Down an English Lane

by Margaret Thornton

  Audrey had told her when they had met together earlier in the week that she had managed to complete her teacher training course. Several people, inevitably, had guessed at her condition, but had been very understanding towards her. Jennifer, however, Joel’s sister, had started to ignore her and the two of them had not spoken for several months; no doubt Jennifer had guessed at the truth and chose not to know about it. The exam results would be out later that month, and so whatever might happen in the future, Audrey would – hopefully – have her teaching qualifications.

  ‘And who was it…do you know?’ asked Bruce, to Maisie’s surprise. She would not have thought he would ask such a question.

  ‘Yes, I do know…but it’s irrelevant,’ she replied. ‘There could never be any question of them getting together. It was at a party, the brother of somebody she knew… But Audrey never talks about it now, so please forget about it, Bruce.’

  She must have sounded a little sharp because Bruce was immediately apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, Maisie. I wasn’t being nosey, although I know it sounded like it. It’s just that…well…my mother wondered if it might be Brian Milner. My parents are friendly with the Milners, you know, and Brian, apparently, has been down to see Audrey a couple of times since she came home from college. He has been working for a firm in Durham for the last year or so; he’s an industrial chemist, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t know that!’ replied Maisie. ‘Well, I knew about his job, of course, but I didn’t know he had been to see Audrey. Fancy her not saying…but she can be a dark horse at times, can Audrey. But he is definitely not the father, I can assure you of that.’

  ‘No…so Mrs Milner said, and Brian too. But be that as it may, he seems to be getting friendly with Audrey again. Ah, here comes our food…’

  The thick slices of home-cured ham with a plentiful side salad, and crusty bread spread with butter was a more than ample meal, and the glasses of mellow golden Chardonnay added the finishing touch.

  ‘Just one glass for me,’ said Bruce. ‘I must get you back safely.’ Maisie remembered Andy saying the self-same thing when they had picnicked by Loch Tummel…

  ‘We have talked about everybody but you and me,’ said Bruce. ‘Tell me about yourself, Maisie. You are enjoying your new job, are you?’

  ‘Yes…’ she replied, but she felt suddenly at a loss for words. She did not want to say too much about her work as a courier or…anything. ‘I enjoy it very much. But…won’t you tell me about your job, first? You are seeing a lot of the world, aren’t you? It must be very exciting.’

  ‘When I get to stop over, yes,’ said Bruce. ‘But sometimes we turn round and come straight back.’ But he had seen Paris, Brussels, Rome, Venice, Amsterdam, Copenhagen…he told her. And they hoped, soon, that Red Rose Airlines would do transatlantic flights. ‘So… New York, possibly, in the not too distant future.’

  She nodded, and there was a few seconds’ silence. Then, ‘I was sorry about your marriage, Bruce,’ she said, knowing that she would have to mention it sooner or later. It was not strictly true; she was not sorry, but it was the polite thing to say in these circumstances. ‘I saw Christine, by the way. She came into the office – oh, several months ago now, in the winter – with…a man. They were booking tickets.’

  ‘Yes, Clive Broadbent. She married him,’ said Bruce. ‘I did know about it. Of course I had to know; she wanted the divorce…’

  ‘I’m sorry; perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it…’

  ‘Of course you should. I am glad you did.’ He smiled wistfully at her. ‘Christine and I were never really right for one another. I was too young, Maisie, far too young and naive to be married, especially to someone like Christine. But she dazzled me. She was pretty and witty and fun to be with, and so I told myself that she was what I wanted.’

  ‘I thought she seemed much nicer when I met her this year,’ said Maisie. ‘You know; softer, kinder, less…er…abrasive. I was glad to see there was a nice side to her as well, because I hadn’t liked her very much before…’ Now, where did that come from? she asked herself. Maisie, why on earth don’t you learn to think before you speak? ‘Sorry…’ she said. ‘Me and my big mouth!’

