened the buttons of his fly. His erection popped up, straining at the fabric of his underpants. Shoving both his pants and his trousers down to his knees, he knelt on the floor and positioned himself. Irene guided him into her, gasping as his length filled her with one deep, slippery stroke. She lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist.

  Panting already, Vince murmured in her ear, ‘Jesus Christ, I’m not going to last long. Hold on, babe.’

  Irene did, and moments later Vince gave three or four almighty thrusts, then shuddered and gradually subsided onto her. She stroked his hair and waited. When his breathing had slowed somewhat, he withdrew and pushed himself back onto his naked haunches.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for that for a long time,’ he declared, still breathless. ‘And, my God, it was worth it. Irene Baxter, I think I love you.’

  Irene laughed, delighted. He’d said it! And as she gazed into his dark, slightly glazed eyes, she began to believe that what she felt for him could quite easily be love, too, or something very close to it; she was sure nothing else could make her feel like this.

  Vince got to his feet. ‘Christ, my legs feel like jelly,’ he said, staggering slightly as he yanked up his trousers. He reached for his jacket, took the handkerchief neatly folded into the breast pocket and handed it to her. ‘Here, use this to clean yourself up.’

  Irene mopped at the wetness between her legs, then handed back the handkerchief, which had Vince’s initials embroidered in one corner. Vince looked at it, then stuffed it behind the cartons.

  ‘Well, I can hardly take that home for Cynthia to wash, can I?’

  Irene retrieved her underwear from the floor and put on her bra and blouse. Then, while Vince was tucking in his shirt and putting on his jacket, she fished a mirror out of her bag, combed her hair and put on fresh lipstick.

  ‘We’d better go upstairs separately,’ Vince said as he smoothed his hair into place. ‘That was fantastic, darling. When can we do it again?’

  Irene giggled. ‘As soon as possible, I hope.’

  ‘Me, too. Tomorrow?’

  ‘I can’t, I’ve got something on.’

  ‘What about Sunday. Are you going to the staff picnic?’

  ‘Yes, but Martin’s coming as well. Well, he said he would, unless he has to go into the office. Are you?’

  ‘Yes, but with Cynthia, of course. Still, you never know, we might be able to sneak away for a few minutes.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Bugger. Speaking of minutes, I have to get back to work.’ He pecked Irene on the cheek. ‘See you at afternoon tea?’

  Five minutes after Vince ducked out into the hallway, Irene left herself, feeling as though her feet had wings.

  Keith Beaumont stood in his office on the first floor and stared out of the window at the opposite side of Wyndham Street. The shop he was looking at was a draper’s, selling blue jeans at a much lower price than Dunbar & Jones. Still, they were probably badly made from inferior fabric, so he wasn’t worried. He opened the top drawer of his desk, eyeing the hip flask of scotch longingly, but reached for his cigarettes instead. He slid one out of the packet and lit it, watching the pale smoke swirl up into the air and luxuriating, if only fleetingly, in the sense of calmness it gave him.

  He sat down and smoked the cigarette to the butt, then ground it out in his ashtray. After remaining still for a long moment, he rubbed his face vigorously with his hands as though he could scrub away what he was terrified was written all over it.

  He was fifty-five years old and had been manager of Dunbar & Jones for eight years now. He was doing well —he had his eye on everything that went on in the store, he met his targets every quarter and he was respected by his boss Maxwell Jones if not by the rest of his staff, many of whom, he knew, were frightened of him. He was also an inveterate gambler and had been skimming between two and three hundred pounds off the store’s takings every fortnight for the past eighteen months. It had been surprisingly easy, though he’d worried himself sick when he’d started.

  The first thing he had done was tell the woman who supervised the accounts office that he was about to instigate a regular programme of spot audits of the books, carried out by himself, of course. From then on, every fortnight after the staff had gone home at the end of the day, he simply went into the accounts office upstairs and altered the figures for the previous two weeks’ takings. He did it in increments—thirty pounds from one day, thirteen from another and forty-five from another—and he did it so that the shortfall looked like customer returns, then he took the money out of the safe before it could be banked the following day. He also constantly practised different handwriting styles so he could manufacture bogus returns dockets, which ensured that everything balanced. He couldn’t do it with the credit accounts, of course, because the money for those sales was paid once a month and often by cheque, so he confined himself to cash sales. But that still gave him plenty of scope because, though most of Dunbar & Jones’s biggest-spending customers had credit accounts, the majority of purchases were still made by people who paid cash.

