by Lilian Peake
No Friend of Mine – Lilian Peake
Harlequin Presents edition published July 1977 ISBN 0-373-70698-7
Original hardcover edition published in 1972 by Mills & Boon Limited
Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough! In youth it sheltered me,
And I’ll protect it now.
GEORGE POPE MORRIS, 1802-1867.
CHAPTER 1
IT was Saturday and the town clock chimed half-past midday. The people hurrying past the shop were too preoccupied with thoughts of lunch to hover and gaze as they usually did at the radios and televisions and electrical equipment on display in the window.
Elise tugged her handbag from underneath the counter and opened the door into the office at the back of the shop. Her employer, Phil Pollard, was at his desk checking invoices against goods received.
He glanced up, his round boyish face with its smooth cheeks and high colour crinkling characteristically into a smile.
‘Going home?’
Elise nodded, thinking he looked younger than his years despite his thickening figure, and she knew that where she, his part-time assistant, was concerned, he traded on the fact. He had never given up hope that one day he would persuade her to marry him.
He lifted his hand, still holding a batch of invoices. ‘Right, see you Monday. Enjoy your weekend. Doing anything special?’
His tone was light, but the touch of wistfulness which underlined it was not lost on Elise. His constant dread, he had told her once, half in fun, was that she would arrive at work one day wearing an engagement ring. But Elise knew that the chances of that happening were as likely as a snowstorm at the Equator.
Answering his question, she shook her head. ‘Just lazing - after I’ve done the household chores and talked Dad and my brother into tidying up.’
‘Well,’ she could see his mind had already flitted back to his work, ‘if you’re at a loose end, just ring me. We could go for a run in the car.’ He smiled hopefully as if thinking that perhaps this time she might take him up on his invitation.
She closed the shop door behind her, cutting off sharply the buzz of the warning bell. She lingered for a few moments to inspect with pride the window display which she had arranged, avoiding with something like distaste her own reflection which stared transparently back at her from the plate glass window.
She never looked at herself for long. Her clothes were plain, her hair shoulder-length, its colour a noncommittal light brown. She took little care with her appearance. ‘I’ve no one to dress up for,’ she would tell herself whenever a feeling of dissatisfaction prodded her sleeping conscience into wakefulness. She closed her mind, locked and bolted it, to the awareness of the passing of time and to the misgivings which nagged at her whenever she saw girls five or six years her junior comfortably settled with husbands and the beginnings of a family.
As she stared through herself at the window display, she allowed her eyes to be caught and held by the stereo receiver she longed to buy. If only, she thought, turning away and walking to the bus stop, I could persuade Dad to let me install it in the sitting-room. For months she had tried to make him change his mind, but he was adamant.
As she waited in the queue and counted out her fare, she could almost hear her father’s voice. ‘It’s out of the question, love. You know how much work I have to do at home, marking students’ homework and preparing lectures. I couldn’t stand the noise.’
The bus stopped and the people filed on. She paid her fare and gazed out of the window. She supposed he was right. His work at the technical college had to come first and now he was a widower, he seemed to live for little else, apart from his garden.
She walked along the driveway, taking out her door key and passing her brother’s car which was parked as usual in front of the garage. She opened the door, hoping that one of the men had set the table for lunch.
The warmth of the central heating came at her as she entered the hall. It was not a modern house they lived in, yet not so old that it could not be so described by an estate agent if they ever decided to move.
As she hung up her coat, she half-listened to the raised voices coming from the sitting-room. There was nothing unusual about that, as her father and brother often argued. Then she listened more carefully. Surely there was a third voice, a man’s, pleasing, self-assured and talking as familiarly and easily as if he were among friends?
‘Elise!’ She heard her brother calling. With an anxious gesture she raised her hands to smooth her hair and opened the sitting-room door. Three pairs of eyes turned towards her - her father’s, her brother’s and those of a stranger.
He was tall, his face fine-boned and sensitive, and his deepset keenly blue eyes, which were now warm and smiling, gave advance warning of a temperament which could be a force to be reckoned with if crossed. His manner was relaxed and he was looking at her as if he had known her all his life.
