by Anne Mather
Helen caught her breath. 'Oh, I see. You think—you think perhaps—Heath and I—' Her throat constricted, and she started to laugh, peals of hysterical laughter that rang around the modestly-proportioned bedroom and caused Mrs Heathcliffe to stare at her as if she had gone mad.
'Helen, stop that!' She stepped towards her. 'Stop that at once! I really don't know what's the matter with you, I'm sure I don't. I always said Rupert was a fool for getting himself involved with you. Just because my daughter was reckless enough to marry your father there was no reason for him to take the responsibility for a child that wasn't even his own flesh and blood.'
Helen's laughter died as abruptly as it erupted, and wiping her eyes with her wrists, she turned away. 'Please leave, Mrs Heathcliffe,' she said, wishing desperately that she had a tissue, and Heath's mother uttered a sound of irritation before marching out of the room.
Alone with her thoughts again, Helen left her room to pace restlessly along the corridor to the living room. Mrs Heathcliffe's taste in decoration was not like her son's. She went in for elaborately-embossed wall coverings, rooms filled to overflowing with chairs and tables, and dozens of small ornaments, cluttering up spaces that would have been better left empty. The living room was like that: armchairs, sofas, even an enormous china cabinet to take the overflow from a collection of occasional tables, all adorned with lacy cloths to prevent their surfaces from getting scratched. Mrs Henley, Heath's mother's housekeeper, spent her days grumbling about the number of articles she had to move before she could start to dust, and Helen guessed there were times when she would have liked to sweep the whole lot on to the heavily patterned Persian carpet. Helen felt like that now as she curled up on a striped Regency sofa beside the artificial glow of the electric fire. She felt sick and miserable and totally alone. She did not even have the consolation of a close friend to share her troubles with. Heath had forbade her to have anything further to do with either Nigel or Miles, and her girl friends were too far away to see her now that she was living in Manchester.
Cupping her chin on one hand, she stared unseeingly into space. Mrs Heathcliffe's words had brought the future into perspective, and the prospect of being sent to school in Switzerland was no longer just a possibility. Heath was arranging it. She would probably hear nothing about it until it was time for her to leave. He would spring it on her, as he had sprung the news that she was going to stay with his mother here in Manchester, and Helen's emotions stirred with belated indignation. She would be eighteen at Christmas; he had no doubt conveniently forgotten about that. So far as he was concerned, she was still a minor, and a liability. What he really wanted was her off his hands, only he was too polite to say so. What she should be doing was finding herself a job and other accommodation, so that when he came along with his plans for her future, she could throw them back in his face.
Pushing herself up from the chair, she made her way back to her own room, rummaging in a drawer for her handbag and pulling out the wallet tucked inside it. When Heath brought her to Manchester, he had given her some money to be going on with. An allowance, he had called it, though Helen had showed little interest in it at the time. Now, however, she withdrew the handful of notes from the leather wallet, counting them swiftly, and with growing jubilation.
There were sixty pounds altogether, in various denominations of notes; sixty pounds, an enormous sum to someone who had never had any real conception of the value of money. Helen was sure that with that amount of money she could easily find herself accommodation until she got a job, and once she was actually earning, she could save up and send it back.
Breathing quickly, she tucked her thumbnail between her teeth, rationalising what she was planning. What she was actually doing was removing herself from Heath's protection, she realised hollowly. If she walked out of this apartment now, she might never see him again, and her legs grew horribly weak at that agonising prospect.
But what were the alternatives? she asked herself fiercely. A school in Switzerland until she was eighteen or even older. And then what? She sighed. She doubted Heath would ever let her return to Matlock. No. Some other arrangement would be made for her, she might even be expected to come back here; and as soon as she showed an interest in some young man, she would be married off as Angela had predicted and consequently out of Heath's hands.
Poor Angela, she reflected ruefully. She hadn't lasted long in her chosen career. Not that she had lost by the deal, Helen amended broodingly. According to Mrs Heathcliffe, her son had given Miss Patterson a very generous bonus, in lieu of the termination of her employment, and Angela would not have to work again for quite a considerable time.
