by Flora Kidd
‘Why are you smiling?’
The abrupt question jolted her temporarily as she realised he had been watching her without her knowing.
‘I was thinking of you, and of how you always seem to do everything on the spur of the moment, and yet you expect a person to fall in with your plans immediately.’
He raised his eyebrows as if surprised by her comeback and murmured,
‘You should be used to me by now. But I don’t expect you to fall in with my plans. You always have an option.’
‘What option did I have tonight?’ she challenged. ‘I had to come here because you were driving.’
He smiled at her, that slow tantalising smile which narrowed his eyes and which made her want to box his ears and love him at the same time.
‘You didn’t have to come into the hotel. You could have stayed in the car until I’d finished eating, or you could have walked back to Ayr. I wouldn’t have forced you to come in here. I can assure you I don’t go in for cave-man antics. I don’t want anyone to come anywhere with me against their will, least of all a woman. An unwilling woman is as bad as one who is scorned—sheer hell.’
Sally shifted uneasily in her chair. For all his smile he seemed to be deadly serious.
‘You’re making fun,’ she suggested warily.
“No, I mean what I say. If you don’t want to dine with me say so and I’ll call a taxi to take you back to Ayr ... although I should think you’ll have missed the bus back to Portbride by now. So perhaps waiting in the car is for you. But somehow I don’t think you’re exactly unwilling, only perturbed about extraneous subjects such as Aunt Jessie and the way you’re dressed.’
‘Och, how did you guess?’
‘From the way you studied the other women and then glanced at your own clothing. Why worry about it? I like the way you look and I’m buying your dinner. Now let’s choose something to eat, shall we?’
It was while they were eating the first course of deliciously tender smoked Scotch salmon that Ross asked abruptly,
‘Mike tells me you’re going to visit his home while you’re in London.’
‘His mother invited me. He hopes to be at home convalescing then.’
‘Would you be very disappointed if he was sent to another site when he’s better?’
‘But why shouldn’t he return to Portbride?’
‘If the other man who has been sent to take his place is satisfactory, there’s no point in his returning, and the company could use him in South Wales and will send him there if I recommend that he should go there.’
‘Will you be going back there too, when you’ve done your work here?’
He did not reply at once because the waiter returned with the second course and there was the usual ritual of vegetable serving and wine-tasting.
The waiter departed and Sally began to eat appreciatively. Cautiously she sipped some of the red wine, wrinkled her nose at the taste and sipped some more, then repeated her question.
‘It depends on the behaviour of certain people,’ replied Ross non-committally, and Sally thought of Lydia and remembered her saying that Ross was ambitious. She took another sip of wine. It made her feel warm and even more capable of saying what she felt. She must tell Ross where Lydia was, then he would be able to go after her and make it up with her.
‘Lydia says you’re ambitious and that she’d like to be the wife of an ambitious man, someone who knows where he’s going. And you know where you’re going. If the South Wales site is bigger, that means promotion, doesn’t it, so I expect she’d be glad to go there with you. She’s in Edinburgh.’
Ross put down his knife and fork and reaching across the table took the wine glass from her hand and placed it beside his plate.
‘I might have known,’ he said. ‘You’ve drunk it too quickly and it’s gone to your head. It’s a wonder you haven’t developed hiccups.’
Resentful because he had taken the wine from her, Sally had to admit that she felt slightly light-headed, so she concentrated once more on eating.
‘Who told you Lydia had gone to Edinburgh?’ he asked.
‘Miriam. Didn’t you know? I thought Miriam would have told you. Lydia has gone to stay with friends. Evidently she was very upset after quarrelling with you.’
‘So you know about that too,’ he murmured.
‘Yes, and she’s probably feeling very miserable and unhappy. Won’t you go and see her and make it up?’
For some reason Ross looked extremely exasperated and Sally braced herself for a scornful comment. But when he spoke he sounded very reasonable.
‘Not yet. If I’m not mistaken, Lydia will have company. Craig Dawson will keep her entertained.’
‘But isn’t that all the more reason why you should go and see her?’ said Sally, plunging deeper into the mire. ‘Craig might ask her to marry him.’
‘And she might accept? Is that what’s worrying you? But I thought you’d got over your liking for him and that you preferred someone else.’
‘I have ... I do. It’s you I’m thinking of. If you don’t go after her you’ll lose her.’
He eyed her speculatively, and rather dismayed by the
shrewdness of his glance, Sally ate busily.
‘Are you by any chance trying to organise my life for me?’ he drawled quietly.
‘I’d be doing no more than you’ve been doing for me,’ she retorted. ‘Ever since you came back to Portbride you’ve tried to organise my life, and you needn’t bother to deny it. Mike told me you introduced me to him deliberately because you thought I needed help.’
‘I’m not denying it. You did need help, and I hadn’t the time to do much about it, so I recruited Mike. It kept him out of mischief at the same time. I thought it was an excellent idea, and I do still. You’re much better, not half so sorry for yourself.’
