‘I have a fancy for black,’ Wendy was saying. ‘The Italians think it’s sexy.’
‘But Roberto isn’t Italian,’ Anne pointed out. ‘He’s only an Italian waiter.’
‘I know, I know. Must you spoil my illusions?’ Wendy said, straining at the zip of a black crêpe sheath.
‘Didn’t you try to spoil mine?’ Anne said. Having said it, she found she was shaking.
‘Did I?’ Wendy said vaguely. ‘Do the zip up for me, will you? I can’t shift it.’
‘You’ve got it caught in the material. Stand still! Yes, you did, you told me Michael was in Roberto’s restaurant with another woman last week.’
‘Oh, was he? Naughty old Michael. There now, what do you think? Not too hot, eh?’
‘Not hot at all. The point was, he wasn’t there.’
‘Who wasn’t where? Undo it again, will you?’
‘Michael wasn’t at the restaurant.’
‘That’s good,’ Wendy said even more vaguely from the depths of the dress. ‘I think I like this one better anyway. Give me a hand.’
‘Well, why did you say he was there if he wasn’t?’ Anne asked, feeling she was getting nowhere.
‘I don’t know. I must have thought I saw him if I said so, mustn’t I?’
‘But he says he wasn’t there.’
‘Then there’s nothing to worry about is there?’ Wendy said reasonably. ‘I don’t think black suits me after all.’
‘I could have told you that in the beginning,’ Anne said gloomily.
‘Why didn’t you, then?’
‘I didn’t want to spoil your illusions,’ Anne countered, and Wendy stuck her tongue out at her friend’s reflection.
The red dress continued to look just right. Anne was glad, for sometimes a purchase loses some of its glamour when you get it home, but this looked, if anything, even better, when she finally put it on with her silver sandals and her string of pearls, having spent nearly a hour over her face and hair. Happiness added its own glow to her looks, and when Michael arrived (in plenty of time and an Aston Martin!) he looked at her for some seconds before saying anything.
‘Well, do I look all right?’ Anne asked at length.
‘I can’t think of anything to say that would be adequate,’ he said, taking her hands and looking at her in a way that made her tingle. ‘You’re beautiful.’ And he kissed her, carefully so as not to rumple her. ‘Shall we go? I thought we could have one drink on the way so as not to arrive too early. Would that suit you?’
‘Anything you say,’ Anne said equably. ‘Is that another car I see?’
‘Oh yes, it’s one I brought back from Birmingham with me. I have to tune it and deliver it back, so I thought I’d get a ride out of it while I have it. Lovely cars.’
‘It looks sporty,’ Anne agreed. ‘I must say goodbye to Dad, and then I’ll be ready.’
They were not the only people to stop off for a drink at The Bull, the nearest pub to the Villiers. There were several other couples in the doubles bar there, all dressed for the dance, and among them was Wendy with a saturnine youth who looked at least three years younger than his partner.
‘That must be Roberto, the Italian waiter,’ Anne said to Michael. She was glad she had someone as mature-looking as Michael to brave the crowds with. Wendy however was match for anyone, and she came bouncing over as soon as she saw Anne, and the dark boy followed her. He was wearing a very tight velvet suit, which might account for his preoccupied air. It looked as though it might split with any unexpected movement.
‘Hello, there you are!’ Wendy greeted them. ‘Hello, Michael. Do you know Roberto? Roberto, this is Anne and Michael.’
‘How do you do,’ Anne said politely.
‘’ello,’ Roberto said. Anne wondered if that was ‘Hello’ in Italian, or if he had adenoids.
‘You bought the blue one in the end,’ she remarked to Wendy, who still hadn’t chosen a dress when Anne had left her in town that morning.
‘You’ll never guess who I’ve just seen,’ Wendy broke in, without noticing the remark.
‘Whom?’ said Anne and Michael together, and they turned to grin at each other.
‘Old Joe Halderthay with a lady on his arm – didn’t we, Roberto? And guess who the lady was?’
‘Who?’ they chorused again.
‘It was the new lady vet from Upwood. How about that for sensational news? He certainly works fast; she hasn’t been there for more than a week or so. And she’s quite reasonable looking.’
