Sally Wentworth

by Semi-Detached Marriage (lit)

  He was unable to get away for the first three weekends and Cassie voluntarily spent the Saturdays in the store, going through the stock lists in the departments she'd taken over and deciding on what lines she wanted to replace them. Unfortunately, from her point of view, the January sales were over and Mrs. Nichols had already stocked up with new merchandise, so it would take a month or two before she could put her own plans into operation, but at least it gave her plenty of time to decide on exactly what she wanted.

  In the evenings she worked late, often not getting home until eight or nine o'clock, when she either opened a couple of tins or else took a ready-meal from the freezer and just heated it up, and sat and ate it in front of the television, too tired to do anything else but let the screen's flickerings lull her into a soporific, semi-trancelike state until she rolled into bed.

  This was fine for a while, but gradually the pressure of work eased as she took full control of the new departments and became familiar with their staff and needs. She decided to concentrate on modernising one department at a time, and decided to start with the swimwear department as that was the smallest and was just coming into its own again after the winter run down.

  She had a talk with the girls working there, finding them keen and enthusiastic about her new ideas and making sure that they were behind her. It was a policy she had always adopted and found that it generally worked well, especially among the younger members of staff, although there were always a few diehards among the people who had worked there for years and didn't see any point in changing tried and tested lines and methods. `But we've always displayed that model there,' one would complain when Cassie told her to move the headless and limbless torso clad in a pink, boned corselet.

  `Yes, but now I want to put one of the more lifelike models with the latest silk French knickers and lace bras there. You see, it's near the escalator and we want the model to catch the eye of women going up to the next floor and draw them into this department,' Cassie would explain patiently, adding a clinching, `After all, the more people we get in here the more are likely to buy something, and then your commission goes up, doesn't it?'

  It was stimulating and exciting and Cassie loved it, but gradually she began to feel a little restless and lonely, began to wish that Simon would come home.

  Of course there was always Sue Martin, her assistant, with whom she could have lunch or slip into a pub with for a drink before going home, and a couple of times she went on shopping trips with Julia Russeu, or some other friend, but it was in the evenings, especially when she lay alone in bed, that she really felt lonely.

  She would lie in the big double bed, tossing and turning restlessly, unable to get to sleep even though she was both mentally and physically tired, and it gradually dawned on her that it wasn't only Simon she missed so much but also his lovemaking. Both of them had a high sex drive and made love often when he was home, Simon-by far the more experienced-always able to bring her to a dizzying climax time after time. And she missed that, missed the joyous ecstasy of sex and missed just being near to him, held close in his arms, feeling his strong male body against hers and anticipating with certain excitement the rapture to come.

  But when he did come home it was only for a fleeting visit and most of the precious few hours were spent at the office. Also it was the wrong time of the month, so Cassie felt, if anything, even more frustrated when she went with him in the car to see him off at the airport.

  `Surely they can spare you for at least another day,' she complained as they drew up outside the air terminal. `It's ridiculous coming all this way just for twenty-four hours.'

  Simon put his arm round her and drew her to him, put his face against her hair, savouring its clean, sweet smell. `It's all I could manage, love. Do you think I wouldn't have stayed longer if I could possibly have arranged it?'

  'When will you be able to get home again?'

  He shrugged. `I just can't say, I'm afraid. At the moment we're working out a whole new pay structure system with the unions that we hope will settle all our labour difficulties once and for all. But as there are over a dozen different unions involved in various jobs on the site it's no easy matter to get them all in agreement. Often you think you're really getting somewhere when one union will bring up a point that throws them all into disruption again.' He grinned wryly and went to go on, but glanced at Cassie's face and then sat back, withdrawing his arm. 'But you don't want to know about that.'

  For a second she almost made the mistake of agreeing with him, but just in time saw the tight look in his face and was filled with a sudden surge of love and need. Impulsively she leaned over and grabbed the lapels of his overcoat, saying fiercely, 'I do, if it's what's keeping us apart. You've never been away for so long before and I miss you.' She kissed him, her lips urgent. 'And I want you. Oh, Simon, I want you so much!'

