Monday Girl (13 page)

‘Renee was the belle of the ball.’ Tim smiled broadly. ‘It was Jack and me that were left sitting like wallflowers.’

She steeled herself to carry on the joke. ‘Yes, I was sorry for the two lost souls, waiting patiently for me to go back to them, but I’d a really great time.’

‘That’s all that matters, then.’ Fergus got up out of the armchair. ‘I’m off to bed. I need my beauty sleep even if you three don’t.’ His voice was dry, and he stamped out leaving Renee unsure of whether to be glad or sorry at his reaction.

Jack laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Good for you, lass. That’s the way to handle it.’

Tim nodded as he sat down to pour the tea from the flask which Anne had left for them. ‘Aye, let him see you don’t need him.’

When Renee went upstairs, her mother was curious to know how the evening had gone, so it was another fifteen minutes before she got a chance to think over what had happened, and to analyse what she felt about it. She
had
had a great time. Jack and Tim were good company, and had been very impersonal, so she hadn’t felt cornered by either of them making advances to her. Platonic, that was the word, and it was an easy, comfortable relationship. To hell with Fergus and his hole-in-corner affairs . . . No! She couldn’t honestly tell herself that she didn’t care. She did care, very much. Love was like a seesaw – up in the clouds one minute, then down in the depths the next – and she still loved him.

As was their custom, Jack and the two Donaldsons went straight from their work to the country buses on Saturday at lunchtime, and Fergus, usually delighted to be the centre of attention over the weekend, made himself scarce both days, so Renee was spared the ordeal of making polite conversation with him in front of her mother. It gave her a wicked satisfaction to think that he was angry and jealous because she’d gone dancing with Jack and Tim. It served him right that he should suffer for a change. Her mind skated over the unwelcome thought that he might be consoling himself with that other girl. It must have been a once-only affair – it must!

On Monday evening, she deliberately took her time over dressing, and waited until the last minute before she left the house, Fergus having gone out much earlier. She just missed the bus she’d meant to catch, so she was pleasantly surprised to see him still waiting for her outside Woolworth’s at twenty to eight, ten minutes after their arranged time.

‘We’ll have to go somewhere quiet, if you want to talk,’ he said, brusquely. ‘I suppose you’re wanting to make excuses about you and Tim last Monday?’

Renee ignored the question. She’d almost forgotten that fiasco, it seemed so long ago, now. ‘We can go to the Duthie Park. We’ll get a seat there.’ It was also well away from Union Street, the Victoria Park and the Cattofield bus route.

He seemed surprised that she’d taken the initiative, but walked with her to the appropriate bus stop, and sat beside her in moody silence until they reached their destination.

‘Well?’ he began, rather belligerently, when they were seated on a secluded bench in the park. ‘What d’you want to say?’

‘Quite a few things, really, but first, I will tell you about Tim and me last week. He’d been so good to me the whole time at the Palais, and he’d taught me to dance and was very patient, so I felt I should show my appreciation. We were only kissing, whatever you tried to hint to my mother.’

‘You were enjoying it when I saw you,’ he taunted.

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Renee kept her voice low, though she could feel an angry bitterness rising within her. She wanted, desperately, to keep calm. The whole effect would be ruined if she started to shout or weep, but what right had he to criticise her giving Tim a few kisses, after the awful things he’d done?

‘You shouldn’t enjoy kissing anybody else, because you belong to me, my Monday girl.’ His caressing voice, as he put his arms round her, almost made her apologise for hurting him. Almost, but not quite. She accepted his kiss passively, he dropped his arms in obvious annoyance.

‘So you want to start playing hard to get now, do you? That won’t work with me, my lady, and you weren’t so hard to get with Tim.’ He scowled darkly. She allowed the insinuation to pass. Her whole body was aching for him, for his kisses, for his declaration of love, for him to make love to her there and then, but she fought against giving in to him so easily. She must find the reason for the cruel things he had done.

‘I really am your Monday girl, am I?’ she asked sweetly, deceptively. ‘Really and truly?’

He softened slightly. ‘You know you are, my darling. I’ve told you before. You’re the first girl in my life.’

Her temper almost snapped at this repetition of his words to her mother, but she took a deep breath. ‘Do you say that to all your girls?’ she got out at last.

