Quincy was feeling sick as she listened. A stranger had come in here and taken a picture of her and Joe— had seen them on that couch, making love. She tugged up her tumbled dress, adjusting the bodice over her half-exposed breasts, shuddering with distaste and self-disgust. What must she have looked like to that man? The thought of someone watching them made her want to throw up.
'Apologies come a bit late,' Joe was saying furiously. 'What sort of hotel is this? What sort of security do you have?'
Quincy picked up her fur jacket and wrapped it around herself as if the room had suddenly turned cold. All the hot colour of sensual excitement had left her face. She was white and drawn, her green eyes full of bitter realisation. She had come within a hair's breadth of letting Joe make love to her—another few minutes and they would have been in bed together. She hadn't had any intention of stopping him just now. She had been too wrapped up in sensations of agonising desire to think of anything but the satisfaction of a need she had never felt before.
'Get on to it right away,' ordered Joe, and slammed the phone down. He turned, opening the camera and removing the film. Quincy watched as he dropped it into a wastepaper basket and flung the camera down on to a table. Joe stared at it, his mouth a grim, hard line. 'The guy himself got away,' he said tersely. 'If I'd caught him I'd have broken his neck, so it's probably just as well.'
Quincy couldn't speak.
He looked up and stared at her, his brows dragging together as he took in the expression on her face. 'Don't look like that!'
'How do you expect me to look?' she whispered, the sound issuing from between her lips like a dry haze of smoke, so low he had to bend forward to hear her.
'I'm sorry it happened,' Joe said.
'So am I.' Her lips moved in faint irony, trying to smile, but only succeeding in trembling slightly.
'You see what sort of thing I have to expect,' said Joe. 'It's a professional hazard, it happens all the time.'
Quincy looked at her watch. She didn't really see the time, although she stared at the little gold face, the minute hands fixed briefly at some hour. 'I must go,' she said politely, as if they were strangers. 'My sister will be worried about me.'
'Quincy...' Joe began abruptly, taking a step towards her, and she shrank involuntarily, her hands clutching at her jacket, her head lowered.
Joe halted in mid-stride and stood there, his eyes on her averted face. She heard her own heart beating in a sick, ragged rhythm and, above it, the deep uneven sound of Joe's breathing.
He suddenly turned towards the door. 'Okay, I'll drive you home,' he said as he walked away. Quincy followed him unsteadily out of the suite and down the corridor to the lift. Joe didn't say a thing as they made their way through the hotel. Around them hung a sleeping hush, the sound of their footsteps seeming too loud, and, as they got down to the lobby, the man at the reception desk looked up and got to his feet with a concerned expression.
As he started to speak, Joe shook his head at him. 'I'll be back later,' he said curtly, and steered Quincy out of the door into the chilly air of the spring night.
The limousine was parked along the street. As they walked to it, Quincy glanced up miserably at the sky and saw the pale points of light glittering remotely far above them, the stars unhidden by cloud tonight in this cold, clear weather. The fine silver disc of the moon had a silent eloquence which deepened her sense of misery, making her even more aware that she would never see Joe again, that the brief days she had spent with him in London were over, were ending in a fashion that lanced her with pain. She would never be able to forget either her own hectic abandonment in his arms, or the shock of being wrenched out of it by the intrusion of a curious, prying stranger. It seemed to encapsulate the whole situation—underline both the unreality of her relationship with Joe and his public situation.
Joe Aldonez was not an ordinary man—he lived in public, like some golden icon, always watched by fascinated eyes, and his emotions and thoughts were as much public property as his singing. He had no right to a private life of his own, as far as the press were concerned. Quincy did not want to live like that. She remembered her sense of his isolation, as she watched that concert last night, seeing him in the dancing, blinding spotlight, trapped like a moth in the glare of a radiance which held all eyes. Then she had seen his humanity, his loneliness, but now she saw other things. How could he not be aware of always performing under watching eyes? And how could his emotions have any depth, any reality, when he must constantly guard himself? Joe was not physically inhibited, but there must be a mental inhibition, a shield lowered between him and the world.
