Seven Dials (23 page)

But now, just as Peter was becoming boring and making such a fuss over dreary old Sophie, Harry was being difficult too. Now, dancing at the Ritz with Peter, she remembered the last stilted phone conversations she had had with Harry and had to work hard to keep her face looking gay and amused.

He really had been incredibly stupid, she thought angrily, making those lame excuses about having to take over someone else’s duties for that weekend. She had, in fact, thought once or twice about cancelling it herself; it was one thing to spend a long evening making love with Harry, quite another to spend a full weekend with him. When she’d agreed to go she’d been at rather low ebb and the idea had seemed fun, but within a few days of making the plan, she had decided that she would probably cry off at the last minute unless nothing better to do showed up. To have Harry doing the crying off, therefore, had been infuriating, to put it mildly, and she had made no effort to hide her anger.

‘I can’t help it,’ he’d said, his voice on the phone clacking tinnily so that she could not judge his mood from his tone. ‘I’m as miserable about it as you are - but -’

‘Miserable?’ she had snapped. ‘I am not miserable - just irritated at having my plans messed up. You’re not the only person who enjoys my company, Harry, and I’d put myself out to please you - even though I was too mannerly to point out to you that Brighton really is
the
most ghastly place - full of dreary typists and greasy little salesmen on the make, but there, it was what
you
wanted, and I like to see my friends happy - and now you announce as cool as you like only a few days in advance that you can’t go! It’s too bad of you - and I’ll tell you this. You’ll have to be very nice indeed to me to persuade me to make any more plans with you!’

‘All right,’ he’d said shortly, and hung up, leaving her amazed with the phone buzzing dully in her ears. No one ever did that to her, and her anger boiled over so much that she had banged the phone down on its cradle and sent a pretty ornament of which she was rather fond flying to land in shards of glass on the floor. Harry was really too boring, and so was Peter, and the show was boring and London was boring and if Letty didn’t let her go back to Hollywood soon she would, she told herself, go stark raving mad - and just wait till Harry phoned again. She’d give him a blistering that would make him come crawling to her for forgiveness. She’d show him.

But Harry didn’t phone again, not that week nor the week after, and Katy became more and more miserable as the weeks wore on. She even phoned Harry herself once, but his secretary had told her smoothly that Mr Lackland was operating, she was so sorry, she would indeed tell him Miss Lackland had called and ask him to phone back; but he had not, and Katy was certainly not going to call him again. And she sat at rehearsals and watched Peter, a much more relaxed and busy Peter than he had ever been, working contentedly and seeming quite unconcerned with her misery, and felt dreadful.

She might have felt a little better had she known how badly Harry was feeling.

When Letty had called him at the hospital and told him brusquely that he was to come to her flat that evening because she had to talk to him he had had no sense of foreboding at all. She was just Letty, a good dear old soul and an aunt a man could enjoy being with. Ever since the days long ago when he had come to London as a raw youngster and lived in Albany with her, she had been a special part of his life.

So, he had gone to see her happily enough, telling the young nurse from Casualty with whom he had arranged to have dinner that she would have to wait till nine to get her meal, and driving himself over to Piccadilly, whistling between his teeth. He had a weekend at the Metropole with Katy to look forward to, and this child from Casualty was really rather sweet and absurdly eager, and the fact that Charlotte Lucas, whose looks he had really liked very much indeed, had disappeared from Nellie’s still resisting him, no longer rankled as it had. Altogether he felt tolerably pleased with life; even Lee was better to have around these days, no longer nagging him when he was late, or looking at him with those accusing long-suffering glances he found so dismal. Good old Lee, he had thought as he had parked the car in Savile Row to walk over to the back entrance of Albany. She’s an awfully good sort really. Maybe I’ll stay home a little more once in a while. If she wants me to -

Letty’s attack on him was even more shattering because his mood had been so good. He had settled into the familiar old armchair facing hers and grinned and said easily, ‘Well, my dear old aunt? What has my favourite Dame got to say for herself this evening?’ and then his face had stiffened with amazement when she had said it all, in terms that were, even for her, remarkably forceful.

‘Lee?’ he had said at last, staring at her. ‘Are you telling me that
Lee
is - I don’t believe it.’

