Charity (36 page)

Charity studied his face as he was speaking: the way his eyes crinkled up when he laughed, the curve of his lips. She had the desire to run a finger down the deep lines in his cheeks, to touch those springy, grey-frosted brown curls.

Rita’s words about older men were pricking at her. John had a youthful exuberance that years and experience hadn’t diluted and she found herself wishing she could be with him on one of these trips.

She told him all about Dorothy and Rita and talked of the flat again, describing it in minute detail.

‘It will be the first time I’ve ever been really free,’ she said. ‘I can’t quite imagine being able to come and go as I like with no one to ask questions.’

‘I know how it will be for you if you aren’t careful,’ John said gently. ‘You’ll turn that flat into a real home, you’ll collect possessions and be a mother to the other girls, even though you’re the youngest. Try not to do that. Enjoy the fun and be irresponsible.’

‘We
will
have fun,’ she said. ‘But what’s wrong with painting the place and making it nice?’

‘Nothing at all.’ He patted her cheek. ‘But supposing someone came along and asked you to drop everything and go on a trip with them. What would your answer be?’

‘It would depend who it was, and when they wanted me to go,’ she said.

‘Well, for argument’s sake, suppose I asked you to come to Italy with me at the end of next week. Would you come?’

Charity’s heart turned over. ‘I couldn’t,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got the flat to paint, interviews for jobs, Dorothy and Rita to consider.’

John looked at Charity and smiled.

He knew she hadn’t realised his question was a real invitation. She didn’t look like a little waif tonight. The black sheath dress and her new hairstyle gave her a veneer of sophistication, and new-found happiness had made her eyes sparkle. But she had no experience of anything other than drudgery and suddenly he wanted to lift her away from all that, show her the world was a big, beautiful place.

‘I’ve got to go to Florence at the end of next week,’ he said. ‘Come with me?’

Charity just stared in surprise.

‘I can’t,’ she said faintly.

‘I know. You’ve got the painting and unpacking, the interviews and being with your friends,’ John said. ‘But I’m only talking about a few days, a week at most. All that can wait.’

Later Charity thought it odd that she hadn’t even considered whether he was asking her to share his bed, or hadn’t even been shocked at the suggestion that he might be.

‘I can’t just go like that.’ She giggled, embarrassed now by the intensity in his eyes.

‘You can.’ He took her hand and lifted it to his lips, gently kissing the tips of her fingers. ‘You told me yourself it is the first time you’ve been free.’

He could hardly believe what he was saying. A man of fifty suddenly asking an eighteen-year-old to go away with him. It was madness!

‘But Rita and Dorothy –’

Her flushed face throbbed and the touch of his lips on her fingers was making her feel very peculiar.

‘I bet
they’d
go.’ He laughed softly and continued to nibble at her fingers. ‘Come on, be daring. Say yes.’

‘But I hardly know you!’ She thought she ought to remove her hand from his, but she so wanted to keep it there. She felt very confused.

John had enough experience for both of them. There had been many women in his life, of all nationalities, brief affairs in the main because of the nature of his work. He knew Charity’s becoming blush was a prickle of sexual attraction, even if she didn’t.

‘But –’ she stopped short unable to find the right words.

Her face was so beautiful John had a desire to pull her into his arms there and then, regardless of the other customers. But he knew he mustn’t frighten her.

‘It can be however you want it to be,’ he said. ‘As friends with separate rooms, if that’s what you want. I won’t push you into anything you aren’t happy about.’

‘I’ll have to think about it.’ She looked down at the table. ‘It’s a big step.’

‘It’s not such a big step,’ he said. ‘I’ll look after you, take you back home afterwards. It’s just for fun, Charity, a holiday.’ He didn’t know if he was speaking the truth or not.

All through coffee Charity kept stealing glances at John. He was speaking in fluent Italian to the waiter and she watched his expressive hands, so long and slender, his smile, the way his lips curled at the corners. She wondered what he would be like to kiss.

He took her back to the hotel in a taxi and jumped out with her. Piccadilly was a blaze of lights, hundreds of people milling around just the way it always was.

