Lightning Encounter (8 page)

Then she went back to the first stall because she'd forgotten to look for lingerie material. She found some remnant pieces and because they were so cheap she planned to make two underskirts, and three shortie nighties with high drawstring necklines and tiny puffed sleeves.

‘Replenishing your wardrobe?'

She swung round and grinned up at Howard
Mitchell.
‘You make it sound a chore,' she accused. ‘It's fun!'

He grimaced. ‘Only a woman could say that. Have you had enough fun for today? Or might I tear you away for a spot of lunch?'

‘You might. My thoughts were already edging that way.'

‘You mean you accept. You'll let me buy your lunch?'

‘Why shouldn't I?' she counter-questioned his incredulity. ‘You might have quarrelled with Ian, but you and I have no axe to grind. You saved my life; in the circumstances I should treat you to lunch.'

‘I won't hear of that,' he said, much to her delight as she didn't want to get too heavily indebted to Ian, and she would have had to use his money to pay for her fine gesture.

‘But are you sure?' he persisted. ‘I'm sorry to be such a Doubting Thomas, but are you sure? What will Big Brother say?'

‘Nothing. For the simple reason that I shan't tell him.'

His chuckle was low and resonant as his hand nipped easily into the crook of her elbow to guide her through the stalls.

‘Know what I do first thing every morning?'

‘Open your eyes?'

‘Ah! So I'm squiring a joker, am I?' he said. ‘After I've opened my eyes, after I've washed and shaved, before I have breakfast, know what I do?'

‘No,
what?'

‘I read my horoscope. Know what my horoscope said this morning?'

‘No, but—' She suppressed a giggle. ‘My stars! I'm going to!'

‘It said—and I will ignore the flippancy—today you meet your destiny.'

‘It didn't!'

He grinned. ‘No, it didn't. Actually it said “Good phase for exchanging information and pooling ideas with a comparatively new friend.” Well, new friend, to begin. I'm thirty-one, in unsettled employment, and I dislike wearing odd socks. That's enough information to be going on with. My idea, at the moment, is to know you much better. Now it's your turn.'

‘My turn?'

‘Dear Dimwit, your turn to exchange information and pool ideas. I never let my horoscope down.'

‘Now you're being flippant,' she accused. ‘Are you a disbeliever?'

‘M-m.' His expression was dead-pan. ‘Let's put it this way. I never walk under a ladder, or on a crack, if I can help it. And I never, but never whistle in a dressing room. Now, about lunch. What's it to be. A sit down in a restaurant, or pot luck with traveller's samples?'

‘Pot luck, please,' she answered promptly. ‘Are you a traveller?'

‘For my sins, yes,' he said, his voice
unfolding
in a bored drawl.

‘Temporarily. Until I discover the crock of gold.'

‘Oh that,' she pooh-poohed. ‘Everybody's searching. Nobody finds.'

‘I almost did once.'—Now the drawl conveyed a world of regret. ‘I really thought I'd hit it good.'

‘You know,' she teased. ‘The streets aren't paved with gold. That's only a fallacy. They're paved with lost chance.'

He weighed her words, made nothing of them that pleased him, and for reply thrust out his lower lip like a thwarted child. She deduced he bitterly regretted his lost chance, and, on that subject at least, had put up a closed sign. What she had thought was pie in sky, was ambition, and he wasn't prepared to expose it to humorous banter. She pressed hurriedly for a change of subject, one less hazardous, and happily the mood of zany amiability was restored.

On the way to the car they stopped to shop for items not to be found in his samples. Bread rolls and butter, and a bag of crisp, sugar-glazed Eccles cakes.

Approaching the car park, Karen didn't have to grit her teeth. At first she was staggered, then relieved. Ian had done this for her. By bundling her straight back behind the wheel of a car, he had given her back her nerve. You have to relive an ordeal in order to
conquer
it. She just hoped there was one ordeal she wouldn't have to relive, even if she never conquered it.

Mitch was glancing across at her—doubtless remembering things too—trying to assess her reaction. She wanted to put out her hand and say, “It's all right”. But it was enough to be all right. Anyway, she was so choked with relief, she doubted she had a voice.

