African Assignment

by Carol Gregor

  AFRICAN ASSIGNMENT

  Carol Gregor

  Africa was the chance of a lifetime for a secretary with a bad case of wanderlust. Frankie O'Shea knew Cal Fenton was desperate--or he would never have hired her as his driver on his latest photographic shoot. Women were strictly an after-hours occupation for Cal--he could do well without those sorts of distractions.

  Frankie hoped her cold, commandeering new boss would warm up now that he was in his element. But nothing seemed to penetrate Cal's tough self-sufficiency; he seemed determined to make things difficult for her. Worse, this clearly wasn't any ordinary assignment. It was fraught with danger--most of it from the disturbing masculine presence of Cal Fenton... .

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was five to three. Frankie turned the corner and checked the address. Number five. This was it, this imposing, colonnaded Regency house, with its marble steps and gleaming white stucco, and the number painted black in a round, raised panel on one of the pillars.

  She swallowed, intimidated by the austere grandness of the entrance, and ran her hands nervously down the sides of her dress. The beige cotton shirt-waister felt strange to her touch, and she grimaced. The dress turned her into an impostor. It was too neat, too anonymous. She hated it. What she usually wore were tight leggings with T-shirts, or swirling dresses in brightly coloured Indian cottons, but Aunt Jenny had insisted that she needed a sensible outfit for occasions such as these, and today she had to acknowledge that her aunt had been right. None of her other clothes would have been suitable for an interview for a mystery job with an entirely unknown boss.

  She looked up. The windows of the house looked cold and blank and there was not so much as an empty milk bottle on the step to show signs of human habitation.

  Well, it didn't matter, she told herself with forced bravado. If she didn't like the sound of the job, or didn't like the look of Mr Fenton, then she needn't have anything to do with it. And she probably wouldn't. She certainly didn't like the abrupt way she had been summoned to see him. She pushed the bell, tipped her chin defiantly, and waited.

  Somewhere in the dim recesses of the house there was a mournful chime. She waited. The carrier-bag she was carrying was so heavy that it cut her hand. She shifted it to the other hand. Her flimsy courage was ebbing with every minute. For two pins she would turn and flee, but she knew she couldn't. She had to give it a try—after all, what other hope did she have of landing a job? And without a job she was penniless, unable to pay the rent and forced to flee in disgrace back home to Yorkshire.

  She pushed the bell again and this time footsteps responded to its dismal tone. A middle-aged woman opened the door.

  'Yes?' Her tone was frosty.

  'I'm Frankie. Frankie O'Shea.'

  'Oh.' The woman's thin eyebrows rose in blatant astonishment.

  'You were expecting me?' Frankie's stretched nerves jangled. Maybe she'd got the wrong day, and blown her chance of this job before she'd even started?

  'Yes, yes. It's just that—oh, well, never mind. You'd better come in, anyway.' She held the door open for her to walk in. The hall was huge and cavernous. The woman briskly led the way through to a large drawing-room.

  'I'm Elaine Pye, Mr Fenton's secretary. Would you mind waiting here? I'm afraid he got delayed in Paris this morning. He's somewhere between Heathrow and here. He should have been here by now, but you know what the traffic can be like.'

  'Er—yes.' She longed to ask Elaine Pye who Cal Fenton was, and what he did—but the questions seemed foolish, and she was overawed by the cool distance of the woman's manner, and even more so by her surroundings.

  She turned to take them in. Three floor-to-ceiling windows gave a superb view of the park. They were hung and draped with expensive navy silk hangings. The walls were palest grey with a faint silky sheen. Some obviously expensive but rather gloomy Dutch water-colours were hung here and there, and the mirror above the marble fireplace was gilded. There were two sofas, covered in grey striped fabric, but they looked stiff and cold, as if no one had ever used them to sit and talk and laugh.

  She'd like to let Aunt Jenny loose in here, she thought, looking around. She'd light logs in the grate, and put a bowl of roses on the table. She'd open the windows to let a fresh breeze stir those sombre hangings, and add a few family photographs for warmth and clutter.

