‘Yes.’ The driver, a girl called Ruth Tiller, answered. ‘We went up for Bill Yates’s party last night.’
‘All the way on the scooter?’ I wondered why Richard had not mentioned anything about that party to me. Bill was one of his friends. Richard and I were both free.
‘No. We left it at Hilldown. It was a good party.’
‘Fine. And how’s the old firm?’
‘Still standing.’ They exchanged another peculiar smile. ‘Lots of changes going on up there since you left,’ added June Franklin. She suddenly gaped at something behind me. ‘Johnny! I thought this was your weekend off?’
‘That’s right.’ He joined us in the lane, and produced a delightful smile. ‘I’m not going away after all.’ He turned to me. ‘Sorry you’ve had such a long wait.’
The scooter rocked perceptibly. Ruth Tiller righted it with one foot against the bank, muttered something about their missing lunch if they did not get on, kicked the starter, and they roared on uphill and disappeared into the main gates.
Johnny’s smile vanished with them. ‘Albert asked me to give you a message from Richard Bartney.’
‘Richard’s on the phone?’
‘No.’ He looked at his feet. ‘He’s held up. He asked one of the porters in town to ring Albert. He’s very sorry, but he won’t be able to get down as arranged.’
I had not yet recovered from his tactful handling of those girls. ‘Thanks. I suppose his weekend’s been changed’ ‒ then I remembered that, had that happened, it would have happened by ten this morning ‒ ‘or something.’
‘Yes.’ He looked up, flexed his shoulders the way he did in the theatre just before attempting something extra difficult. ‘Could be. Things do have to get scrapped. Just happened to me, too.’
I nodded without really listening. My mind was on Richard. It was then I realized this was a straight standing-up.
And yet, why? It did not make sense. Not after his ringing to make the final arrangements only last Thursday. Richard would not do this to me, without any warning.
Wouldn’t he? jeered a nasty little voice somewhere in the back of my mind. Wasn’t it exactly the kind of thing Richard would do? Hadn’t he always had a dread of anything that might conceivably lead to an emotional scene? And as for his giving no warning, how about the telephone-calls he had not made and the letters he had not written me ever since I arrived at the annexe? And how about those two girls just now and June’s crack about the changes in town? That made sense all right if Richard was running around with another girl. Everyone in our particular circle in town knew about him and myself. The grapevine up there must be buzzing with the story.
I should have been very hurt. I was too angry for that, yet, and most of my anger was directed at myself. So much for being such an understanding little woman! I ought to have my head examined for being such a trusting moron.
Then I remembered Johnny. He knew about Richard, and what was worse, he would know for sure whether or not he was free to-day. The two branches of the hospital were so interdependent; the twin residents’ off-duty rotas were pinned up side by side in all their sitting-rooms. Why, why, why, of all the men in Simeon’s did he have to be the one with me now!
His expression gave nothing away. He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, held it out.
‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ve given it up.’
‘One won’t give you carcinoma,’ he went on, offering me the packet. ‘Take it.’
‘I just don’t want one, thank you, Mr Druro.’
He lit two, handed me one. ‘If you don’t want it hang on to it for me. I’ll be back in a minute. There’s something I have to do. Wait here.’
I waited, mainly out of curiosity. Johnny was behaving so oddly, and as wondering about him was infinitely preferable to wondering about Richard ‒ I would have to do that later, and it was not going to be pleasant ‒ I concentrated on Johnny as a counter-irritant.
He walked up to the lodge, spent a minute or so with Albert, then disappeared behind the lodge. A car engine was revved, then a largish, fairly elderly black car came out of the main gates. Johnny was driving.
He stopped by me, slid along the front seat, opened the nearside door. ‘Come on. Get in.’
I stayed sitting on the bank. ‘Why?’
‘You’ve been stood up. I’ve been stood up. We have to eat. We may as well eat together.’
I had asked for that. It did not mean I had to like it. ‘Thanks for the invitation. I’m not all that hungry, so if you don’t mind I’ll skip lunch and go back to the Home.’
