Fugitive Wife (8 page)

was about to embark on some new love affair that she thought I wouldn’t approve of. But in your case, it’s not my approval that matters, it’s your father’s. I appeal to you, Briony, be careful.’

Aunt Hes’s warning was stil ringing in Briony’s ears forty-eight hours later, as she became U.P.G.‘s latest recruit for the cutting library. She had no ilusions about the job. She was a dogsbody, pure and simple, signing files ful of cuttings on every subject under the sun in and out of a large book kept for the purpose, supplying background information on any subject required to the various editorial departments, and tracking files that had gone missing. The head of the department was a Miss johnson, an elderly Gorgon, round, whom even editors trod warily, and juniors as a rule did not stay more than a few weeks, Briony was rather wearily informed by her immediate superior jenny Braithwaite.

‘La johnson chews them up and spits them out.’ she explained, during Briony’s first coffee break in the canteen.

‘Although perhaps she’l make an exception in your case.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Briony had already encountered the formidable Miss johnson and suffered a tongue-lashing from her over a file that had not been returned to its correct place on the bulging shelves of the library. The person who had returned the file had hardly had time to leave the room before the tirade began, and Briony suspected that Miss Johnson had orders from above to lean on her.

She had telephoned her father the previous night and told him she had persuaded Personnel to give her a chance, and to her surprise he had accepted her news almost genialy, at the same time letting her see that he didn’t believe she would be able to hold the job down.

After a couple of hours with Miss Johnson, she knew exactly what he was getting at, but her determination hardened. She would not be driven out no matter how unfair the treatment might be. She would not return home with her tail between her legs, confessing her fault, and asking to be taken back into the fold like a black sheep. She had as much right to carve out a life for herself as anyone else.

She had naturaly expected she would see Logan again quite soon and nerved herself inwardly for the inevitable confrontation, but it was not to take place, she discovered with a strange chagrin, at least not at once.

Logan was abroad again, and no one was altogether sure when he would be back, or what he was actualy doing, although he was said to

be in the Far East. Though she scanned the Courier every day, Briony saw no stories filed under his byline.

In the meantime she began to settle to the routine of her work better than she could ever have expected.

Miss Johnson, she realised, would never change, but she liked Jenny and got on wel with her, and guessed that they might have become friends, perhaps even flatmates, if Briony had not been Sir Charles Trevor’s daughter. As it was, no matter how many breaks and lunches she and Jenny might share there was always an invisible barrier there, which Briony regretted.

She had been working at U.P.G. for three weeks when her father telephoned her at the flat to say that he was going to the States for a few weeks on business.

‘I hope by the time I return you wil have got this nonsense out of your head once and for al, Briony,’ he said coldly, before he rang off.

Nonsense! Briony thought with an inward sigh, as she laid her own receiver back on the rest. That was what her father thought of her bid for independence, of her attempt to earn her own living. She supposed it had its amusing side, but she was damned if she could see what it was at that particular moment. .

She had to start making other plans for herself anyway.

Aunt Hes would be returning soon from Kirkby Scar. Her aunt had been a widow for a number of years and had become a successful

writer of children’s books, but she made no bones about needing solitude for her work, either in London or Yorkshire, and Briony

suspected she would be dismayed to find her niece stil in occupation when she returned. It had after al been planned only as a temporary arrangement. She wondered again about Jenny, who she knew shared a flat with two other girls. Would they have room for a fourth? she wondered rather dispiritedly. And would they even want her? Or she could always contact one of her former schoolmates, she supposed

reluctantly.

She was stil in this indecisive state when she went to work the next day and learned quite by chance that Logan had returned. It was Miss Johnson of al people who gave her the news, tutting angrily as she entered the cuttings library.

‘I do not approve of files going out of the building.’ she was muttering. opening and closing the drawers of her desk with little slams, an idibsyncrasy of hers which Briony had noticed before when she was upset.

‘I do not approve. And of course none of the messengers can be spared. They’l have to go in a taxi―there s nothing else for it. A

complete waste of time and money !’

