position to finance at least part of it ourselves.’
‘Well, we should be able to.’ Excitement made her sound breathless. ‘I told you, I’ve been saving.’
He looked unimpressed. ‘I don’t suppose what you’ve managed to save amounts to much. I reckon we’d need a minimum of seven or eight thousand.’
‘I’ve got a bit more than that,’ she told him with quiet triumph.
His jaw dropped. Then, fired with enthusiasm, he cried, ‘In that case we’re as good as in business! If you’re game?’
‘I’m game.’
‘Now all I need is a job to see me through till next summer… Of course I’d have a better chance of doing really well if I didn’t have to work, but—’
‘You don’t have to work. If I can boost my earnings with a weekend job at the supermarket, there should be just about enough money coming in for us both to scrape by on.’
‘You’re a jewel, partner.’
‘I won’t be able to save, and there won’t be anything left for luxuries but—’
‘Luxuries? What are luxuries? And with over eight thousand sitting in the bank you don’t need to save.’
He leaned across the small table and, taking her face between his hands, kissed her full on the lips.
Her heart began to pound and her colour rose. She could never remember anyone kissing her before, and certainly not in that way.
‘I can see us really going places, kiddo,’ he told her, jubilantly. ‘And maybe one day, when we’re successful and raking in the cash, we can extend the partnership.’
‘What do you mean…?’
‘Marriage… Why not?’
To be loved. To belong to someone. It was more happiness than she had ever dared dream of, and she wanted to cry.
CHAPTER TWO
OVER the next few months, with both of them working all hours, they hardly saw each other. Once a week they snatched a late-evening coffee together, and on very odd occasions a takeaway pizza.
Instead of living in student accommodation, Dave shared a small self-contained flat with a college friend. Though Eleanor paid his share of the rent for it, she had never been there, and wasn’t even sure where it was.
‘Off Station Road,’ Dave had answered casually, when she’d asked.
More than a dozen streets ran off Station Road, but knowing by now that he hated to be what he called “crowded” she let the matter drop.
As the festive season approached, learning that she had Christmas Day off, they began to make plans to spend it together. At the last minute, however, Dave rang up, sounding hoarse and snuffly, to say he had developed a stinking cold and all he wanted to do was stay in bed.
He rejected her offer of nursing and, when she looked like persisting, pointed out irritably, ‘At the moment you’re the breadwinner, so what’s the point of you catching it and having to stay off work?’
Though bitterly disappointed, she couldn’t deny it made sense, and when one of the kitchen staff failed to turn up, she worked in their place.
Unfortunately, Dave’s cold lasted over New Year, and it was well into January before they arranged to meet again.
That night she left the light and warmth of the supermarket to find a biting wind was driving flurries of snow down the dark street.
They had been planning to have a spot of supper together and, thinking he still looked far from well, she suggested that if they got fish and chips they could take them back to his flat. ‘It’s much too cold to stand eating them in the shop doorway.’
Dave looked horrified. ‘Do you want to get me slung out? My dragon of a landlady has very strict rules. No smoking. No loud music. No wet washing hanging about. No showers after eight. And definitely no visitors. In any case, Tony will be home.
‘Tell you what, if you give me a bit extra spending money, just for once we’ll eat in the cafe.’
‘Of course.’ She fished in her bag and gave him her last ten-pound note.
Completely besotted, she would have given him anything he’d asked for. Herself included. But though he kissed her from time to time, he never tried to take things any further.
When she rather hesitantly made it clear that she would sleep with him if he wanted her to, he said, ‘Don’t think I’m not tempted, kiddo. But for one thing I’m working so hard I’ve no energy left, and for another, I can’t afford to be distracted. There’ll be enough time to have fun when our business is up and running.’
She could only admire his dedication.
In the end it paid off handsomely. He graduated with top marks and, to celebrate, they went out looking for an office to rent.
‘One with a reasonable address, if possible,’ Dave decreed. ‘Where you are can make a big difference.’
Finding something that fitted the bill was easier said than done. The rents were astronomical. Then, when they’d almost given up hope, in a rather rundown building just off the Edgware Road, they found what they wanted.
Or at least the best they could afford.
That first hurdle over, it meant changes all round. Dave would no doubt want to move, and when she had worked her notice at the hotel, she would need to find somewhere else to live.
Full of barely suppressed excitement, she waited for Dave to suggest they find a small flat and move in together. When he said nothing, she plucked up courage and broached the subject herself.
He shook his head. ‘I was planning to stay where I am. Apart from the fact that Tony needs my help with the rent, it’s cheap and reasonably comfortable, and handy for the tube.’
‘But I thought we could be together…’
‘Too much of a temptation, kiddo.’
‘Oh, but surely—’
‘Look, we have to be sensible about this. We need time to build up the business before we can afford to take any chances. If you got pregnant where would we be? Right up the creek without a paddle. Say we give ourselves a year…’
A year…
‘For that length of time we’ll need to work all hours, seven days a week. Then if everything’s going well we’ll start to relax a bit, get married, tie the knot in the good old-fashioned way. Tell you what, as soon as we’ve been paid for our first job, I’ll buy you an engagement ring.’
She couldn’t help but think it sounded like a sop.
Seeing she still looked far from happy, he added, ‘Oh, and as it’s your money that’s getting us started, I think you should