He left that car blocking the lane and came round to me. ‘I should have guessed you’d be the type to do a “patience on a bloody monument” act.’
That had me on my feet. ‘I am not acting. I just don’t feel like a hotel lunch.’
‘Who said anything about a hotel? I’ve got a dirty great picnic basket full of food in the back of my car. Sister Dining-room laid it on for me. I can’t eat the stuff alone. Take me all weekend. You’d better come. You’re upsetting Albert ‒ and I want to talk to you.’
I looked at the lodge. Albert was watching us with fascinated interest. ‘What do you want to talk to me about?’
‘Get in, and I’ll tell you.’ He practically pushed me into the car. ‘Now get on that safety-belt, girl.’
‘Mr Druro,’ I said between my teeth, ‘may I remind you that we are not on duty now?’
‘And would I be man-handling you like this’ ‒ he hitched the harness over my shoulder ‒ ‘if we were? Really, Kirsty, for an apparently intelligent girl you do make the most asinine remarks at times. In fact’ ‒ he started the engine and we were off down the hill ‒ ‘you are so damn silly you deserve to be left to cope with the consequences of your own folly. But as I have to be grateful for what you’ve done for Dave, and you seem incapable of adding two and two about Richard Bartney, I’ll have to do the sum for you.’
‘I can do my own sums, thanks. When sums are necessary. I just don’t go round jumping to conclusions, as you seem to do’ ‒ which was not strictly true, but I was far too angry to care ‒ ‘since I trust my friends.’
‘How very splendid.’ He swung the car across the first bypass junction and up the lane that wandered round the foot of the hills. ‘I suppose none of these trustworthy characters has had the guts to take you on one side and tell you the truth about Richard?’ he jeered.
‘No. But you, of course, are going to do just that,’ I jeered back.
He stopped the car in the next passing-place, switched off the engine, faced me before answering. ‘Yes. I am. Since I think you have to know about him and Sonia Dinsford.’
That shook me. ‘Sonia ‒ Sonia Dinsford?’
‘Yes. You know her latest engagement’s off?’ I nodded. ‘Well, she’s about to acquire a new ring. That’s right. From Richard. He’s spending this weekend with her parents. It was only arranged this morning, and Sonia’s throwing a mammoth party tonight. A lot of Simeon’s people will be there. The general idea is that it’s to be a semi-official affair with a touching little romantic announcement at the end to round off the evening. If Richard does as well with the old man as he has with the daughter there should be another paragraph in the gossip columns next week. It’ll surprise no one at Simeon’s, with a couple of exceptions. So now,’ he added abruptly, ‘you know. And in case you wonder how I know all this, I’ll tell you. I’ve just been talking to Sonia on the telephone. There had previously been talk of her coming down here for the day. She’s opted out of that ‒ asked me to go up to town instead and join the merry party. I loathe parties. Understand?’
I did not. I was in a complete daze. But I had to say something. ‘Yes, Mr Druro,’ I lied mechanically, ‘I do.’
His face tightened as if I had hit him. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, girl! We’re not in the ruddy wards! Drop that bloody Mister. I’m only a ruddy registrar. And I’ve had just about enough of things for one morning. Here’ ‒ he threw hi
s cigarettes and matches at me, started the car ‒ ‘light one of those for me too. I need it.’
Chapter Six
A PICNIC ON A HILL
He was silent for some time. That suited me. I was in no mood for small talk.
I thought back to that hot summer night in London, the way Richard had so suddenly changed his mind about going to the Ball, and the way not one of my friends at Simeon’s proper had happened to notice him there.
I did not blame the girls in town, or Phil down here, for being reluctant to tell me the truth. In their place I would probably have done the same. And yet if Johnny had not had to be in the lodge this morning for reasons of his own, my ignorance would have given the annexe one of its best laughs in years.
I thought about Richard. He knew I would be waiting, if not in the lane, in the Home. And it obviously had not meant one thing to him.