‘Hallo, Elise.’ he said. ‘Remember me?’
She stared, searched his face for a clue to his identity, groped about bewildered in the dark corners of her memory and stumbled on the answer.
‘You’re not-you’re not Lester Kings?’
‘He is.’ answered her brother. ‘It took you long enough to recognise him.’
‘She could be forgiven for that, Roland.’ her father said. ‘It is, after all, let me see, seventeen years since she last saw him. That’s right, isn’t it, Lester?’
‘Quite right, Mr. Lennan. She was -er-nine.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Correct, Elise?’
‘Yes. And you and Roland were - to me - “old men” of seventeen!’
Lester laughed and moved towards her, hand outstretched. ‘Let’s shake on it.’ She put her hand in his. ‘Happy reunion.’ he said, and pulled her towards him. ‘May I? For old times’ sake?’
She coloured and offered him her cheek.
Lester frowned, pretending to be hurt. ‘Fobbing me off with second-best already?’
Roland laughed. ‘She’s putting on the little sister act, Lester.’
‘Is she? In that case I suppose I’ll just have to play big brother and like it.’ His lips touched her cheek.
‘Has she changed, Lester?’ Mr. Lennan wanted to know.
Lester’s eyes moved over her face, seeing her well marked eyebrows now drawn together in an embarrassed frown, her full lips, spoilt by a hint of discontent, her grey-blue eyes with a suggestion of unhappiness in their depths.
‘Beyond recognition.’ he said. ‘If I had met her in the street, I would have passed her by.’
Elise pulled her hand from his. It was almost as if he had written her off as a nonentity. Although he had softened his words with a kindly smile, she knew by the tone of his voice that she had failed to pass his test. She had, in those few seconds, been tried and found wanting.
She forced herself to smile. ‘You’ve changed, too.’
‘Oh? In what way?’
‘You’ve improved.’
He threw back his head and laughed with the others. That implies,’ he said when they had stopped, ‘that in the past there was room for improvement. Tell me, how have I improved? In looks? In manner?’
She considered him, her head on one side. ‘Yes, in looks. You used to wear glasses.’
‘Ah, I still do - contact lenses. That fooled you, didn’t it?’
‘In manner - well, I can’t tell yet, can I? I remember that you often annoyed me. You were so high-handed. And you always laughed at me.’
‘My word, you did think a lot of me in the old days! Now the truth’s coming out.’
‘What are you doing about lunch, Lester?’ Mr. Lennan asked. ‘Can we persuade you to share ours?’
Lester looked enqui
ringly at Elise.
‘You’re welcome to stay, Lester.’ she said. ‘It’s only cold meat and salad, but - ‘
‘ “Only”? It’s my favourite dish.’ he joked. Elise turned to go. ‘You’re quite sure, Elise?’ She saw his mocking smile and wondered what was coming. ‘You don’t still hate my guts and want to get rid of me?’
‘I’ll answer those two questions in a few weeks’ time.’ She stopped in the doorway. ‘Or are you just passing through?’
‘No. My grandfather sent an SOS. His firm’s in such a mess administratively that he asked me to come and take over and pull him out of it. So I resigned my job and here I am.’
She frowned. ‘So that means you’ve come to stay?’
‘It does. Don’t look so disappointed.’ he laughed. ‘We’re old friends, after all.’
‘You were Roland’s friend.’ she answered quietly. ‘You were never mine.’ Before she closed the door, she saw the smile in his eyes grow cold.
It was after lunch. The washing up was behind them and they were relaxing in the sitting-room in front of a roaring fire which Mr. Lennan had declared they needed, in spite of an efficient central heating system. ‘It may be old fashioned.’ he would say, ‘but it’s a point of warmth to gather round.’
Warmth was something Harold Lennan seemed to need these days. Tall, carrying well the rotundity common to some men of his age, his face, when caught off guard and without the good humour which was an important part of his personality, reflected the need for the hard shell of solitude into which he had withdrawn after the death of his wife.