‘You knew about the other girls, Renee.’ Fergus was on the defensive for once. ‘I told you all about them, but there’s none of them my Monday girl.’

‘Except my mother.’ She watched his chin drop as his mouth opened in amazement, but his discomfiture gave her no pleasure, and she waited for him to bluster his way out of the accusation. She prayed that he could tell her it was all a silly joke, a misunderstanding on her part. She’d be willing to doubt the evidence of her own ears, and perhaps she’d only imagined the overheard words, in any case. His face revealed the furious searching of his brain to find an answer.

‘I think a lot of your mother,’ he said, very carefully.

‘She’s been very kind to me, and . . .’ He found his inspiration in the excuse she’d given him for kissing Tim.

‘I wanted to show my appreciation for all she’s done for me, and keeping her sweet’s the only way I can. She’s taken a fancy to me, you see, and I can’t hurt her by telling her I don’t feel the same about her.’

It sounded reasonable to the agonised girl, and it was what she wanted to hear. ‘But you called her your Monday girl, the first woman in your life.’ How could he explain that?

He smiled then. ‘So that’s what all this is about, is it? You’ve been listening at the keyhole, have you?’

‘I couldn’t help it, Fergus.’ Renee was on the defensive now. ‘You keep calling her Anne, and she’s different when you’re there. I was jealous, and wanted to find out what you said to her when you were together.’

‘You’ve no need to be jealous, my darling.’ His arms slid round her again. ‘There’s nothing between your mother and me. You’re a silly little goose, aren’t you?’ His lips brushed her nose, her eyes, then came down heavily on her mouth. She capitulated and returned his kisses hungrily, believing him because she wanted to believe him although he’d glossed over what he’d said to her mother. She couldn’t break off with him . . . not because of her mother . . . not because of . . .

The repugnant memory of what she had witnessed on Thursday night came flooding back, and she drew away from him abruptly.

‘Come on, Renee,’ he coaxed, all his charm and guile turned on again in the knowledge of the power he held over her. ‘I’ve told you. You’re my Monday girl, my special girl – God’s honour. What is it now?’

She licked her dry lips. ‘What about your Thursday girl?’

she whispered. ‘She must be special, too.’

‘My Thursday girl?’ He looked bewildered and apprehensive.

‘The one you took to the Bay of Nigg last Thursday, and I don’t know how many Thursdays before.’

‘How did you find out about that?’ His voice was sharp, alarmed.

‘I saw you,’ she said wearily. ‘So there’s no use denying it. When I was out for a walk with Jack and Tim. We all saw you, making love to her as if your life depended on it. You never even knew we were there.’

He was scowling as he moved along the bench, away from her, and he kept his head turned to the front when he spoke.

‘Spying again, were you? You, going down there with your two boyfriends? You’ve no room to speak.’

‘They’ve never made love to me. I’ve never even kissed Jack, and only last Monday night with Tim. Just the few kisses you saw.’ She was on the defensive again, and despised herself for her weakness.

His top lip curled up for a second. ‘So you say.’ The accusing note in his voice changed to hurt sadness. ‘Now you know how I felt that night.’

‘It’s not the same thing at all,’ she burst out. ‘We were just kissing, but you were . . . you and that girl were . . .’ The words stuck in her throat.

Fergus took her hand in both of his. ‘Listen, Renee,’ he said, persuasively. ‘I never made any secret of the other girls, and I’m only human, after all. I can’t refuse when some fast piece hands it to me on a plate. Do you understand what I mean, because it wasn’t my fault?’ She shook her head, too angry and sick to answer.

He patted her hand, then held it firmly again. ‘No, I suppose you’re too young to know what I’m getting at, but a man’s attitude to sex – sexual intercourse,’ he added, to be sure he was making himself clear, ‘is different from a woman’s. It’s just a release for us, a bit of fun, a quick thrill.’ Renee’s dismayed face made him hasten to qualify what he’d said. ‘But when a man loves a girl, like I love you, it’s different. It means something. I was proving my love to you, so it meant everything – especially when I knew I was first.’ She wished fervently that he had not added the last few words. It reminded her of what Jack and Sheila Daun had said about him, but she could at least understand now why he’d been lying beside the lighthouse wall that night, doing what he’d been doing. She didn’t feel any happier about it, but had to admit that his explanation was feasible. Fergus was regarding her anxiously. ‘The other girls don’t mean anything to me, Renee, honest, and I’d only been out with that one the once. I wouldn’t need anybody else if I could be with you every night.’