Sally was speechless. It seemed she couldn’t win. He was impregnable, and he always had an answer.
‘I’m rather sorry, though, that you’ve tumbled to the truth, and I hope that you won’t let it affect your feelings where Mike is concerned. Now to get back to my original question. Will you be disappointed if Mike doesn’t return to Portbride when he’s better?’ said Ross.
Desolation crept into Sally’s heart as she imagined Portbride without Ross, without Mike.
‘I would miss him very much,’ she replied honestly.
‘Then I won’t recommend that he should be sent there, and suggest that he should return to Winterston instead.’
He spoke firmly, finally. Coffee was served and drunk in silence. Ross appeared to be more interested in the brunette sitting at the next table than in reopening the conversation. Sally looked at him enviously. He was free. Free to stare at a woman admiringly if he wanted to. He lived for the moment, taking pleasure where he found it, never looking back.
The meal was over. The bill was paid and they went out into the cool damp night. They travelled in silence back the way they had come, through the empty gleaming streets of Prestwick and Ayr and out on to the dark road which went south.
Eventually Sally roused herself sufficiently to say,
‘I’d like to see Winterston House before it’s destroyed.’
‘Well, you’re not going to see it again,’ replied Ross curtly. ‘It’s not safe, and if I catch you going there for a last sentimental glimpse I shall have no hesitation in punishing you.’
She was no further forward. He still regarded her as a child. Presumably that was why he thought he could organise her life for her.
Silence settled again and she was suddenly panic-stricken. This was her last chance to be alone with him. This was the moment she should make last for ever, but he seemed further from her than ever.
‘Will you leave as soon as the house is destroyed?’ she asked
He gave her question some thought before answering.
‘We shall start knocking it down on Saturday morning, and I think I might as well leave soon after. Once the demolition is under way Cha
rlie Burnet can take over. There isn’t much point in me staying longer. I’ll go ... which should please you.’
He sounded so final about everything, as if there was no possibility of him changing his mind. Earlier this evening she had been hopeful. What had happened to dash those hopes? Nothing, really. They had been ill-founded, another case of wishful thinking.
The lights of Portbride appeared as she struggled wildly to find another opening. But they were through the main street and going up the brae before she managed to say diffidently, ‘Ross, that night I told you to go away, I didn’t mean I wanted you to go away from Portbride. I meant ...’
‘What does it matter now?’ he interrupted. ‘That’s past, over and done with. Why bother to rake it up now?’
He stopped the car and was out and opening the door on her side before she had time to recover from the chilling effect of his words. She stepped out, haunted by the memory of the other times they had parted company.
‘Thank you for the dinner,’ she said. ‘Did we say all the things we had to say to each other?’
‘We managed to untangle a few knots,’ he replied coolly. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll have time to see you again before I leave on Saturday, so we’d better say goodnight and goodbye before Aunt Jessie makes her appearance.’
With a swift deft gesture he tilted her face up and kissed her firmly on the mouth.
The front door opened and they moved apart. With a wave of his hand in Aunt Jessie’s direction Ross moved away to the car, calling out in his derisive fashion,
‘Don’t say it, Aunt Jessie. I’m going. Goodnight.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sally awoke early on Saturday morning and lay for a few minutes wondering about the day which lay before her. Slowly her sleepy thoughts crystallised and she turned her head on the pillow and closed her eyes in an effort to escape. Today they would start to knock down Winterston House and Ross would leave. In the words of Stevenson he would ‘go for ever and come again no more’.
It was a mistake to remember the sad words of the poet, because sleep fled completely and she was fully awake to the discomfort of thought.
Ross would come again no more. There was no way to hold him. While Winterston had stood there had always been the chance of his return. But this morning Winterston would be partially destroyed and its roof would soon be in the dust.
Sudden impulse made Sally fling back the bedcovers and go to the window. She pulled back the curtains and looked out. Early morning sunlight sparkled on the water and caressed the hills. In the harbour the lifeboat gleamed with reflected light from the water.
On the Winterston shore she could just make out the untidy man-made heaps of earth defacing what had once been landscaped parkland. Sunlight glittered on the aluminium trailers and the yellow earth-moving equipment. In the midst of the upheaval the old house was an anachronism, its baronial architecture seeming fussy and unnecessary rather than romantic. In a few hours it would be gone ... and so would Ross.
Again impulse turned Sally away from the window towards her clothing. Quickly, as if she had no time to lose, she dressed, grabbing jeans, shirt and sweater. Moving quietly so as not to disturb Aunt Jessie and her father, she tiptoed downstairs into the kitchen. There she poured herself some orange juice, and taking an oatcake from a tin in the cupboard unlocked the back door and went outside to the garden shed.
It did not take long to pull her bicycle from the back of the shed and inspect it. She hadn’t ridden it since the car crash, so it was dusty and the tyres were flat. Hoping they were still intact, she pumped them up with a hand pump until they were hard. Then she listened to them. There was no hissing noise from the valves, so she assumed that they were all right.
