City Girl in Training

A tiger, according to my magazine, would always leave the house prepared to meet the man of her dreams. But how often did that happen? Besides, I’d left the man of my dreams in Maybridge. Hadn’t I?

‘And the A-Z,’ I added, stuffing it into my shoulder bag, alongside the treacherous magazine.

‘Not the suitcase,’ he replied. ‘It was your willingness to surrender a taxi at this time of day that betrayed you. You won’t do it twice.’

‘I won’t?’

‘They’re rarer than hen’s teeth.’

Hen’s teeth? ‘Are they rare?’ I asked, confused. It seemed unlikely. Hens weren’t on any endangered list…

‘I’ve never seen one.’ Oh, stocking tops! The rain was dripping from my hair and trickling icily down the back of my neck. I suspected that it had seeped right into my brain. ‘But then I’ve never felt any desire to look into a hen’s beak,’ he added.

‘No one ever does,’ I replied. ‘Big mistake.’ And he was kind enough to smile, giving me ample opportunity to see for myself that his own teeth left nothing to be desired.

In the dark and wet of the pavement I hadn’t noticed much more than the fact that my ‘tall, dark stranger’ was the requisite ‘tall’. Of course, when describing yourself as one point six metres was pure vanity, everyone seemed tall. But he was really, really tall. Several inches taller than Don, who was my personal yardstick for tall.

And his voice. I’d noticed that, too.

Low and gravelly, it was the voice of a man you just knew it wouldn’t be wise to mess with. Yet his impatience was softened by velvet undertones. Sort of like Sean Connery, but without the Scottish accent.

Now I was sitting opposite him I could see that the ‘dark’ bit fitted him, too. I sat mesmerised as a drop of rainwater gathered and slid down the jet curve of an untidy curl before dropping into the turned-up collar of his overcoat. And I shivered.

Tall and dark. His skin so deeply tanned that he looked Italian, or possibly Greek.

But he struck out on handsome.

There was nothing smooth or playboy pretty about his features. His cheekbones were too prominent, his nose less than straight and there was a jagged scar just above his right eyebrow, giving the overall impression of a man who met life head-on and occasionally came off worst.

That was okay. There was something about a cliché that was so off-putting. Two out of three was just about right. Tall, dark and dangerous was more like it, because his eyes more than made up for any lack of symmetry. They were sea-green, deep enough to drown in and left me with the heart-racing impression that until now I might have been dreaming in sepia.

‘Have you come far?’ he asked, in an attempt to engage me in conversation. Presumably to stop me from staring.

I was jerked back to reality. ‘Oh…um …no. Not really. From Maybridge. It’s near…er…’ I struggled for a coherent response. I was used to having to explain exactly where Maybridge was. People constantly confused it with Maidenhead, Maidstone and a dozen other towns that began with the same sound, but my mind refused to co-operate.

‘I know where Maybridge is,’ he said, rescuing me from my pitiful lapse of memory. ‘I have friends who live in Upper Haughton.’

‘Upper Haughton!’ I exclaimed, clutching at geographical straws. Upper Haughton was a picture-perfect village a few miles outside Maybridge that had outgrown its agricultural past and was now the province of the seriously rich. ‘Yes, that’s it. It’s near Upper Haughton.’

The mouse in me wanted to groan, bury my face in my hands. Wanted to go back five minutes so that I could keep my big mouth shut and let him steal my taxi. His taxi.

But the tiger in me wanted to write my name and telephone number on a card and murmur ‘call me’ in a sultry voice. Since he must by now believe I was at least one sandwich short of a picnic, it was perhaps fortunate that I didn’t have a card handy and was thus saved the embarrassment of making a total fool of myself.

Instead, I glanced at my wrist-watch, not because I wanted to know the time—I had no pressing engagement—but to avoid looking into his eyes again.

‘We’re nearly there,’ he said. Then, ‘Are you staying long? In London.’

‘Six months,’ I said. ‘My parents are travelling…Australia, South Africa, America…and they decided to let the house…’ I was ‘wittering’ again and, remembering his impatience, stopped myself. ‘So here I am.’

‘While the cat’s away?’ he suggested, with another of those knowing smiles.