‘Into the yellow peril, with you,' he instructed. ‘Let's hope we don't meet an exile from Europe. Don't worry,' he added. And in the mysterious manner of auto-suggestion, she immediately did begin to worry. ‘We shan't meet up with anybody driving on the wrong side of the road. Lightning never strikes twice.'

He meant to be kind, but he couldn't have said anything more shattering. It was as if every syllable was spiked with a point of steel. She closed her eyes, and in memory heard the growl of thunder; yet it wasn't the thunder she feared, but its dread companion. Thunder might have the loudest voice, but it's lightning that has the power to sear and pain.

‘Look, sweetie,' he said, abounding with grave consideration. ‘You don't have to get in the car. There's a park nearby. We can have a meal alfresco style.' He elaborated invitingly: ‘A picnic lunch. Won't that be fun? Much better than a stuffy old—'

‘It's not the car. I'm all right,' she gulped.

‘All right! All right, she says!' His hand
clapped
across his forehead in exaggerated disbelief. ‘After what you've been through, I'm a brute, a four headed monster for even suggesting . . . I mean, I should know better than anybody. I was there. I dragged you clear.' His sympathy washed over her like balm; she wallowed in it, she spread her arms in it, she tasted it in her mouth and savoured it on her tongue, and some of it trickled into her throat to thicken her voice. ‘Do you mind if we get in the car and away from here. Before the flood gates open and I make a right spectacle of myself.'

She held back until they were parked in a quiet lane some three miles to the east of Todbridge. Then it was all up with her. A severely held barricade collapsed and she wept until there wasn't a tear left in her.

Mitch was marvellous in the role of comforter, administering soothing words, supplying her with a large clean handkerchief, her own being a useless, sodden, tightly screwed ball, offering her the use of his shoulder. His shoulder she declined, not without regret, because it looked wide and comfortable. But she had no intention of letting misery drive her into a man's arms. All the same she tried to convey her gratitude for his able handling of an unpleasant task. A regular envoy of mercy, light on tact perhaps, but offering sympathy with a lavish hand.

So kind of him. It wasn't his fault she felt
blotchy-eyed
and wretched, and filled with self-loathing for creating such a scene. He was wonderful. She was tempted to confide all, the true reason for her conduct, but her misery made her maladroit and she couldn't be sure of finding the words. Besides which, enough is enough. So, contriving a light tone, she beseeched: ‘Any chance of conjuring up some coffee? I've got a raging thirst.'

He produced a flask with the dexterity of a magician. He gave her his own pottery mug and he used the plastic vacuum flask cup.

‘This is good,' she complimented. ‘Did your wife make it for you?'

‘I made it myself,' he said, answering only one part of her double edged question. ‘Which is not quite what you wanted to know?'

‘No,' she admitted unequivocally, even smiling at her own unabashed curiosity.

‘No wife, Karen. The nearest I got was a fiancée.'

‘But not any more?' No use falling at the first fence.

‘She went away.'

‘Oh.' Perhaps she should have fallen at the first fence, after all.

‘A long way away. You could say she passed beyond the concept of wordly things.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Yes.' He knuckled his hands, bringing his thumbs together, holding on to something—thought? Reason? ‘It was a bad business. She
was
too young to . . . too young.' His voice cracked mid sentence, died, came back with vigour. ‘So you see, we share a common bond. We have both suffered. Shall we cheer one another up?' He was talking too loud, too fast, and his eyes were heavy with pain. He had suffered. The roles shifted. Now she was the comforter.

‘I should like that,' she said gravely.

He countered: ‘Ian won't approve.' His eyes narrowed. In taunt? Or speculation? All she knew was that at the mention of that name, some of the fire and vitality that had drained out of her, oozed back.

‘I only work for him. My private life is my own. I don't defer to Ian, or anybody.'

His glance slanted in her direction. The pain had gone and was supplanted by a look of triumph, of undisguised caprice. It dried her mouth and gave her the feeling she had been cleverly manipulated to say just that.

‘Let's eat now,' said Mitch, sending her an exquisite smile.

They did that. After which Mitch said, with sweet reluctance, that it was time to continue his rounds. She replied that she had some more shopping to do.

‘Don't forget our date tomorrow,' he reminded.