But Angela's good fortune was not hers, and Helen knew that if she was going to do anything with her life it would have to be soon. Two weeks was not long to find a job and somewhere to live, and she intended to do it without any help from anyone.
During the next few days, she spent all her free time combing the employment agencies and visiting various landladies whose advertisements she had read in the local press. Mrs Heathcliffe didn't question her activities. Her own social life was such that Helen's disappearing in the morning, ostensibly to do some shopping, and reappearing again in the afternoon with the same excuse, passed without comment. However, Helen did catch Heath's mother looking at her once or twice with a rather curious expression, and she guessed the older woman was looking forward to her departure.
The job she eventually found was not gained through an agency. It was outlined on a notice stuck in a hairdresser's window, and Helen enquired within as she was requested, and discovered her employer was to be the man who had been so understanding about her own hair.
'I have two salons,' he said, explaining why the notice had been put into this particular window. 'Are you sure you really want this job? I got the impression you were unlikely to be needing the money.'
'You were wrong,' declared Helen, torturing the strap of her handbag. 'It's fifty-six pounds a week, you say? What exactly will I have to do? I've never done anyone's hair before.'
'Oh, my dear, you won't be doing hair!' exclaimed Ricardo impatiently. 'That's why I asked you if you wanted the job. It's really nothing more than charring.'
Helen gave him a rueful smile. 'Honestly, I want it,' she assured him firmly. 'Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a job, when you've never had any experience at anything?'
'I know,' Ricardo grimaced. 'Okay, young Helen, I'll take you on. Who knows, we may find you have some talent for hairdressing. If you do, I may give you the chance to train.'
'Oh, thank you!' Helen was eternally grateful. 'When do you want me to start?'
'How about tomorrow?' suggested Ricardo drily. 'Come in tomorrow morning, and get the feel of the place. My senior stylist here is Elaine. I'll introduce you now, and you can make your own arrangements.'
'I won't be working with you, then?' Helen asked disappointedly, and Ricardo smiled.
'Not immediately anyway,' he temporised cheerfully. 'But we'll see in the future. I have a girl at my other salon who looks suspiciously as if she's got herself pregnant. If she has and she leaves, I'll see what I can do.'
Helen went back to the apartment that evening feeling amazingly heartened. She had a job, she told herself incredulously, she actually had a job, and all that remained now was for her to find herself a bedsitter, one whose rent would not decimate her fifty-six pounds a week.
She found a place the following afternoon—just a tiny room in a Victorian house not far from the city centre. It was not a particularly salubrious neighbourhood, but at least it was clean and cheap, and Mrs Fairweather, her landlady, seemed sympathetic to her youth.
'You're not from Manchester, are you, lass?' she asked, as they were going downstairs again after seeing the room. 'What's up? You had a barney with your father, have you? I get all kinds of family problems here. But don't you worry, you can tell them I'll see that you get properly fed. Skinny as a lath, you are. Look like you need some g
ood Lancashire hotpot inside you!'
Helen was amazed. Until that moment she had scarcely paid any attention to her appearance, not even noticing that the waistbands of her skirts and pants were looser, or that her face had lost its usual bloom. But walking back to the apartment, she glimpsed her reflection in the plate-glass windows of the department stores, and she realised, with a pang, that she no longer had to worry about counting calories.
'Where have you been?' Mrs Heathcliffe exclaimed, as soon as she let herself into the apartment. 'Rupert's been trying to reach you all afternoon. I told him you'd gone shopping, but he still kept on ringing just the same.'
'Heath?' Helen moistened her dry lips. 'Heath's been ringing me?'
'Haven't I just said so?' Mrs Heathcliffe answered irritably. 'I must have answered that phone half a dozen times. Anyway, he says he's coming to see you tomorrow, so you'd better not be out when he calls.'
Helen put her hand to her throat. 'Tomorrow?' she echoed. 'Did he say why?'