‘Why shouldn’t she be?’ Anne said, nettled at what she thought was a slight on Joe. She felt Michael looking at her with a raised eyebrow, and she pressed his arm to reassure him.
‘Oh well, you know what vets are like – they’re usually bunchy women in old tweeds and felt hats. But this one’s quite young and pretty. Well, at least, she isn’t ugly.’
‘Let’s have a drink, shall we?’ Michael said, feeling that enough had been said on this particular subject. ‘What does everyone want?
‘No, let me,’ Roberto said. It was adenoids, Anne decided.
‘Thanks, old chap,’ Michael agreed graciously. ‘Just a tonic water for me – I’m driving, and I don’t want to use up my allowance too soon. Anne?’
‘Gin and tonic please, with lots of ice.’
‘My usual, please,’ Wendy said, and Roberto nodded and departed. ‘I’ve taken to drinking Campari-soda,’ she said when he had gone’ ‘so don’t stand too close to me or I’ll clash with your dress. Such an uncompromising colour, red. You have to be a real beauty, like Anne, to wear it. I’d look like a plate of mashed swede if I tried it on.’
The drinks, when they came, seemed to loosen Roberto’s tongue, and he turned out to be good fun in a quiet way. Wendy was at her irrelevant, amusing best, and the four of them enjoyed themselves so much that when it was time to leave they stayed together and drove up to the Villiers in Michael’s car.
The dance was filling up quite nicely. They handed in their tickets in the ante-room, and went to drop their wraps and powder their noses while the men waited and did whatever men do while women powder their noses.
‘He’s as gorgeous as ever,’ Wendy said to Anne as they shared a mirror.
‘Who, Roberto?’ Anne asked, surprised.
‘No, Mr Martini. You’re a lucky girl.’
‘Am I?’ Anne mused. She looked at her smiling reflection. ‘I suppose I am.’
The large ballroom was softly lit and decorated with flowers, and already a couple of dozen couples were dancing to the excellent band. The bar was crowded, as it always, mysteriously, is at dances, and there was a separate buffet room where the food was being laid out for later in the evening. They spent some time walking around and saying hello to the various people they knew, and Anne noticed how most people stared at Michael, some with envy and some with suspicion. She kept her hand on his arm, and once he squeezed it and said,
‘You see how they all look on me as a stranger.’
But when she glanced up at him, he was laughing, so it was all right. They didn’t meet Joe and his lady vet, though Wendy said she saw him across the other side of the room. However, Anne was now inclined to give less credence to what Wendy saw at any kind of distance.
The doctor was there with his wife, a pleasant, grey-haired lady with a limp, whose interest in dances was, therefore, more social than athletic.
‘Hello, Anne – you look ravishing,’ he said.
‘So you do, Anne,’ said Mrs Ross. ‘Won’t you introduce us to your partner?’
Anne did so, and the doctor and Michael shook hands, and Michael bent over the doctor’s wife’s hand in a graceful way that made her smile.
‘Did your father have a look at that house?’ Dr Ross asked.
‘We both did,’ Anne said. ‘I could tell he loved it on sight – as I did, really, only I think it probably will be too small. I should think it’s only got one room downstairs and two tiny ones up, and we might get on each others’
nerves in such a small space.’
‘Leave home then,’ Dr Ross suggested at once. ‘I don’t know what a great girl like you is doing anyway, living under her father’s wing. It’s well past time you spread your wings and flew away.’
‘George, you shouldn’t bully people,’ his wife remonstrated gently.
‘People need to be bullied. They like it, anyway,’ Dr Ross affirmed. ‘You go out and see the world, young Anne, while you are young. Time enough to settle down in dear old Winton when you get creaky with age, like me. Not like you, Marjorie darling, I hasten to add!’ And his wife smiled. ‘Why don’t you marry her, young man,’ the doctor went on incorrigibly, ‘and take her round the world. That would solve her father’s problem. He could move into that little cottage and be settled for life.’
‘If I marry her, sir,’ Michael said with a suppressed smile, ‘it won’t be for her father’s sake.’