  He laughed. ‘She was a chameleon-person all right, was Christine. Yes, there were certainly two sides to her, and I saw what I wanted to see. We were happy for a while, I must admit though, and then I found out she had lied to me, in all sorts of ways. I would have understood if she had told me at the start about her background; but no…she pretended she was something that she wasn’t; and the worst thing of all was telling me that her parents were dead. I found it hard to forgive her for that. I suppose I have forgiven her now, though. In the long run it would never have worked out for Christine and me.’

  ‘You didn’t need to tell me about it, Bruce…’

  ‘But I wanted to, Maisie…’ He was looking at her intently across the little round table. ‘You and me…well, the time was never quite right for us, was it? When I first met you, you were just a little girl – a cheeky little kid, as you said.’ He laughed. ‘But you were quite grown-up for your age, even then.’

  ‘I had to be,’ replied Maisie, wondering where this conversation was leading. ‘My childhood back in Armley, that had made me grow up fast, certainly much more so than Audrey.’

  ‘But you were – what? – only nine years old, and I was fourteen. As I told you, I was rather naive, and I enjoyed being a sort of big brother to you and Audrey, and Doris; of course I had always known Doris.’

  She nodded, not knowing quite what to say.

  ‘You were just a little girl…’ he said musingly, ‘and then, suddenly – or it seemed very sudden to me – I noticed that you had grown up…into a lovely young woman. But I knew that you were still only fifteen years old, far too young for me, Maisie. I was twenty, and I had already met Christine and…oh, damn it all, Maisie, what I am trying to say is that the timing was all wrong for you and me…wasn’t it? You know what I mean, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said gently. ‘Bruce… I was crazy about you.’ There, she had said it. ‘And I was so jealous of Christine; that was why I didn’t like her. Everybody – well, the ones that had guessed – tried to tell me I would get over it, and so I did…eventually.’ She felt a trifle embarrassed, but Bruce was smiling at her in a very friendly and understanding way.

  ‘But we will always be friends, won’t we, Bruce? It’s great, being here with you tonight.’

  ‘Yes, I certainly hope we’ll always be friends, Maisie…’ He took hold of her hand. ‘And it has been a really lovely evening. But now – well – it’s too late for us, isn’t it? You have met somebody, haven’t you, that you…like a lot?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ she nodded. ‘He hasn’t said anything, not yet, but I know that he will…soon, I think.’

  ‘Mmm… I knew by the look on your face when you caught Anne’s bouquet. I hope he truly deserves you, Maisie.’

  ‘And what about you, Bruce?’ she asked. ‘Is there…someone?’

  ‘Oh, there have been a few…’ His eyes twinkled.

  ‘A girl in every port, eh? Or every airport?’

  ‘Not exactly, but we do quite frequent trips to Paris. There is a young lady who works in a hotel near to the Tuileries Gardens; she is the receptionist. I have stayed there several times and we have become…quite friendly.’

  ‘I see,’ Maisie smiled. ‘A French girl?’

  ‘No, actually she is English, but she has worked in Paris for a few years. We get on very well together.’

  ‘Then I hope it all works out well for you, Bruce… She’s a very lucky girl,’ she added shyly.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And so is your young man, very lucky indeed… I take it he lives north of the border?’

  ‘Yes; how did you know?’

  ‘By the look in your eyes when you talked about Scotland… Be happy, Maisie.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘And…be very sure, won’t you?’

  ‘I am sure…�
� she replied, as Bruce let go of her hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  So she hadn’t been mistaken about Bruce’s feelings for her, she thought, as she headed towards Edinburgh in the late afternoon of the following day. Five years ago, when she was fifteen and he was twenty, he had known, if the timing had been different, that they could, and probably would, have come together as rather more than friends. But that age gap of five years between fifteen and twenty was insurmountable. At fifteen one was, technically, still a child, and twenty was on the verge of adulthood. And Christine had already been there.

  And now, five years later, when that five years’ difference in age would not matter in the slightest, it was too late. Bruce was obviously very interested in the young lady in Paris, and she, Maisie, would be seeing the young man with whom she had fallen in love in just a few days’ time. She thought of Bruce fondly, and, she had to admit, with a slight feeling of regret; but they had promised one another that they would always be friends. And now, she was looking to the future. Her heart gave a leap and her spirits soared at the thought of seeing Andy again.