Clearly he hadn’t had any trouble spotting that I was a mouse. Fortunately, the taxi swept up to the front of a stunningly beautiful riverside apartment building, terraced in sweeping lines and lit up like an ocean liner, and I was saved the necessity of answering him. For a moment I sat open-mouthed at the sight while, apparently impatient to be rid of me, my companion opened the door and stepped out, lifting my case onto the footpath. Then, gentleman that he was, he opened his umbrella and handed it to me as I followed him, before turning to speak to the driver while I dug out my purse and found a five pound note.

‘Put that away,’ he said as I offered it.

‘No, really, I insist,’ I said. I couldn’t let him pay my fare. He didn’t bother to argue. He just closed the taxi door, picked up my suitcase and headed for the front door, leaving me with a five pound note in one hand and his umbrella in the other. The taxi drove off.

‘Hey, wait…’ I wasn’t sure whether I was shouting at the driver, who clearly hadn’t realised he still had a fare, or Mr Tall, Dark and Dangerous himself.

I’d been warned about the security system on the front door. You had to have a smart card, or ring the bell of the person you were visiting so that they could let you into the building. TDD bypassed the system by catching the door as someone left the building, and was now holding it open. Standing in the entrance. Waiting for me to join him.

He wasn’t going anywhere, I realised.

‘While the cat’s away…’ he’d said.

And my memory instantly filled in the blank. ‘The mouse will play.’

And I hadn’t denied it.

Did he think I couldn’t wait to get started? Expect to be invited in? Offered…and I swallowed hard…coffee? Had my invitation to share the taxi been completely misunderstood?

I realised just how rash I’d been. Naïve. Worse…just plain stupid.

I’d allowed this man whom I’d never met before, whose name I didn’t even know, to give the driver the address. I hadn’t heard what he’d said and, too late, it occurred to me that I could be anywhere.

And who’d miss me?

I’d actually told him that my parents were on the other side of the world, for heaven’s sake!

How long would it be before Sophie and Kate Harrington raised the alarm when I didn’t arrive? When I’d spoken to Sophie, she hadn’t been exactly enthusiastic about me moving in. In fact I’d got the distinct impression that she, like me, had had her arm painfully twisted.

She certainly wouldn’t be dialling the emergency services today. Or tomorrow. Not until Don called, anyway…

Anticipation of his agonised realisation that I might not even have got on the train, that my disappearance might be entirely his fault for not seeing me off, made me feel momentarily happier.

The pleasure was short-lived, however, swamped by instant recall of a lifetime of my mother’s awful warnings about the inadvisability of taking lifts from strangers. And with that thought came relief.

My mother, even from thirty thousand feet, came to my rescue as, pushing the five-pound note into my jacket pocket, I gripped my attack alarm. It was just a small thing on a keyring and I’m ashamed to say that I’d laughed when she’d given it to me, made me promise I’d carry it with me while I was in London. But, as she’d pointed out, I’d need a new keyring so it might as well be this one…

I sent a belated—and silent—thank-you heaven-ward before forcing my mouth into an approximation of a smile and looking up at the man I’d decided was tall, dark and dangerous. As if that were a good thing.

‘You really didn’t have to see me right to the door,’ I said, trying on a laugh for size. It wasn’t convincing.

‘I wouldn’t,’ he assured me, ‘if I didn’t live in the apartment next door to you.’

‘Next door?’ He lived in the same block? Next door? Relief surged through me and I very nearly laughed.

‘Shall we get inside?’ he said coolly. He’d clearly cottoned on to my unease and was offended. ‘If you’ll just close the umbrella—’

In my hurry to comply, I yanked my hand out of my pocket and the keyring alarm flew out with it.

I made a wild grab for it and as my fingers closed over it I felt the tiny switch shift. I said one heartfelt word. Fortunately, it was obliterated by a banshee wail that my mother probably heard halfway to Australia.

Startled by the blast of sound, I let go of the umbrella, which, caught by a gust of wind, bowled away across the entrance and towards the road. TDD—his patience tried beyond endurance—swore briefly and let my suitcase drop as he lunged after it. It was too much for the over-stressed zip and the case burst open in a shower of underwear. Plain, white, comfortable underwear. The kind you’d never admit to wearing. He froze, transfixed by the horror of the moment, and the world seemed to stand still, catch its breath.

Then reality rushed back in full colour. With surround sound.

The rain, the piercing, mind-deadening noise of the alarm, the red-hot embarrassment that was right off any scale yet invented.

