by Marie Joseph
He was always impressed. A go-ahead man himself, he still considered Lisa’s achievement awesome; there was no other word for it. Here, in the very centre of what he liked to think of as swinging sixties London, she had given full rein to her individuality, selling the modish styles which might have been frowned upon by the affluent matrons in the big country houses surrounding the mill town he had left behind that morning.
At thirty-nine Gordon Conway was an impressively handsome man. There was an animal virility in his big frame, and more than a hint of sensuality about his firm mouth. In spite of his workaday life among sprigged cottons and shiny brocades, there was no lack of masculinity in his appearance.
When Lisa had taken him on years before, he had been in the throes of a nasty divorce, shaken by the sordidness of the publicity, but now the ‘other woman’ was a distant memory to him, and much to his own surprise he had been celibate for longer than he would have admitted.
For a while he wandered round the lower floor of the elegant shop, feeling the deep pile of the beige carpet beneath his feet, watching the women ruffling through the carousels of crochet dresses, hipsters, trouser suits and kaftans. Only for the very young, he decided, the new breed of youngsters swarming into London with money to spend on clothes they would wear today and discard tomorrow. The real heart of the Lisa Logan empire, he knew, beat upstairs, where valued clients were able to choose at leisure, be fitted or measured, eventually going away starry-eyed, clutching the distinctive violet bag, feeling that the dress inside it compared favourably with an Yves Saint-Laurent design.
‘Miss Logan always knows what suits me,’ they would tell their friends. ‘Isn’t she marvellous? So beautiful. I wonder just how old she is? It’s hard to tell. She has a French look about her, don’t you think? It must be the way she wears her hair pulled back into a chignon. But for all her gaiety she has a sad look about her eyes, don’t you agree?’
Gordon Conway watched with an amused twinkle in his brown eyes as two women came down the curved staircase leading from the upper floor. They were chattering like magpies, their hair lacquered into beehives, space-age shift dresses showing too much of knobbly knees. Mutton dressed as lamb, in Gordon’s opinion.
They didn’t grow women like that in Lancashire, he told himself wryly, then flashed them a smile as they walked towards the heavy glass door and out on to the sunlit busy street.
When he turned round Lisa was coming down the stairs. He blinked and drew in his breath. Although he saw her roughly every three months she seemed to grow more lovely every time they met. She was wearing that day a blue dress of fluid silk, as unlike the geometric lines of the current fashion as a dress could be, and yet somehow Lisa had managed to retain the same cut by adapting the severity of the line to her own more feminine taste. Gordon’s trained eye took in the detail at a glance, before he stepped forward, holding out his hand.
Lisa shook it warmly, then smiled. ‘Gordon.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s always so nice to see you. You’re a bit of home, I suppose.’
As he followed her up the winding staircase Gordon wondered, not for the first time, why she never made the journey back to the north? She would fly to Paris or Rome at a minute’s notice, but never once, since the day she had amazed him by handing him full responsibility for the Lancashire side of the business, had she turned her car on to the new motorway and driven north. Her telephone bill must be astronomical, he told himself, when she would talk to him for an hour at a time, discussing profit margins, approving or otherwise new lines, agreeing with him to mark down prices on slow movers. She would ring him often close on midnight, and he guessed that her days were of eighteen hours at least. Sometimes he wondered if she ever slept. She had told him that the London boutique was her last venture.
‘I see no point in making money for the government,’ she’d said. Then last spring he had sensed an aching desperation in her voice.
‘Peter is going to America,’ she’d told him. ‘Now that he’s got his degree and done a year on computers he feels the States have so much more to offer. Washington, DC, with a firm who evidently think highly of him. It’s right,’ she’d asserted, before he’d had a chance to comment. ‘Young people these days want to stretch their wings. He’ll be expected to work harder over there than he would here. A sad reflection on our present society, but true.’
‘Have you heard from Peter lately?’
Gordon walked behind Lisa through the large fitting-room and into her inner sanctum beyond, a room with walls of the Lisa Logan violet shade, and a carpet in the palest grey. Here there was evidence of orderly chaos – the large desk in front of the high window was littered with patterns of material and scattered designs. There were pictures, abstract in tones of deep fuchsia whirling to mauve, on the walls, and a velvet chair Victorian-buttoned in pink.