'Something to do with that school in Geneva, I imagine,' declared Mrs Heathcliffe shortly. 'I really didn't ask him. I'm going to be late for my appointment as it is.'
Helen stared at her. 'You're going out?'
'Of course. I told you this morning I was attending a meeting of the bridge club this evening. Surely you haven't forgotten.'
'Oh—no. No.' But in all honesty, she had. In the upheaval of finding herself accommodation, she had completely overlooked Mrs Heathcliffe's arrangements.
'Anyway, Mrs Henley has left you a slice of quiche and some salad in the fridge,' said Heath's mother brusquely. 'As I shall be eating out, I told her not to bother with anything hot. You scarcely eat enough to keep a fly alive as if is. I was sure the quiche would be more than acceptable.'
'Oh, it is. It is,' Helen nodded, her mind racing off at a tangent. If Mrs Heathcliffe was going out this evening, that would mean she would be alone. What a heavensent opportunity to make her escape, particularly with the prospect of Heath's visit looming on the horizon. Of course she would have liked to have seen him—indeed, her heart actually ached at the thought of what she was doing to avoid him. But seeing him again could only cause her more pain, and she had had quite enough of that to be going on with.
Mrs Heathcliffe left just before seven, and Helen cut herself a slice of the quiche to carry into her bedroom and eat while she was packing. She didn't have that much time. She didn't want to be carrying her cases out of the apartment just as Heath's mother returned, and although she was generally quite late home from these occasions, Helen was not about to take any risks.
One case was packed and standing by the front door and the other in the process of being so when the doorbell rang. For a moment, Helen was too shocked to do anything but stand there like a statue, but then, realising it could not be Mrs Heathcliffe home at this time, she hurried to answer it.
Halfway along the hall, another possibility struck her. Heath! she thought faintly. It could be Heath on the other side of that door. Oh, no, she prayed fervently, what am I going to do?
She had two options: one, she hid the cases and the evidence of her packing and opened the door; the other, she simply pretended there was no one home. The apartments were not like houses. There was no convenient window to peer through, no betraying light to indicate that someone was in. If she remained perfectly silent, whoever it was might go away, and her heart palpitated wildly as the bell rang again.
What she was not prepared for was what happened next. Instead of her visitor giving up and going away, a key was inserted into the lock, and she watched in horror as the Yale catch turned and the door fell silently inward.
'Helen!'
Heath's harsh use of her name unfroze her locked limbs, and she stepped back uncertainly as he came into the hall. She should have known, she was telling herself fiercely, she should have guessed he might have a key. His mother was not a young woman, and it was reasonable that he should have some means of access in case she fell ill.
'Helen!' He saw her as he closed the door, saw her, and the betraying suitcase standing squarely in the hall, and his green eyes grew quite glacial as they comprehended her dilemma.
He looked every bit as forbidding as she had imagined, the black suede pants and matching jacket he was wearing accentuating his grim expression. He looked tired, too, and paler than she remembered, but just as unforgiving as he surveyed her jean-clad form.
'What the hell is going on here?' he demanded, slamming the door and leaning back against it, slipping the key he had used back into his pocket. 'Don't pretend you didn't hear me. It's obvious that you did.'
'I heard you,' she got out faintly, glancing nervously behind her. 'I—I didn't know who could be calling. Your mother's out.'
'I know that.' He straightened away from the door, his eyes appraising her apprehension intently. 'Evidently you knew it, too. Isn't that the meaning of this—little conspiracy?'
'There's no conspiracy.' Helen drew an unsteady breath. 'I—I'm leaving, that's all—'
'The hell you are!'
Brushing past her, Heath strode swiftly along the hall to her room and disappeared inside. She heard the impatient banging of cupboard doors, of her bathroom door being opened and closed, and then he appeared again, more slowly, his dark face worn suddenly, and drawn.
'What have you been doing?' Helen took an involuntary step towards him. 'I haven't stolen anything of your mother's, if that's what you were afraid of. I'm only taking the things that belong to me.'