Anne looked up at him with wide eyes, and he winked without moving the rest of his face. The doctor’s wife saw it, and tugged at her husband’s arm.
‘Come away George, you embarrass the young people. Goodbye for now, Anne, and give my love to your father.’
‘Not the world’s most tactful man,’ Anne said softly as they moved away.
‘He’s all right,’ Michael said musingly. ‘Shall we dance? After all, it’s supposed to be what we came for.’
‘I’m ready,’ Anne said.
They danced for about an hour, enjoying the movement and the conversation. They passed Wendy once or twice, her eyes tightly shut like someone on a big dipper, being whirled in a Come Dancing manner by her dark friend, who seemed to be managing to do very nearly everything in his tight suit without splitting it. Wendy opened her eyes when Anne called to her, and then shut them again.
‘I can’t look!’ she called back as they twirled past. ‘I don’t think he’s even got a licence. Can you be fined drunk in charge of a woman?’
When the band stopped for their break, Anne and Michael were luckily placed quite near the door, and managed to get into the bar before the big rush, but the people were pressing in so tightly that they were glad to get their drinks and get out.
‘It’s very hot – can we go outside for a minute?’ Anne said.
‘Are you sure you should?’ Michael asked. ‘You might catch cold again, after being so hot.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ Anne said, surprised that he should show such concern. ‘I’ll tell you at once if I feel chilly.’
‘See you do,’ he said, and they carried their drinks out onto the veranda overlooking the hotel’s garden.
‘Phew, that’s better. Mm, doesn’t the night smell gorgeous!’
‘It does,’ Michael agreed gravely. ‘What is it?’
‘Oh a bit of this and a bit of that. Night-scented-stock, and wet grass and trees, and wistaria. Just mainly the night.’
‘And it’s so quiet. I can hardly get used to the quiet out here, after the city.’
They stopped talking and just listened to the blissful hush of the night away from the ballroom, and they remained in silence, sipping their drinks, for some time, feeling companionable without the need to talk. Michael slipped his arm round Anne’s shoulders to check she wasn’t cold, and left it there, drawing her in a little closer to him. When they had both finished their drinks, they put their glasses down on the parapet, and then Michael put both arms around her and kissed her, and for a time they became just another of the shadowy couples making their own world on that moonlit veranda.
‘Happy, darling?’ Michael asked at last.
‘Mm,’ Anne said, smiling up at him, which was enough.
‘Not cold?’
‘No, but I’d like to have another dance.’
‘Let’s have one more drink first, and then we’ll go in. Will you have the same again?’
‘Yes, all right. I’ll wait here for you. I don’t want to push into that crowded bar.’
‘I didn’t intend you to, my little flower,’ Michael grinned. ‘Don’t get talking to any strange men while I’m away.’
As if he had forseen what happened next, no sooner had Michael disappeared through one set of doors, than Joe appeared through another. He paused, looking up and down the veranda, and Anne froze, hoping he would not see her. But Joe’s eyes were good. His head lifted slightly as he spotted her and hunted around for her companion, and then, after a slight hesitation, he came towards her.
‘Hello, Joe,’ Anne greeted him resignedly. ‘Having a good time?’
‘Are you alone?’ he asked her, ignoring the question.
‘Temporarily. Are you? Where did you leave your partner?’
‘My—? Oh, you mean Miss Brown?’
‘I don’t suppose you call her Miss Brown all evening to her face, do you?’
‘She wanted to come, and she had no one to come with. I’ve had these tickets for ages, so I didn’t see why I should waste them,’ Joe said, anxious to explain. Anne made a flat gesture with her hand.
‘Joe, you don’t need to tell me. It isn’t my business. You’re entitled to come to the dance with anyone you please. I was just wondering what she’d think if she knew you’d deserted her to seek me out.’
‘It isn’t like that,’ Joe hastened to explain, his face reddening a little.
‘I don’t care what it’s like,’ Anne said, beginning to feel a little impatient at his desire to involve her with his personal affairs.
‘No, but I wanted you to understand, because, well, I wanted you to realise why I’m worried about you.’
