Enemy From the Past

by Lilian Peake

  His arms, which had gone round her in a bear hug, withdrew and he held her from him. ‘You’re like sunshine after rain,’ he said, then lifted a hand to Patrick who emerged from the crowd to greet him.

  ‘Hi, John,’ said Patrick. ‘Three months is a long time. I’ve brought you a drink—I know what you like. Everything okay?’

  ‘Fine, excellent. All settled. Where’s your new partner?’

  ‘Don’t you mean my husband?’ said Rosalind, smiling.

  ‘My God, yes, so he is. He’s coming across. I saw him staring at us.’

  Rosalind turned and watched her husband approach. His eyes flicked her like a whip. His jaw was hard, his mouth set in the familiar cynical line. Rosalind’s smile faltered and died. ‘Slade, you’ve met John. Of-of course you have. At the conference you went to with Nedra.’

  ‘Nedra,’ said John. ‘A bombshell. Whoever took her on to the payroll knew a winner.’

  ‘You’re talking about my husband,’ said Rosalind, hiding her irritation behind a joking manner. ‘He personally spotted her talent.’

  The cold look Slade gave her revealed that he had perceived the hidden meaning.

  ‘I keep forgetting,’ said John. ‘Your husband. Hi, Slade.’ He motioned to Rosalind. ‘How could you do this to me? Stealing my girl …’

  ‘See, Slade, John’s heartbroken,’ Patrick joked.

  ‘Into tiny pieces,’ said John. ‘But, if I may be permitted to say so in the illustrious man’s presence—’

  Rosalind looked covertly at her husband, wondering whether the banter was annoying him, but to her relief she found him smiling.

  ‘He didn’t do so badly,’ John went on, ‘for female attention at the conference. Do you know, Rosa, that lovely creature Nedra wouldn’t leave your husband alone? Not that he seemed to mind.’

  ‘Come on, now, John,’ said Slade, his mouth still smiling, but his eyes remaining cool, ‘I’m only human. Wouldn’t you be flattered if a woman dogged your very footsteps?’

  ‘Delighted,’ answered John, his blue eyes twinkling, ‘especially if that woman had been called Rosalind Prescott as this lovely girl used to be. She turned me down, Slade, so I left.’

  ‘Be honest,’ said Patrick, ‘you left because the ship was sinking.’

  ‘Ah, that was what I told you, Patrick.’ He grinned, running his hand through the unruly black curls which covered his head and nestled round his collar. ‘Anyway, as you know, I’m back in the fold now.’

  Rosalind’s fingers pressed into her cheek. ‘You’re what?’

  ‘Look at her,’ said John. ‘The very thought makes her go pale. Never mind, I won’t give you too bad a time.’

  ‘Slade,’ she looked at him dazedly, ‘what is John talking about?’

  ‘He’s the new personnel director. Didn’t I tell you?’

  Retaining her composure was the hardest tiling Rosalind had ever done, but she managed it. Having no time to puzzle out why Slade had taken such a step, she smiled, and the pleasure was genuine.

  ‘They say,’ she grinned at John, ‘better the devil you know than the devil you don’t!’

  ‘Well, I’ll be—Listen to what she’s calling me now!’

  Rosalind clasped John’s arm. Knowledge of John’s light-hearted personality, plus their past friendship, allowed her to take such liberties as touching him in such a way without arousing within him the wrong ideas about her.

  Slade, however, was not aware of this silent understanding and Rosalind realised too late that those wrong ideas were fermenting in his mind. She knew it by the rigidity of his jaw and the condemnation in his eyes. At once she dropped John’s arm and said, ‘You’re anything but “the devil”, John.’

  ‘Except,’ said Patrick, ‘when he walked out on us.’

  ‘Now, come on, you two …’

  Patrick’s arm went briefly across John’s shoulder. Rosalind took his hand again. ‘Welcome back to Compro, John,’ she said, and Slade walked away.

  ‘It’s good to be back,’ he said with sincerity, his eyes on Rosalind.

  Patrick invited John to meet the representatives of industry and commerce who stood in groups, or wandered, plate and glass in hand, seeking new faces to talk to.

  A figure appeared in the doorway, half hesitant, half hopeful. Gerry saw Rosalind and whispered a loud, ‘Hi, any room for me?’

  Rosalind looked around. ‘I think we can take one more,’ she laughed. ‘But if the boss looks this way, you’d better hide under a table.’