Joe put her into the passenger seat, walked round and opened the driver's door. She sat in a huddled silence as he started the engine, staring straight ahead. The car drew away from the kerb and turned out of the side-road. Without looking at her, Joe said: 'I understand how you must feel, you know.'
'Do you?' Her lips were dry and barely moved as she spoke.
'I live in a goldfish bowl. Do you think I enjoy it? When something like this happens I get so mad my head nearly blows off.' His powerful hands flexed on the wheel and he muttered: 'If I'd got my hands around his neck I'd have choked him to death!'
Quincy stared at the empty silent streets through which they were driving. No doubt it happened to him all the time—how often had he begun to make love to some girl only to have a sneak photographer pop up at an inconvenient moment?
Joe swung the car down towards the river and she caught a glimpse of the moonlit water glimmering between high buildings. London was asleep around them, scraps of torn white paper blowing along the pavements, the traffic lights ahead turning red as they approached and looking to her like dangerous, glowing eyes in the dark. She shivered and Joe shot a sideways look at her.
'Cold? The heater's on, the car should warm up pretty soon.'
'I'm okay,' she said in a stiff voice. She wanted to get away from him, be alone, where she could nurse this pain out of his sight. She wasn't even sure how deep it ran or where it had its source—whether what was making her want to cry was simply the shame she felt at having been seen by a stranger in Joe's arms, or whether the shame came from a realisation that in so short a time she had come so close to giving herself to a man who, tomorrow, was going to fly out of her life for ever.
The car drew up outside Lilli's flat a few moments later. Joe turned towards her, his arm resting on the wheel.
'There's so much I haven't had a chance to say to you,' he began huskily, but Quincy interrupted, forcing a smile.
'I really must go in, Mr Aldonez—it's getting so late.'
'Quincy...' he began angrily, and she turned and fumbled with the door, ignoring the note in his voice.
'We can't leave it like this!' muttered Joe, catching her shoulder, trying to turn her to face him again.
'We've got nothing to say to each other,' said Quincy. 'I just don't want any part of your sort of life, I'm not your sort of girl. I couldn't live in a goldfish bowl. I've hated every minute of the publicity—I wish I'd never said I'd do it. I wish I'd never come to London at all!' Without waiting for him to answer she wrenched at the door, it opened and she almost fell out on to the pavement and scrambled away, flinging a smothered 'Goodbye' at him as she ran.
She half expected to hear him following her, but the click of her high heels was the only sound disturbing the silence of the sleeping street. As she reached the door she heard the limousine throb into life behind her, then the wheels swished on the road surface as it moved off, and she turned her head, briefly, to see the tail lights disappearing before she went into the building.
She was far too disturbed to sleep. She quietly made herself some coffee and sat curled up in a chair, brooding, her body shivering in a convulsive way from time to time, as though she had an intimation of some fatal disease. The room gradually lightened around her, a pale cold light filtering through the drawn curtains. Towards seven o'clock she heard Lilli getting up and uncoiled to stand u
p just as her sister drifted through the door in a dressing-gown, yawning.
Lilli halted, falling without thinking into one of her elegant dancer's poses, her slender body slack from sleep but innately graceful. Opening her eyes very wide, she asked drily: 'How long have you been back? I went to bed at one and you weren't back then—what have you been up to, Quincy?'
'I haven't been up to anything!' Quincy flared at once, knowing she had gone pink.
'What an interesting colour!' Lilli drawled, and her smile was amused. 'Joe Aldonez made a night of it, did he?'
'We went on to a night club,' Quincy admitted. 'But I've been back for hours. I wasn't sleepy.'
'You haven't done anything silly, have you?' asked Lilli in a different voice, a frown pleating her forehead.
'Of course I haven't—what do you mean?'
Her sister stared, visibly hesitating. 'He's so different from the men you usually meet,' she said. 'I wouldn't want you to get hurt.'