‘I’ll walk back to my hotel,’ he said catching her hand in his in a firm grip. ‘But how long have I got to wait for my reply? Have you got a passport? We’ll have to get that organised.’

Charity stopped just far enough away from the hotel not to be spotted by the doorman.

‘If you turn me down we’ll still be friends Charity,’ he said. ‘No strings!’

He took a step back from her, leaving her with her lips slightly apart waiting for the kiss that never materialised.

The next day Charity called in to Central Promotions in Oxford Street, at Rita’s suggestion. Almost the moment she stepped into the smart, glossy office she lost her confidence. Anne Rushton, a hard-looking blonde in her thirties, looked Charity up and down, then raised one eyebrow when she saw on the application form where Charity was working. Even the fact that she was a friend of Rita’s didn’t seem to impress her.

‘As I said, I’m only interviewing now to make a short list of girls I consider suitable for Glamour Girl Cosmetics’ promotion. Bearing in mind your lack of experience in this field I don’t want to build your hopes up. But call in again. I’m sure I shall be able to slot you into some other, less high-profile promotion job.’

Charity’s heart sank. It sounded very much like total rejection.

‘Thank you for seeing me, Miss Rushton.’ She forced a smile. ‘I’ll pop in again soon.’

Outside the office, Charity turned up the collar of her coat against the cold wind and walked back down Regent Street towards the hotel.

She was riddled with self-doubt now, wondering if she’d been a little hasty handing in her notice and letting Rita convince her the agency would jump at taking her on. Tonight she was meeting the girls at the flat and though she couldn’t wait to see Dorothy again, and to move in there, she had looked upon getting this job lined up as the deciding factor in whether she went with John to Florence or not.

‘Chas!’ Dorothy came hurtling across the box-strewn hall and flung her arms round Charity. ‘I thought you’d never get here.’

Charity just held her friend tightly for a moment, overcome. ‘I can’t really believe this,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Our flat, us all together again. It’s too much.’

Rita’s giggle made them both turn to her. She was brandishing a bottle of gin.

‘Celebration time,’ she said. ‘I helped myself to this from Dad’s drinks cabinet. It ought to be champagne, but it’ll have to do.’

Charity took off her coat and perched on the arm of the settee. All three of them were in jeans for the cleaning, but Dorothy looked even more devastatingly lovely than she remembered.

She was much slimmer and her fine features even more pronounced. Even though she was wearing no makeup and her long, dark brown hair was tied back with an elastic band, she had that enviable elegant look Charity would have died to possess.

‘How did the interview go?’ Rita asked as she poured liberal quantities of gin into three tumblers.

Charity dolefully recounted it.

‘I don’t think Anne Rushton was very impressed with me,’ she said finally.

‘The girls call her Ratty Rushton,’ Rita said with a smile. ‘I’ll put in a good word for you. Don’t worry.’

‘She’s stupid if she doesn’t take us,’ Dorothy said with that supreme confidence Charity had always been so impressed by. ‘Where else is she going to find a job lot with such fabulous faces, stunning figures and such charisma?’

Charity giggled, at once forgetting her anxiety. Rita topped up their glasses with lemonade and passed them round.

‘To our future,’ she said, raising hers for a toast. ‘May every party we throw be the wildest. May all our men be stinking rich!’

It was
so
good to be together again. They talked non stop, giggling about everything and anything.

Charity told them a little of her date with John, but held back about his invitation to Florence. She would make up her own mind about that and she knew if she told them they would insist she went.

Not a duster or broom was lifted, despite that being the intention of the evening. They moved Dorothy’s belongings into her room, unpacked a box of tinned food her mother had sent with her and discussed the need for paint and new curtains, but nothing more.

‘We’ll do it at the weekend.’ Rita’s words were slurred now with the gin. ‘Besides, we’ve all got next week free. Here’s to doing what we want, when
we
want to do it!’

John Marshall waited at the reception desk for his key. He had spent the day seeing publishers, but his mind had been on Charity and her decision.

‘There’s a letter for you.’ The tall brunette smiled. ‘A young lady dropped it in this afternoon while you were out.’

He opened the envelope, convinced she had found some polite excuse. To his amazement a couple of small photographs fell out.