I was gripping the keyring in my fist, as if I could somehow contain the noise. There was a trick to switching it off—otherwise any attacker could do it. But I was beyond rational thought.

TDD’s mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying and finally he grabbed my wrist, prised open my fingers and dropped the wretched thing on the footpath. Then he put his heel on it and ground it flat. It seemed to take for ever before the sound finally died.

The silence, if anything, was worse.

‘Thank you,’ I said when the feeling came back to my ears, but my voice came out as little more than a squeak. A mouse squeak and heaven alone knew that at that moment I wished I were a real mouse—one with a hole to disappear down.

‘Wait here,’ he said, and the chill factor in his voice turned the gravel into crushed ice. Well, it wouldn’t take a genius to work out why I was holding an attack alarm. He’d surrendered his taxi to me, refused my share of the fare, and I’d reacted to his kindness as if he were some kind of monster.

As my abused knight errant disappeared into the darkness in search of his umbrella, I knew that I should go after him, help him track it down. I told myself he’d probably prefer it if I didn’t. That was what the ‘wait here’ had been all about. A keep-your-distance-before-you-do-any-more-damage command. Besides, I could hardly leave my knickers scattered across the entrance to this unbelievably grand block of flats.

I captured a pair that was about to blow away and stuffed it into my pocket. I knew I should wait for his return, apologise abjectly, offer to pay for any repairs. After all that wasn’t any old cheap-and-cheerful bumbershoot. The kind that it didn’t matter much if you left it on the bus. The kind I regularly left on buses.

Gathering the rest of my scattered belongings, I reasoned that waiting was not necessary. He lived next door. I could put a note through his letterbox later. I sincerely believed that when he’d had a moment to think, calm down, he’d prefer that.

Which was why I stuffed my clothes back into the case as fast as I could before sprinting for the lift.

Sophie Harrington took her time about opening the door. I stood there with my case gripped under both my arms to prevent the contents falling out, wishing she’d hurry up.

I’d promised myself while I’d been travelling up in the lift that next time I met my new next-door neighbour I’d be dressed tidily, with my hair and my mouth under control. I didn’t expect him to be impressed, but hoped he’d realise I wasn’t the complete idiot he’d—with good reason—thought me.

Heck, even I thought I was an idiot. And I knew better.

But if Sophie didn’t hurry up, I’d still be standing in the hall when he reached the top floor.

It wasn’t an appealing prospect and I hitched up my suitcase and rang the bell again. The door was instantly flung open by a girl in a bathrobe and a bad mood.

Oh, good start.

Having gravely offended the next door neighbour, I’d now got my new flatmate out of the shower.

And if I hadn’t already known just how bad I looked—the lift had mirrored walls—her expression would have left me in no doubt.

‘You must be Philly Gresham,’ she said, with a heaven-help-us sigh. ‘I’m Sophie Harrington. You’d better come in.’

‘Thanks.’ I stepped into the hall, still clinging to my suitcase and unwilling to put it down. The floor was pale polished hardwood and I didn’t want to make a mess. ‘I’ve had a bit of an accident,’ I said, unnecessarily. But I felt someone had to fill that huge, unwelcoming silence. ‘The zip broke.’

Sophie’s older sister, Kate, appeared behind her and, taking one look at me, said, ‘Good grief, did you swim here?’ Then, kinder, she said, ‘I’ll show you your room. You can dump that and have a hot shower while Sophie makes a pot of tea. You look as if you could do with a cup.’

That had to be the understatement of the year.

Sophie didn’t look as if making a pot of tea had been part of her immediate plans, but after another sigh—just to reinforce the message—she flounced off.

‘Take no notice of my little sister,’ Kate said as she led the way. ‘She had other plans for your room. She’ll get over it.’

‘Oh?’ I said politely, imagining a study, or a work-room.

‘There’s a stunning new man at work. He’s just moved down from Aberdeen and he’s looking for somewhere to live. She’d planned to seduce him with low-rent accommodation.’ She glanced back at me, her expression solemn, but her eyes danced with humour. ‘A mistake, don’t you think? Suppose he moved in and then brought home a succession of equally stunning girls?’

‘Nothing but trouble,’ I agreed, with equal solemnity.

We exchanged a look that suggested that, two years older than Sophie, we were both too old, too wise to ever do anything that stupid and I decided that, while the jury was out on Sophie, I was going to like Kate.