'I didn't imagine otherwise.' Heath spoke heavily and without heat. 'I just thought—oh, hell, I just thought there must be someone here, someone with you, some person responsible for you packing up and walking out.'
'There is.' Helen held up her head. 'I've got a job—a job in Manchester. It's not much, but I'll have my independence. And I've found somewhere else to live.'
His face grew haggard. 'But why? Why, for pity's sake?'
'You know why,' insisted Helen unsteadily. 'I can't go on being dependent on you. And—and I have no intention of going to that school in Switzerland. You can't force me. I'll be eighteen in three months.'
'Oh, for pity's sake!' Heath came back along the hall wearily, stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his pants. 'You don't have to get a job, if that's all that's troubling you,' he muttered. 'I was coming here this evening to offer you an alternative.'
'You were?' She watched him as he pushed open the door of his mother's overcrowded living room with his foot and walked heavily into the room. 'Well, I don't need your alternatives any longer. I've got an alternative of my own. But I'm glad you've decided that I'm old enough to lead my own life.'
'I didn't say that,' he retorted, as she came to stand in the open doorway. He shook his head, his expression taut. 'On the contrary, I had every intention of keeping you within the sphere of my influence. A friend of my father's, an elderly lady, whose husband died recently, is desperately in need of some young companionship. I was about to suggest that you became her companion. At least, for the winter, until, as you say, you reach your majority.'
'I see.' Helen pressed her palms together. 'Well, that won't be necessary now.'
'What do you intend to do?' Heath spoke roughly, his hands clenching and unclenching inside the taut cloth of his pockets, and she moved her shoulders cautiously.
'I—er—I'm going to work for a hairdresser,' she said, and ignoring his indrawn breath, she went on: 'I've got a room in a house in Prestside.'
'Prestside?' Heath repeated the word savagely, and she nodded.
'I know it's not a particularly nice area, but—'
'Not a particularly nice area!' echoed Heath, with emphasis. 'My word, it's a slum, Helen! No wonder you were planning on running away. You must have known I'd never agree to this.'
'You don't have to agree,' declared Helen doggedly. 'It's my life, not yours.'
'Is that what you believe? Is that what you honestly believe?' he demanded violently. 'For
the love of heaven, Helen, I can't let you do this.'
She stared at him steadily. 'You can't stop me,' she averred, even though the knowledge that she was defying him was eating her up. 'You washed your hands of me when you brought me to Manchester. You didn't care about anything but getting me out of your house. You can't expect to go on telling me what to do, when you've made it abundantly clear that you don't really care a damn about me!'
'That is not true.' Heath spoke indistinctly, his voice slurred by some emotion she could not identify. 'It was because I cared about you that I sent you away. Haven't you realised that, you stupid kid!' He turned to rest his arm along the mantel, dislodging a porcelain cupid that smashed heedlessly on to the hearth. Oh, Helen, I don't know how much longer I can keep this up.' He pressed his forehead against his sleeve. 'I need you so badly, I just can't think straight any more.'
She gazed at him disbelievingly. 'I—I don't believe you. This—this is just some—some ruse to get me to do what you want, isn't it?'
'Is it?' He lifted his head and looked at her, and her heart turned over at the naked passion in his eyes. 'Do you want to take a bet on that? I haven't had one decent night's sleep since you left.'
'Oh, Heath!' She was trembling, but still she didn't move and he straightened.
'You're seventeen and I'm thirty-five,' he said huskily. 'For the last three years I've been telling myself that the difference in our ages is too great, that as you grew up and had boy-friends, I'd feel differently. But I didn't.'
Helen shook her head helplessly. 'But why didn't you tell me?'
'Because I intended to fight it,' said Heath harshly. 'Why do you think I've been avoiding you since you came home from school? Why do you think I employed Angela Patterson?'
She gulped. 'I—I thought—because of what other people might say,' she breathed, and he gave her a wry look.