‘Why can’t we be together every night?’ She leaned against him, and looked up with pleading eyes. ‘I’ll be sixteen in less than three weeks, and my mother didn’t object to me going out with Tim.’

He bent his head to kiss her again. ‘She wouldn’t let you go out with me, darling. I told you, she thinks she’s in love with me, and jealousy’s a terrible thing. I’ve had to swear to her that you didn’t mean anything to me and that I don’t love you.’

‘Oh, Fergus!’ The shock made her lift her head from his shoulder. This was disloyalty, betrayal of the first magnitude. ‘You didn’t . . . did you?’

His lips touched her eyelids. ‘I had to, Renee. I have to keep her from suspecting about us till I can find a way to let her down gently, and show her it’s you I really want. You’ll just have to be patient, my darling.’

The reassuring endearments were balm to her buffeted heart, and she placed her arms round his neck, the manly smell of him filling her nostrils as she whispered, ‘Oh, Fergus, I love you so much I can hardly wait.’

He glanced quickly about them, then began to caress her, until she murmured, urgently, ‘Go on, go on . . . please!’ All the mixed emotions – the doubts, the hatred, the jealousy, the love – which had been pent up inside her, burst to the surface in a show of passion which delighted and excited him, and he took her roughly without further preliminaries. When it was over, his fierce needs satisfied, his kiss was tender. ‘Have I proved now it’s only you I love?’

‘Yes, oh, yes,’ she breathed, banishing the hateful memories that had haunted her over the past few days.

‘I bet Tim and Jack could never make love like that,’ he said suddenly, childishly.

She laughed contentedly, his little show of bravado being the final proof to her of his love. Arms round each other, they walked back to the centre of the city, and Fergus boarded the bus to Cattofield with her. ‘I’ll come all the way home with you tonight, my darling, and your mother can think what she likes.’

With a rush of tenderness towards him, Renee thought that this was a new beginning, and snuggled up to him, unconscious of the interested, amused glances of the other passengers.

When they went in, Anne looked suspicious, and her face didn’t change when Fergus proferred his glib excuse.

‘Renee came on to the same bus as I was on.’

Having no idea of how much her shining eyes gave her away, the girl was slightly put out when her mother ignored her and began to bombard Fergus with questions as to where he’d been and what he’d been doing.

‘I was with an old mate of mine I haven’t seen for ages. He’s married now, and he took me home with him to meet his wife, and to have a few drinks.’ His answer came so easily, and sounded so genuine, that Renee had a strange pang of sad irritation at how smoothly he could lie. Had he been lying to her all evening? The doubts came flooding back and she came to a firm decision. Once her birthday was past, she’d wait a week or two to give him a chance to end her mother’s attachment to him, and if he hadn’t done anything by then, she’d force his hand and tell her the whole truth herself.

She wouldn’t mention the wonderful love-making, though. That was a secret to be shared only with Fergus. She’d just say, quite calmly, that they loved each other, and she’d say it in front of him, so he couldn’t deny it.

Renee hadn’t noticed Jack sitting by the window, and when she did, he was staring at her speculatively, and she could tell from his face that he knew exactly what she’d been doing with Fergus that evening. Well, she didn’t care.

In a few weeks, they would all know, and if her mother made a scene and forbade them to meet outside the house, she’d run away with him. At sixteen, she’d be old enough in Scots law to marry him without parental consent, and they could live happily without any interference.

Jack went to bed first, followed closely by Fergus, making Renee suspect that he didn’t relish being faced with more questions from his landlady, who now focused her attention on her daughter.

‘And what were you doing that you came in all starry-eyed, and looking like a cat that’s been at the cream? You weren’t out with Phyllis, that’s one thing sure.’

The desperation to avoid being found out too early gave Renee the deviousness to say quickly, ‘No, I wasn’t with Phyllis. She sent her brother to tell me she wasn’t feeling very well, so he came into the pictures with me instead. He’s very nice. You remember him, Mum? He’s a year older than me.’