  ‘I admit I’m not a high-powered industrialist or something,’ said Gerry, seizing a glass from a tray which moved past his eyes, ‘but I thought that, since I’m off to Brighton on Monday, I might use this as a kind of farewell celebration.’

  ‘All right,’ Rosalind conceded, ‘but you’re going to have to sing for your supper. You know Nedra’s tactics?’ Gerry nodded, munching a sausage roll he had grabbed from a passing plate, and murmuring ‘Who doesn’t?’ ‘Well,’ Rosalind continued, ‘you’re going to have to help me imitate her. I’m going to show Slade what I’m made of.’

  ‘Why,’ said Gerry, hearing the note of defiance of which even Rosalind had not been aware, ‘doesn’t he know already? Not in that way, stupid, sorry, apologies to Mrs Anderson,’ he chewed the rest of the sausage roll, ‘but an idiot could judge how intelligent you are, and Slade Anderson’s no idiot. Okay,’ he dusted pastry crumbs from his suit which Rosalind had helped him buy, ‘I’ll talk technical while you talk—well, whatever it is personnel officers talk.’

  Gerry mingled with the ease of a professional. Rosalind regarded him with pride. She looked on him as a kind of fledgling she had helped to maturity from the student image to which he, together with so many of his kind, had clung for so long. He might already have risen in status, and started to climb the executive ladder. One day, she was convinced, he would be a force to be reckoned with in the computer world.

  Her attention was drawn, as it had continually been throughout the evening, to Slade’s tall, powerful figure across the room. She caught him watching her. She tore her eyes away, yet, as if he possessed a powerful magnet, they were pulled back again towards him.

  Annoyed by the censure in his regard, she deliberately turned from him and looked for her brother. He stood a little apart, and seemed to be in a serious discussion with John. Rosalind made for them, her skirt swirling round her ankles. If they were talking business, then she was as entitled to be present as either of them.

  As he saw her approach, John’s arm extended in a welcome, the action of an old friend. His arm settled lightly round her waist and, with Slade’s remarks in mind, Rosalind allowed it to remain there. If Slade could admit in public that he enjoyed Nedra’s attention, then she could display in public her feelings of friendship towards John Welson.

  She tossed a defiant look in Slade’s direction, only to see his eyes withdrawing from their contemplation of her. There was a pause in the conversation and she asked,

  ‘How did all this happen, John? Did Slade approach you about coming back to Compro or did you ask him?’

  ‘Well,’ John lifted a shoulder, ‘it was a bit of each, I suppose. I told him I was dissatisfied with my job as sales director. I said I’d discovered I didn’t fit into the sales side of the computer market, although I didn’t want to return to the technical side. He said he had just the job for me, if I wanted it.’

  ‘Then he told you about wanting a personnel director?’

  ‘He did, and asked would I take it. I said was my old girlfriend called Rosalind Prescott still in the same job, and he said she was, except that she was now Rosalind Anderson, his wife. And I said, darn it, couldn’t she have waited for me?’

  His listeners laughed and John, grinning, went on, ‘Then I said as long as she’d be working under me and not over me—because she could sometimes be a little tyrant, and Slade said he’d found that out years ago—’

  There was more laughter from Patrick, but an indignant look from Ro
salind.

  John finished, ‘Then yes, please, I’d love to play the big boss over Rosalind, and that was that.’

  Rosalind’s hand lifted, propelling itself towards John’s arm. He said good-humouredly, ‘Stop thumping me, Mrs Anderson.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have called me a tyrant.’

  John scoffed, ‘You’ve just demonstrated that you are. Isn’t she, Patrick?’

  Before Patrick could reply, Gerry joined them. He and John greeted each other like old friends. ‘Pity I’m off on Monday,’ Gerry said.

  ‘To Brighton,’ Rosalind explained. ‘On a project.’

  Gerry went on, ‘We could have had a drink and done some reminiscing at the King’s Head like we did in the old days.’

  ‘What’s the new project?’ John asked.

  ‘Commercial. I’ll like it better than the one I’ve been on. It looks interesting.’

  ‘By the way, Gerry,’ said Rosalind, ‘John’s starting soon—’

  ‘On Monday,’ John interrupted.

  Rosalind’s eyebrows lifted, but she said, ‘As our personnel director.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Gerry.