‘I used to have a chair like that in my bedroom when I was a young girl,’ she had once told him, then her face had closed with its familiar shut-in look.
‘Peter is fine.’ Lisa walked behind her desk and sat down. ‘He talks a lot about a girl, would you believe? She’s just about to qualify as a doctor, he says. He’s already using Americanisms in his letters. He actually started the last one with “Hi, Mom!” I suppose I’ll have Yankee-Doodle grandchildren one day.’
She drew a large folder towards her, and as if at an unspoken signal Gordon unbuckled his briefcase and took out a sheaf of papers. For the next two hours they worked steadily until the door opened slightly and a girl with lips painted ice-cream pink and eyes outlined in sooty black poked her head inside.
‘We’re shutting up now, Miss Logan. Is there anything else?’
Lisa looked up, startled. ‘Is it really that time?’ She rubbed tired eyes, suddenly young and vulnerable. ‘I’d no idea. The rose brocade? Did Mrs Evison approve the alterations?’
The girl smiled. ‘She went off with it like Cinderella going to the ball.’
‘Well, let’s hope she meets her prince.’ Lisa put up a hand and tucked a stray wisp of dark hair into the neat chignon. ‘Thank you, Fiona. I’ll see to the locking up.’
Watching her opening drawers, filing papers away, Gordon Conway suddenly stepped out of line. He had a feeling of déjà vu, as if he had always known he was going to do this eventually.
‘Will you have dinner with me, Lisa?’ he said quickly. ‘We can easily get through what’s left in the morning, so I’m not talking about a business meal.’ He smiled, showing creamy, even teeth. ‘The hotel I’m booked into doesn’t offer much in the way of evening entertainment, and I don’t feel like eating alone.’ His grin turned him suddenly into a mischievous boy. ‘Come on. Be a devil. Let’s go to one of those posh places off St James’s Street where you have to take out an extra mortgage if you have a side-salad. I’m feeling in an expansive mood.’
Lisa hesitated. She had always followed Richard’s maxim of never getting to know any of her staff too intimately. Poor Richard. She smiled ruefully. Only once had he done just that and look where that stepping out of line had got him… . She frowned. But she wasn’t Richard and this self-assured man waiting for her reply wasn’t a penniless employee in borrowed clothes overwhelmed by his employer’s generosity. Besides, her flat in Kensington was suddenly the last place she wanted to be on this early summer evening with the sun touching the stone buildings of London’s West End to mellowed beauty.
‘I’d have to go home and change,’ she said slowly, still not quite sure she was being wise. Then, as Gordon’s face relaxed into a broad grin, she swept the last folder into a drawer at the side of her desk and stood up.
‘I’ll come with you, if I may,’ Gordon said. ‘Or would you rather I went back to the hotel and picked you up later?’
‘We’ll take a taxi to the flat,’ Lisa said. ‘Whilst we’re having a drink we can look over some designs I’m working on for the autumn range. Mulberry’s the shade, I’m told, and I thought if we used a soft pink with it… .’
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�But when we go out we forget the business. OK?’ Gordon followed her down the winding stairs and out into the street. Holding up a hand, he hailed a cruising taxi, leaving Lisa to follow, already half regretting her impulsive decision.
And later in the small restaurant, as they sat together in the warm gloom, Lisa studied his face as he in turn studied the menu which he had likened to the size of a windbreak.
During the past few years she had been taken out to numerous business lunches and dinners, playing the host herself on many occasions, but this was different. As Gordon Conway had helped her on with the cream silk short coat matching her dress, his hands had lingered on her shoulders. It had been merely a slight lingering, but the inference had been there, and Lisa had been startled by her reaction. For a brief moment she had wanted to lean back against him and feel his arms come round her, but she had moved away quickly.
‘The lobster thermidor is to be recommended, sir,’ the hovering waiter with the face and demeanour of a television Jeeves whispered, and Gordon raised a questioning eyebrow at her.
