Wild Melody

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‘I see.’ Catriona stared unseeingly at the pattern on the quilt. ‘All right, I'll give it a try. And—thank you,’ she added with difficulty.

‘Well, let's not strain common civility any further,’ he said, but he was smiling. ‘Come on, drink this while it's still hot.'

Catriona accepted the cup meekly and began to sip. She allowed Jason Lord to reach the door before halting him with a wide-eyed, ‘Oh, Mr Lord. Forgive me for asking, but is Sally—one of your women?'

She expected an angry outburst, but instead he leaned against the door, smiling lazily.

‘No, as a matter of fact, though I'm flattered by your interest,’ he said. ‘Can it be because you imagine you've joined those select ranks yourself?'

In spite of the sheltering quilt and her quite adequate covering beneath it, Catriona felt naked under his insolent gaze.

‘If so, let me disabuse your little head of any such notion.’ His voice lengthened to a drawl. ‘As I told you last night, I don't take sweets from babies, especially when they're asleep. Among other things I require of “my women”, as you so elegantly put it, is that they at least remain awake and give me their undivided attention. You fail on both counts.'

And the door closed behind him, as the pillow, hurled with all the force Catriona could muster, thudded against it.

Almost in spite of herself, Catriona found that she liked Sally Fenton on sight. Sally was small and red-headed with delicate mobile features and an impish smile. Her eyes were dancing as she flung open the front door of the flat.

‘Jason, angel!’ She flung herself rapturously at him. ‘You've saved my life. Ever since that idiot Jill went back to Birmingham, I've been desperate.'

‘Careful, Sal.’ Jason disengaged himself and sent a glinting look at Catriona. ‘You'll be giving Miss Muir the wrong idea.'

‘Miss Muir? Oh, surely not. It's Catriona, isn't it, just like in Robert Louis Stevenson,’ Sally said gaily, taking her hands. ‘Please come in and say you like it and that you'll stay for at least a little while. I need the extra rent—not to mention the company.'

‘Don't tell her that,’ Jason admonished, sitting on the edge of the table and lighting a cigarette. ‘She's a Scot and intensely money-conscious.'

‘That's not true,’ Catriona began indignantly, then subsided as Sally exclaimed, ‘Oh, just ignore him. He says the most appalling things about everyone. But we have to forgive him because he's so important—aren't you, darling?’ And she wrinkled her nose at him.

‘Not important to you, at any rate, Sally,’ he said drily. ‘I'll fetch Miss Muir's things from the car.'

‘And we'll make up the other bed,’ Sally said. ‘The bedroom's only tiny, I'm afraid. I hope you haven't got too many clothes.'

Catriona swallowed. ‘I've hardly got any,’ she admitted.

‘Oh.’ Sally swung round and regarded her for a moment. ‘Well, that's super. We can go shopping. Don't look so frightened—you don't have to spend the earth to create a good effect. And it will be no good applying to the agency I go to in jeans,’ she added practically. ‘A trouser suit, perhaps, but those have rather seen better days, haven't they?'

It was impossible to take offence, Catriona thought amusedly, as she helped Sally unload sheets and covers from an old-fashioned blanket box that doubled as a window seat in the little bedroom. In spite of its size, it was gay with cheerful wallpaper and sparkling white paint and there were pretty turquoise curtains at the window.

‘Here's Jason with your stuff,’ said Sally, tucking in a corner of the bedspread. ‘Give him a hand while I empty a couple of drawers for you.'

Catriona went back reluctantly into the living room in time to see Jason depositing her guitar case on the floor beside the table. Her rucksack was there already, and so were a pile of silver dress boxes marked with the name of the store they had visited the day before.

‘I think there's some mistake,’ Catriona said quickly.

‘What have I forgotten?’ He straightened, eyeing her.

Catriona pointed at the boxes. ‘They don't belong to me.'

‘Don't be a fool,’ he said curtly. ‘Of course they're yours. What earthly use could they be to me? And don't say I could give them to one of “my women” or I swear I'll turn you across my knee and give you the hiding you've been asking for since I met you.'

‘I wasn't going to say that,’ she said quietly. ‘But I can't accept these clothes. You must see that. I—I can't afford to pay for them just now either, as you know. I only took them to begin with because I thought that …’ her voice trailed away miserably.

‘You thought Jeremy would pay for them as your husband,’ he finished for her. ‘But as I told you, it's in the family. Of course——’ his voice took on that drawling note she had come to dread—‘if you insist on repaying me in some other way, I'm sure we can come to some arrangement.'

‘Please don't,’ she said with difficulty. ‘I want to thank you for everything, and you don't make it easy.'

‘I don't make it easy for myself either,’ he answered abruptly. He came over and stood looking down at her. ‘Thank me, then,’ he said, smiling faintly.

She lowered her eyes hurriedly to the faded pattern on the carpet. ‘I'm much obliged to you,’ she said eventually.

Jason gave a swift, impatient sigh. ‘Don't be,’ he said brusquely. ‘I'm sure Cinderella would never have said that to Bluebeard. Goodbye, Catriona. Keep in touch.’ And he was gone.

‘Now you see him, now you don't,’ said Sally cheerfully from the doorway. ‘Old Moira will certainly have to go some, if she intends pinning him down for life.'

‘Moira?'

‘Of course you don't know. Stupid of me,’ Sally sat down on a battered-looking armchair and sighed. ‘Moira Dane, I mean. She's playing the lead in the TV play I'm in, and at the moment she's hell-bent on letting us all know it. And now she's got her beady eye on Jason. She's been sticking to him like glue ever since casting.'

