by Lilian Peake
Their eyes met, the room faded and time itself stood still. She moistened her lips and found her voice.
‘Even to you?’ she whispered.
‘Even to me,’ he whispered back.
With an effort their eyes disentangled and he returned to his desk. She sat, twisting her hands, her back to him.
‘Is that all?’ she asked at last.
‘That’s all, thanks.’ He sounded terse. ‘If you can hang on for a few minutes, I’ll take you home.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I can get a bus.’
He stood at his desk, reading a letter, and ignored her remark. She put on her jacket and sat down again.
He dropped the letter. ‘Ready?’ he asked.
They went out the back way. ‘I haven’t said goodbye to your grandfather.’
‘I assure you, he won’t even notice.’
She wondered why he sounded so short-tempered. ‘I’m afraid it’ll have to be the van. My car’s being serviced.’
She opened the passenger’s door, picked up the white safety helmet which she assumed was Lester’s, and settled uncomfortably into the hard seat. As he joined the traffic on the main road, she examined the helmet on her lap, noting the two crowns - the Kings’ crest - on the front.
‘How is it,’ she asked, ‘that your helmet is white but other men on the site have yellow or red ones?’
‘Ah, now, that’s a sort of colour coding. People in charge, like me, and visitors, wear white ones. Others, such as drivers, operators of mechanical equipment like excavators and so on, wear yellow. Bricklayers and the like wear red.’
‘So you can see at a glance who is doing what by the colour of then safety helmets?’
‘Correct.’ He smiled. ‘An intelligent deduction, which is what I would have expected from my old friend’s sister.’
She coloured at his second compliment of the day. ‘Thanks.’ She went on, ‘Are helmets compulsory?’
‘They are, but it’s not unusual for some of the men to take them off, although if I catch them doing it, they get a rocket from me.’ After a pause he asked, in an odd tone, ‘How’s friend Pollard these days? Still organising protest meetings about the new estate?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she answered slowly. ‘Why?’
He didn’t reply. Instead he asked another question. ‘Has he accepted the house-building as an inescapable fact of life?’
‘I doubt it. He still gets angry when the subject is mentioned.’
‘Oh.’ He shot her a glance. ‘And you? Have you accepted it, or does the sight of those houses going up goad you into a self-righteous fury?’
She frowned, wondering what he was getting at. ‘Yes,’ she said shortly.
‘And yet you still agreed to come and help me, or rather my grandfather, in the office?’
She laughed without humour. ‘I see what you mean. Ironic, isn’t it?’ i
‘Very,’ he commented dryly. ‘Unless it was my magnetic charm you couldn’t resist?’
It was a question she refused to answer. Instead she asked another. ‘When will you want me to help you again?’
‘So you’re still willing to collaborate with the enemy?’ She looked at him quickly, wondering if he was serious, but he was smiling. ‘You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?’
What was he trying to prove - that she was only too ready to go against her principles? She battled with her conscience which was struggling to tell her he was right.
‘So you don’t want my help?’ she snapped, realising too late that her display of irritation would tell him that his taunt had hit the target.
‘But of course I do.’ His voice was silky soft. ‘You’re indispensable to me.’ His hand covered hers until she snatched it away. His tone returned to normal. ‘I’ll let you know when. In a day or two probably.’
He pulled up outside her house and she got out. He asked, ‘Will Roland be in this evening?’
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know my brother’s movements these days. Once I could have said “yes” without hesitation, but now - -‘
‘He’s unpredictable now he’s got a woman in tow?’ She didn’t answer. ‘All right, I’ll call in just in case.’ She turned away. ‘Elise.’ She stopped. ‘Thanks for your help.’
She smiled briefly over her shoulder and went in.
After the evening meal, her father went up to his room as usual. Elise told Roland, ‘Lester said he would come this evening.’
‘Oh. That’s awkward. Clare’s coming.’ She shrugged. ‘Then he’ll just have to go away again, won’t he?’
Clare, she thought bitterly, as she washed up, should be my friend, not Roland’s. Lester had called her ‘the only friend I’ve ever had’. Now I’ve not only lost her, but Roland’s companionship too. Once it wouldn’t have mattered. Now, her loneliness was a pain she had to learn to endure all over again.
