by Penny Jordan
Their studios were shabby and ill-equipped, Storm was forced to admit.
Initially it had been David’s intention to house the venture in purpose-built offices just outside Wyechester, but Sam Townley had soon put a stop to such ambitious thoughts. As the main investor he claimed that he should have the greatest say in how their capital was spent, and David found himself forced to take up a tenancy of some cramped offices over one of Sam’s supermarkets.
‘What do you think Jago Marsh is going to do?’ Storm asked Pete angrily, infuriated by his contemptuous dismissal of all that David had tried to do. ‘Wave a magic wand and produce a modern, fully equipped radio station?’
‘Well, whatever he does it can’t be worse than David’s efforts.’ Pete fought back. ‘For God’s sake, Storm! You might be in love with the guy, but when are you going to see him how he really is? You feel sorry for him because he’s always the under-dog, but whose fault is that? I don’t know what you see in him…’
They had had this argument before, and as always it put Storm on the defensive. She could not explain to Pete, with all his frank appreciation of the modern approach towards sex, that with David she did not feel threatened, forced to give more of herself than she wished, either emotionally or physically, and that she loved him for his gentle acceptance of this.
As she got up to leave she was frowning unhappily. Just what did they think Jago Marsh was? A magician? Well, they would soon be disillusioned. He was a cold, ruthless man, incapable of understanding the feelings of others, arrogant and overbearing. Without the slightest effort she could remember every line of his hard-boned face, every inflection of his voice as he denounced her sex, and she was almost trembling with anger as she stepped out into the street to meet David.
He was sitting in his car waiting for her, and Storm smiled at him as he opened the passenger door of the homely little Ford. He made no attempt to kiss or touch her despite the fact that the car-park was deserted and he had been away from her all day.
It was just over half an hour’s drive to the village where she lived with her parents, and they normally sat in a companionable silence listening to Radio Wyechester.
Storm’s father was a lecturer at the local university and Storm had grown up in the Cotswolds and loved them very dearly.
It was October, one of Storm’s favourite months. Summer had lingered on this year, and the trees were just beginning to turn, the harvested fields a bright, lush green where the new growth showed through. Opening her window, Storm relaxed in her seat, enjoying the fresh air. It was colder today, with a sharp little breeze that heralded the end of their Indian Summer. She shivered suddenly with a presentiment that the wind of change was blowing into their lives in more ways than one. Jago Marsh! Why did it have to be him of all people?
‘Something wrong, Storm?’ David asked gently.
‘It’s just this business of Jago Marsh,’ she admitted uneasily. ‘I can’t help wishing you’d never met him…’
‘You’ll be more than a match for him,’ David assured her. ‘He isn’t used to women standing up to him.’
‘No, I suppose they’re more likely to fall prone at his feet,’ Storm retorted caustically.
‘Or on his bed,’ David said very dryly.
So she hadn’t been mistaken in her impression that Jago Marsh was a man who considered women were put on earth to serve only one purpose, Storm reflected wrathfully, turning up the volume of the radio as a news broadcast finished.
The next programme was a current affairs discussion, hosted by Mike Varnom, their other D.J. It was a relatively new departure for them and Storm was anxious to hear how it went.
The subject under discussion was the Common Market and the problems of exporting English lamb to France. The discussion, involving a couple of local farmers and their Euro M.P., should have been interesting, but somehow the speakers lacked conviction. Mike was constantly deferring to the politician, and Storm’s brow creased as she listened to the broadcast, the lovely countryside through which they were driving forgotten.
‘Oh no, Mike!’ she protested in dismay at one point, when he cut right across one of the farmer’s angry arguments.
‘The discussion was getting pretty heated, Storm,’ David pointed out mildly when she turned to him.
‘But that’s the whole point,’ she objected. ‘Involvement—that’s what we’re all about.’
David laughed.
‘Such a fierce little thing! I suppose if you were conducting the interview you’d be making mincemeat out of our Euro friend?’
‘Well, we are talking about the farmers’ livelihood. You know how high feeling is running locally against the Common Market subsidies.’