She glanced up and caught Briony watching her m some surprise. ‘Get on with your work,’ she snapped.

‘I’ve finished, actualy.’ Briony spoke with some reluctance, knowing the admission was likely to lead to some foul and unnecessary cross-indexing task.

‘I see.’ Miss Johnson tapped a pencil against her teeth.

‘Then I suppose you wil have to do. One of the foreign news reporters on the Courier is just back from Cambodia, and he wants al the background files taking round to his flat, if you please, and Mr. Mackenzie who one would have thought would have known better has

actualy authorised it.’

Briony’s heartbeat seemed to be behaving in a strange, unpredictable manner.

‘Which of the reporters?’

Miss Johnson stared at her frostily. ‘Logan Adair―if it matters.’ she snapped. ‘My concern is the inconvenience to this department. You’d better look out the necessary files and take them round at once.

Get a receipt for the taxi fare and claim it at the cashier’s desk when you return.’ She glanced at her watch and her mouth set in resentment.

‘I suppose there’l be barely time for you to get back before the office closes. When you’ve delivered the files, you may go home. But be punctual in the morning.’ she added hastily, as if afraid that this concession on her part might lead to excesses of tardiness on Briony’s. She would have been shocked to the core if she had known that the most junior member of her department was not listening to a word that she was saying.

Briony’s hands were shaking as she sought out the files, and even when she was actualy sitting in the taxi which was taking her to Logan’s flat, she found it difficult to believe that it was al realy happening.

Inwardly, she was shaking like a leaf. And yet there was no reason why she should be nervous, she told herself. She was simply doing a job, that was al. Heavens, she hadn’t even angled for the chance to take the files to Logan’s flat.

And though she could tel herself that he had probably forgotten completely the circumstances of their last disastrous encounter, she had not.

Outside the door of the flat, she took a deep breath, then rang the bel. There was a prolonged silence. For a moment she thought it had al been a mistake and that there was no one there, and she experienced a pang of something which hovered between regret and relief. She was on the point of turning away when she heard a sound inside the flat and the door swung open.

Logan was standing there, and her first thought was that he looked ghastly. He was pale under his tan, and his eyes were over-bright and slightly bloodshot as if he was suffering from a fever. They narrowed slightly in disbelief as he looked her over.

‘What the hel are you doing here?’ His voice was hardly encouraging, and the words were slightly slurred.

‘I brought these.’ She held out the files, and he stared down at them as if he was having difficulty in focussing, or even recognising what they were.

‘You brought them? You?’

‘Yes. I work at U.P.G. now―in the cuttings library. No one else was free to bring these, so I was sent.’ She could hear herself stammering a little, aware that her colour had heightened.

‘God in heaven!’ Logan leaned against the door jamb and shook his head as if he was trying to clear it.

‘You’re not wel,’ she said, al her concern aroused. ‘Let me come in.’

‘I’m perfectly wel.’ He pushed the hair back from his forehead with an irritated gesture. ‘And I’m in no mood for a social cal.’

‘It isn’t a social cal.’ she protested, her anxious eyes searching his face, taking in his haggard expression, the shadows beneath his eyes, the lines which had deepened beside his mouth. ‘You’re il. You need a doctor. Let me . .’

He gave a jeering laugh. ‘I need to finish this piece I’m writing on Cambodia, my dear MissNightingale, and for that I need another drink-several drinks, in fact, not medical attention.’

He turned away abruptly and left her standing on the doorstep. She watched him move away, his steps betraying only the slightest

unsteadiness as he walked down the passage, and after a brief hesitation she folowed, closing the front door behind her.

He was standing by the desk in the sitting room when she went in. The desktop was littered with paper, and the typewriter stood open, a half-completed piece of copy in its rolers. Beside it stood a half-empty bottle of whisky and a used glass. The air was stale and reeked of cigarette smoke. Briony grimaced, and walking to the window pushed the lower sash up a few inches, permitting some welcome fresh air to enter the room.

‘Make yourself at home.’ Logan suggested grittily.