Clare came and brought her gaiety with her. Watching Clare with her brother, Elise realised how deeply in love they were. ‘It won’t be long,’ she thought, sitting in the armchair while they held hands on the couch, ‘it can’t be long before they marry.’
When Lester came, she let him in. He raised his eyebrows and indicated the sitting-room. ‘Yes?’ he asked.
‘Yes, he’s in, but Clare’s with him.’
‘Oh.’ He rubbed his chin, hesitating.
‘Go in and see them, anyway. I told Roland you were coming.’
He stood at the door, watching them, ‘Hallo, you two.’
Roland extended his hand. ‘Hallo there. Haven’t seen you for some time, Lester.’
‘You’ve been much better occupied, haven’t you?’ He looked round for a seat and made for the armchair.
Elise beat him to it, and he clenched his fist and playfully pushed it towards her chin. Then he sat on the arm of her chair and smiled at the couple on the couch.
‘I must say it’s good to see my old friend Roland so happily settled with the lady of his choice.’
‘Do you approve?’ asked Clare, with a smile.
‘Heartily,’ came the unequivocal answer. ‘Although I myself have renounced women for the rest of my life, I’m nevertheless delighted when I see another man in love with a woman who loves him as deeply as he loves her.’
Elise stirred beside him and he looked down, but her face was resolutely turned away.
‘Elise, now,’ he said, smiling, ‘she’s acquired a boyfriend. Has she told you?’
‘She hasn’t!’ Clare was dumbfounded and sat forward out of the circle of Roland’s arm. ‘What do you mean by keeping this from me, Elise? Who is he? You, Lester?’
He gave a short sardonic laugh. ‘Me? You must be joking! She wouldn’t have me as a boyfriend if I were the last man on earth. Would you, Elise?’
She glared at him, knowing he was deliberately playing back to her the words she had used about him.
His arm, which had been resting across the back of her chair, moved down and his fingers lifted her hair and rested against her neck. She jerked away and he removed his hand.
‘You see?’ he said as if he had just conducted an experiment for his own satisfaction and proved himself to be right, ‘she flinches away from my touch, however slight.’
Roland and Clare were studying them with the detached surprise of a devoted couple who, wrapped around by their love, could not believe that everyone else was not in the same ecstatic state.
‘Her boyfriend’s name,’ said Lester, getting up and roaming about the room, ‘is Howard Beale. He’s a surveyor.’
‘This is news, Elise,’ said Roland, settling his arm more comfortably round Clare’s waist. ‘Does Dad know?’
‘Of course not. There’s nothing to tell. I only met the man last night. Lester introduced us.’
‘You like him, don’t you, Elise?’ She looked up and met Lester’s cynical smile. ‘Tell them how much you like Howard.’
‘LIKE him? How could I like him? He’s a pompous ass!’
‘But, my dear Elise,’ now Lester’s smile was goading, ‘what does that matter? He’s got plenty of money. He could give you everything you could possibly wish for. For instance, the very best in hi-fi equipment…’
‘Which he hates.’
‘So what? He could even afford to have a room specially sound-proofed so that you could listen to it without disturbing him.’
She rounded on him. ‘When - if - I marry, I’ll choose someone I can share my likes and dislikes with. Anyway, what are you trying to do - talk me into marrying him? Is that all you think I want,’ she cried, fighting the tears that threatened, ‘financial security, creature comforts?’ Roused to a state of unbearable envy by the sight of the couple on the couch, she jerked herself to her feet. Her voice rose out of control. ‘You think all I want to do is to sell myself to the highest bidder?’
She couldn’t see his face for tears and she rushed from the room, aware that Roland and Clare were staring open-mouthed at her uncharacteristic display of emotion.
Her bedroom was a refuge and the pillow she pressed against her cheek a solace. She didn’t know why she was crying, she only knew that as she did so, she felt an overwhelming relief from the pain inside, the pain of unreturned love.
