The Tender Flame (20 page)

‘Better let me,' Jan heard her father say, which was as well because Martin had quibbled constantly from the moment he arrived. If she got her hands on his tie she might just be tempted to strangle him with it.

‘Hope the local scene is lively, Jan,' Martin said in all innocence.

‘You've got to be joking. There isn't one.'

‘Surely we can let down the drawbridge and get out? Where do you go? You must have been somewhere.'

‘Yes, I have. Danielle's Den. Thanks for reminding me. We'll go there. If you'll excuse me, I'll go up and get ready.'

She put on the same dress she had worn on the previous two occasions she had visited Danielle's Den. The thought glanced across her mind that she really must treat herself to a new dress, but her appearance wasn't her main preoccupation. If David still hadn't arrived home when she got downstairs, she wondered if she dare phone Linda whose husband, Hugh, worked with David, to ask her if Hugh had got home yet. She decided against it. It would sound too much like fussing. Anyway, David must surely have turned up by now.

He hadn't.

Her
father handed over his car keys. ‘Drive carefully, Jan.'

He always said that, even though he had told her countless times that he had every confidence in her as a driver.

‘I will.' Turning to her mother she said: ‘If anything crops up, you know where to find me. The number of Danielle's Den will be in the phone book.'

‘Of course. Off you go and have a good time.'

‘We shall certainly do that,' Martin averred, his good humour restored now that they were on the move. ‘Danielle's Den. Intriguing sort of name. Tell me about it.'

Jan filled him in on the way, mentioning that Danielle was a friend of David's, but was careful to say nothing of Danielle's unhappy past.

‘Hey, this looks all right to me,' Martin said as they plunged into the dimly lit room where a spotlight picked out Danielle who was seated at her usual place at the piano. His eyes were glued on Danielle.

Jan smiled. ‘Why don't you say what you mean, and that is
she
looks all right?'

His grin was sheepish. ‘Well she does. She's a stunner. You said she was a friend of your boss. Is she a special friend?'

‘Very special,' Jan replied without hesitation.

‘Wedding bells in the offing?'

‘No,
it's not that sort of friendship. Can't a man and a woman want to share each other's company because they like each other? Does physical attraction have to come into it?'

She hadn't realised how terse she sounded until Martin's hand shot up to fend off an imaginary blow. ‘Sorry I spoke. I honestly had no idea or I would have been more tactful.'

‘What on earth do you mean?'

‘Come off it, Jan. Does David know how you feel about him? And remember it's me you are talking to and prevarication can serve no useful purpose.'

Her haughtiness dropped away. She sighed. ‘David doesn't know. And he mustn't.'

‘Don't look at me like that. I've never grassed in my life. I'm curious to know why you invited me up, though.'

‘Because you'd broken your arm and you could do with a bit of pampering.'

‘That's fine. But if you had any idea in that crazy head of yours that I look anything remotely like decoy material, forget it and find yourself another sitting duck.'

‘A sitting duck, you? Never! You're never still enough, for one thing. Now if you'd said lame duck. . .'

‘Ha! Very funny!' His handsome head lifted. ‘Your little friend has stopped playing. Do you think you can persuade her to come and sit with us?'

‘I don't think that will be necessary. I rather
imagine
she'll come anyway.'

Jan was right. Even as she spoke she saw Danielle making her way through the tables towards them. Martin had set her thinking. David and Danielle. They would be so right for each other. Even their names were compatible. Their roots were deeply linked in sympathy. They liked what they knew about each other. How long before they found out they simply liked each other and decided to take it from there?

‘Hello, Jan.' By this time Danielle had reached their table. The French girl pulled a chair forward for herself and sat down.

Martin, who had risen as Danielle approached, sat down also. ‘You play beautifully.'

He wasn't wasting any time in getting into action, Jan noticed. He was seducing her with his eyes.