‘Then more bloody fool you,’ Letty said shortly. ‘She’s got every right to do it, and I for one don’t blame her. Anyone with any spirit would have done it long ago - but she, poor wretch, seems to love you. I can’t imagine why. If I were in her shoes, I’d be as likely to take a knife to you as anything else, but Lee’s a lady and behaves like one, God help her. So, it’s up to you. If you care more than a ha’penny for her and those splendid children of yours, you’ll start to mend your ways. Damn it all, you’ll not just
start
- you’ll do it right now. You’ll go and tell her what a bloody idiot you’ve been and you’ll beg her to forgive you. Because if you don’t do that then she’ll be gone. You’ll be left in that house completely on your own, and much good may it do you.’

He had shaken his head, bewildered, and then became suddenly angry. ‘It’s all nonsense! She’s been filling you with
all sorts of stupid talk - I don’t know what’s happened to her lately. All she does is nag and pry and -’

‘Rubbish,’ Letty said just as loudly, but without heat. ‘Don’t try that sort of line with me. You’ve been sniffing around the nurses at Nellie’s like some sort of tomcat for years. Sickening! And round Katy - oh, don’t look at me like that with such great cow’s eyes! D’you think I’m blind and stupid with it? I’m as sharp as the next woman, Harry Lackland, and I know all too well what you’ve been doing. So let’s not waste time with a lot of silly bluster.’

He’d said nothing, only sitting very still and staring at her and then he had felt the heat rise in his face and for one shocking moment actually thought tears were going to appear in his eyes. He took a deep breath at that, needing desperately to save his face as best he could.

‘Oh, my God,’ he said after a moment. ‘What on earth do I do about it, Letty? I’ve been a bloody fool, haven’t I?’

‘If you want to keep your family, then indeed you have,’ she had said, for the first time feeling sorry for him. He looked stricken, now, and his face seemed to have sagged a little from the bones of his skull.
‘Do
you want to keep them?’

He had sat very still staring at her but not seeing her, and then said loudly, ‘Bloody hell! Of course I do.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure. It’s just that - oh, I don’t know, Letty. She’s just been so - Lee, I mean. She’s been so - far away. At the beginning we were so close, it was as though when she cut her finger I felt it, you know? And then that wretched business of wanting children and the trip to Germany and Michael - I -’

He swallowed then and it made an odd gulping little noise in the quiet room. ‘I hated him you know, when he first came to us. I did hate him and it was dreadful. She loved him so and I -’

‘Do you still hate him?’ Letty said, and now her voice was gentle.

He managed to smile then. ‘Oh, no. Not now. It all changed when he saw Sally for the first time. I’d taken him to the maternity ward to see Lee and the baby was with her and his face - it was so odd, the way he looked. It was as though it was me I was looking at and he turned and came running to me and held on and wouldn’t let go and well, after that it was all fine. But it had done something to us. To Lee and me, I mean. It all
got so -’ He shrugged. ‘I really can’t explain. She had the baby, and then after a while there was Stella as well and nothing seemed any fun any more -’

‘Jealousy,’ Letty said, almost disgustedly. ‘You really are the end, Harry! You’re supposed to understand these things, supposed to be a doctor who understands and knows how to cope and you can’t even see your own childish jealousy for what it is!’

‘I wasn’t jealous!’ he began hotly and then stopped and leaned forwards and rested his face in his hands. ‘Oh, hell,’ he said after a moment. ‘Oh, hell and damnation’, and then he really did begin to cry.

The little nurse from Casualty never did get her dinner that night, nor on any other night come to that. Harry sat with Letty till long after midnight, talking in a great flood, letting out all the stored up resentment of the past years, and she had sat in the dimness of the comfortable room lit by one small table-lamp, letting him talk and knowing how much he needed that catharsis.

And at the end of it he knew what he wanted for certain. He wanted Lee, his Lee, and no one else. But she no longer knew that, Letty had pointed out firmly, and had to be convinced of it. It wasn’t going to be easy to stop her from leaving him, but at least he knew he wanted to keep her and that was half the battle.

But only half. Because Lee, he discovered when he left Letty and went home to St John’s Wood to find her and apologize and talk, had a strength of resolve he had not fully realized was in her. It was going to be a long and difficult task to overcome it, and that was all he now cared about. He certainly never thought about Katy at all.