‘Umm—well, nothing can be achieved by attacking him broadside on, Storm. He isn’t a free agent, you know. Governments dictate policy…’
‘And governments are made up of men and women—like you or me. If we make our protests loud enough and long enough…’ she sighed in fond exasperation when David shook his head.
‘I’m not going to argue with you,’ he told her mildly. ‘Sit back and enjoy the scenery. I refuse to have my journey home ruined by a discussion on politics. I’ve got enough of that to contend with during the day.’
Storm was instantly remorseful, remembering his discussions with the Authority, but the ineffectualness of the programme lingered on, niggling, when she tried to relax her mind into other channels.
‘Shall I see you tonight?’ she asked David casually.
He shook his head.
“Fraid not. I’ve got to get some work done if I’m going to be ready to face the sort of inquisition Jago will have in mind. Why don’t you go out with Pete and that crowd?’ he asked her.
That was another good thing about David, Storm reflected. He wasn’t at all possessive. In a mature, well-balanced relationship there should be no need for jealousy.
The duck-egg blue sky was turning primrose when David stopped the car at the end of her parents’ drive. Leaning across her to open the door, he kissed her lightly.
Storm’s mother was in the garden. A placid, plump woman in her late fifties, she often found it difficult to understand how she had managed to produce such a turbulent firebrand.
Storm was the youngest of the family and the only girl. Both her brothers had left home several years earlier. John, the elder, was a mining engineer who lived and worked in Australia, making very infrequent trips home. Ian, three years older than Storm, was an oil technician who spent half his life commuting between various far-flung outposts of the world, looking for oil, and consequently he too was a rare visitor to the sprawling old house, nestling against the protective lee of the Cotswolds.
‘I thought I ought to cut the last of the roses before the frost gets them,’ Mrs Templeton said to Storm. ‘It makes the garden look so bare, though,’ she added, looking regretfully at her denuded bushes. ‘David drop you off?’
‘Mm. Let me carry those for you,’ Storm offered, relieving her mother of her secateurs and gloves. Although her parents were quite fond of David, Storm sensed that they did not entirely favour her relationship with him. They were such a pair of romantics, she thought affectionately, no doubt they would have preferred her to fall fathoms deep in love. Her mind shied away from the prospect, apprehension shivering through her, as she admitted that she was frightened of the commitment such a relationship would entail. Deep waters were not for her, she decided firmly as she followed her mother into the house.
‘Dinner won’t be long,’ Mrs Templeton warned as Storm headed for the stairs.
‘I’ll just have a quick shower, then,’ Storm replied.
Because of the amount of equipment crammed into their inadequate premises it was always uncomfortably warm in the studios and Storm liked to refresh herself with a shower before sitting down for her evening meal.
What would Jago Marsh make of their premises? she wondered, a sardonic smile touching her lips as she prepared for dinner. The offi
ces themselves were bad enough, but worse by far was their outdated and hopelessly inefficient equipment. Their outside broadcast van had barely passed its M.O.T., in fact Pete had sworn that it was purely on account of Storm’s pleading violet eyes that it had scraped through at all, and so it was with all their gear. Mikes failed to operate, turntables refused to turn; splicers tangled the tapes, and it was always the exhausted staff who had to work on painstakingly righting the faults caused by unreliable equipment. Storm’s lip curled as she thought of Jago Marsh sitting up nursing a faulty transmitter. Well, he was in for a few shocks if he expected his existence to be cushioned with velvet once he joined Radio Wyechester, she thought with grim satisfaction.
Her parents were already seated when she entered the dining room. Storm’s father was a lecturer at the local university, a tall, still handsome man in his late fifties, with a pronounced sense of humour, and a comprehensive understanding of the young.
Although there were only the three of them left at home, Mrs Templeton insisted on a certain degree of formality for their evening meal, and although breakfast was normally a rushed affair with Storm swallowing a quick cup of coffee, standing up in the kitchen, and Mr Templeton munching toast, hidden behind his newspaper, dinner was always a leisurely meal, eaten with due regard for the digestion.