'I'm not stupid,' said Quincy, wishing it was true— she was stupid, that was the trouble, she had to be to have allowed herself to get involved with Joe in the first place.
Lilli ran a hand over the ruffled feathers of her vivid red hair, smoothing them down. 'A pity I've been so busy with rehearsals, I meant to keep a closer eye on you, I promised Dad I would.'
'Did he ask you to?' Quincy bristled, very offended. 'Anyone would think I was ten years old! I'm twenty-two, remember! I don't need to have anyone keeping an eye on me.'
'Quincy, I'm used to men like that—you're not, you don't realise what rats they can be…'
Oh, don't I? Quincy thought, but she said nothing, merely looked mutinously at her sister and shrugged.
Guiltily, Lilli said: 'Sure nothing's wrong? You can talk to me, I won't repeat it—if something's bothering you…'
'It isn't,' Quincy said succinctly. 'If you're trying to find out if Joe Aldonez seduced me the answer's no, he didn't.'
Lilli made a wry face. 'That's it, be blunt!'
'Well, that was what you were hinting at, wasn't it? Why wrap it up?'
'I didn't want to put ideas into your head,' said Lilli with amusement. 'I wasn't sure you already had them.'
'As I've said, I'm twenty-two, not ten—I do know the facts of life, I don't still think babies are found under gooseberry bushes.'
Lilli laughed. 'I never did—Dad explained to me when I was about six and first noticed that one of the cats he had in the surgery was looking strangely fat.'
'Yes,' said Quincy, remembering, 'he put me in the picture at around that age, too.'
'He's cunning, our father,' Lilli said, and Quincy felt suddenly so homesick she wanted to burst into tears. She couldn't wait to get home and feel the warm, loving security closing around her again.
'I must have my bath,' Lilli said. 'I'm being picked up at eight-thirty, we're rehearsing all day again.'
'You work too hard,' Quincy told her.
'Don't I know it? This morning I feel as if I've been put through a mangle, every bone in my body is aching.'
'Do you still think your career is worth it?' Quincy asked her curiously—Lilli, like Joe, lived in the public eye and, like him, had to give all her time and energy to the pursuit of fame. Why did they do it?
'At the moment, no,' Lilli said frankly. 'Ask me after we've finally recorded the show and I'll probably say something quite different.'
Quincy was silent as her sister walked away, then called after her: 'Want some coffee?'
'Love some,' Lilli groaned. 'I need something to wake me up!'
Quincy made the coffee, listening to the radio, and, as she was getting herself a slice of toast to go with it, heard the telephone start to ring. She hesitated for a moment, half afraid it would be Joe, then when Lilli yelled from the bathroom: 'Get that, will you?' slowly went to answer it.
It wasn't Joe, it was Brendan, sounding tentative and uncertain. 'Quincy? Hallo, I wondered if you were going back today by train or…'
'Yes, I am,' she said.
'So am I—we could travel together.' He made the suggestion shyly.
'What train are you catching?'
'The one at eleven,' said Brendan, still clearly expecting a refusal, and Quincy said in a bright voice: 'Great, that suits me.'
'Oh,' he said, and there was a brief silence. 'Shall I pick you up in my taxi?'
'Thanks,' said Quincy, 'I'd love a lift,' and Brendan rang off, telling her he would be there at ten o'clock. As Quincy put down the phone and turned, she found Lilli behind her, a towel tucked around her and her shoulders gleaming wet.
'Who was that?'
'Brendan—we're going back home together on the train. He's calling for me at ten—I must get my case packed.'
'Nice guy, Brendan,' Lilli said enthusiastically, and Quincy gave her a wry look, understanding perfectly why her sister had assumed that lively tone. She might have denied to Lilli that she had got involved with Joe, but Lilli was too shrewd to believe her. Her warm support of Brendan came too partly to be real—Lilli was waving Brendan at her like some consolation prize, which wasn't very fair to him. Brendan was far too nice to be treated as a runner-up and Quincy had no intention of doing that, she did not want to hurt him any more than she wanted to get hurt herself.