‘Is it still on? I didn't think you'd want to see me again, not so soon. And it was only a tentative arrangement to meet at Sharpe's.'

‘On
your part, maybe,' he charmed. ‘There was nothing tentative about the arrangement in my mind. I want to see you again, now more than ever. The only thing I plan to change is the venue. Instead of Sharpe's, how about my collecting you in Hamblewick? I'm not suggesting charging the fortress,' he said, no doubt answering the slight lift of brow. ‘I'll pick you up by the bridge.'

‘Lovely,' she accepted. ‘Please may I drive? Now, I mean, on the way back to Todbridge?'

His glance briefed her. It was levelled with disbelief, surprise, a hint of mischief. ‘Have a heart, sweetie. My shoulder, yes. Anytime. But my car.' She felt like a chicken being inexpertly plucked alive. Something about her, the stiffening of her neck, or whatever flicked to her eye, engaged his attention and his voice dropped its teasing raillery and gathered compassion. ‘Let's say,'—and who could deny this Mitch, forgiveness?—‘I wouldn't put you through the agony.'

CHAPTER SEVEN

She completed the rest of her shopping in quick shakes, finding just the right all-purpose coat in the first shop she entered. It was camel, casual, warm for later, with the go-anywhere elegance of a higher priced garment. She
mitigated
this extravagance by remembering the enormous saving made on the other necessary items. The purchase of a handbag presented a problem. Her depleted resources decreed a cheap plastic, but inclination rarely, if ever, endorses economy and yearned for soft leather. She loved the expensive feel of good leather, for handbag, gloves, shoes.

Unbeknown to her the wheels of compromise had ground into action. The very handbag her uneconomic heart lusted for lurked seductively in the Oxfam, nearly new shop. In the darkest corner, amid a pile of jumble. Real leather, well cared for by its previous owner, and price right.

Lipstick, foundation make-up, hairbrush (Woolworth's best), comb, toothbrush, home. How quickly she had come to think of Hamblewick as home. The money had spun out. She even had enough left over to buy mushrooms to garnish the steak.

The girl in the photo trotted in two paces behind Ian. Photographs lie. This girl was fairer, more elfin, thinner. An emaciated ghost with jutting cheekbones and bruised sparrow eyes. Karen cushioned her in the comfiest chair, and mentally fed her the largest steak. The one intended for Ian.

Ian introduced them. He said: ‘Karen, I want you to meet Valerie Stainburn. Val, this is Karen Shaw. Karen has kindly consented to housekeep for me.'

The
hand that rested for a brief moment in Karen's, felt stick brittle. She meant to say, ‘How do you do,' but said: ‘Have you been ill?'

The pointed chin bobbed up and down, but the grave little mouth remained sealed. It was left to Ian to explain: ‘It's Val's first day back at work, after an absence of, oh—six months. The wanness is due to strain and apprehension. Getting back into harness, renewing old acquaintances and making new ones, can be nerve wracking. And I don't believe she had any lunch.'

‘Then you must eat an enormous supper to compensate,' urged Karen, sounding as firmly established in the household as the clock on the wall.

‘It's almost ready. You've just time to wash your hands. Bathroom, top of the stairs, second door on the left.'

Valerie said: ‘I know where it is,' and vacated the room with little-girl docility. Karen's hands squared to her hips.

‘Well?' she challenged Ian.

‘Well what?' he countered, topping his voice up with caution, which tone butchered benefit of doubt thoughts and considerably stepped up her determination. ‘Kindly explain,' she said tightly.

‘M-m.' He gave her a shrewd, less wary glance, and came out of his corner. ‘Val's been ill, is that what you mean? Desperately ill. She needs baby birding. I'm not asking you to
nurse
her. I realize I engaged you as my housekeeper and that your duties don't extend to my guests. But I thought—'

‘You thought! Oh, this is too laughable,' she quibbled, unable to stay silent a moment longer. ‘Because I thought, but that's unimportant now. What is important is the role you've cast me as. Broody hen?' Her tongue cavilled on, incensed beyond caution, reason, or restraint. How could he have tricked her? But he didn't, not really, upped one renegade thought. He said he needed a housekeeper. He went to great lengths to impress he wasn't inventing the position. But she hadn't believed him.