  It had worried him for a long time that one day someone in accounts would question a returns docket and actually talk to the sales assistant who had purportedly filled it out. So, to
circumvent that, he had told Max Jones that he was becoming concerned about the number of returns the store was experiencing—though everyone knew that returns were common and unavoidable—and that he was going to keep an eye on them. He then told the cash office supervisor that any discrepancies in returns dockets must go to him first, and that he would deal with them personally. He would be questioning the sales assistant concerned very closely about why the customer had felt compelled to return their purchase and establishing whether there had been a failure of duty to deliver the highest possible quality of customer service. The accounts office supervisor was a decent, kind-hearted woman: rather than get someone into trouble over what was probably fickle or difficult customer behaviour, he knew she would probably keep the returns dockets to herself. So far this assessment had been spot on—none of the returns dockets had ever been questioned and Keith had actually received a small bonus from Max Jones for being so vigilant and innovative.

  Of course, he had telephoned his bookmaker as soon as he’d got the bonus, put it all on a horse running at Addington that afternoon and lost the lot.

  Keith’s operation was now running very smoothly, but the longer it went on the more nervous he was becoming. He wasn’t a bad man, he knew that; it was just that no matter how hard he tried—and he had tried very hard indeed—he couldn’t keep away from the horses and the dogs, or anything else his bookie could find for him, legal or illegal. Only he never did it in public. He never went to the track, well, not any more, he certainly never went to the TAB, and he hid his copies of Best Bets at the bottom of the lockable drawer of his desk. He even refrained from having a flutter in the Melbourne Cup sweepstakes the staff held every November, making a point of refusing to take part.

  He had a responsible, well-paid job, he had significant standing in the community, he had a lovely home, a good wife, Nora, and three wonderful grown-up children, and he was constantly in debt to his bookie and almost everyone else with whom he had financial dealings. He lost far more often than he won, but he knew, deep in his heart, that one day he would have that win, the really big one that would solve all his money problems and still give him enough to bet with impunity for the rest of his life. Or at least until the next big win came along.

  But he’d found himself in terrible financial strife and had had to remortgage his house to get himself out of it, though Nora didn’t know that. And he’d been stockpiling some of the money he’d stolen from Dunbar & Jones, about fifteen hundred pounds, which he’d hidden in the kitchen of the White Room on the first floor, in a metal box at the back of a high cupboard. To be extra safe, he carried the keys to the box and the cupboard constantly in his trouser pocket. It was quite a performance whenever he changed his suit, but it was worth it for the comfort and security of knowing that they were there. He told himself that this money was only to be used in a dire emergency, and not for placing bets every day, but it nearly killed him thinking about it, in that dark, airless box all by itself, just crying out to be handed over to his bookie. And he dreamed about it constantly, that one day he would open up his Best Bets and there it would be, the horse that every fibre of his being would tell him was going to win—an unknown, an outsider that would attract huge winnings. He would go into the White Room, unlock the cupboard, take the money and put it all on that horse, and in a matter of hours his life would change forever.

  He always woke up sweating from that particular dream, and spent most of the following day physically forcing himself not to take the money, or at least stopping himself from repeatedly checking that it was still there. And every time he took money from the store’s safe he took a little downstairs and added it to his ‘emergency box’.

  Keith lit another cigarette. He had a meeting with Max Jones in five minutes, and, though he knew by now that his operation was foolproof, he still sweated every time his boss asked to see him. To steady his nerves he opened his top drawer and took a quick swing from the flask of scotch. Which reminded him—he was running out of breath mints.

  Chapter Six

  Allie didn’t go home after work, but the staff cafeteria provided sandwiches and cups of tea at a quarter past five for everyone required to work late, so she didn’t go hungry.

  She freshened up and made her way downstairs to the White Room, where the fashion show was to be held and where she would meet Miss Willow and Rhonda Kendrick, another salesgirl from the dress department who would also be helping out tonight. Dunbar & Jones presented four fashion shows a year at the start of each season to showcase both the lines imported from overseas and the store’s own designs. They were very prestigious affairs catering to the store’s wealthier female clients and attendance was generally by invitation only, except for a limited number of tickets which were always at a premium.