‘You little darling,’ he said to himself as he bent to pick them up.

She had filled out the entire form herself, even enclosed the money for the passport and there was a letter …

Dear John,

I would like to come if you still want me to. We aren’t on the phone at the new flat yet, but I’ve put the address at the bottom. Thank you for the lovely meal last night. I’m going to buy a book on Florence so I know all about it.

Love, Charity.

Chapter Seventeen

‘My ears have gone all funny,’ Charity whispered to John. There was a stern-looking businessman sitting on the other side of him and she didn’t want to show John up.

‘Hold your nose and gulp,’ John suggested. ‘It always happens in takeoff.’

Charity did as he said and smiled as she found it worked. She had been in a state of nervous anticipation for the last three days, unable to eat or sleep. So many new experiences ahead of her – flying, going abroad, staying in a hotel as a guest instead of as a chambermaid, to say nothing of being with a man she’d only been out with twice.

‘Excited?’ John asked, leaning closer to her to share the view from the window. It was a surprisingly clear day for February and the panoramic view of London wreathed in snow beneath them was as compelling for him as it was for her. ‘The first time I flew was in the RAF and I was scared stiff.’

‘Very excited,’ Charity said. She wished she could be honest and tell him how awkward she felt. At times in the airport lounge she was sure from his long silences that he was already regretting asking her. ‘What time will we get there?’

‘Around three, their time.’ John altered his watch. ‘Then we catch a train from Milan to Florence. With luck we’ll be at the hotel in good time for dinner.’

Charity watched as John bought a bottle of Bacardi from the duty-free trolley. He had asked what spirits she liked to drink and she hadn’t known what to say. But Dorothy drank Bacardi, so it must be all right.

She wished she could get over this ridiculous shyness. Both times she’d gone out with him before it had been so easy to talk, but now he seemed strained too. If it was this difficult in a plane full of businessmen, what would it be like when they were alone in a hotel?

Perhaps she shouldn’t have come. Especially as she hadn’t managed to arrange a job for when she got back. Anne Rushton had sounded marginally warmer when she called back to Central Promotions, but hadn’t offered anything definite. Rita and Dot kept urging her not to worry and she’d spent the week painting and arranging the flat, but maybe she should’ve been a bit more conscientious about finding a job?

‘Quest’ è la camera, signorina,’ the porter said as he opened the door. Charity followed as he put her case on a low bench.

‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Charity gasped, looking round at John.

The Hotel Berchielli was an old merchant’s house built in the fourteenth century right on the River Arno, placed between the Ponte Vecchio and Ponte St Trinità. All Charity had seen of it so far was the impressive entrance with huge studded oak doors and a reception area which John said was typically Florentine. It looked to her much like some of the pictures of palaces in her guidebook, with heavy carved furniture, red leather and a painted ceiling that could have been done by one of Michelangelo’s apprentices.

Charity’s room was decorated in a more feminine 1930s style, with light shiny walnut furniture, all pastel greens and pinks.

The porter showed them the adjoining bathroom, with a huge cast-iron bath on clawed feet, mirrored walls and a washbasin set in marble, then went on to open another door through to John’s room.

Charity stood awkwardly as John spoke to the porter in rapid Italian. Did the elderly porter think they were father and daughter? Or lovers?

John’s room was distinctly masculine. The same red and gold decoration as downstairs, with a vast, dark wood carved bed with matching wardrobe and dressing-table.

‘Well what do you think?’ John asked once the porter had left. Charity was still standing in the bathroom doorway and he could see that she was tense and apprehensive.

‘It’s absolutely marvellous,’ she said, determined to show John she wasn’t intimidated by such a grand place. She moved over to the window and pushed the heavy curtains aside. ‘Look at this!’

It was dark now. The river was black, twinkling with reflected lights like diamonds on a jeweller’s tray. A hodgepodge of houses seemed to grow right out of the river on the far bank and to her left she could see the Ponte Vecchio with all its medieval shops lit up brightly.

She hadn’t caught more than a glimpse of Florence during the taxi ride from the station. They seemed to be hurtling through the narrowest of dark alleys at sixty miles an hour, narrowly missing many scooters and mopeds.