  'Is this --' She turned to ask a question of Elaine Pye, but found that the woman had already stepped silently away, leaving her alone.

  She went instinctively to the window. There were children playing on the grass of the park, but the windows were double-glazed and no sound of their laughter penetrated through to her.

  'Oh, lord,' she muttered, and set down her carrier-bag on the floor to ease her hand. As she did so a black taxi cruised to a halt in the street below. A dark-haired man unfolded himself and stepped hastily up the steps. She heard a key in the door, then a slam.

  'Elaine!' The shout was deep and peremptory. She heard high heels tapping on the marble floor in answer to the summons. 'What time am I supposed to be in Brighton?'

  'Six o'clock. The judges are meeting for drinks first.'

  'Hell's teeth! Next time one of these damn award things comes up, remind me to have nothing to do with it.'

  'Frankie O'Shea's in the drawing-room.'

  'Who? Oh, yes. Right. I'll get that over with first. I'll only be a minute. Get me Andy Rawlins in New York, will you?'

  Get her over with? Frankie bridled.

  'Yes. Cal, before you go in,? I think you should know --'

  'I'm busy. Tell me later.'

  She heard impatient steps striding towards the room where she stood, and suddenly her heart dipped with a premonition of disaster. She was in a condemned cell, she thought, with the executioner coming to get her, and there was not a thing she could do about it. She was rooted to the spot. She swallowed fast several times as the door opened.

  She saw a tall man come in, a man dressed in black— black shirt, black leather jacket, black trousers. He had black hair, and a black travelling-bag which he threw carelessly on to a chair, and his look was black with impatience and fatigue.

  'Frankie? I'm sorry you've had to wait.'

  She moved forward, away from the shadows of the curtain where she had been standing. Her dress was pale in the gloomy room, and her auburn hair gleamed lustrously in the sunlight that slanted through the window.

  She smiled and held out her hand, but his face was aghast.

  'My God!' he said. 'You're a girl!'

  His words echoed around the room, making her head reel. Then her thoughts snapped into focus.

  'Of course I'm a girl! What did you expect?'

  'What do you think I expected? A boy. A young man. What sort of name is Frankie for a girl?'

  'A perfectly good one. It's short for Francesca, which I've always hated. The nuns tried to make me use it, but I refused. I feel like a Frankie.'

  'Nuns?'

  'At the convent.'

  'A convent girl! This gets worse and worse. Well, it would have been nice if someone had bothered to tell me! All I was told was that Mike O'Shea's brat was looking for something to do. Then I was given your name.'

  'Brat!'

  He dashed an impatient hand through his hair. 'Well, they might have said child, or offspring, or something. I don't remember exactly. I can tell you one thing— they certainly didn't say daughter, or you wouldn't be standing here today. Hell and damnation! What am I going to do now?'

  Anger robbed her of all her shyness. She marched forward, round the end of a sofa, towards him. 'It's wasted my time, too! This whole thing is ridiculous. If you'd had the basic courtesy to ring me, and explain what you were looking for, this would never have happened! All I got was that brus
que little note giving me the time and place.'

  His look was unbending. 'There's been no time for niceties like telephone calls. It's just been crazy lately. I had a lad all lined up to come with me, but he suddenly decided he'd rather crew a yacht round the Mediterranean for the summer. I thought any boy of Mike O'Shea's would be ideal, so I grabbed the chance.'

  His words stopped her in her tracks. 'You mean you actually knew my father? Not just by reputation?' She was near him now, and as she spoke she looked fully into his face for the first time.

  'Oh!'

  What she saw there made her gasp. She felt as if the breath had been literally knocked out of her. Cal Fenton was tall and athletic, younger than his dark figure had first appeared. He had black hair, straight black eyebrows and a cuttingly straight mouth, but it was his eyes that took the air from her body. They were grey and handsome, but they were also the bleakest eyes she had ever seen in her life. When she looked into them she saw cold winter days when the sky was low and the rain sheeted down and there seemed to be no hope or happiness left anywhere in the world.

  'What's the matter?' he snapped. 'You're looking as if you've seen a ghost.'