Her mother was an excellent cook, and since Storm had no need to worry about her weight, she tucked into her steak and kidney pie with every evidence of enjoyment.
Richard Templeton lectured in economics and had the dissecting mind of the intellectual. The Templeton household had never suffered from a lack of stimulating conversation, and the dinner table had been a favourite platform for the younger generation to launch its attacks on the elder throughout the boys’ and Storm’s adolescence. Nowadays there were no longer heated discussions about pop singers and curfews, nevertheless Storm enjoyed pitting her wits against her father’s razor-sharp mind—Templeton Père had the disquieting knack of sniffing out the weaker points of an argument, although what she lost in logic Storm more than made up for in vehemence.
‘Had a good day, Storm?’ Mrs Templeton enquired when she had served the apple pie. Storm had been somewhat subdued during the meal, and it struck her that she was looking far from happy.
‘Not really,’ Storm admitted. Her parents knew all about the problems suffered by the station, and both waited sympathetically to hear her news.
‘We’re being allowed to keep our licence,’ she told them, ‘but with certain provisos—one of which is Jago Marsh.’
‘The Jago Marsh?’ her father enquired with some interest. ‘Well, I don’t know why that should make you look so miserable. If you ask me he’s just what your outfit needs. Incredible, the progress he’s made during the last few years. There can’t be many people more experienced in the media today, and I’m sure he’ll be able to do a damned sight more for you than David’s ineffectual…’ He broke off as his wife kicked him warningly under the table.
‘I’m sorry, Storm,’ he apologised, ‘but although I like David, I don’t think he’s cut out for such a competitive business. I never have done…’
‘But you admire a man like Jago Marsh,’ Storm said bitterly, ‘a man who constantly features in the gossip columns—changes his girl-friends like other men change their shirts, is known to be completely ruthless and.…’
‘Most reprehensible,’ her father agreed, surveying her flushed cheeks with twinkling eyes. ‘What is it that you object to most, Storm? That he’s been appointed to try and make some order out of David’s chaos, or his romantic proclivities?’
‘I object to everything about him,’ Storm retorted, abandoning her attempts to reason logically. ‘You don’t know him like I do. He’s the original male chauvinist pig!’
Mr Templeton raised an eyebrow ‘You know him?’
‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ Storm said crossly. ‘I’ve read about him. I’ve heard him lecture, I’ve actually seen him say that women have no place in radio…’
‘Scarcely the basis on which to claim a knowledge of the man,’ her father pointed out. ‘Look, Storm, I can understand how you feel, in some ways, but I think you’re deliberately blinding yourself to the truth. Just because you personally don’t like the Jago Marsh you’ve created in your imagination it doesn’t mean that he won’t do a good job. How often have you come home bemoaning the fact that David has squashed one of your ideas?’
It was true.
‘That’s different,’ she protested.
‘Because you’re the one to do the criticising? Not good enough, my girl, pure feminine logic. Not good enough at all. As it happens I’ve heard Jago Marsh lecture too, and I got the impression of a man who knows where he’s going and when. Granted he won’t suffer fools gladly, but then why should he?’
‘If you two are going to engage in one of your arguments I’m off to the kitchen,’ Mrs Templeton announced. ‘Coffee, Storm?’
‘Yes, please. I’ll give you a hand with the trolley.’
‘You won’t escape that way, my girl,’ warned her father. ‘We’ll thrash this out later. Think a little, love. The man’s got a job to do, don’t go out of your way to make it any harder for him. He’s going to need all the help he can get.’
‘Not according to what one reads in the papers,’ Storm retorted. ‘To read them you’d think he was a one-man miracle worker!’
Over her downbent head her parents exchanged exasperatedly affectionate looks.
‘There’s a documentary on television I wouldn’t mind seeing tonight,’ Mr Templeton announced, changing the subject.
Storm followed her mother out into the kitchen.