‘No, I'm merely adequate.' Danielle's gaze lowered in provocative awareness. Or was there a quirk to her mouth that suggested to Jan it might be to conceal suppressed laughter. It was more likely for a sophisticated girl such as Danielle to have her mouth lifted in amusement than have her head turned by Martin's unsubtle approach.

‘I've known Martin since I was a little girl, and he's quite harmless,' Jan said as a preliminary to the introduction.

‘No, I'm not,' Martin defended himself
stoutly.
‘Not completely armless anyway. I can still bring impudent little girls to heel with my remaining good arm.'

‘I noticed you'd been in the wars. What exactly happened?' Danielle enquired compassionately.

Martin's eyes, which had no yearning to venture from Danielle's face, were still doing their witchcraft. A hint of mischief crept into their blue depths. ‘I went to the defence of a poor little old lady who was being set upon by a gang of thugs. They had designs on the case she was carrying. They had it on good authority it was full of . . .'

‘Yes?' Danielle leaned forward expectantly.

‘. . . fruit and nut chocolate bars.'

‘The only fruit and nut case is you. No, correction. I am also, for believing you. Now that I've got your measure, I won't be taken in again. You might have warned me, Jan, that your friend was a joker.'

‘I
would
be a candidate for protective care if I told you how I really came to break my arm.'

Jan noticed that Martin's fun-talk had lightened the shadows in Danielle's eyes. The crying sadness behind her smile was less apparent than it had been when Jan had sat across a table from her with David.

Almost on cue, as if she had followed the direction of her thoughts, Danielle turned to Jan. ‘Where is David? Is he following on?'

‘David isn't coming this evening. I don't
know
where he is. He hadn't got home from work when we set off.'

‘Don't look so distraught,
chérie
. When you and David are married and he tells you he has had to work late, you can be sure it will not be a blind to cover up other activities.'

‘I must set you right, Danielle. David and I are not going to be married.'

‘No? I'm sorry to question your wisdom, my little friend, but are you not being silly? What is it you English say, are you not cutting off your nose to spite your face?'

‘On the contrary. I'm saving face by cutting off my nose.' It wasn't her nose she was cutting off, it was her heart she was cutting out. ‘I'm trying to be sensible.'

‘That is something I do not know about. I have never been sensible in my life, and at my age . . .'

‘Which is?' Martin cut in impertinently.

‘I would not dream of telling you that,' Danielle said with a twinkle in her eye. ‘But the first figure is a two. Have you noticed how long my fingers are? When I play the piano I can span an octave. The second figure is more than I can span with my fingers.'

There are eight notes in an octave. That made Danielle twenty-nine. Jan didn't know how old David was, but she thought he could claim a year, possibly two, more than that.

‘I thought you said David wasn't coming this evening?' Danielle said.

‘He
isn't.'

‘Then his ghost walks, or he has a double, because here he is.'

Jan turned her head, and there indeed was David, glowering down at her.

‘What is it, David? I thought something must have happened when you didn't come home from work at your usual time.'

‘Oh that. It's nothing to do with that. I'm afraid I got absorbed in what I was doing and forgot the time. I'm sorry to have thrown the meal arrangements to pot.'

‘You haven't eaten, David? No? That's splendid. You must have a meal here. And do please sit down,' Danielle further instructed. ‘You are so tall. I'm getting a crick in my neck with having to look all that way up at you.'

‘I'll sit down for a moment, but I won't stay for a meal. I'm sorry to interrupt your evening, Jan, but I've come to take you home.'

Now that her anxiety had calmed, now that she saw he was fit and well and hadn't met with an accident, she became intensely annoyed. How dare he calmly walk in here and order her home? Her mother had obviously told him about Martin, and just as obviously it was not to his liking. His high-handedness roused her ire.

‘I'm not going home. I'm not a child to be ordered about, and I'm enjoying myself too much to be dragged home because of some stupid whim of yours. I think you know Martin
by
name,' she said too sweetly, ‘although I don't believe the two of you have actually met.'