She quieted at last and lay still, emotionally exhausted. She tensed. Someone was climbing the stairs. It was probably Clare coming to comfort her. The door opened and Lester walked in.
She lifted her head and asked belligerently, ‘What do you want?’
He answered quietly, ‘To see how you are.’
‘I’m not ill. I’m quite all right. You can go.’
He was silent, looking down at her. It was dusk now and the evening sky, flushed with the setting sun, glowed in the west, defying the encroaching clouds bringing darkness.
‘Shall I turn on the light?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Tell me,’ he walked to the window, ‘what’s wrong with Howard Beale?’
She hesitated. What was the purpose of his question? Was he testing her? ‘I - I know I could never love him.’ She lifted herself wearily and swung her feet to the floor, smoothing her hair and pressing the back of her hand against a burning cheek. ‘And when I marry - IF I marry - I want love, to give it and receive it, the sort of love my parents shared.’
He turned slowly from the window and leaned back against the sill. She could not see his face in the darkness.
‘Don’t fool yourself, Elise. There’s no such thing. If a man like Howard Beale - solid as a rock, with a stable, civilised personality - can offer you an assured future free from financial worries, you’d be a fool to refuse him.’ He finished bitterly, ‘Love? You can have it!’
‘How can you say that?’ she cried. ‘You’ve only got to look at Roland and Clare to see how wrong you are.’
‘They’re lucky, luckier than they know. In any case,’ he came to sit beside her, hands in pockets, ‘I can watch them quite dispassionately, without getting involved. I’m immune now. I just sit on the sidelines and observe others. I don’t feel a thing.’
‘You’re a cynic. You’ve let yourself turn sour.’
‘So what, I’ve turned sour. At least I won’t get hurt anymore.’
She despaired. She wished she knew some way of reaching him, of being like other girls who could let a man know they loved him without actually saying so. She forced herself to argue with him because she knew she had to. For the sake of the love she felt for him she had to try to reason him into a less bitter, less jaundiced state of mind.
‘And because a girl - one girl - let you down, you’ve allowed yourself to turn into a heartless, unfeeling - -‘ But he misinterpreted her intention and broke in angrily,
‘Here we go again, back to the monotonous recitation of my faults and failings. I know just what you think of me, you’ve told me often enough, so you can just shut up!’
It was dark now and the only light in the room came from the uncurtained windows of the houses opposite. He stood in silence for some time, staring out. Then he saw the doll lying, passive and lifeless, on the chair. He put his hand round its body and held it up to the window as if examining it. Its outline showed sharply against the semi-darkness beyond the glass. With a shrug, he dropped it back to the chair and went out.
CHAPTER 8
next morning Phil Pollard asked her how she felt after her excursion into enemy territory. ‘No injuries? No war wounds?’
She smiled. She could not tell him that the only wounds she had received were beneath the surface, invisible and irreparable.
‘While you were in Kings’ office, did you find out any secrets that might help us in our sabotage attempts?’
By the way he was smiling, she knew he was joking, but his words reminded her uncomfortably of Lester’s questions when he had taken her home from the office.
‘No,’ she laughed, ‘I learned nothing which might be of use in that respect Only things like delivery dates of materials and why certain items hadn’t arrived on the days specified and how this was holding up the building schedule.
Clare, who could hear them talking, called from the shop, ‘Did you see in the local paper yesterday that Kings are losing a lot of stuff from their site? They suspect someone of stealing it.’
‘What sort of stuff?’ Phil asked, preoccupied with sharpening a pencil.
Clare appeared at the office door. ‘Oh, copper tubing, bags of cement, timber and so on. Even large pieces of scaffolding. The odd thing is, apparently, whoever’s doing it knows what he’s about because the stuff he’s taking is stopping the builders getting on with the job.’
A customer came in and Clare went away to serve her. Elise sat in front of the typewriter. Her eyes were looking through some shorthand notes, but in her thoughts she was back in the Kings’ van being questioned by the grandson of the owner. Now she knew what he had been getting at. In a subtle way he had been trying to discover the strength of Phil’s feelings about the estate, whether in fact he felt badly enough about it to make him turn thief and try to sabotage the building operations.