  She shook her head. 'Nothing.' But that was exactly how she felt. As if she had seen a ghost—the ghost of lost joy and laughter. 'Did you really know my father?'

  'Yes. I met him in the Middle East, years ago.' His voice was terse.

  'Oh, I see! You're a foreign correspondent, like he was.'

  He gave her a strange look. 'No. Photographer. Although it doesn't make much difference when you're all trying to survive in a war zone together.'

  Her mouth turned down. 'Mike wasn't very good at surviving in the end though, was he?' There was still a raw pain in her words, despite the seven long years since the phone had rung at home in Yorkshire and shattered her childhood world forever.

  His eyes went over her intently, then flicked away. 'It was a random car bomb,' he rapped out. 'It was just bad luck that he happened to be walking down that road when it happened.'

  'Bad luck,' she said bitterly. 'Hardly. He'd chosen to be in Beirut. Bombs go off there all the time.'

  'It was his job—a job he loved and was superb at.'

  She turned away. The cold grey eyes were turned on her and she felt chilled by their light.

  'I'm very sorry you lost your father,' he said, formally. 'It must have been hard for you and your mother --'

  'My mother didn't know a thing about it! She was killed in a car accident when I was ten. We seem to be an extraordinarily unlucky family. Or maybe we're just careless!' To her utter horror she felt her voice go shaky with tears and she swallowed hard once or twice. Self-pity was not something she normally indulged in, but today wasn't turning out to be a normal sort of day at all.

  'Well, I'm sorry,' he said behind her. 'But you had a fine father. One to be proud of. Now, though, if you'll excuse me, I've got a million things to do. I hope I haven't wasted too much of your afternoon.'

  She whirled back to the present and turned to face him.

  'Just as a matter of interest, what was this job anyway? What was so taxing about it that a girl couldn't possibly be considered capable of doing it?'

  He looked at her and shrugged one shoulder carelessly. 'I'm convalescent, hurt this shoulder on my last assignment. I need someone to do my driving.'

  'I can drive!'

  'It's not only that. I'm flying to Africa for a few weeks. There's a job I have to do out there for a wildlife charity. They haven't got; much money so I have to keep costs to a minimum. One tent, one hotel-room, all that --'

  But she was scarcely listening. Africa! Flying to Africa! The words rang in her brain like a bell, and immediately a thousand images came tumbling through her mind. She saw golden plains, lions, wildebeest. She heard drums, and felt the hot sun on her face, and smelled the scent of dust and freedom, and suddenly, from nowhere, she knew that she wanted to go to Africa more than she had ever wanted anything in her life! She felt almost breathless with desire. So this was what she had been wanting, she thought with astonishment, remembering how bored and claustrophobic she had felt in her previous jobs. To travel the world, and find its wonders. Why had she never realised that before?

  'Well, that's ridiculous,' she butted in bluntly, shouldering aside his words. 'There's no good reason why a girl couldn't do all that!'

  'Have you even been listening to me?'

  'Of course I have, but you're talking nonsense. Complete nonsense. Why, you might even do better taking a girl along! She could cook and—and --'

  'And?' he said drily, and a spark flickered briefly in the coldness of his cutting gaze. 'You needn't go on. I've an active enough imagination—and that's another very good reason for not wanting mixed company. As far as I'm concerned, women are strictly an after-hours occupation. I can well do without those sorts of distractions when I'm trying to work.' He turned and picked up his bag. 'Don't bother to go on. You're not going to persuade me. My mind's made up.'

  'Why, that's ridiculous! Women are people, not an "occupation"!'

  'So I've been told.'

  'Times have changed!'

  'Some things never change.'

  'Or some men!'

  'That's as may be. But I don't intend to stand here wasting even more of my valuable time arguing gender politics. I think you know your way out.'

  'I'll be glad to go!' The man was insufferable. She marched towards the door. Then something—maybe all the clamouring images of Africa that still rang in her head—made her pause and turn.

  'When do you go?'

  'On Friday.'

  'You'll never find anyone else by then.'

  'I'm sure I will.'

  'What if you don't?'