Since that event five years before, he had assumed a veneer of unemotional-ism which, his daughter guessed, covered an underlying and inconsolable sadness. His attitude of apparent acceptance of the inevitable, of whatever came along was, she suspected, a salve for the deep pain caused by the terrible blow life had dealt him - the loss of his beloved wife.
But perversely that loss seemed to have bound the family together more securely than her continued presence might have done. Sometimes Harold would look at his two children with amused despair. ‘They won’t leave me.’ he would say. ‘We’re three single units fused into one. I’m destined never to be a grandfather.’
‘Where are you living, Lester?’ Roland asked.
‘In digs at present, in a couple of rooms offered to me by an acquaintance of my grandfather’s housekeeper. They’ll do until I can move in with my grandfather. He’s having a room prepared for me.’
‘Has your granddad still got Mrs. Dennis?’ Mr. Lennan asked. Lester nodded. ‘So he’s kept her all these years! They’re two such awkward characters I’d have thought a clash would have been inevitable long before now.’
Lester laughed. ‘From what I can gather, in the early days there were many clashes, but it seems that Mrs. Dennis now has him just where she wants him. He thinks he’s the boss of the household, but she knows she is!’ They laughed.
Lester looked at Elise curled up in an armchair, her feet lifted and tucked beneath her. Her head was resting on a cushion and she was staring into the yellow flames licking greedily up the chimney.
‘Talking of boss, Elise.’ he said, and waited until she turned her head towards him. Her eyes were distant and dreamy and he leaned forward and moved his hand from side to side in front of her face. ‘Are you receiving me?’
She smiled. ‘I heard every word you said.’
‘That makes a change.’ her brother commented. ‘Sometimes it’s almost impossible to communicate with that girl. She lives in a world of her own.’
‘Talking of boss.’ Lester repeated, looking at Roland, ‘does she work for her living?’
‘Of course I do!’ She was fully aroused now and annoyed that he was talking about her as though she was too unintelligent to answer for herself. ‘Part-time, in a hi-fi shop.’
He seemed puzzled. ‘In a shop? But haven’t you had any training?’
‘Yes, in secretarial studies. I started off by working in the office at the back of the shop, then Mr. Pollard asked if I’d mind helping him serve the customers.’
‘It’s quite useful having her there.’ Roland said. ‘She gets things at a discount for us. You should see the expensive equipment she’s got upstairs in her room.’
Lester smiled and his eyes were provocative. ‘Perhaps she’ll invite me up there to look at it some time.’
‘It’s no good, Lester. She’s not that sort of a girl.’
Lester studied her for a long time. Embarrassed, she turned away from his scrutiny. ‘No.’ he said flatly, ‘I can see she’s not.’
Mr. Lennan stood and stretched, turning his back to the fire which was dying down now. ‘It’s not for want of offers, though, is it, Elise?’
‘An offer.’ his son corrected. ‘Her boss, Phil Pollard, offers her his hand and his fortune (and I mean his fortune - he’s got two or three thriving branches in other towns) at regular intervals.’
‘Oh?’ Lester contemplated her. ‘And what’s wrong with that?’
‘A lot.’ said Harold, pausing at the door. ‘He’s just past fifty, only a few years younger than I am.’ He went out.
Lester laughed and taunted, ‘Is that the best you can do, Elise?’
‘She’s ice-cold, Lester. She’s got no interest in men.’
‘Therefore men have no interest in her.’ His eyes skated scathingly over her careless appearance and her unmade up face. His expression, when he had finished, dismissed her as totally devoid of physical attraction, at least as far as he was concerned. She bunched up a cushion under her head and pressed her burning cheek against it.
He rose and walked to the French windows, staring out at the garden. ‘So that’s where your father is, Roland. What does he find to do out there in February?’
‘Plenty. Gardening is his hobby. Even when it’s in perfect order - to us - he’s dissatisfied with it. If there’s no work to do, he makes it!’
Lester grew reminiscent. ‘In that case, it’s a good job there are no kids around to play cricket on that lawn nowadays. Remember how we used to take it in turns to have the bat and bowl to one another?’