  ‘No, she isn’t,’ Patrick assured him.

  ‘How did you get away from your old company at such short notice?’

  ‘Not that short. Patrick telephoned me a month ago asking if I’d like to come back to Compro.’

  ‘But that was before Slade joined us,’ Rosalind said.

  ‘What you don’t know,’ said Patrick to his sister, ‘was that Slade and I corresponded and made contact by transatlantic telephone for quite a few weeks before I told you about his offer.’

  ‘Oh, did you?’

  ‘Now you’ve done it, Patrick,’ said John. ‘You’ve made little sister furious.’

  ‘I’ve plenty to be furious about,’ said Rosalind, glaring at her brother.

  ‘I suppose she has,’ said John, misunderstanding. ‘I think she’s taken my promotion over her head very well so far.’

  ‘So far,’ said Rosalind. ‘They’re the important words.’ She lifted her hands to his face in a clawing motion. ‘Wait until I get going with my disruptive tactics!’

  There was loud laughter as John caught Rosalind’s hands. ‘Cool it,’ said Gerry, in a loud whisper. ‘The boss is freezing us all to icebergs with his looks. Especially you, John.’

  Rosalind glanced casually over her shoulder, her hands, which John would have released, now clinging to his. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s not John he’s covering with a coating of frost. It’s me.’

  ‘Well,’ said Gerry, ‘you are his wife.’ He executed an upward karate chop and Rosalind’s and John’s hands parted.

  Patrick said, putting down his empty glass, ‘Rosa, behave !’

  She turned on him, eyes angry. ‘Why should I? You made me—’ He walked away.

  Gerry’s arm went round her. ‘Stop provoking the men in your life.’

  ‘Hey, Gerry,’ said John, ‘you’d better take your hands off the boss’s wife. We’re under surveillance. If we’re not careful, judging by the way her husband is shrivelling us with his looks, we’ll both be out of a job tomorrow. Let’s circulate.’

  To Rosalind’s dismay, they moved towards the bottles and glasses, grabbed a drink each and found groups to attach themselves to. Rosalind was left alone. A man approached, tall, serious-looking and about Slade’s age.

  ‘You must be Slade’s wife. Am I right?’ He spoke with a marked American accent. His hand came out. ‘Pennant Wills, until recently a colleague of Slade’s over in California. Happy to meet you, Mrs Anderson.’

  Swiftly Rosalind responded, shaking his hand. ‘I’m very glad to meet you, Mr Wills. And please call me Rosalind.’

  ‘Call me Penn,’ he said, ‘everyone does. I understand from Slade that yours was a kind of boy and girl romance. You knew each other way back when you were both kids.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Rosalind answered, her eyes bright, lips damp with the drink which Pennant had just whisked from a tray and given her. ‘We all grew up together. Then Slade went away and we lost touch for years.’

  ‘And when he came back he didn’t waste any time in getting his ring on your finger. I don’t blame him, if you’ll pardon my saying so.’

  Rosalind laughed. ‘That was a nice compliment.’

  ‘Sincerely meant.’ Pennant took a drink. ‘When he was with us in the States he took quite a few girls out, but none of the affairs ever lasted. We used to kid him about it, but he used to pretend he had a girl waiting for him back home. We didn’t believe him. Now I can see we were wrong.’

  Rosalind stared at her drink, then produced a smile to cover her frown. ‘He seemed to like your country, Mr—I mean Penn.’

  ‘He sure did. And we liked him. I’ve been trying to persuade him to come back and work with us again. Bringing you, too, of course.’

  Her heart thumped with a curious fear. Trying to persuade him to come back … Wouldn’t that be breaking the bargain? Leaving Patrick alone again, letting Compro sink without trace? It was then that she realised what a potent force Slade was in the company, how the strength of his personality and drive was beginning to breathe new life into it, new enthusiasm into the staff.

  ‘Hey, Penn!’ a voice called from across the room. Pennant said, ‘Would you excuse me if I—?’

  ‘Please …’ With her hand Rosalind indicated that he should join his friend. ‘I’ll find Slade.’

  ‘See you around,’ said Pennant with a smile, and left her.

  When she did find Slade, she also found his eyes upon her. Her impulse was to join him, but resentment, which was never far away, flared like a lighted match. So he was watching her again. Not only was he her husband but her very own private detective! She swung away. She would give him a run for his money—she would give him something to look at. If the old Slade lived on in him, then she -would show that the old Rosalind inside her had certainly not been extinguished.

