‘Anne,’ he whispered, releasing her mouth to run his lips over her cheek and ear. ‘Beautiful Anne. A caged tiger indeed.’
And she turned her head, seeking his mouth again, not wanting to waste any second of this magical time.
A long while later when they were sitting quietly, her head against his shoulder, he said softly,
‘I’m not a pigman, but will I do?’
‘Don’t tease,’ she said. ‘I don’t want any more talk of pigs or goats or any other members of the farm world.’
‘What should it be instead? Carburettors and distributor heads?’
‘Certainly,’ Anne said firmly. ‘I shall learn a whole new language. I shall talk to you in the words of a motor-mechanic. I shall know everything about cars before you can say knife. Or should I say, before you can say gearlever?’
‘You funny little thing,’ he laughed. ‘I don’t want you to be a motor mechanic. I want you to be the girl I met in the solicitors’ office, the very proper Miss Symons, whose dainty outside conceals a raging tigress.’
‘Charming,’ Anne laughed. ‘The lady who rescued you from the goats.’
‘That’s right,’ he said seriously. ‘Don’t change.’
And he kissed her again, and even while she clung to him in joy, the small doubts that had been planted were beginning to send up tiny shoots, and something was whispering in her heart, ‘Can this really be happening? Can this really be for me?’
For by his own confession, he was a man who liked to travel around, and was it not extremely likely, or almost certain, that he had said the same kinds of things to each new girl in each new town? But it was still only a whisper, and the newly delightful sensation of being kissed by him outweighed it.
CHAPTER NINE
‘It’s all Graham’s fault,’ Wendy sighed. ‘If it hadn’t been for him I might have been going out with Michael Conrad myself.’
‘I don’t see why it’s his fault,’ Anne said.
‘Because I was going out with him at the time,’ Wendy explained. ‘I shall just have to comfort myself with the under-manager of Woolworths, and even he seems to have changed his dinner hour.’ She poked her spoon at her rice pudding and began to stir in the jam. She and Anne were having their lunch together on Monday, in Woolworths cafeteria, but without the benefit of the under-managers presence. ‘Why did he have to go and change shifts? Now I shall have to haunt this place until I get him worked out again. But go on,’ she said to Anne, ‘Tell me all about your Saturday Night with the Stars. And I mean all.’
‘I reserve the right not to speak,’ Anne warned her solemnly.
‘Spoil-sport. Get on with it. I know you went to Weymouth, the Las Vegas of the West, as it’s known. By car, I presume?’
‘Oh yes, and not only that, but it was yet another car – he seems to have one for each day and two for Sundays.’
‘Well, what was it this time?’
‘Quite a big car, a kind of goldy-brown colour,’ Anne said vaguely.
‘But what sort?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about cars. A kind of saloon car, I suppose you’d call it.’
Wendy rolled her eyes. ‘What a girl! Doesn’t even know if it was a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud or a model-T Ford.’
‘Neither of those,’ Anne said, straight-faced. ‘Something in between.’
‘Give me strength! Well go on then, what did you do in Weymouth?’
‘We went to the theatre,’ Anne said proudly.
‘Posh!’ Wendy nodded. ‘No back-row-of-the-flicks for Mr M. F. Conrad. Did he do it in style – best seats and everything?’
‘They were good seats, I think,’ Anne said. ‘We could see and hear beautifully but then it is a small theatre, so I don’t expect any seats are really bad. But I enjoyed it tremendously.’
‘What was the play?’
‘It was a comedy, a new play that’s going to the West End next week. They were trying it out down here, I think. It was very funny. We both ached with laughing. It was about—’
‘Never mind the play,’ Wendy waved it away with a casual hand. ‘I’m more interested in the details of your romance. What happened then? Tell me the worst. I can’t go much greener. Not only does he look like a Martini ad, he even behaves like one. I suppose you went to dinner afterwards?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Anne said. Wendy sighed.