‘I really don’t think I can say that to him, Dr Lucas,’ Sophie said, not lifting her eyes from her work. She was kneading bread dough with a steady thumping of her arms, turning and twisting it lovingly with her strong little fingers, seeming to relish its satiny texture and its resilience. ‘It wouldn’t be in my conscience to do it.’

‘Miss Lucas,’ Charlie said automatically, staring at the dumpy little woman with her brows creased. ‘I’m a surgeon, not a physician. Not that it matters all that much. Anyway, people call me Charlie - look, I don’t quite understand. You say you can’t give Brin my message? Do you mean you won’t be seeing him? Will you be leaving here before he gets home?’

‘I might be. I usually do. He doesn’t like to see me around when he gets in, so I generally leave his meal ready and then go back to my own flat. But of course I could stay to see him if there was anything special to tell him.’ Now she did lift her eyes from her rhythmic kneading. ‘But I won’t stay to tell him what you’ve asked me to.’

‘Then I shall leave him a note,’ Charlie said decisively, and began to root in her bag for a pencil and some paper.

‘I shan’t deliver that, either,’ Sophie said calmly. ‘Indeed, I’d be very likely to throw it away.’

Charlie’s brows came down almost to a point between her eyes, so sharp was the frown.

‘I really don’t understand you, Mrs - er -’

‘Priestly. But people call me Sophie.’ And she smiled at Charlie, a sweet three-cornered shaping of her small mouth, but her eyes were watchful. ‘There now, I’ll set this to rise, and it can go into t’oven in an hour and be fine and ready by the time I have to leave.’ And she turned away from the kitchen table to set her covered bowl of dough on top of the warm cooker. ‘I’ve a bit of fat and sugar left so I can manage a few
buns for the lad as well. He likes my buns.’

Charlie took a sharp little breath in through her nose, feeling irritation begin to bubble in her. Talking to this woman was like trying to catch a cloud. But she was Brin’s sister and as such to be treated carefully. She couldn’t use her clipped I’m-a-doctor-and-I-know-best approach with her; not that it was one she used often, but sometimes when dealing with patients who were a little slow on the uptake it was necessary. And Sophie certainly seemed to be rather slow in some ways, however clever she might be with her bread and her buns.

‘You must forgive me if I’m being a bit stupid, Sophie, but I can’t quite see what the problem is about giving Brin my message.’

Sophie turned back to the table and balling both her floury hands into small fists rested them on the table top, and with rigid elbows leaned forwards to look directly at Charlie. The sleeves of her rather dowdy flower-printed summer dress were rolled up high on her round plump arms and there was a large white apron pinned round her, making her waist, which was less than slender at the best of times, look extra thick. There was a smudge of flour on one cheek and her usually neat hair was ruffled from the heat of both the afternoon and the atmosphere in the tiny kitchen. She should have looked rather absurd. But she didn’t. She looked formidable and even a little frightening as she stared at Charlie.

‘Let me make myself very clear, Miss Lucas. I’m not about to deliver your message to my brother because I don’t think it’s one he ought to get. And if you’ve the sense I think you have you’ll think again about trying to get it to him yourself.’

Charlie shook her head, bewildered. ‘Perhaps you misunderstood me,’ she said carefully, enunciating her words more clearly as though she were talking to a foreigner. ‘I said I had managed to arrange for a bed at Nellie’s for Brin. That I’ll be back on the staff there in a week’s time, and that I can do his operation soon after that, and -’

‘Aye, I heard you.’ Sophie stood upright again, and reached for another bowl and began with great punctiliousness to measure margarine and sugar into it, and then picked up a wooden spoon with which to pound the mixture. ‘And I know what it is you want to do. You want to operate on his face again. You want to try to make that scar look different.’

‘Yes, of course. What else would it be?’ Charlie was still mystified but now beginning to get more and more angry.

‘It’d be a big mistake,’ Sophie said calmly. ‘You mustn’t do it, really you mustn’t.’

Charlie stared at her. ‘Why not?’

‘Because you’ll be taking away from the lad the only protection he has. And heaven knows he needs it badly.’