‘That would be very nice,’ Lisa agreed. Then, when they were alone, Gordon told her that it didn’t seem all that long ago since his mother could have provided a full-course meal for ten people for what the lobster was going to cost.
‘Not that it matters,’ he added quickly. ‘Tonight only the best is good enough.’
As they ate iced melon, Lisa found herself comparing him with Jonathan Grey. There was the same quizzical lift to his eyebrows, the northern way of mentioning the price of something without embarrassment; but this man was as thick-set as Jonathan was thin – had been thin, she reminded herself. It could be by now that Jonathan had grown fat, maybe a little thin on top, with his father’s florid complexion. Perversely, she hoped this was so.
‘I think my divorce hit my mother the hardest,’ Gordon was saying. ‘She adored her grandson, but Claire has remarried and gone to live in South Africa so there isn’t much chance of my mother ever seeing the boy again.’
‘And you?’ Lisa put down her fork, sympathy clouding her eyes.
‘I’ve blocked my mind,’ he said simply. ‘Claire was given custody, and for the boy’s sake I didn’t appeal against it. But I’m paying for his education. Naturally.’
‘Do you find that easy? Blocking your mind?’ Lisa knew the conversation was running away from her, but the atmosphere of the dimly-lit restaurant, with candles gleaming softly in ruby-red wine glasses and couples holding hands at the discreetly placed tables, lulled her into a sense of dreamy contentment.
‘It’s the only way,’ he said simply. ‘If life doesn’t turn out the way you want it to, you opt out of feeling. It’s quite easy once you get the hang of it.’
‘But if the feeling persists?’ Her eyes were wide in the pale oval of her face.
‘Then you’re a poor mutt, aren’t you?’
Lisa laughed out loud. ‘Do you know, I think you could be right!’
The wine waiter came with the wine, and its dryness stung her throat. They were sitting very close on the velvet banquette. She was no longer young, Lisa reminded herself, but equally she was a long, long way from being old, and for the first time in years the close proximity of a more-than-presentable man filled her with longing, so that by the time the wine was finished she did not draw her hand away when Gordon covered it with his own.
They sat very close in the taxi taking them back to her flat, and when he kissed her Lisa knew they were both a little drunk. She giggled and laid her head on his shoulder. If this nice-to-be-with man could block out the memory of his little son in South Africa, then surely she could block out the memory of a tall, dark, thin man living with his wife up in Lancashire, a man who had once told her he was dying of love for her, who would have made her his mistress, keeping her in the secret corners of his life before destroying her as his father had destroyed her mother.
The fact that once again she was thinking along the lines of a confession story in a magazine never occurred to Lisa. She had always thought that way when disturbed. And at that moment she was disturbed, gloriously and intoxicatedly disturbed.
But experienced as he was, Gordon was still surprised at the wildness of her abandonment. The swinging sixties it might be, and a long way from home they both might be, but he had never dreamed that his employer needed a man’s touch so much.
For a moment the sensible side of his nature asserted itself. Would this mean the end of his job? Would this Lisa he had never dreamed existed be too overcome with embarrassment afterwards to be able to resume their pleasant working relationship? Had she drunk too much wine? Did she love him? Did he love her?
Suddenly the self-questioning was over, and the passion she had unleashed in him swamped all his misgivings. There was a mutual hunger in their mouths and bodies as they clung together. Their clothes seemed to drift away, and all he was aware of was the softness of her skin and the deep pulsating longing inside her. As he took her she gave a gasp of pleasure, then it was all rushing ecstasy and sweetness that went on and on and on… .
A long time afterwards Lisa awoke. He was lying still beside her, his lips moving against her neck even as he slept. Her head felt heavy and there was the sour taste of wine in her mouth. She turned her face into the pillow and felt a slow trickle of tears running from the corner of her eye. Stirring, he murmured something, then settled into sleep again. She opened her eyes wide, staring into the darkness of the room, seeing the vague shapes of their clothes scattered like flotsam on the carpet.