‘I was quite relieved when Aunt Cora phoned and asked if we could put you up, to be honest. Sophie threw a tantrum but she knows that when Aunt Cora commands…’ She obviously thought I knew what she was talking about.

‘Aunt Cora?’

‘My mother’s sister. This is her flat. A small part of the spoils of a very lucrative divorce settlement. Happily she prefers to live in France so we get to house-sit.’

‘At a price.’

‘We just pay the expenses, which admittedly are not low…’ Then, ‘Oh, you mean you.’ And she laughed. ‘Don’t worry about it. Sophie’ll come round.’ She stopped. ‘This is your room.’

And she opened a door to the kind of bedroom I’d only ever seen in lifestyle articles in the Sunday supplements. A blond wood floor, taupe walls, a low double bed with real blankets and the bed-linen was just that. Linen. It was spare, stylish and, in comparison with my single-bedded room at home with its floral wallpaper, shelves full of favourite childhood books and menagerie of stuffed animals—very grown up.

‘It’s lovely,’ I said. Still unwilling to put down my suitcase and spoil the perfection.

‘It looks too much like a department store-room setting for my taste. It needs living in.’ She glanced at me, standing practically to attention, afraid to touch anything, and grinned. ‘Relax, Philly. Don’t be afraid to muss it up and make yourself at home.’ She crossed the room and threw open another door. ‘You’ve got an en suite shower. And this,’ she said, ignoring the reality of my ruined suitcase, ‘is a walk-in wardrobe.’

It didn’t take a theoretical physicist to work out that I didn’t need a walk-in anything. A small cupboard would accommodate my limited wardrobe with space left over. But what with a uniform for work and overalls for the garage—neither of which was needed in London—I was rather short of clothes. My priority had been saving up for a deposit on a home of my own so that when Don eventually realised that there was more to life than old cars there’d be nothing to stop us. I was going to assuage my misery by blowing some of it on some serious working clothes. If I wasn’t going to have a personal life for the next six months, I might as well do my career some good.

‘Do you want to give me your jacket? I’ll hang it up to dry.’

It occurred to me that people who lived in this kind of apartment block couldn’t hang out their washing on a line in the back garden. ‘Is there a launderette nearby? Some of my…um…clothes got a bit muddy.’

‘Possibly, but why go out in the rain when we’ve got everything you need right here? Washer, dryer and the finest steam iron a divorce settlement can buy.’

A dryer? I quashed the thought that my mother wouldn’t approve and grinned. ‘Thanks, Kate.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she said. ‘Now I’d better go and make sure that my sulky little sister isn’t lacing your tea with something unpleasant. Don’t stand on ceremony. A bathrobe is as formal as it gets around here at this time on a Friday.’ And she grinned. ‘Just follow the sound of Sophie’s teeth gnashing when you’re ready.’

CHAPTER THREE

It’s dark and raining. Your room-mates have gone out and you’re on your own in a strange flat. As you turn on the cooker to prepare some absolutely vital comfort food you blow the fuses. Do you:

a. remember that there’s a pub on the corner? You can get something to eat there and find a bloke who knows how to fix a fuse. Excellent.

b. go next door for help? The guy who lives there never leaves the house in daylight, but, hey, it’s dark, so that’s not a problem.

c. ring the emergency services and cry?

d. keep a torch and spare fuse wire by the fuse-box? You fix the fuse yourself.

e. just cry?

‘FEELING better?’

Kate was on her own in the kitchen and waved in the direction of the teapot, indicating that I should help myself.

‘Much,’ I said, although I felt a little self-conscious in my aged bathrobe, with my hair wrapped in one of the thick soft towels that had been left for me. I’d never shared a flat with girls my own age before but I had friends who were quick to tell me that it was a minefield.

Rows over who’d taken the last of the milk, or bread. Rows over telephone bills. And worst of all, rows over men. At least that wouldn’t be a problem. I had enough trouble holding my own man’s attention against the incomparable glamour of a carburettor, let alone attracting any attention from any of theirs.

Kate seemed friendly enough but I didn’t want her to think I was freeloading. ‘I need to go shopping, stock up on the essentials, if you’ll point me in the direction of the nearest supermarket,’ I said as I filled a cup.

‘Don’t worry tonight. So long as you don’t eat Sophie’s cottage cheese you’ll be fine.’