  His arms went round her again as he returned her kiss, answering her urgency with a fierce need of his own, his arms hurting her as he crushed her to him. After he at length raised his head, he still held her close, her head against his shoulder as he put up a hand to gently stroke her face, to smooth back a lock of hair. His voice thick, he said, 'Look, try and get up to Scotland next weekend, okay? I'll try and arrange for the firm to fly you up.'

  'Oh, but next Saturday I was going to have a meeting with the window dressers to decide on how to display the new Spring collection.' She felt his fingers tighten against her face and saw a bleak, closed in look come into his eyes. Impulsively she reached up and caught his wrist just as he was about to withdraw his hand.

  'All right, I'll come. It will be the devil's own job to get everyone to stay behind one evening after work instead, but I'll manage it somehow.'

  Immediately his eyes grew warm and he kissed her again. 'That's great. I'll lay it on with the firm.'

  He went to get out of the car, but Cassie stopped him. 'Wait. What clothes will I need? Is it still cold up there? What will we be doing?'

  Simon grinned, a devilish light in his eyes. 'Just bring your sexiest nightdress. Because I'm going to take you to bed and we're going to stay there for the whole weekend!'

  Cassie laughed and pretended to be a little shocked, but as she drove back to the West End she felt gay and bubbly with inner excitement, glad that she'd promised to go even though it meant asking several people to reorganise their schedules just to achieve it. As soon as she reached the store she asked Sue Martin to get the first of the people on the phone.

  'Shall I talk to them?' Sue offered.

  No, I'd better speak to them myself; they'll be upset enough at having to change the time of the meeting, better not make it worse by delegating the job to you.' As Sue dialed the number, Cassie added, 'How about you, Sue? I know you were going to come to the Saturday meeting, but I expect you'll want to get home to Chris in the evening, won't you?'

  Her assistant pulled a wry face. 'Oh, there's no hurry. Chris seems to be working late at the office quite a bit lately, much more than he used to.'

  'Is there a special job on or something?'

  'Not really. He said that someone left rather suddenly and hasn't yet been replaced, so he's having to take on an extra work-load. He even had to go into the office last Saturday and again this week.'

  `Well, I'm sure his firm will appreciate him helping them out, and it all helps in the promotion stakes. Look on it as logging up some credit for the future,' Cassie said encouragingly, adding, `Anyway, I don't expect it will be for long.'

  'I hope not,' Sue answered glumly. `I'm getting fed up with being by myself. What's the point of being married if you can't be together?'

  Cassie looked at the younger girl sharply, but she was too wrapped up in her own problems to realise that her remark also applied to Cassie's situation. Then the person Cassie wanted to speak to came on the line, so the two girls were plunged back into the work routine, their domestic difficulties for the moment shelved.

  The rest of that week was both hectic and frustrating, with thin
gs seeming to go wrong all the time and one problem being solved only to have several more crop up. And this happened at home as well as in the office: first the television went into fuzzy lines and then Cassie got a panic phone call from the people in the flat below and she rushed home to find that the washing machine, which she'd left working happily, had gone wrong and was continually pouring out water that had flooded the kitchen and spread to the sitting room carpet. Cassie managed to turn the water off and mop up the worst of the mess, but then had to dash back to the store to interview a salesman who had come all the way from Denmark and had only stopped over on his way to America.

  By the time Friday evening came all she wanted to do was put her feet up, but she had arranged with Mullaine's for a car to pick her up straight from work, but of course there was inevitably for that ghastly week, a last minute phone call with another problem she had to solve, so the car was left waiting for half an hour and then there was a mad panic to get through the Friday night rush hour traffic of workers trying to get home while others were driving into the West End to do some window-shopping or to have a meal before going on to a show or cinema. The driver was none too pleased with her and let his annoyance show by making the ride as rough and jerky as possible taking corners , too fast so that she had to hold on to the strap to stop herself swinging across the car and putting on his brakes sharply at traffic lights so that she shot forward in her seat.