  'I'll manage alone.'

  'You'll do no such thing.'

  A voice from the hallway startled them both. Elaine Pye stood there, hands on her hips. She looked towards Frankie. 'He took a direct hit in that shoulder. Half the bones were shattered to pieces. The sling's only just come off and now he's talking about driving around the back of beyond on his own --'

  'Elaine, don't nanny me or I'll fire you. Have you got Andy on line?'

  'He's waiting now.'

  'Then I'll say goodbye, Miss O'Shea. Elaine will show you out.' And he turned and was gone.

  'Where was he shot?' she asked Elaine.

  'Haiti. The election riots.'

  'Oh,' she said, then her hands flew to her mouth. 'Oh! Of course! I've just realised! He's Cal Fenton, the Cal Fenton!'

  Suddenly it all slotted into place. How he had known Mike, the bullet wound, the curt manner. Above all the bleak grey eyes. How could you look anything but bleak when you had had a ringside view of every war and famine and natural disaster the earth had managed to produce over the last ten years, and your pictures had become the world's best-known symbols of the hopelessness of modern times?

  'I wasn't thinking—I didn't realise who he was—'

  'I presume that makes two of you,' Elaine Pye said tartly. 'I'm sure he thought you were a boy. I would have warned him if there had been time.'

  'He did.' She tossed her head, and raised her chin defiantly. 'I was a great disappointment to him—and that made two of us. I can assure you I have far better things to do with my time than to make fruitless trips across London.' And she brushed past the older woman and tapped down the steps without a backward glance.

  CHAPTER TWO

  'How was it?' Frankie's flatmate Alice asked, when she arrived back.

  'Nice job, awful man. How was your day off?'

  'Lovely. I slept all morning, then I went shopping.'

  'Ugh. Before I do anything else, I'm going to take this dress off and put some of my real clothes on.'

  'It is pretty ghastly,' Alice agreed readily. 'Why did you buy it?'

  'I didn't. Aunt Jenny did, last year. She thinks it's just the thing for an interview and I didn't have the heart to disappoint her.'

  Alice waited for her to
reappear. She eyed Frankie's flounced mini-skirt and cropped top. 'That's much better,' she pronounced. 'Why was he awful, the man?'

  'He was Cal Fenton.'

  Alice's eyes widened. 'You mean the news photographer? But he's divine!' She shivered. 'He sort of smoulders out of his picture. You can see how he gets all his women.'

  'What women?'

  'Oh, he's always in the gossip columns with different ones; he's known for it. There was an article in the Sunday Dispatch recently.' Her hand described a banner headline in the air. '"He Loves—Then He Leaves" That's what it said.'

  'You don't want to believe all you read in that rag. Anyway, he doesn't smoulder in real life. He glowers.

  And he isn't at all divine. He's very good-looking, but he's so cold and hard—and probably mean with it.'

  'Starvation wages?'

  'I don't know about that. We didn't get that far. I lacked one vital attribute for the job.'

  'What was that?'

  She paused, then giggled. 'He wanted a man.'

  'Oh. That attribute.' Alice giggled with her. 'I wonder what he wanted it for?'

  'I don't know. He's got a gammy shoulder and said he needed someone to do his driving, but I think he really just prefers the idea of a male lackey. Perhaps he feels he would have to be polite to a girl!'

  'You don't think that deep down he's --' Alice paused delicately.

  'Oh, no. No way!' She remembered the spark that had briefly warmed the depth of his grey gaze. 'On the contrary, he seems to believe women were put on this earth strictly for his leisure and pleasure.'

  'What was the job?'

  She sighed and turned wistful green eyes on her flatmate. 'Oh, Alice, it sounded wonderful. Fabulous. He was going to Africa to photograph animals. It would have meant going off camping in the bush --'

  She stared, unseeing, at the opposite wall. 'I would have loved to have gone. Even with Mr Gloom. . .'

  'Couldn't you have persuaded him? Demonstrated your muscles?'

  'No. His mind was made up the minute he saw me. He could barely give me the time of day.' She sighed heavily. 'Now what am I going to do?'