serve you right if Mum didn’t give you any,’ she told her father.
He laughed. ‘She wouldn’t be that cruel!’
No, she wouldn’t. Her parents had a very happy marriage; they were ideally suited in every way, and their business partnership was as successful as their personal one.
The bus service was erratic as usual the next day, and Robyn arrived ten minutes later at the library, earning a disapproving look from Mr Leaven.
She loved working in the library, had a passion for books that bordered on obsession. Just to touch a book to anticipate devouring its pages, filled her with a warm pleasure. Which was the reason Mr Leaven hardly ever gave her the job of tidying the fiction shelves. She would become lost to her surroundings, engrossed in a newly discovered book, and the other books on the shelves would remain in disarray.
Consequently she was quite surprised when Mr Leaven told her to tidy the books back into order, although she quickly made her escape before he changed his mind.
She wasn’t quite as happy when she saw who she was to be working with. Selma! No wonder she had been sent to work with her; everyone else had probably opted out. Not that Selma wasn’t friendly—she was, too friendly upon occasion. She thought nothing of recounting all the intimate details of her life to anyone who happened to be around at the time. The trouble was that she demanded equally intimate revelations in return.
There was no opportunity today to linger over a newly discovered book, listening half-heartedly as Selma chattered on about the fantastic new boy she had met over the weekend, becoming more friendly with him in those two days than Robyn intended becoming with any man before she married him!
‘What about you?’ Selma stopped in the H section, well out of Mr Leaven’s view.
Robyn blinked her puzzlement. ‘What about me?’
‘Do you have a boy-friend, silly?’ Selma giggled.
Robyn blushed. When around Selma, a girl very popular with the opposite sex, she felt more than a little embarrassed about her own boy-friendless state.
‘You mean you don’t?’ Selma saw that blush and interpreted it correctly.
Irritation flashed in her violet-blue eyes. ‘I didn’t say that,’ she snapped.
Selma looked interested. ‘So you do have a boy-friend?’
‘I—Yes. Yes, I have a boy-friend.’ Now why had she said that, why lie about something that wasn’t after all important?
‘What’s his name?’
‘His name?’ Robyn repeated slowly, licking her lips to delay answering. ‘It’s—er—it’s Richard,’ she said in a rush. ‘Rick, actually—Rick Howarth.’ God, this was getting worse, the lie was becoming deeper and deeper. It was just that she couldn’t stand Selma’s derision.
The other girl always had at least one man in tow, whereas Robyn had only ever had the odd date, and very rarely with the same boy twice. She wasn’t interested in football or cars, and as that seemed to be all her dates ever wanted to talk about she usually ended up by not saying a word all evening. It had earned her the reputation of being ‘stuck-up’, an erroneous impression, but one that seemed to have lasted. Consequently she very rarely dated, something Selma had probably heard about.
She certainly had all of the other girl’s attention now. ‘Where did you meet him?’ Selma wanted to know.
‘He—He’s just moved into Sanford,’ at least this part was true! ‘I met him at the weekend.’
‘Is he nice?’ Selma asked eagerly.
‘Very.’
‘Good-looking?’
Robyn nodded. ‘Yes.’
The other girl frowned. ‘Don’t you want to talk about him?’
She concentrated on her work with an intensity she was far from feeling. ‘Not particularly,’ she replied in a bored voice.
‘Keeping him to yourself, are you?’ Selma teased, not at all offended by Robyn’s attitude.
‘Something like that,’ she nodded, wishing this conversation over.
‘When are you seeing him again?’
‘I—er—Tonight, probably,’ she invented, wishing she had never started this.
‘Going anywhere nice?’ Selma wanted to know.
‘I’m not sure. Probably just to his house.’ Robyn wished she could move away, put an end to these lies, and yet she knew that this job usually took most of the morning to complete. If Selma was going to ask her questions about Richard Howarth all that time …! She was going to run out of conversation about him any moment now!
Selma’s eyes widened. ‘You’ve met his parents?’
She shook her head. ‘He has his own house.’
‘He does?’ That took the other girl aback.
‘Yes.’ She moved on to the I section, getting nearer and nearer Mr Leaven’s desk, and she hoped nearer to ending this discussion.
Selma looked wistful. ‘I’ve never been out with a boy who had his own house. I usually have to wait until his parents go out.’
Wait for what? Robyn almost asked. Selma was a pretty girl, black hair kept long past her shoulders, deep brown eyes, a clear complexion, a nice slim figure, and yet she had earnt herself rather a bad reputation with the boys in the area. Most of them were willing to go out with her for a while, but they all ended up marrying someone else. It was a shame really, because she was a very nice girl given the chance to be.
‘He must be quite rich to own his own house,’ she remarked now.
‘I have no idea.’ Robyn moved up to the J section, luckily almost in view of Mr Leaven.
‘Or does he just rent it?’ He had obviously stepped down in Selma’s estimation if he did.
‘I—–’
‘Would you two girls kindly get on with your work—quietly.’ Mr Leaven suddenly appeared behind them. ‘It may have escaped your notice,’ he continued in an angry whisper, ‘but this is supposed to be a library, a place where people can come to quietly read and study. Your voices—–’
‘Ssh!’ A woman at a nearby table looked up to glare at him. ‘Can’t you read?’ she hissed, pointing to the sigh that read ‘QUIET, PLEASE, PEOPLE WORKING’.
‘Get on with your work!’ Mr Leaven snapped at Robyn and Selma before returning to his desk.
‘Oh dear,’ Selma giggled. ‘That’s put him in a bad mood for the rest of the day!’
Indeed it had, and Robyn kept out of his way as much as possible. She kept out of Selma’s way too, not being anxious to reopen the subject of Rick Howarth. She felt slightly ashamed of herself