  When she got to Heathrow she was seething with anger and would have given the driver a piece of her mind if he hadn't thwarted her by dumping her case on the pavement and immediately getting back in and driving off, leaving her staring after him, fuming with annoyance. Cassie picked up her case and walked to-wards the area for private flights, trying to will herself to simmer down, longing to get on the plane and relax with a drink. God, she needed it, she thought, her nerves felt like the teeth of a saw, cutting their way into her brain.

  And when she reached the desk she was told there was a delay, so instead she went to stand in line at the self-service counter and eventually managed to get a coffee and a sandwich, but then had to stand up to eat them because all the seats round the tables were taken; not that Cassie particularly wanted to sit down when she saw the white plastic tables piled with dirty crockery, their surfaces unwiped and wet with spilt drinks.

  After half an hour she went back to the desk and demanded to know what was happening.

  'I'm sorry, madam,' the receptionist told her, `but all flights to Scotland have been grounded indefinitely because of freezing fog that's come down in the Glasgow and Edinburgh area.'

  `Indefinitely?' Cassie stared at the man in horror. `But haven't you any idea how long it's going to be?'

  `Sorry, we've just got to wait until the fog lifts.'

  `But that might not be until tomorrow!'

  'That's possible, quite likely even,' the man said with a shrug, then pointed out, 'But perhaps, if you don't want to wait, you might consider going by train? I could phone through and book you a seat on the night express to Glasgow if you like?'

  Cassie hesitated only a moment; there was no way she wanted to go home and then come all the way out to the airport again tomorrow. 'Yes, all right, do that for me, would you? And book me a sleeper, please.'

  The receptionist phoned through while Cassie thought miserably of the long journey ahead, but at least she'd be able to get some sleep on the way. But that, too, was to be denied her in this worst of all weeks.

  'I'm sorry, Mrs. Ventris, but all the sleepers have been taken, but I've managed to get you a first class seat. The train leaves at nine thirty.'

  'Thanks.' Cassie picked up her case again and walked out into the cold air to get a taxi to take her back into London.

  She spent the hours on the train in reading a novel that she'd bought at the bookstall in the station. She had also had a meal in the restaurant there because there was no buffet car on the train, so at least she wasn't hungry, only extremely bored as the high-speed train scorched through the night, past towns whose inhabitants were snugly tucked up in bed or seated in front of the fire, watching television. Cassie pictured them in her imagination and heartily envied them, her only comfort that she would be with Simon in just a few more hours.

  Towards midnight it grew colder, despite the heating, and when she lifted up the blind she saw that it was snowing, large driving flakes that pelted the windows of the swiftly moving train. They stopped only three times on the way up, at Birmingham, Manchester and Carlisle, close to the Scottish border.

  At the latter station Cassie got up to stretch her legs and noted gloomily that the snow was already quite deep, clinging to the roofs and blowing into drifts at every exposed corner. But at least there was no fog here, although that didn't necessarily mean that there wouldn't be any further north in Glasgow, of course, but Cassie lived in hope.

  And she was right; there wasn't any fog when she finally arrived in Glasgow in the early hours of the morning, just snow, a blinding, raging blizzard of snow that had taken every taxi off the streets and left them white and deserted, so that it looked more like Moscow in the depths of winter than anything else. Cassie took one look at it and hurried back into the station to find a phone. First she tried the airport, only to be told that conditions in the north-west were even worse than in Glasgow and that nothing-planes or helicopters— would be taking off until the blizzard stopped. Next she tried to phone Simon, but had to go through the operator and there was a great deal of delay and wrong connections until she finally got through to him.

  'Cassie?' he exclaimed in sleepy surprise when he heard her voice, then, on a sharper note, `What is it? What's happened?'

  `The plane couldn't take off because there was fog in Glasgow, so I took a train,' she explained. 'But now there's snow here and I can't get out to the site.'

  'Took a train? D'you mean to say you're in Glasgow?'

  'Yes, of course. Where did you think I was?'

