stairs. Alison stood for a moment looking after her. Hazel was supposed to divide her time equally between both partners but already she had unmistakably attached herself to Miss Padmore. Alison had more or less given up summoning her, preferring to see at the other side of her desk the cheerful face of a willing – if less competent – junior.
She shook her head, dismissing the subject, and rapped smartly on the door of her senior partner’s office.
Judith Padmore was running a pencil down a column of figures when Alison came in. She held up a hand for silence till she had set down the total, then she sat back in her chair and gazed at Alison. She was an efficient-looking woman dressed with provincial smartness in a neat tailored suit. Her hair was trimly set, carefully tinted to mask the grey.
‘We must try to do something about accommodation for Hazel,’ she said briskly. ‘It’s really not very sensible for her to go on living at the back of beyond.’
THE BARBOURNE branch of CeeJay Plant Hire Limited was situated on a sprawling industrial estate a short distance outside the town. It occupied a large stone building with a vast yard crammed with dumpers, diggers, excavators, handling, shifting and loading equipment of every description.
In his airy office on the first floor Andrew Rolt sat at his desk, explaining the more intricate details of a contract proposal to Paul Hulme, who was standing at his side, looking down at the papers spread out before them.
‘Yes, I think I’ve got that,’ Hulme said deferentially. I’d have got it a lot quicker if Rolt had been able to keep his mind on what he was telling me, he thought. ‘There is just one other point I’m not clear about.’ He picked up one of the sheets, ran a finger down it.
‘Leave it,’ Rolt said abruptly. He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘You’ve got the gist of the thing. I’ll fill in the gaps another time. You can put all this away now, you can get on with that other stuff for the time being.’ He jerked his head at a wire basket full of documents.
Hulme began to gather up the papers from the desk. He arranged them in an orderly pile, crossed the room and put them in a drawer. He was a trimly built, neat-featured young man with an air of control and calculation. He was being trained as a hire contract negotiator and at the same time carried out a number of duties as a general assistant to Rolt.
Hulme picked up the wire basket. In the doorway he paused and looked back at Rolt. ‘Is there anything I can get you? Coffee? Or tea?’ No doubt about it, Rolt’s manner was preoccupied, even faintly distressed.
‘What’s that?’ Rolt turned his head. ‘Oh, no thanks, nothing.’ He strove to keep sharpness from his tone. ‘No need to hurry too much over that stuff, take your time.’ The lad had a tendency to wet-nurse him; there were times when he didn’t find it amusing.
He looked down at his desk, at a sheaf of letters that must be answered. He gave a long sigh. ‘Send Miss Webb in, will you?’ he said to Hulme. The chore wouldn’t grow any more attractive for being postponed. And he would be away pretty well all the afternoon at Kain Engineering.
Mandy Webb was in the outer office. She looked up as Rolt’s door opened, picked up her notebook and came over at once on Hulme’s nod. He didn’t stand back for her in the doorway but remained half blocking the entrance so that she had to squeeze past. They exchanged a long, intimate, unsmiling look.
Mandy took her seat a little to one side of Rolt’s desk. He shuffled the letters together, selected one at random, ran his eye over it and began to dictate. A quarter of the way through the batch, his vagrant attention suddenly abandoned the mail completely. Mandy was sitting with her legs crossed, her notebook resting on her right knee; her head was still bent, her pencil still poised. He saw her all at once not as Miss Webb, short and none too pretty, the junior secretary who had been with CeeJay a matter of weeks, but simply as a female.
He stared at her without subterfuge. What would it be like to start all over again with someone entirely new, to put the past behind him for ever? For a moment the idea seemed exhilarating as if by some magic he might find youth and innocence again along with courage. But the moment passed. I couldn’t do it, he thought, clenching his fist over the scatter of letters. It would need the kind of confidence and self-esteem he had never greatly possessed even when he’d started out on life. His grip on the remnants of these essential qualities was now so insecure that he dared not risk putting it to any more exacting test than those inescapably facing him.
And the effort it would take to find the right woman, the expenditure of time, of energy. And no guarantee of any more lasting success even if he succeeded in finding and winning this mythical being.
Mandy raised her head at the lengthening silence. Her eyes, bold, confident, young, met his. He picked up the next letter and resumed dictation.
Ten minutes later he finished the pile. He sat back in his chair and watched with relief as the door closed behind her. He had barely time to draw a sweet breath of solitude when there was a brief knock and the under-manager, Arthur Ford, entered almost at the same instant.
‘Come in,’ Rolt said loudly when Ford was already inside the room. Ford looked surprised for a moment and then smiled as if humouring an invalid.
‘Beryl’s been on to me again to ask you over one evening,’ he said. ‘My life won’t be worth living if I’ve got to tell her I can’t persuade you.’ Beneath the cheerful surface words others less cheerful rose unspoken into the air … All alone in that great empty house, can’t be good for you …
Rolt closed his eyes for a second. Impossible to choke the fellow off, pushy and intrusive as he was, when all he was doing was trying to display goodwill.
‘Nothing in the least formal,’ Ford said. ‘Just a few drinks, a bite to eat. And a hand of cards.’
Heaven preserve me from such ghastly jollity, Rolt said in his head, unable to voice a refusal until Ford committed the cardinal error of mentioning a specific date.
Ford instantly obliged by committing the error. ‘What about tomorrow?’ he suggested.
At once Rolt said in a friendly tone, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t manage tomorrow. I’ve already got something fixed. But it’s very kind of Beryl to think of me.’ Dreadful woman, he thought, that appalling mixture of ignorance, prejudice, gentility and ruthlessness.
Ford began to marshal his guns. ‘Friday then?’ he said amiably.
Rolt shook his head with an air of regret. ‘I’m afraid I’m busy on Friday evening as well.’
Ford let off another salvo. ‘How about Saturday?’
Rolt pretended to give the notion some thought. ‘Mm,’ he said on a deceptively affirmative note that caused Ford’s eyes to glisten in momentary satisfaction. ‘Saturday ought to be – oh no, stupid of me, I’ve just remembered, Saturday’s no good either.’
A steely determination came into Ford’s expression. ‘Yes, I know how it is,’ he said as if abandoning the struggle. Then he fired his big guns. ‘Name your own day, that’ll be best. I know Beryl will be delighted to fit in with whatever’s convenient to you.’
There’s no help for it, Rolt said to himself with resigned amusement, all at once relaxed now that there was no way of winning. ‘Wednesday,’ he