‘I thought as much,’ she said resignedly. She poked her chin out and put on a nasal twang. ‘Okay, Doc, I can take it. Give it to me straight – right on the chin. He booked the table, didn’t he?’
Anne nodded, holding back a laugh. ‘Yes, he whisked me away in the golden car to a restaurant over on the other side of the harbour, where a table was booked in his name for ten-thirty, a corner table with a candle and no other lighting.’
Wendy put her head in her hands and pretended to sob. ‘Go on, go on!’ she groaned.
‘And we had dinner, and wine, and then over the coffee and liqueurs he held my hand across the table and we talked nonsense in the nicest possible way. And then we drove home, and on the way home we stopped somewhere near Osmington, where we had a view of the sea from the car, and the moonlight was shining on the water and …’
She stopped, and after a moment Wendy looked up to see why, and saw Anne smiling dreamily and gazing into the distance.
‘Well?’ she demanded. Anne’s eyes slowly refocussed.
‘You don’t really think I’m going to give you all the details, do you? You’ll have to use your imagination for the rest.’
Wendy was eying her friend cautiously. ‘I say, Anne,’ she said carefully, ‘you aren’t really serious about this chap, are you?’ Anne looked at her in surprise. ‘I mean, you know, it’s just a bit of fun, isn’t it? We clown around and all that sort of thing, but you wouldn’t be daft enough to get serious about him, would you?’
‘Why do you say that?’ Anne asked. Wendy laughed nervously.
‘Listen, don’t get upset, will you? But look, you and I both know this type of man never means anything seriously. Oh, they’re great fun, taking you to the best places and so on, but he’s only passing through. Has a girl in every port, and a port in every girl – you know the type.’ She looked anxiously at Anne’s face, trying to gauge her feelings from her expression and having no luck. ‘What I’m trying to say is—’
‘I think I know what you’re trying to say,’ Anne said quietly.
‘It’s just a bit of legitimate fun,’ Wendy said pleadingly. ‘He enjoys your company, and you enjoy his, and no harm done. When he moves on, well, that’s part of his charm, isn’t it? It’s all charm. All those things he says – he’s a salesman, isn’t he?’
‘A used-car salesman?’ Anne suggested. Wendy looked relieved.
‘That’s right. And they’re all a bit crooked – in the nicest possible way.’
‘How can you be crooked in a nice way?’ Anne said crossly. ‘You think he’s a con man and a crook, and probably steals cars into the bargain?’
‘Now, Anne—’
‘I don’t know why everyone’s so down on him. Just because he’s a stranger in town. You’re as bad as Dad. He was going on at me again yesterday, saying I couldn’t trust Michael and that he’d do a moonlight flit or something, with the takings in the till. The attitude of people in this town to strangers—’
‘Steady, steady, no need to throw bricks,’ Wendy protested. Anne stopped, realising that many of the things Wendy had said had passed through her own mind.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But you don’t know him. He’s kind and thoughtful and honest and …’
‘Yes, I know, I can see what you’re trying to say,’ Wendy said ‘We won’t talk about him any more.’
‘You’d only have to meet him to know.’
‘No more,’ Wendy repeated firmly. ‘It’s none of my business anyway.’ There was a silence while they both picked at their food absently. Then Wendy looked up again and said quietly, �
�Only, Anne, don’t get hurt, will you. He’s not like Joe.’
‘That’s the whole point,’ Anne said. And they left it at that.
Because Anne had fallen in love. It had never happened to her before, and it was quite different from any thing she had felt or imagined, different from her feelings for Joe. Michael filled her thoughts. She remembered every word he said, and the exact inflection of his voice when he said it. She relived their moments together, each kiss, each touch, each gesture. His face was always before her, so that when she looked into the mirror in the morning it was his face she saw, not her own. The sound of his voice was sweeter in her imagination than any music. She loved his name because it was his, and wrote it over and over again on her blotter just for the pleasure of writing it and reading it.