She wheeled the bicycle through the front gate and hopped on to the saddle. Soon she was free-wheeling down the brae with the cool morning air fanning her cheeks. She rode round the head of the harbour and out on to the Winterston road.
Going was rather difficult because heavy vehicles had played havoc with the surface. But there was pleasure in the ride, a sense of freedom which she had not experienced for a long time. A feeling that she was once more herself doing what she wanted to do because she wanted to do it. It wasn’t the first time in her life she had left home early in the morning intent on finding adventure, and she could not help thinking how much better it suited her to act rather than to stay at home and mope.
At last she arrived at the place where the big bastion of rock had once jutted out into the road. It had been blasted and some of it had been removed. The remaining rock looked raw, but it was still colourful, glittering pink and purple in the morning sunlight. It was true the lovely silver birch had gone, but the whole area had been tidied and many plants had been replanted. By next spring Sally knew the bushes would have recovered and would be flourishing and no one would guess that the place had not always been as it was now.
Cheered by the thought that it was possible for man to improve on nature at times, she cycled on to the entrance to the drive. The old gateposts had disappeared. The driveway had been re-surfaced and to one side of it there was a wooden shed. From the shed a lifting barrier barred the way to strangers.
Through the window of the shed Sally could see a man in
a peaked uniform cap. Presumably he was there to stop strangers from entering. A slight mischievous grin quirked her mouth, and moving into the trees beyond the entrance to the drive she propped her bike against one, then leaving it there began to make her way through the woodland in the direction of the house.
She came out of the trees where she had expected, just behind the house on the south-east side. A temporary barbed wire fence had been put round the house to prevent anyone from approaching it too closely. Skirting round the fence, Sally made her way behind the house to the west side.
She was shocked by the sight of it. The whole wall was down, lying in a mass of stone and rubble, leaving the rooms exposed. Beams of rotten wood, torn and ragged, stuck out and a smell of dust and decay polluted the morning air. It was quite obvious that the destruction of the house had already begun.
To reach the front of the house Sally had to climb over the heap of rubble. It wasn’t difficult, but as she reached the other side some stones tumbled down and rolled down the slight slope, attracting the attention of two men standing on the remains of the lawn.
The noise of a crane starting up drew Sally’s attention and she turned to watch the long jib of a big crane swing out. Dangling from the end of the jib was a rectangular iron weight. It was being swung away from the house, presumably with the intention of swinging back to knock down a wall.
Sally watched, fascinated. Then she became aware that someone was shouting. She turned. One of the men, the bigger of the two, was running towards her. He was waving his arm as if directing her away from the house.
Sudden realisation that she was in danger made Sally start to run towards the man, whom she recognised as Ross. He reached her, grabbed her arm and pulled her along with him away from the house. Then without warning he pushed her down on the ground and flung himself on top of her. There was a dreadful cracking sound, a rumble of falling masonry and dust and stone showered down.
‘What’s happened?’ Sally asked the ground against which
she was pushed so hard by the weight of Ross’s body. The pressure on her back eased at once as he sat up.
‘That was part of the front of the house falling down, you little fool,’ he rasped. ‘You can sit up now. There’s no more danger for the time being, and you can explain why you’re here at this time in the morning.’
She sat up and looked at him. The yellow construction helmet was pushed to the back of his head. His face was pale under streaks of grey dust and his eyes were blazing blue.
Rather intimidated by the fury which leapt and flickered in his eyes and by the grim set of his mouth, Sally stammered a little.
‘I didn’t think you’d be working so early. I came to see the house befor
e it was knocked down.’
‘I thought I told you not to come near it, that it wasn’t safe. I might have known you’d do the opposite to anything I suggested.’
Sally looked past him at the broken, windowless house. Part of the front wall had gone, leaving a jagged broken edge which completely destroyed the bland, pretentious facade of the house. Now it was really a ruin and the Winterston House she had known all her life had ceased to exist.
‘I had to come,’ she replied simply, looking straight at Ross again. The anger was dying from his face and he looked pale and weary. ‘What did you do with the love-seat?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t forget. It’s loaded on to a truck, and on its way to you,’ he replied. Getting to his feet, he held out a hand to help her to stand up. ‘We’ll go to the office and I’ll get Charlie Burnet to send some tea.’
Burnet, who was the other man who had been standing watching the demolition operations, was a short stocky man. He stared curiously at Sally when Ross introduced her, nodded at Ross’s request for tea and went off in the direction of one of the trailers.
The office was in a long hut at the end of a corridor bordered by rooms furnished with desks and filing cabinets which were deserted. The Saturday morning silence was sunlit and dust-laden.
The fairly large room into which Ross took her was furnished in a surprisingly comfortable way. The floor was covered by a red carpet. The wall facing the door was lined by a bookcase and a filing cabinet. Facing the window was a big desk behind which there was a large leather covered swivel chair.
‘Here, sit in the ejection seat. It’s the most comfortable in the room—or on the site, for that matter,’ said Ross.