‘Does he produce plays as well as his other work?’ Catriona asked.

‘No-o.’ Sally looked at her oddly. ‘Didn't he explain? Well, perhaps not. Anyway, he's in and out of our rehearsals quite a bit for one reason and another, and I'm afraid one of the reasons could be Moira.'

‘I suppose she's very attractive,’ Catriona said.

‘Absolutely gorgeous. She's a redhead like me, but that's about all we have in common. We're supposed to be sisters in the play, so our colouring had to be similar, I suppose,’ Sally said. ‘It's a marvellous chance for me as long as I don't let Moira goad me into walking out or anything daft.'

‘Is she that bad?’ Catriona was sympathetic.

‘She gets us all down at times—except Jason. He doesn't let anyone, especially a woman, get to him to that extent,’ Sally said. ‘But she can be really nasty. I suppose she's the sort who would stand on your foot if she thought you had a corn.’ She got up briskly. ‘Now, I have a rehearsal in about an hour. I'd better show you our splendid kitchen.’ She whisked back a gingham curtain in one corner to reveal a miniature sink and cooker crammed into an alcove. ‘Food in left-hand cupboard, under fridge. Soap, cleaning stuff and everything else in the other one. Any questions?'

‘Is there any room for them?’ Catriona laughed.

‘Not really,’ Sally twinkled back at her. ‘I am glad you're here. Are you going to have a few days’ sightseeing and general enjoyment before you look for a job? I should.'

Catriona looked at her doubtfully. ‘If that's all right.'

‘Of course it is. I'll try and get you a pass to see round the TV centre too. Perhaps you could watch the dress rehearsal for the play. I'm sure Hugo wouldn't mind—he's the producer. I'll mention it to him.'

‘I don't want to be any trouble——’ Catriona began diffidently, and Sally grinned at her.

‘That's not what Jason said about you on the phone this morning. He said you were a permanent thorn in his flesh—a little Scottish thistle.'

‘And he,’ said Catriona clearly, ‘is quite the most arrogant, detestable—creature I've ever met.'

‘That's because you haven't met Moira,’ said Sally.

CHAPTER THREE (#ua907f8c6-5019-56a7-af15-6dbb522dab3a)

THE rest of the week passed in a buzz of sightseeing for Catriona. To Sally's amusement she bought a guide book and settled down to visit all the places that had hitherto been only names to her.

‘The Tower?’ Sally gasped. ‘I've never been there, and I've lived within twenty miles of London all my life.'

‘Then you should be ashamed,’ Catriona told her with mock severity. ‘It's a fascinating place—all those stones steeped in history. Just think of all the suffering that's gone on there down the centuries, the tears and blood that have been spilled there.'

‘There's enough blood and tears at the TV centre to last me for a while,’ said Sally with a groan. ‘Keep up the good work, darling, and I'll try and make it to the Zoo with you at least. I can't resist the bears.'

Under Sally's guidance, Catriona had made one or two modest additions to her wardrobe and a dark green trouser suit with a sleeveless tunic top had proved a favourite buy. Sally had shown her too how to blow-dry her hair into the style she had worn at the party and encouraged her to experiment with cosmetics in the day-time as well.

She had put the boxes with the evening gown and other articles on top of the wardrobe, and to her relief Sally had never questioned her about them.

Nor did she hear from Jason Lord, although he had told her, ‘Keep in touch.’ It was one of those meaningless phrases, like his perpetual ‘darling', she told herself. For the first few days, she had tensed each time the phone rang, but it had always been for Sally, and Catriona found herself in the odd position of not knowing whether she felt glad or sorry. She could tell herself vehemently that if she never saw Jason Lord again, it would be too soon, and yet at the same time it was not pleasant, she found, to be completely ignored.

She was homesick too in many ways. The air of London felt thick after the sparkling clarity of Torvaig with its sea and heather-laden breezes. The anonymity of the place distressed her too, coming from a closely knit community where a kindly interest was expressed in one's most mundane doings. Catriona soon gave up searching the faces of the people she passed in the street for some trace of friendly recognition.

Above all, she missed the sunsets and the blazing jewel colours that used to herald twilight over the western sea. Aunt Jessie had told her when she was a child that it was possible to pick up amethysts and sapphires in the hill burns, and Catriona had been convinced for a long time that these jewels were really pieces that had broken off the sunsets and been washed ashore by the whispering tide.

Jeremy and she had spent one rainy day wading in one of the burns looking for precious stones, she recalled with a pang. But they had found nothing, which made the little ring he had bought her in Fort William doubly precious. She still wore it on the chain round her neck because she could not think what else to do with it. To wear it openly was out of the question, but she could not bear to throw it away either.

Sometimes at night, when the noise of the traffic came between her and sleep, a sudden wave of misery would sweep over her, and she would cry into her pillow, fearful of waking Sally. In a way she welcomed the tears. She felt this continual longing for Jeremy proved that Jason Lord was wrong with his cynical remarks about the transitory nature of first love, although why she felt it necessary to justify her emotions in this way was something she did not probe too deeply.

Sometimes, as she wandered alone among crowded art galleries and museums, she let herself daydream that Jeremy was with her. Once in fact she had stepped through a doorway in the National Gallery and seen him standing there, his back to her, studying a catalogue. It was only when she ran to him and touched his arm and a stranger's face turned and stared down at her that she realised her mistake and stepped back blushing hotly.