  The first-floor foyer was quite a large area, normally furnished with comfortable couches where patrons could gather if they were going into the White Room for lunch or, after hours, to a dinner or a private function. On the opposite side of the foyer were the executive offices, the credit office, and toilets discreetly positioned behind a partitioning wall which held a telephone for the use of customers by day, or restaurant patrons by night. Between the offices on one side, and the White Room on the other, was the wide archway opening onto the dress department.

  But this evening the couches had been temporarily removed and the space was crowded with display staff flitting anxiously about. In front of the archway, storemen were calmly erecting a wooden frame on which would shortly be hung a series of black curtains: the models would make their costume changes in the dress department, then walk to the left behind the curtains to appear elegantly and effortlessly in the doorway of the White Room.

  ‘Excuse me, miss, but are you one of the models?’ a voice behind Allie asked.

  She smiled and turned around. ‘Hi. I didn’t think you were at work today.’

  Sonny looked genuinely pleased to see her, which made her feel better than she had felt all day. ‘Been flat out,’ he said. ‘No time for smoko or lunch.’

  ‘You must be starving then,’ Allie said. ‘There are sandwiches in the caf.’

  ‘Nah. I went down the street before to the pie cart and got some chips.’

  ‘Chips won’t keep you going.’ Allie winced slightly as she realized that this was exactly the sort of thing her mother would say.

  Sonny transferred his hammer from one hand to the other and shrugged cheerfully. ‘So, are you a model? You could be, you know.’

  Allie blushed but managed to explain that she was a dresser, helping the models to change.

  ‘Bit of a circus, this, isn’t it?’ Sonny observed, looking around. ‘You’d think the queen was turning up.’

  ‘No, that’s not for another week,’ Allie said, taking him seriously. ‘The fashion shows are always like this, everyone running around like chooks with their heads chopped off, but it all usually goes well once we start.’

  Sonny nodded. ‘And it’s all so a room full of rich women can sit around having cups of tea and looking at clothes and then spend piles of money on them?’

  Allie wanted to protest, but his interpretation of the event was actually fairly accurate. This time she shrugged.

  ‘So is this what you’re too busy doing tonight to go out with me?’ he asked, then grinned. ‘Well, that’s all right. I thought you might have another bloke.’

  Allie frowned. ‘But I’ve already asked you out dancing tomorrow night. Why would I do that if I had another bloke?’

  ‘I dunno. Greedy?’ Sonny suggested, and then laughed at the look of affront on her face. ‘Nah, you’re not that sort of girl, are you.’ He made it a statement rather than a question. He almost added, not like that Irene, but thought better of it: one of the lads had spotted her slinking out of the basement behind that flash bugger Vince Reynolds, but it was none of his business and there’d be no point to telling Allie—they were mates and she probably wouldn’t thank him for it.

  Miss Willow hu
rried up, looking agitated.

  ‘Allie, there you are! We’ve been fluffing about for ages, waiting for you! Come along now, we need to sort out the garments. The models will be here shortly.’

  ‘Sorry, Miss Willow.’ As Allie headed into the dress department she shot Sonny a sorry-but-I’ve-got-to-go look. He smiled and gave her a little wave, then went back to his hammering.

  Ruby Willow strode across the floor, heading for the discreet staff door in the back wall that led to a series of small storerooms. In one were five portable clothes racks, already hung with the garments for the show, as well as several empty trolleys. During the day Ruby had selected the clothes to be shown and sent them up to the tailoring workshop to be steamed and ironed, but now they had to be sorted into the order in which they would be worn. Rhonda hovered nearby, looking anxious. She was a very good salesgirl but tended to get upset easily, especially under pressure.

  ‘What are we showing first?’ Allie asked. Though this was the fourth fashion show she had attended as a staff member, it was the first time Miss Willow had asked her to help with dressing the models, and she wanted to be sure of the procedure.

  Ruby perched her glasses on her nose and consulted her list. ‘Day dresses with hats, followed by leisure wear, then swimsuits, then Young Miss while the adult models are having a break.’

  Allie cast her eye over the racks. ‘So we want day dresses on the first rack and leisure wear on the second?’

  ‘Yes, and the hats on two of those trolleys. Miss Button’s doing the compering for the hats. But we’d better put swimsuits at the end of the second rack—Young Miss, evening wear and ball gowns will take up all of the next two. And mantles and bridal can go on the last one.’

  There would be six models tonight—four young women, and two fifteen-year-old girls for the Young Miss fashions. Between them they would model around a hundred garments and ensembles, including lines from Dior, Balmain and Balenciaga, as well as couture clothes designed in-house.