She wanted to bring him into the conversation, for the pleasure of hearing his name. She lived for the moment when she would see him again, and her life when he was not there seemed empty and flat, a mere marking time until they were together again. She saw him in the street a hundred times a day, and every time the phone rang at work or the door opened, she expected it to be him, and her heart bounded with anticipation. He might come in at any time, of course, and had she been sure he felt the same way about her as she did about him, she would have expected him first thing on Monday morning.
But of course the doubt was there to spice her excitement and happiness at being in love. Did he feel as much for her? If he did not, then she must treasure every moment she had with him against the time when he would say it was all over. If he – wonderful thought – if he was in love with her, would he tell her so, would he want to marry her, would he settle down in Market Winton, or take her to a home in some other town? She was too happy and sad and excited and anxious to worry about the details and practicalities of the possibility. All she could think of was being with him again, counting the hours until it happened, and remembering the last time they were together.
As for Wendy’s gloomy warnings, and Dad’s, she could not bring herself to care. Even if they were true – and she couldn’t believe he was a crook, or even in the least dishonest – even if they were true, she still loved him, she still wanted to be with him. That he had probably done this sort of thing in every town he had visited in his eventful life was the original doubt she had had, and she thrust that to the back of her mind. He must mean the things he said, he must! He could not say them with such conviction if it was all an act. If there had been other girls before her, still she was different, everyone fell in love some time, there was a first time for everyone, even Michael F. Conrad, Esq., bachelor-about-town.
On the whole, her happiness outweighed her worry, and she felt that she loved everyone, even Mr. Whetlore, who enquired gloomily if she was short of work, since she seemed to have time to sing songs at her desk. She smiled at everyone as she cycled past them in the morning, even said good morning to dogs and sparrows, while the postman received a rapturous greeting that made him blink and took the ache out of his fallen arches for at least five minutes afterwards.
‘Someone left you a fortune, then?’ he asked her, plonking the firm’s mail down on her desk. ‘I didn’t see no birthday cards in with that lot.’
‘I’m in love, postie,’ she said, ‘and being in love, I love everyone.’
‘Cor,’ he said, pushed his hat to the back of his head, and gave her a toothless smile. ‘I’d ’ve brought you a registered letter, if I’d known, just to celebrate.’
Wendy’s warning at lunchtime damped her spirits for no more than a few minutes, and she was dancing every few steps again on the way back to the office. He would come in this afternoon, certainly, she thought. He hadn’t come in the morning because he wanted to give her a chance to get on with her work, but he would come in this afternoon. She looked in her mirror as she settled down at her desk again, and saw her face smiling back at her, but saw nothing else. The typewriter rippled under her fingers, and she made no mistakes in her typing. Nothing could go wrong today.
She was just about to get up and make the tea when the outer door opened and she looked up, her heart leaping. But it was not the slim dark form of Michael that came in, it was a broader shape, bronzed of skin and with sun-bleached hair. He came hesitantly across to her desk and eyed her nervously.
‘Hello, Joe,’ Anne greeted him gaily. She was so happy that she didn’t even feel embarrassed or sad about seeing Joe again. Joe smiled back at her uncertainly, wondering perhaps what was the meaning of her smile.
‘Hello, Anne.’ Pause. ‘You’re looking well.’
‘I’m feeling well. How are you, Joe? How is everything?’
‘Oh, the same as usual, I suppose.’
‘How are the pigs?’ she asked. Joe looked hurt, and didn’t answer, thinking she was making fun of him, and she elaborated the point to show him she meant it. ‘Is everything all right with your job? No trouble at the farm?’
‘Well,’ he said slowly, still cautious, ‘it’s funny you should ask that, because we’ve had one or two of the young gilts down sick. We don’t know what it is yet.’
‘Had the vet in?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and unaccountably began to blush. Anne didn’t know what to make of that, and went on conversationally,
‘And what did he say? Did you have Mr Parker from over Magna? I hear he’s very good with pigs.’