  The two days in Edinburgh had, by now, become very familiar to Maisie. The only differences were the weather; one day it could be boiling hot and the next bitterly cold, even in August, with a chilly wind blowing in from the Firth of Forth. And the passengers: different faces, different personalities each week, but the questions they asked were pretty much the same, their favourite ones being about the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, and the bandit, otherwise Scottish hero, Rob Roy MacGregor.

  Wednesday afternoon found them once again at the Cameron Hotel, being greeted by Gordon on the coach, and then by Andy and Moira as they handed out the room keys.

  ‘Hello again, Maisie,’ he said. ‘Good to see you. I’m looking forward to our duets; I’ve thought of one or two new ones, with your approval, of course…’

  ‘Yes, of course…’ She didn’t have time to say more as a rather fussy lady, one who had already made her presence felt on the coach, had interrupted and was asking Andy something about her room; it was not next door to that of her brother and sister-in-law, as she had requested. Maisie smiled at him and then carried her own bags up the flights of stairs to her room.

  Andy was never present for the welcoming cup of tea, served when they had all had time to sort themselves out, as he was by then hard at work in the kitchen. But it was then that Maisie noticed the strange young woman assisting Moira with handing round the tea and shortbread biscuits. Not strange in the sense that there was anything odd about her; far from it; she was a very pretty fair-haired girl and she seemed to have a pleasing manner with the guests. But she was strange in the sense that Maisie had not seen her before. A new waitress, maybe, although she was not dressed as one. Maisie felt a chill strike through her and a feeling of impending heartache, although she could not have said why.

  This was the time when she found it good to mingle with the guests, to move around and chat to one little group and then another, asking if they were enjoying the tour and whether they had any problems. She did not find out anything about the newcomer until dinnertime when she and Bob sat at their own table, a little removed from those of the coach passengers and private guests. The young woman in question was not helping to serve the meal, as Maisie had thought she might have been, but was sitting at a table with three other people, two women and a man, who were not on the Galaxy tour.

  ‘Who is that? Do you know?’ Maisie asked Bob, nodding discreetly in their direction. ‘That young woman; I noticed her earlier, at teatime…’

  ‘Oh aye; I was wondering that meself,’ replied Bob. ‘So I asked Moira; you know me, of course, dead nosey.’

  ‘And…who is she?’

  ‘Well…it seems, like, that she’s a friend of Andy,’ replied Bob, looking at her a little guardedly. ‘She’s been working away at a hotel up in Inverness – she’s a receptionist, I believe, same as Moira – but she’s come back to Callander for a week’s holiday. She lives here, Moira said; in the town, I mean…’

  ‘Then why is she staying here, at the hotel? She is, isn’t she?’

  ‘Oh goodness, Maisie! I don’t know the ins and outs of it all, only what Moira told me…’

  ‘She’s Andy’s girlfriend, isn’t she?’ Maisie felt her heart plummet right to the soles of her feet. ‘Go on, you can tell me. I’d rather you did, then it’ll save me making an even bigger fool of myself.’

  ‘Now, now, steady on,’ said Bob, reaching out and patting her hand. ‘Nowt o’ t’ sort. I asked Moira if she was his girlfriend, ’cause, like I said, I’m nosey. Anyroad, I know how you feel about that young fellow…’

  ‘You didn’t tell Moira that, did you?’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t. Cross my heart, Maisie, I haven’t said ’owt to anybody. But I can’t help noticing meself that you’re…rather fond of him.’

  ‘I’ve fallen in love with him,’ said Maisie, flatly. She stared unseeingly into space for a few seconds, before she said, more vehemently, ‘Oh Bob, why do I never learn? I’ve done this before, worn my heart on my sleeve, and it all came to nothing.’ She thought of her recent farewell to Bruce. ‘And now I’ve gone and done it again.’