Paying her out in her own coin, because he was alert to how her mind was working, he turned to address Martin. ‘We've not actually met, but I do recall seeing you before.'

Curiosity surely insisted that Martin ask where. He must have sensed some innuendo because Jan felt herself the victim of his puzzled gaze, although he said nothing. She silently thanked him for not pursuing the issue. She remembered well where David had seen Martin before.

Like a dog with a bone, David said with irritating persistence: ‘On that occasion, too, I came to take Jan back.'

It was after David had dismissed her and sent her home, because he considered her unsuitable for the job of looking after Stephanie, and altogether too indiscreet. But Stephanie had thought differently, and David had been forced to follow her and bring her back. His timing had been most unfortunate. Martin had made a pass at her, and David had been there at the crucial moment and had witnessed the scene through the uncurtained window.

‘You seem to make a habit of coming after Jan to take her back,' Martin said, matching David's dryness as in turn each man summed up the other's potential.

‘Unfortunately it would appear so,' David
admitted.

Jan had taken it for granted that David, with his astute judgement, would sum Martin up and find him wanting. It came to her that this was not so. David was in a livid temper and as usual the heat of his anger was crusted in ice. If it hadn't been such a ridiculous notion she would have thought he was jealous of Martin.

He said: ‘There will be other opportunities for you to have entertaining evenings out in—‘His eyes were mocking, but whatever they mocked it was not her taste in men—‘congenial company. Occasions that do not infringe on your conscience or your duty. Right now, I must ask you to put your mind to these mundane moral issues, even if it means forgoing your own pleasure.'

Even as she was silently applauding Martin for setting himself up as a worthy opponent, she was inwardly quaking. ‘I don't know what you mean. My duty to whom? What moral issue? My conscience is perfectly clear.'

‘Then all I can say is, you have a very convenient conscience if it allows you to embark on an evening of revelry leaving a sick child in the care of . . .'

‘Now wait a minute,' Danielle intervened on her behalf. ‘You can't speak to Jan like that.'

‘If you'd let him finish, Danielle, he could only say that I left Stephanie in the care of a level-headed, capable adult. My mother. Is that not so, David? And what do you mean by
a
sick child? Stephanie was perfectly well when I left.'

But was she? The things that Jan hadn't properly registered with her eye, but which her brain had stored up for later recollection, flooded into her awareness. Stephanie's funny colour, the rose points in the cheeks of an otherwise pale little face. Her lack of bounce and fun which amounted to listlessness.

‘I'll grant that your mother is a very capable woman, considerably more so than you are. But tell that to Stephanie, not to me. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you missed the signs and didn't deliberately walk out, knowing that she was sickening for something. Your mother is most insistent that her temperature flared up after you'd gone, but the fact remains that Stephanie has got herself worked up into a state because you aren't there. She isn't going to settle down until you come. Will you do so voluntarily, or must I take you by force. Make no mistake, you're coming even if I have to drag you every step of the way by the roots of your hair.'

‘If you'd told me that Stephanie was ill in the first place, there would have been no argument,' Jan flung at him, rising to her feet. ‘I'm sorry, Martin—' Twisting round to look at him—‘but you see we must go.'

Martin didn't see. ‘Must we? Kids are up and down all the time. Surely you know that. And as you've just said, she's in your mother's
excellent
hands. I don't see what you can do if you go back. It's a ridiculous idea.'

It was evident that Martin wasn't going to have his fun curtailed. He was digging in his heels to stay.

With ill-concealed impatience, so perhaps she could appreciate how David felt, she said: ‘If you could drive, Martin, I'd go home with David and leave Dad's car for you to make your own way in your own time. But you can't drive with that arm, so you have no choice but to come with me.'

‘May I make a suggestion,' Danielle said, taking the role of mediator upon herself. ‘If Martin wants to stay, I'll drive him back. Or, better still, he could shack up for the night with Tom, my manager. He's got a spare room in his flat, and I know he'd willingly put Martin up if I asked him. What do you think, Martin?'