‘No problem,’ I said, with feeling, and we both grinned.

‘Do you know anyone in London, Philly?’

I shook my head. Then said, ‘Well…’ Kate waited. ‘I met the man who lives next door. We hailed the same taxi and since we were going in the same direction it seemed logical to share. Not that I knew he lived next door then, of course.’

Kate looked surprised. Actually it did seem pretty unlikely, but it wasn’t the coincidence that bothered her. ‘You got into a taxi with a man you didn’t know?’

I was still feeling a little bit wobbly about that myself.

‘It was raining. And he was prepared to let me take it. He was really, very…um…’ On the point of saying kind, I was assailed by a vivid recollection of impatience barely held in check behind fathoms-deep sea-green eyes. Of his heel grinding my attack alarm in the pavement. Of his sharp ‘wait here’. And my mouth dried on ‘kind’.

‘Yes?’

‘Actually, I owe him an apology.’ I swallowed. ‘And probably a new umbrella.’ Kate’s brows quirked upwards. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘Then it’s one that’ll have to keep. I’ve got a date with a totally gorgeous barrister. I’d have cancelled when I realised you would be arriving today, but I have long-term plans for this one and I’m not risking him out alone on Friday night.’ And she grinned as she pushed herself off her stool. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not leaving you on your own with Sophie. She’s going to a party. I would have asked her to take you but, in her present mood, I couldn’t positively guarantee you’d have a good time.’

‘No,’ I said. Relieved. The thought of going to a party, being forced into the company of a roomful of strangers, with or without Sophie, was not appealing.

And when, an hour or so later, Sophie drifted into the kitchen on high, high heels, ethereal in silvery chiffon, a fairy dusting of glitter across her shoulders, her white-blonde hair a mass of tiny waves, the relief intensified.

If I’d walked into a room alongside her fragile beauty, I’d have looked not just like a mouse, but a well-fed country mouse.

‘Will you be all right on your own?’ Kate asked, following her, equally stunning in the kind of simple black dress that didn’t come from any store that had a branch in Maybridge High Street. ‘There’s a pile of videos if there’s nothing on television you fancy and a list of fast-food outlets that deliver by the phone.’ And she grinned. ‘We don’t cook if we can help it.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, trying not to dwell on the fact that, for the first time in as long as I could remember on a Friday night, Don would not be bounding up to my front door ready to fall in with whatever I’d planned for the evening. Even if it did involve sitting through a chick-flick. I tried not to picture him down the pub with his car-crazy mates—no doubt encouraged by his miraculously restored mother not to ‘sit at home and brood’. Instead I gestured ironically in the direction of the washing machine where my knickers were going through the rinse cycle. ‘I’ve got plenty to do.’

Kate laughed. ‘Whatever turns you on,’ she said as the bell rang from the front entrance.

‘Come on, Kate, that’ll be the taxi,’ Sophie said, with a pitying glance in my direction before she went to let the driver know they were on their way.

But Kate hesitated, turned back, the slightest frown creasing her lovely forehead. ‘Was it Gorgeous George or Wee Willy?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Did you share a taxi with George or Willy?’

On the point of explaining that we hadn’t actually exchanged names, I realised how lame that sounded. On the other hand, while neither name seemed to suit my unfortunate Galahad, no one in their right mind would have referred to him as Wee Willy…

‘Gorgeous George?’ I repeated. A question, rather than an answer.

‘Tall, dark—’

‘That’s the one,’ I said.

‘And very, very gay.’

‘Gay?’

She gave me an old-fashioned look that suggested I might be even more of a hick than I looked. ‘You didn’t realise?’

Gay? He was gay?

No, I hadn’t realised. I’d been too busy falling into his hypnotic green eyes…

I pulled myself together, managed a shrug. ‘I wasn’t paying that much attention,’ I said. ‘And he was more interested in chasing his umbrella. In fact I should make sure he found it. Which side does he live on?’

Not that I intended to do more than put my apology—along with an offer to pay for repairs or a replacement—in writing and slip it beneath his door. He would undoubtedly take the hint and respond in kind. After that, if we ever passed in the hall, neither of us would have to do more than nod, which would be a relief all round, I told myself.

‘Out of the door, turn right. End of the hall. Number seventy-two.’ Then she grinned and said, ‘Don’t wait up.’