I knew I was not the first or last girl to have this kind of thing happen. I had often heard similar tales from my friends. It was the first time it had happened to me, and I was very, very angry. It was not Richard’s losing interest in me that was the real cause, but his method of showing me he had. Even Sonia had had the decency to tell Johnny herself on the telephone.
That made me look at him. This was no fun for him, either. If it were possible he was probably even angrier with Richard than I was. And as for Sonia’s following up her news with an invitation to her party tonight ‒ although that might have sounded incredible behaviour, it was quite credible to anyone who knew her. There was nothing she enjoyed more than the teenage pastime of playing off one man against another. She was a surprisingly good nurse and in her twenties, but off duty she had not yet grown up.
I was academically interested to discover I had no hard feelings for her at all. She could not help her face, or her money, and now, looking back, I had a hunch that she might be ‒ for her ‒ very seriously in love with Richard. He had no money beyond his houseman’s pay, was only on the lowest rung of the hospital ladder, but then he was one of the best-looking men in Simeon’s and, as every girl with whom I had discussed him always admitted, loaded with sex. He only had to smile at me to make me feel weak, and had clearly hit Sonia between the eyes at that first meeting. The fact that he had then apparently been my property would have made him doubly attractive to her. That was how her mind worked. Johnny probably did not know it, but one of the reasons why what had just happened had happened was his one-track mind. If he had only belonged to, or even looked longingly at, another girl, Sonia would have looked at him with new eyes.
I did not tell him this since it was scarcely a reflection with which to comfort a man whose pride has just been shoved down his throat. Remembering my own immediate reaction to his being with me, it was easy to guess how much he must be disliking having me along.
Not that he showed any sign of remembering I was there. He kept his eyes on the road ahead and was still silent. The clear afternoon light exposed with cruel clarity the lines round his eyes, the shadows beneath, the tautness of the skin over his cheekbones. He looked older than twenty-nine. Older, and very controlled, as if he had himself as well as life very much in hand.
At last I asked, ‘Where are you going?’
‘Resting Hill. We can eat there. You’ll know it.’
‘No.’
‘You do,’ he insisted impatiently. ‘It’s part of the Pilgrims’ Way, on the north horizon from the annexe. You see it every day.’
‘I meant I’ve not been there. Is it far?’
‘Twenty miles from here. Why? Hungry?’
‘No.’
‘Then the drive may give you an appetite. We have to eat somewhere. I am in no mood for picnicking in the shadow of the annexe.’ He changed gear violently; the gear-box grated. ‘We can enjoy the view.’
I said nothing. I could understand his desire to get out of annexe territory. If Richard and I had been around together down here I would have wanted the same. The lanes from the hospital to Hilldown and Downly Green, our nearest village, the local pubs and country hotels, all favourite off-duty spots for the annexe staff, must have been haunted for him. Sonia was no outdoor girl. She would insist on keeping her feet and sherry dry. It was highly improbable she had ever allowed him to drive her thirty miles across open country just to look at a view from the top of a hill.
Those last twenty miles seemed endless. The silence in the car was deafening. When we reached the flat crest of the downs Johnny drove on to the scrubby grass, switched off, reached into the back for a rug that had fallen on to the floor.
‘We may as well eat out, as it’s fine.’ He found a mackintosh, slung it plus the rug over his shoulder. ‘This’ll do if you’re cold.’ He got out. ‘Not much wind. Coming?’ He waited only long enough to see. I had unhitched the safety-belt, then walked off with Sister Dining-room’s picnic-basket.
He chose a spot by a low, curved bracken bush about forty yards off and spread out the rug. Directly ahead the ground ran clear to the edge of the down, then dropped sharply for some hundreds of feet to the flat valley below.
The wind was only a breeze up there; the surrounding countryside was very still. There was not a car, an isolated tractor, or a cottage in sight. The hospital hill was a blue ridge in the distance.
It had been summer only a few days ago. That day the pale, bronze sun had only an autumnal warmth. Overhead a few small clouds chased each other across the sky.
The breeze lifted Johnny’s hair, making it more curly. From his back he could have been Dave. The thought of Dave’s reaction if he could see us now made me smile wryly. And where was Mr A. N. Other? Where, indeed?