Lilli left an hour later and, hugging her warmly, gave her a string of messages for their parents. 'Tell them I'll be in touch,' she said finally, as she left, making Quincy frown. What would Lilli tell them about this trip?
Her sister caught the apprehension in her gaze and grimaced at her. 'Oh, no need to look worried—I'll be discreet. They won't hear anything from me that they haven't heard from you.' She shrugged. 'Not that I know anything to tell, I'm in the dark as much as they'll be.'
'About what?' Quincy demanded, and got a sardonic smile.
'About whatever you're not telling!' Lilli retorted, and was gone before Quincy could burst into agitated denials.
Brendan arrived punctually at ten and carried her case out to the waiting taxi. Quincy climbed into it and Brendan told the driver which station they wanted— but, as they settled back in the car, another car shot round the corner, almost colliding with the taxi. Quincy gave the driver a cursory glance, recognised him and did an alarmed double-take that matched the one he was giving, his black head screwed to stare at her as he parked the long limousine on a double yellow line, indifferent to the beady eye of an offended traffic warden who came marching back towards them, pad in hand, the light of battle in her face.
'Do you want to talk to him?' Brendan asked her, staring at her hotly flushed face.
'No, I don't,' said Quincy, and he leaned forward to tell the taxi driver to drive on, just as Joe leapt out of his car and sprinted towards them. The taxi throbbed, drawing away, and Joe jumped on to the running board and glared at the driver.
'Hold on!' he shouted, and the man slammed on his brakes.
'What d'you think you're doing? You crazy?' he demanded as he turned towards Joe.
'I want to have a word with your passenger,' said Joe, pulling a five-pound note out of his pocket and flinging it to the driver, who automatically grabbed it, looking startled.
'Well, sir, all the same, you shouldn't jump on the running board while I'm moving, you could get killed doing things like that,' he scolded.
'Sorry,' said Joe, and gave him a hurried smile. 'I wasn't thinking.'
'It's Mr Aldonez, isn't it? I've just been listening to you on the radio,' the driver said, and Brendan with a face like thunder got up and pulled the window down to say: 'We're in a hurry, what do you want, Aldonez? Quincy doesn't want to talk to you.'
'I want to talk to her,' said Joe, appearing close beside the window. His eyes bypassed Brendan to find Quincy and she looked away, sitting stiffly in the far corner. 'Quincy, I must talk to you!'
'I want to have a word with you,' said the traffic warden behind him. 'You can't park that car on a double yellow line, you know that perfectly well.
Kindly move
the car immediately and park in a legal parking space.'
Joe ignored her, all his attention concentrating on Quincy's averted face. 'I haven't got much time,' he said huskily.
'Don't you know when you're not wanted?' Brendan asked him, getting a black stare in reply.
'Here, you!' said the traffic warden, tapping Joe on the shoulder. 'Are you listening to me?'
'Wait a minute,' he muttered without looking at her.
'Who do you think you're talking to? Some people have a nerve! Just because you're driving some car worth a fortune you think you can ignore traffic laws, don't you? Well, you can't, mister. I don't care who you are, you're not parking on a double yellow line in my zone!' She was scribbling on a sheet of paper as she talked and Joe's head swivelled to watch her as she stalked over to his car and stuck the ticket under his windscreen wiper. Arms akimbo, she gave him a triumphant glare. 'And if you haven't moved it in five minutes, it'll be towed away to the police car pound,' she promised with every sign of extreme satisfaction.
'You know what you are?' Joe roared, striding back towards his car. 'If there's one thing I can't stand it's petty bureaucrats in uniform!'
The taxi driver, sympathetically excited, stuck his head out of his window to watch. 'Put a woman in a uniform and what do you get? Mother Hitler,' he commented.
'Are you parked there or are you taking those people somewhere?' the traffic warden demanded before her attention was distracted by Joe, who, with a savage expression, had snatched the ticket from his windscreen and was ripping it to shreds and throwing the little fragments up into the air. 'Here! I suppose you think that's funny?' she shrieked, turning on him.
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