‘You’ve no need to be worried,’ Anne said evenly, and a wiser man, or perhaps one less infatuated, would have taken warning, but Joe blundered on.
‘Oh but I am, when I see you still with that man. I don’t want you to be hurt, Anne, and believe me—’
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ Anne said sharply, turning away. Joe was so wrought up that he actually caught hold of her arm, and held it in quite a tight grip.
‘Anne, you don’t know what he’s like.’
‘Don’t I?’
‘You don’t know the things he’s done. He’s—’
‘I don’t want to hear you!’ Anne shouted, and several heads turned. She lowered her voice, but said with no less intensity. ‘I don’t want to hear your opinion of Michael. I don’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say about him. Is that clear?’
‘Anne, I have to tell you.’ His grip had tightened without his knowing it, and his fingers were biting into her arm. ‘He’s been seeing another woman in secret all the time. I’ve seen him with her.’
‘You’re hurting me. Go away. Let me go and go away!’
‘Yes, go away, why don’t you?’ Michael’s voice came from behind Joe. Anne caught his glance across Joe’s shoulder. He was carrying two glasses, but even as he spoke he put them down carefully and came another step closer. Joe did not release her arm, but he turned to face Michael, glaring at him angrily.
‘You keep out of this!’ he said. ‘It’s none of your business.’
‘It is my business,’ Michael said coolly. ‘I’m making it my business. Let go of her.’
‘You’ve no rights here,’ Joe said. ‘It’s not for you to tell me to go. If Anne wants me to go away it’s for her to say.’
‘Well she’s said so, hasn’t she? And you haven’t gone. So now I’m saying it – beat it pig-man.’
Anne felt Joe jar at the insult, as if at a blow. He let go of her arm abruptly and straightened up. ‘Don’t you call me that!’ he said furiously. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’
Anne stared from one of them to the other. Joe was not so tall as Michael, but he was broader and heavier, and looked the more dangerous of the two. His big hands were balled into fists, and the muscle bulged inside his ill-fitting jacket. Michael, dark and slim, looked more like a dancer. Anne saw quite clearly, with the insight of love, that he was afraid of the heavier man, but was too proud to show it. He stood erect and poise
d, forcing himself not to flinch, and to smile coolly. The atmosphere was almost tangible between them, and she half expected them to emit sparks of anger.
Joe made the beginning of the move that would undo Michael, and at that moment Anne threw herself between them, and folded her own two hands round Joe’s fist even as it was raised. He shook her off, but by old habit could not do it roughly, and she caught his hand again more strongly and tried to prise open the fingers.
‘Stop it, Joe! Please stop it,’ she said, looking up at him pleadingly while he still glared unmoved over her head at his antagonist. ‘Please give it up and go away. Stop it, do you hear me!’
She shook the fist she held, and at last he dropped his eyes to her and looked at her first angrily and then, as the anger faded and the love took its place, with a puzzled expression.
‘Anne, you don’t … really … you don’t love him, do you?’
Now it was Anne’s turn to become aware of the implications of the scene. She looked up at Joe, Joe whose face was as familiar to her as her own, and knew that Michael was standing behind her, listening. She didn’t want this to be happening. She didn’t want to have to say the words that would break Joe’s heart, and perhaps make her more vulnerable than she had ever cared to be. But it had to be the truth, now. She gulped, and said,
‘Yes, Joe.’
‘A man like him?’ Joe asked, his brow furrowed. ‘You can’t mean it.’
‘I do.’
‘A man you have to protect? A man who can’t even stand up for himself?’
‘Joe, his way isn’t yours. There’s more than one kind of courage. You’ve no right to accuse him. You don’t understand.’
‘No, I don’t,’ Joe said bitterly, and now he withdrew his hand sharply from her grip. ‘I don’t understand.’ He turned away from her so that she couldn’t see his face, and his voice was muffled as he said, ‘I’m sorry, Anne. I hope everything will be all right for you. I hope he’s good to you.’ And then he was gone, striding away down the veranda with his head high against the curious, and perhaps mocking, stares of the onlookers.
The Treacherous Heart Page 15