  'Back home at the flat. The company's representative at Heathrow phoned me to say you wouldn't be arriving by plane, but I'd no idea you'd come up by train.'

  'You weren't waiting up for me, then?' Cassie demanded, her mental picture of Simon pacing the floor with worry beginning to fragment.

  'No, I was in bed.'

  'In bed! While I was sitting up in that damn cold train for hours and hours? And now I'm stuck in this rotten station at three o'clock in the morning with a blizzard raging outside, and no planes and no taxis and nowhere to go!' Her voice rose in shrill anger. 'Added to which I'm not dressed for a damn blizzard and I'm freezing!' Which was an exaggeration, because she was wearing a brown padded cotton jacket over her tweed suit, but her feet in a pair of the latest high-heeled leather boots were definitely beginning to feel the cold, as were her hands and nose.

  Simon, recognising the note of extreme tiredness and near-panic in her voice, was immediately soothing and businesslike. 'Exactly where are you?'

  'I told you, in Glasgow Station, and there aren't any taxis and I…'

  'Okay, so here's what you do,' Simon interrupted tersely. 'You go and find the waiting-room and stay there until someone comes for you. I'll phone the hotel that Mullaine's uses—the one we stayed in last time, remember?-and get them to send a car for you.'

  `And what happens if I get attacked or mugged or something while I'm waiting?' she demanded indignantly.

  Even over the miles of line she could hear the laughter in Simon's voice. 'Just turn round and tell them what you think of Scotland in general and Glasgow in particular; they'll soon turn round and run.'

  'Simon!' But even through her indignation she saw the funny side of it and had to laugh. 'Oh, darling,' she sighed, 'I'm sorry, only it's been such a rotten night. What shall I do, try to get a helicopter later on this morning?'

  'No, you sit tight at the hotel. I'll try and get to you.'

  'All right. But do hurry, darling. I miss you.'

  'Don't worry,' he answered softly. 'If there's any way of getting
through this to you, I'll make it.' But the wintry conditions decreed otherwise and, after several abortive and frustrating attempts to reach Glasgow, Simon had to give up.

  'I'm sorry, love,' he told her over the phone late on Saturday night, when the storm had raged without letting up all day, 'but there's just no way I can make it. I've tried everything: the helicopter, a Range Rover with chains on the tyres, snow-ploughs, even a boat to take me by sea, but they either refuse to risk the weather or else get bogged down after only a couple of miles; even the snow-plough couldn't make it.' The annoyance at having to admit defeat was clear in his voice and Cassie could imagine how galling he must find it that he could have so many means of transport at his disposal and yet be thwarted by a simple snowstorm.

  Cassie gave a sigh of pure frustration, 'Oh, Simon, just when are we going to get together?'

  `Just as soon as I can make it. Do you think that being away from you isn't driving me to distraction, too? But at least we can talk on the phone.'

  'We could have done that when I was at home in London,' Cassie pointed out acidly. 'I didn't come all this way just so that we could exchange platitudes over the phone.'

  'But we're not going to just exchange platitudes.' His voice became soft, caressing. `You're going to lie on your bed and I'm going to tell you exactly what I'm going to do to you the next time I make love to you. Now, lie back.'

  Cassie smiled to herself and did as she was told, wriggling down deliciously on to the pillow and holding the receiver close to her ear. 'And just where do you propose to start?' she asked him huskily.

  'At the top,' he told her, 'working my way slowly down with a couple of very interesting diversions to left and right on the way…'

  Back in London, Cassie threw herself into her work with a rather grim determination to forget about Simon and being lonely. She tried to be philosophical about it, telling herself that other women, who were married to sailors, or soldiers, or something like that, were apart for far longer periods and managed to survive. The fact that the divorce rate among such couples was also very high, she could ignore; her's and Simon's feelings for each other were strong enough to weather even such a long separation as this. And gradually, as she again immersed herself in her work, to the exclusion of nearly everything else, it began to have an immunising effect, cushioning her from any real feelings, so that her frustration and loneliness were buried beneath constant activity, channeling all her energy into her work where before she divided it between work, home, friends and her social life.