Now was the time when they should waken to love. To lie there, face to face, whispering of that love, overcome by what had happened and willing it to happen again. Lisa put a hand over her mouth in a small gesture of comfort, knowing that there was no love, had never been love and never would be. Lust … that was what had made it happen, and a liberated woman would recognize that fact and accept it for the truth it happened to be. The tears rolled down – she tasted the sad saltiness of them as they soaked into the pillow. They were both free agents and this sleeping man was, she guessed, as lonely as she felt herself to be.
But men were different. The platitude didn’t amuse. It was true. Moving slowly and carefully, she slid from the bed, held her breath as Gordon moaned once, then tiptoed softly through into the bathroom, picking up her discarded clothing as she went.
When Gordon opened his eyes five minutes later and saw her sitting by the window wearing a white towelling robe, he smiled and held out his arms; but as she spoke he sat up in bed, his eyes widening in amazement.
‘I’d like you to go, please.’ Her voice was as cold and brittle as an icicle. ‘It’s only one o’clock in the morning. If you turn left as you come out of the flats, then left again, you’ll come to the main road where there’ll be plenty of taxis at this time.’
‘But … what did you say?’ Forgetting he was naked, he got out of bed. Then, feeling foolish, he pulled a disordered sheet angrily towards him and draped it round his waist.
‘I want you to go, Gordon. I want you to forget what’s happened, and I never want you to refer to it again.’ Lisa stood up, somehow widening the distance between them. ‘We’d both had too much to drink, so there’s no blame. I want you to forgo our meeting this morning and catch the train back north, and the next time we speak we can be back where we were before … before we did what we did.’
‘Holy smoke!’ Gordon forgot that his very generous monthly salary was paid by the small slim woman regarding him with apparent calm. He sat down heavily on the side of the bed. ‘Of all the heartless, unfeeling… . Oh, lady, I’ve met some heartless ones in the past, but you take the biscuit! What are you suggesting? That I took advantage of you?’ He ran a hand through his thick brown hair. ‘I’ve heard of one-night stands – I’ve even experienced a couple – but I’ve never been thrown out before it’s come light. What do you want me to do? Put the money on your dressing-table as I go out?’
‘How dare you!’ He heard the tears in her
voice, but the pride that had been shattered when his wife left him for another man flared his temper, so that he was in two minds whether to dress with as much dignity as he could muster, or walk over to his employer and shake her till her little white teeth rattled.
‘So I’ve just screwed myself out of a job, have I?’ The crudity slipped out before he could control his tongue. ‘You were asking for it, Mrs Carr. What’s wrong with you, for Pete’s sake? We’re not children, either one of us. You’re free and so am I.’ He reached for his socks. ‘So guilt doesn’t come into it. What’s wrong with you?’
‘I suppose I’ve realized I’m too old to join the permissive society.’ She was trying to sound flippant but failed miserably. ‘I tried, Gordon, but it wasn’t any use. I’m sorry.’
‘And so am I.’ His anger evaporating, the big man reached for his underpants and climbed into them. ‘Now I suppose I can consider myself fired?’
‘No.’ Across the darkened room she stared at him, but he was unable to read her expression. ‘If you can face it, then so can I.’
‘Face what?’
All at once he realized she was scared. Of what, he didn’t know and he was damned if he’d try to find out at that time in the morning. Not with her watching him struggle into his shirt and tuck the tail flaps into his trousers. She’d emasculated him, that’s what she’d done, and if it weren’t for the job and his commitments he would tell her where to go. He looked round for his tie and didn’t even show surprise when she handed it to him.
‘Just go, Gordon,’ she was saying brokenly. ‘I deserve everything you’ve said, but I don’t want you to give up your job. You’ve worked hard for me ever since you came in with me. I know your divorce cost you your own business, but we can’t work together if we spoil it by …’
‘Making love?’
‘It wasn’t love, and you know it.’
‘What was it, then?’ Gordon slung his jacket over his shoulder and walked towards the door. ‘OK, OK. I’m going. I don’t understand and maybe I never will. But if you can forget it, then so can I.’ He turned and looked straight at her. ‘But remember one thing, love. Men are better at forgetting this sort of thing than women. It’s a biological truth.’