A sense of total unreality swept over me. This just could not be happening. I could not be here alone with Johnny Druro on what looked like the edge of the world, and about to share a picnic luncheon.
I had been walking gingerly in the very high heels I had put on for Richard’s benefit. He detested women in flat shoes, and since his idea of taking country air was to take it in a closed car travelling fast, I had not anticipated doing any walking in those decorative but exceedingly uncomfortable shoes. The turf was soft, and my heels kept sinking in and tripping me up.
Johnny glanced over his shoulder. ‘Unless you want a busted ankle you had better take those things off. God knows why you’ve got them on. Only a moron would wear heels like that in the country.’
I let that one go, and took them off. He returned to organizing the rug, and my world returned to something like normal. That was dear old Johnny, all right, so this had to be me.
The rug was large enough for two. He left it to me, and settled on the grass at my feet. ‘Here’ ‒ he passed me the basket ‒ ‘will you share out?’
I raised my eyebrows at the contents. ‘Sister Dining-room’s given you enough for a siege.’
‘She has a generous nature. And provides good sandwiches.’ He spoke casually, but the faint dull flush that crept up his face reminded me I had been unintentionally tactless. ‘One thing, the weather’s good.’
‘Yes.’ I wondered whether to apologize for dropping that brick, decided it would be wiser to let things slide. And then, as once again it was a counter-irritant, I thought how little even very intelligent men really know about women. Johnny could not know the first thing about Sonia if he thought she would allow him to drive her out into the wilds and then be content with sandwiches. Cold roast turkey and champagne might just have mollified her. Ham, cheese, and hard-boiled eggs? Never in a hundred years.
His attitude reminded me of my brothers. Joe, the elder, was crazy on sport, and yet only attracted by the kind of girl who winces at a sports flash on the television screen. I had spent hours and hours explaining to Joe that there were some girls who just did not regard standing freezing in a muddy field watching rugger as one of life’s golden pleasures.
Bill, my other brother, was passionately musical, but fascinated by buxom brunettes who all looked as if they had just come from, or were going to, a fine, heal
thy game of hockey. He dragged the poor girls to symphony concerts, then groaned to me about never getting to first base. I had explained to him too. Eventually some of my advice had penetrated, if not quite in the way I had expected. According to one of my mother’s recent letters, Joe had started going to concerts and Bill had joined the local badminton club!
Johnny was six years older than Joe. He had no sisters. He could use one. I did not offer my services.
He stretched out on the grass, resting his head on one arm, his free hand shielding his eyes from the glare, and stifling a series of yawns. ‘Sorry. Fresh air always makes me sleepy.’
It was not only fresh air. He looked even more tired than at that window last night. ‘Late night?’
‘Early morning.’ He turned on one side to face me, propping himself on an elbow. ‘There should be coffee somewhere and two mugs.’
I found the Thermos. ‘Like yours now?’
‘After you’ve helped yourself.’
I poured, handed him his, and we were silent again. Despite all that space, the silence was even more constricting than in the car. I had to break it. ‘More coffee?’
‘If there is, please. Thanks.’
I refilled his mug, and as I held it out to him he suddenly sat up properly. ‘Dave tells me you fish.’
‘Fish?’ I echoed, and idiotically let go of the mug. It shot forward, spilling most of its contents in his face, the rest down his jacket.
‘I’m terribly sorry!’ And I was. ‘Has that scalded?’
‘Only hot.’ He mopped his face with a handkerchief, and smiled for the first time since those girls left us in the lane. ‘I’ve often seen you look as if you’d love to chuck something at me in the past. Now I know your aim’s so good I’ll walk warily in future. Purely as a matter of interest ‒ why should fishing prove the last straw?’
‘It wasn’t. I was just surprised. I really am very sorry. Are you sure you’re not scalded?’
‘Lord, yes. It didn’t hurt.’ He touched his cheeks. ‘Nothing like hot enough for that. Even if it had been, my unfortunate face has had much more than hot coffee chucked at it in its time.’
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