‘Sabotage’ - that was the word Phil had just used. Her heart missed a beat. She looked at his profile. He was unconcernedly looking through a record catalogue. A little too unconcerned, perhaps?
As she began to type, she remembered with a shock that Lester had questioned her about her own feelings too. She stopped typing and felt herself growing hot with humiliation. So he suspected her of theft! Did he perhaps think she was ‘collaborating’ with Phil? Was his opinion of her as bad as that? She went back to her typing, her fingers pounding the keys, trying desperately to make the clatter drown the answer to the question.
Later that day she got the phone call she had been dreading.
‘Howard here,’ the caller said. ‘I assume you’re free this evening, Elise? I’ve found there’s a good play on at the repertory theatre in the town and I’ve bought a couple of tickets.’
His easy familiarity after only one meeting, his assumption that she was his for the taking and would be willing to follow wherever he led, brought her anger to boiling point. But she reduced the heat until it merely simmered and told him indifferently,
‘Yes, I could go with you.’
‘Good. I’ll call at seven. Goodbye till then.’
He rang off, having made what was obviously to him a business appointment. Before he arrived, she put on her plainest clothes, used to make-up and combed her hair so that it hung, loose and uninterestingly, to her shoulders. She would give him no encouragement either in appearance or behaviour.
But he didn’t even notice. He led her to the car, spoke on the way about everyday matters, commented on the pleasant weather they were having and was not put off in the least by her brief replies.
At the theatre they sat in the most expensive seats, shared the most costly box of chocolates the confectionery counter could offer, and in the interval drank the choicest wine in the bar. On the way home they discussed the play, or rather, Howard
talked and Elise listened. It was just as well, she thought. She could not have supplied any intelligent remarks with which to punctuate his conversation if he had required any. She hardly knew what the play had been about. She had watched, had, by using her instinct, looked sad and happy at all the right places, but nothing had registered.
He saw her to the front door, leaned forward, caught her shoulders and kissed her briefly on the mouth. He told her they would meet again soon.
As she let herself in, she decided that the kiss had been a premeditated act, part of a plan prepared in advance and decided upon after the situation had been methodically measured and estimated and valued. But as far as she was concerned, the friendship between them was a non-starter. It was over before it had even begun.
Roland called out from his bedroom that Lester had phoned while she was out. Would she go to the office next day and do the work he would leave on the desk?
She put her head round his door. ‘Did you tell him I’d gone out with Howard?’
‘No. He didn’t ask.’
Elise thought that after the things she had said about Howard Beale, it was just as well. She thanked him for taking the message and went to bed.
Mrs. Dennis showed her straight into the office. ‘Did you want to see Mr. Kings?’ she asked. ‘Mr. Lester’s not here.’
Elise assured her hastily that it was not necessary to see anyone because the work would be waiting for her.
She removed her cardigan and got down to it. When she was half-way through, Alfred came wandering in.
‘Heard you typing,’ he said, moving round the room and shuffling through piles of papers. ‘Look at this,’ he muttered to himself. ‘All these nails he’s ordering and all this paint.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll have to tell him to cut down. Extravagance, that’s what it is.’
His hand, with the merest tremor that revealed his advancing age, felt for the back of Lester’s chair, and he slowly lowered himself into it. He started talking and she was forced to stop typing in order to hear what he said.
‘In the old days,’ he mused, filling a pipe he had taken from his pocket, ‘I’d tell the men to go round all the houses we’d finished building, get down on their hands and knees and pick up all the bent nails lying about.’ He chuckled. ‘Know what I’d do then? I’d tell them to hammer them straight and use ‘em again!’ He grinned, showing his teeth yellowed with tobacco-smoking. ‘Always get the most and give the least, that’s always been my motto! And paint, know what I’d do with bits of paint left over? Have ‘em all tipped into one tin and stirred together and I’d tell the painters to use it for gutters and such like.’ He puffed his pipe into life and Elise recoiled at the unpleasant smell ‘Can’t do that now, though,’ he went on. ‘Gutters are made of plastic. PLASTIC!’ His disgust was unmistakable.