‘You need some black coffee.’ She set the cuttings files down on the desk and went towards the kitchen.

‘I’ve told you what I bloody need,’ he said savagely.

‘And it isn’t your ministrations for a kick-off. Now for God’s sake, get out and leave me in peace!’

She glanced round the disordered room. ‘I like your idea of peace,’ she said cooly. ‘It isn’t mine.’

‘But then so few of our ideas coincide,’ he mocked. ‘Go home, Briony. I don’t want you here.’ He grabbed the sheet of paper out of the typewriter and screwed it into a bal, hurling it to the ground with a muttered obscenity.

‘You need someone,’ she retorted. ‘How long is it since you last ate?’

‘I don’t remember. Does it matter?’

‘Of course it does! No wonder you’re awash with whisky on an empty stomach. I’l make you some scrambled egg.’

‘God,’ he muttered under his breath. Then, ‘If I eat your bloody eggs wil you go?’

We’l see.’ She slipped off her jacket and tossed it on to the sofa. She found eggs and butter in the kitchen, and washed the pan she proposed to use. The eggs were as near perfection as she had ever managed, fluffy and creamy, and she felt a flicker of pride as she spooned them on to the waiting rounds of crisp toast.

Logan was typing when she re-entered the sitting room, his entire concentration fixed on the words forming on the paper in front of him. He hardly seemed aware of her presence as she stood beside him holding the tray.

At last she ventured, ‘Logan―you must eat.’

He said curtly, ‘Leave it somewhere. I’l eat it later.’

‘It wil spoil,’ she began to protest, then, reading the anger in his face, she capitulated, setting the tray down on table by the sofa. She sat down, watching him, sensing that at that moment he was being driven by something she did not and never would understand.

It was a relief when he ripped the sheet out of the machine and laid it down. Almost abstractedly, he reached out for a fork and she put the food within his reach as he read over what he had written. Briony realised suddenly she was holding her breath, and made herself relax, chiding herself inwardly for being foolish.

‘It’s al right,’ Logan muttered at last, as he laid down his knife and fork.

‘The story or the food?’

‘Both, I guess,’ His mouth twisted wryly. ‘Thanks for your contribution.’ He picked up the page of copy and look at it. ‘I think I’ve managed to strike the happy medium―to tel enough of the truth without putting the sensitive readers of the Courier off their bacon and eggs, which would never do.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Let me explain. When I get back from some stinking, bleeding helhole in the world as I did last night, I write two stories-one for me, teling it like it is-as if I could forget. God, sometimes I wish I could! Then I produce an edited version, suitable for the family breakfast table of milions. Just enough for people to say, “What a terrible thing. What is the world corning to?” but not enough for them to throw their guts up as I did when they took me round that children’s hospital.’ He reached for the whisky bottle and poured another measure into his glass.

‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ Briony asked unhappily.

‘No, my sweet, I do not think so.In fact I’ve only just begun. Now that the story’s finished, I intend to get smashed out of my mind.’

‘Is that wise?’

‘Perhaps not, my lovely innocent, but bloodly necessary, believe me. Cheers.’ He lifted the glass in a mock toast. ‘Can you suggest a better way of blotting out my memories of the past few weeks so they don’t return to give me nightmares?’

She shook her head silently, registering the depths of bitterness and revulsion she heard in his voice.

Logan tossed back the whisky with a practised flick of the wrist and refiled the glass.

‘What’s the matter, Miss Trevor? You look disturbed.’ The mockery was back in his tone. ‘Is it a shock to find that journalists have feelings too? That we can’t look on the dead, the half-dead, and those who ought to be dead and remain unmoved? That we aren’t

altogether the vicious, sub-human stratum of society that your father would have you believe?’

‘You aren’t being fair!’

‘I’m not feeling particularly fair,’ he returned brusquely. He flicked the files she had brought with his finger. ‘You can return these as soon as you like, messenger girl.’

‘It wil have to be in the morning,’ she said. ‘I’ve finished for the day.’

His brows lifted and he glanced down at his watch. ‘So you have. How time does fly when one’s enjoying oneself!