  John was momentarily alone, swallowing a drink, and she went swiftly to join him. ‘When do you start your new job, John?’ She gazed at him as if she could not tear her eyes away.

  ‘I told you—Monday.’ He smiled into her eyes. ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’re trying to make your husband jealous.’

  Her smile was brilliant. ‘Now why ever should I do that?’

  ‘Gould it be Nedra, the wonder girl?’ Rosalind’s smile faltered but stabilised. ‘Yes, I thought so.’ He put the glass down. ‘Judging by what I saw in Bristol, she’s chasing him, Rosa. I don’t know how things are between you and Slade, but from personal observation I’d say not too good, although the reason escapes me.’

  ‘There is a reason, John, one I can’t explain.’

  ‘Fair enough, but her weapons are powerful, make no mistake. If you want to keep him, taking warning. If you don’t——’ He shrugged. ‘Over to you.’

  Gerry drifted across, a full glass gripped in determined fingers.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ Rosalind accused, smiling at Gerry’s concentration on keeping the glass steady.

  ‘I deny everything you haven’t said,’ Gerry grinned. He took a long drink, almost draining the glass. ‘I’m just a bit squiffy.’

  He swayed and Rosalind’s arm came out automatically to hold his shoulders.

  John took over. ‘Better go home now, Gerry, before you ruin your future in Compro. The eagle eye of our employer is on us, not for the first time.’ To Rosalind, ‘I’ll call a cab. Okay?’

  A quick, defiant glance at her husband’s face put an idea into her mind. ‘I’ll come down with you,’ she said, seizing her purse from a chair.

  In the open air, Gerry made a tremendous effort to regain control. He took deep breaths and said, ‘I’m okay now.’

  ‘Sure?’ John asked.

  Rosalind said. ‘You go in, John. I’ll see Gerry into a cab. Look, there’s one now.’ She put out a hand and as the taxi nosed its way through the traffic, John lifted a hand to
Gerry, then sprinted up the steps into the house.

  Rosalind opened the taxi door and gave Gerry a gentle push. Telling the driver Gerry’s address, she climbed in to sit beside Gerry. The taxi pulled out into the road.

  Gerry lifted heavy eyelids. ‘You needn’t play nursemaid,’ he muttered.

  Rosalind patted his hand. ‘Don’t be ungrateful! Anyway, I’ve got the company’s interests in mind. I want to see you safely home so that you get to Brighton safely on Monday. That project you’re going on is important.’ Gerry’s chin lifted from his chest in a feeble nod. ‘And I wanted to go home myself. After dropping you, that’s where I’m going.’

  Which was how she opened the front door to hear the telephone shrieking into the emptiness. Seizing the receiver she puffed, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Rosalind?’ The voice was feminine and silky. ‘Nedra here. Is Slade around? It’s important.’

  ‘He’s not here, Nedra.’ Rosalind wished she had arrived home a few minutes later. ‘There’s a reception.’

  ‘Of course there is. I know the number to call.’

  ‘Not the office, Nedra. It’s the new place next door.’

  ‘I know all about it. Slade told me in Bristol.’

  Rosalind kept hold her temper and said, ‘What’s wrong where you are?’

  ‘The client’s proving very difficult. Harry Adamson, the sales director I’m here with, wanted to telephone, but I made the call instead. Your husband’s voice gives me shivers up and down my spine—did you know?’

  ‘That’s a terrible complaint, Nedra,’ Rosalind retorted. ‘You’ve probably got it for life. Too bad, because I’ve got Slade for life!’

  ‘That’s what you think,’ Nedra answered, her voice like pouring cream.

  The receiver complained at the harsh treatment Rosalind inflicted on it.

  So Slade’s voice gave Nedra shivers up and down her spine. What did Nedra’s husky voice do to Slade? And Nedra’s good looks and Nedra’s irresistible attractions and Nedra’s pursuit and Nedra’s kisses …

  She raced up the stairs, pulled off her dress, let her underclothes fall one by one to the floor and, trailing her robe, raced along the landing to the bathroom. She tugged the shower curtains the length of the bath, turned the shower to cold and with a strangled cry of ‘Ow!’ stood under the cascade of icicles until her throat gasped with shock.