‘Well no, it weren’t him,’ Joe said slowly. ‘He was on his holidays.’
‘Who did you have then?’ Anne asked impatiently.
‘It was the new vet from Upwood.’ Anne regarded him steadily, hoping to elicit more conversation. Joe moved his eyes away from hers and continued. ‘She’s very young and only just started in practice. The boss said he didn’t trust a young girl like that, but she seemed to know what to do all right. The gilts didn’t mind her, and they’re—’
‘Great ones for knowing people,’ Anne said, finishing one of his favourite sayings.
‘They are,’ he affirmed. Anne wondered at him. Was his reluctance to speak, and his blush, anything to do with the new vet being a young woman?
‘Did you have much of a chat with her? What’s she like?’ she asked.
‘She seems very nice,’ Joe said, but he said it in exactly the same way as he said everyone else was nice.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Miss Brown,’ he said. His eyes met Anne’s and slid away again. ‘I hear you’re going out with that new chap now?’
‘Well, well. Doesn’t news travel fast? Who told you that?’
‘Oh,’ he shrugged. ‘It’s me that people would tell, you know.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Is he—’ Joe hesitated, and then shook his head. ‘No. I got no right to ask.’
‘Is he what?’ Anne urged, but Joe refused to say.
‘I better go in and see Mr Whetlore, I suppose,’ he said. ‘With the gilts sick, I have to get back. Can you see if he’ll see me?’
‘Of course, Joe,’ she said, and a moment later ushered him in to the Presence, as she called Mr Whetlore on his more pompous days. She didn’t have much work on hand, and after she had shut the door behind Joe she sat daydreaming for a while instead of working. Michael was gone from her mind. Instead she wondered about Joe and this intriguing Lady Vet. He had seemed strangely embarrassed and reluctant to talk about her. Was it possible that he had fallen, on the rebound, as it were, for this lady who was good with pigs? And if he had, how did she, Anne, feel about it? She was still very fond of Joe, and she didn’t like to think of him falling for someone else so quickly.
That sounded like very sour grapes. She wanted to think she was only concerned for his welfare, not wanting him to make a mistake, but she had to be honest and admit that she just didn’t want him out with someone else. He had been her Joe for so long, it was impossible to relinquish the idea of him so soon. And yet she had fallen for someone else. Perhaps Joe felt as bad about her, or worse, since he had loved more than she all along.
>
Of course, on the other hand, it might just be that he was embarrassed to talk about the lady vet in case Anne thought exactly what she had thought, that there was something in it.
‘Well, either way,’ Anne told herself severely, ‘it’s none of your damn business. You’ve made sure of that now. Joe wouldn’t take you back now you’ve taken up with a stranger so soon after finishing with him.’ And then she wondered why she should even think about going back with Joe.
Joe wasn’t in with Mr Whetlore for long. He stopped by Anne’s desk on his way out.
‘Well, is everything all right? I’ve had a look at the papers, and it seems quite promising,’ Anne said.
‘Yes, I think it will be all right,’ Joe said.
‘You don’t seem very excited. Is something wrong?’
‘Oh, no, no.’
‘Price too high?’
‘Well, it’s high, but I’ll manage. No, it isn’t that.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘Nothing, there’s nothing wrong,’ Joe said, but he seemed depressed. ‘I—’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ He turned to go. ‘Goodbye, Anne.’ It sounded terribly final.
‘Will you have a cup of tea before you go?’ Anne asked. She didn’t want him to go away so sad.
‘No thanks, I must go. I want to catch the library before it closes. It closes early on a Monday.’
‘What are you going there for?’ Anne asked in frank curiosity.
‘See if I can get a book,’ he said.
‘I didn’t know you were a reader,’ Anne said in surprise. While they had been going out together, he had never read more than the occasional paper. ‘What book are you looking for?’
‘It’s called Capital. It’s by Karl Marx.’
Anne stared and blinked. ‘Karl Marx? What on earth do you want to read Karl Marx for?’
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