‘Your father’s right, you know, dear,’ Mrs Templeton said gently as they washed up. ‘You mustn’t let loyalty to David blind you to his faults.’ She gave a faint sigh. ‘I know it’s none of my business, Storm, but somehow I can’t see David as the right man for you…’
‘Because he’s gentle and kind and doesn’t have sex on the brain?’ Storm retorted fiercely, causing her mother to frown anxiously.
‘I know you think you love him, Storm,’ she said quietly, ‘but if you did I should expect you to want him to have “sex on the brain”, as you put it. Things were different in my day, I know, and sex wasn’t discussed as openly as it is now, but there was never a single doubt in my mind that I wanted your father as my lover, very, very much indeed. I don’t think you can say the same about David.’
This unexpected frankness brought a touch of colour to Storm’s face.
‘Too much importance is placed on sex,’ she announced defensively. ‘It’s only one part of a relationship.’
‘The mere fact that you can tell me that, Storm,’ her mother replied softly, ‘just confirms what I’ve been saying. You can’t possibly love David as a woman should love a man.’
Her mother was hopelessly romantic, Storm thought as she finished her chores, but even so her words lingered, making it impossible for Storm to concentrate on the documentary. When it had finished Mrs Templeton announced suddenly,
‘I forget to tell you—the house down the road has been sold.’
‘Good lord!’ Mr Templeton exclaimed. ‘I never thought it would go so quickly. How much were they asking for it? Well over a hundred thousand, wasn’t it?’
The house in question was their nearest neighbour, the last word in modern design and yet built in such a fashion that it blended perfectly into its rural surroundings. Much use had been made of huge expanses of tinted glass and natural wood. The house had extensive grounds and overlooked the wooded copse that lay between Storm’s parents’ house and it, and Mrs Templeton, who had been inside it, said that it was as beautiful inside as it was out.
‘Going out with David tonight?’ Mrs Templeton asked Storm a little later.
‘No. He’s got some work to do, and so have I.’
‘Making sure the new boss doesn’t catch you off guard?’ grinned her father.
Storm elected t
o take refuge from his teasing in a disdainful demeanour.
‘Certainly not. I couldn’t care less what Jago Marsh thinks of me!’
But she could not get away from the fact that hateful though he might be, Jago Marsh was going to be in a position of authority over her, and worse still, capable to taking from her a job which she thoroughly enjoyed and had worked hard for.
It was an unpalatable thought to take to bed, and she was unusually quiet when she said her goodnights. Upstairs in her room she dawdled over her preparations for bed, stopping to lean her elbows on her casement window and stare out at the night sky.
Why of all people had David had to confide in Jago Marsh? her rebellious heart demanded, her inner eye seeing him as he had appeared to her during his lecture. He had been wearing a tailored suit, his dark hair neatly brushed, outwardly a conformist adhering to the rules of society, but his face had been that of a man who admits to no rules, except his own; a man who would either lead the pack or turn his back on it; a man who in her heart of hearts she acknowledged was dangerous.
She vowed there and then that when the confrontation came, he would not find her unprepared.
CHAPTER TWO
IT was to come far sooner than she had expected.
The day had not got off to an auspicious start. Far from it, Storm thought as she tussled with a recalcitrant zip. She had overslept, and the fact that she had an important appointment with the managing director of a Gloucester-based employment agency whom she had hoped to persuade to make use of the station’s advertising facilities made her all fingers and thumbs as she pulled on a pale grey skirt and a toning lavender blouse.
The blouse was startlingly effective against her hair, reflecting the colour of her eyes as she blended subtly shaded mauve eyeshadow over her eyelids, adding the merest touch of mascara and kohl pencil, before snatching up her fox jacket—a combined twenty-first birthday present from her parents and brothers. At least the fur gave her a touch of elegance, she thought ruefully as she applied damson lip gloss—something she considered herself badly in need of. She studied herself in the mirror, frowning a little. Thank goodness for high heels! Five foot two did not make for the soignée model girl elegance she envied so much. Her lack of inches was a constant source of irritation to her. ‘Titch’ and ‘Pint Size’ were only two of the derogatory names used by her brothers during their adolescence, and to add insult to injury they both took after their father, easily topping six foot!