  ‘Hey, hang on a minute,’ said Bob. ‘I’ve been watching the pair of you, you and Andy – on the QT, like – and from what I can see of that young chap he feels just the same way about you. And what’s that you said about wearing yer heart on yer sleeve? You’ve done nowt o’ t’ sort. Many a lass would have thrown herself at him, but you’ve been – what’s the word? – circumspect; aye, that’s it, circumspect, like the well-brought-up girl that you are. Happen a bit too much so. It’s time you and him said what you feel instead of singing about it.’

  Maisie actually smiled then. ‘What’s she called? Do you know? And is she – was she – his girlfriend? Tell me, Bob. I have to know.’

  ‘She’s called Laura; I don’t know what else. Aye, it seems they were friendly at one time. She was the receptionist here before Moira. I reckon he’s known her since they were at school; she was a local lass and then she came to work here. But summat went wrong and she disappeared up to Inverness. And that’s all I know. Now…eat up yer roast pork – nice bit o’ crackling, this – and start planning yer strategy. Aye, that’s what you need; a plan of action.’

  Maisie did not agree, although she did not say so to Bob. Dear Bob; what a good friend he had proved to be during the four tours she had worked with him. He liked to know what was going on around him, certainly, but she knew he would not divulge anything she had told him in confidence. And what she had said in an unguarded moment, that she had fallen in love with Andy, she could trust him not to repeat to anyone.

  But she did not think it would be a good idea to ‘set her cap’ at him, which was what Bob seemed to be suggesting. If Andy did still have feelings for this girl, Laura, then Maisie would only end up looking a bigger fool than she was already considering herself to be. After all, how long had she known Andy? For two months, she might say, and that was not long; but in reality it was only nine days, three days out of each tour, that was all. It had been long enough for her to know that she had fallen in love with him. But what about Andy? He had kissed her, very gently, once or twice; he had looked at her tenderly when they sang together; and he obviously enjoyed her company. If he really cared about her, though, cared enough to want to take their friendship a stage further, then he would make it clear to her.

  This Laura suddenly appearing had complicated matters, at least to Maisie’s way of thinking, but she would not be seen to compete for his attentions. She remembered how Christine had disliked her on sight, and the feeling had been mutual. As a fifteen-year-old girl she had made it obvious how she felt about Bruce. Now, at the much greater age of twenty, she hoped she had learned wisdom. She would not exactly ‘play hard to get’, but she would not do any running either; and she would be very friendly and charming to Laura when she made her acquaintance, which she
was sure to do quite soon.

  Wednesday evening was always an informal time for the guests to relax and chat together, but Maisie took her time in going down to the lounge. She lay on her bed for a while, trying to interest herself in the latest Agatha Christie, but she could not stop her mind from wandering. Besides, hadn’t Andy said something about some new duets? She should go and find out what he had in mind, but tonight they would no doubt sing something they were familiar with, and she would sing a song with no romantic connotations whatsoever.

  As she had predicted – and feared and dreaded, too – Andy was sitting chatting to Laura when she entered the lounge. Not on their own, though; it was a table for six and there was an empty chair. Maisie smiled and would have walked past, but Andy raised his hand in greeting and patted the chair next to him. ‘Maisie, won’t you come and join us?’

  ‘I’d be pleased to,’ she said, smiling not only at Andy, but at the girl at his side and the three people from the coach.

  ‘I thought mebbe you didn’t feel like singing tonight,’ said Andy. ‘You don’t have to, of course, but the guests do enjoy it. You are OK, are you, for later on?’

  ‘Sure I am,’ she said. ‘I was engrossed in my book, that’s all, and I hadn’t noticed the time. Then I suddenly realised I was neglecting my duties.’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ said Laura. ‘You are entitled to a wee bit of time to yourself.’ She had a pleasant Scottish lilt to her voice and she spoke quietly. ‘You’re the new courier, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not so new now, eh, Maisie?’ said Andy. ‘This is your – what is it? – your fourth tour to Scotland?’