‘We broke a few windows in our time, didn’t we?’ Roland looked round at his sister, who had not stirred from the armchair. ‘And - nearly - a few heads. Remember that celebrated occasion when Elise got in the way?’
Lester winced. ‘Good heavens, yes. I shrink from the thought.’
‘I’d bowled to you, hadn’t I?’ Roland said, ‘and you swung the bat up over your shoulder ready to take a swipe at the ball, Elise ran across in front of you and the bat made hard and heavy contact with her head.’
Lester put a hand to his own head as if it hurt to think of it. ‘And she went flying across the lawn and lay there screaming. I thought I’d killed her, or at least cracked her head open! But astonishingly, the doctor couldn’t find anything seriously wrong.’
‘She never forgave you for that incident. Did you know?’
Lester walked from the window and stood looking down at her. She stared up at him, the reflected firelight flickering in her eyes.
‘Is that so, Elise? You never forgave me?’
She shook her head. ‘And when after that you kept calling me “cricket ball” I absolutely hated you.’
Roland joined his friend. ‘Then there was the day she had her own back. You put your hands round her head and pretended to “bowl” her to me.’
‘Yes, I certainly remember. She turned on me and bit me, vicious little devil that she was. Her teeth went so deep I nearly had to have stitches in the wound.’
He watched for her reaction, but she made no response, just stared into the embers. Lester, hands in pockets, dipped his head in her direction. He asked, half jokingly, ‘Is she always as quiet and subdued as this?’
Roland nodded. ‘Nothing seems to arouse her these days.’
‘Nothing?’ asked Lester. ‘Nothing at all, Elise?’ His grin was provocative. ‘Is that a challenge?’
‘My word.’ he went on, ‘she’s changed even more than I thought she had. Where’s the little spitfire she used to be? I can remember her screams whenever she didn’t get her own way. She was a little horror, wasn’t she, Roland?’ He smiled as he watched the annoyance in her eyes increase. ‘I can remember saying I didn’t envy you having her as a sister, and that I wouldn’t have her as my sister at any price.’
They laughed, enjoying the joke at her expense, and she was plunged straight back into the past. She was a child again and they were two maddening boys, superior in age, size and intellect, and she was a helpless, furious little girl, defenseless against their masculinity. And she wanted to use her teeth to get her own back. She flushed heavily and bit her lip. Lester grinned and she could almost hear him thinking, ‘At last, a positive reaction.’
Roland bent down to make up the fire and picked up the empty coal bucket. He said he wouldn’t be long and went outside to fill it.
Lester threw himself into the other armchair and there was silence for a while. The fresh coal on the fire sparked and hissed and flames shot upwards, blue-green and yellow, as if overjoyed at having been brought back to life.
‘So the vicious tiger cub turned tamely and disappointingly into a little mouse.’ The taunt, spoken like the ending of a child’s story, came from him goading, chafing like an irritant, prodding her out of her impassivity. But she merely moved her shoulders, shrugging them as if to throw off an aggravation.
He went on, his tone still provocative, ‘So you never really forgave me for what I did to you?’ She shook her head. ‘Even though it was an accident.’ He watched her closely. ‘Now I’ll show you something.’ He sat forward. ‘Come here, Elise.’
His commanding tone annoyed her, and for a moment she did not move. Then, feeling again like a child being dominated and ordered about by her brother’s infuriating friend, she uncurled herself slowly from the armchair and walked across the rug to stand in front of him, pushing her hair back with both hands and smoothing the creases from her skirt.
He lifted his right hand and with his left forefinger indicated an area on the back of his right thumb. ‘Look closely. It’s a scar, isn’t it? Your scar, the one your teeth left behind all those years ago. That was no accident. It was put there deliberately by a vindictive little fiend called Elise Lennan. I can never forget her, can I? Whether I want to or not, I’ll have to explain it away to everyone who asks about it, my wife when I get one, my kids and my grandchildren. So I’ve got it with me, that reminder of you, as long as I live.’ He pulled her down on to the arm of his chair. ‘Now, if she couldn’t forgive me for something that was accidental, why should I forgive her for something that was inflicted intentionally?’