Lightning Encounter (11 page)

‘Look,' he said, dropping the light approach and sounding splendidly earnest. ‘I'll level with you. You haven't much of a voice, but it's adequate. You haven't—'

Her hand clapped over her mouth in quaking disbelief.

‘You mean it! I do believe you mean it! Oh, do tell me it's a hoax? Tell me you're having me on?'

‘No.'

‘But I'm not beautiful or glamorous. I'm just not the image.'

‘Right on two counts. Wrong on the third. You're the image I want. The ‘in' image that's never really been out. Tiny girl, big stage to swamp you.'

‘Where will you be?'

‘Out of the spotlight, for the opening bars. It's just you and them, your audience. They look at you. And what do they see.'

‘What do they see?'

‘A green-eyed urchin, all set to creep into their hearts. The men'll reach out to protect you. The women'll adore you, because you aren't glam and don't have a beautiful body. You won't steam up their husbands and
boy-friends.
By comparison they'll feel glam and beautiful. Get it?'

‘You have a vivid imagination.' She began to rock, she put her hands to her mouth and the laughter spilled round them.

He despaired: ‘Why aren't you sweet and eighteen? You'd be easier to convince if the dew was still in your eye.'

He was serious. She was not. He couldn't make her see his point, she couldn't make him see how ludicrous the idea was.

‘Oh, I'm sorry,' she said, reaching out and catching hold of his hand, feeling absurdly contrite. ‘Truly sorry.'

His fingers bent round hers. Was that it? He would have to find out. His free hand went round her shoulder, drawing her close. Her eyes sent out green sparks of surprise. She didn't speak, she seemed incapacitated, but never had she been more eloquent, and he knew with a sinking certainty that she was not caught up in the Mitch net of charm.

Illogically, this angered him, and he forgot to tread warily. His hands slid over the body that failed to excite him, and his lips closed round the mouth parting to say his name. ‘Damn you!' he said, his breath an angry hiss against her cheek. ‘What are you made of?'

‘And damn you!' she retaliated, white faced and choky. ‘For thinking every girl will swoon at your feet. And double damn you for being despicable and dishonest. I asked. You said I'd
be
safe.'

‘Not quite, darling,' he contradicted, his tone making a mockery of the endearment. ‘I said, as safe as you wanted to be.'

‘You thought that's what I wanted?' Her anger evaporated. She stared, twisting her hands, and when he didn't reply, repeated: ‘You thought that's what I wanted?'

He tried to say yes, but muffed it. He felt downcast and ridiculous. But yes, he'd honestly thought that's what she wanted. For once in his life, he'd backed the wrong hunch.

‘But you don't want me, any more than I want you. We haven't that sort of thing going.' She sounded incredulous and intensely shocked. ‘Does it mean so much to you?'

He had to look at her. He didn't want to, but it was a compulsion. The mouth that he had so recently savaged, looked soft and tender. There wasn't a hint of derision in the expressive eyes. ‘Yes, yes it does,' he was magnetised to admit.

She sat down on the sofa, patting the space beside her. ‘I think you'd better tell me all about it.'

She couldn't be sure he did tell all. Because he lifted the lid to expose a layer of dark brown, it didn't mean there wasn't a layer of black lurking underneath.

‘Mitch and Mandy was an established act,' he began. ‘We did the clubs, got some worthwhile bookings.'

‘Was
Mandy your fiancée?'

‘Yes.'

‘What was she like?'

‘Very much like you.'

‘Is that why you picked me for the new Mandy?'

‘Probably. I've got the contacts. If I don't change the act, or the name, it'll make it easier to get back.'

‘What happened?'

‘She couldn't stand the pace. It's hard graft. And she didn't like me being nice to the customers. Well, I mean, you have to be. There were lots of small unsavoury incidents, and one, concerning a club proprietor's wife, big incident. The breaking point came. It had to. We split up.'

‘I thought you said she was dead?'

‘Did I? I don't think so. We split up.'

‘I must have misunderstood. Did you . . .' She hesitated, because of the delicacy of the question. ‘Did you offer the ring because you loved her? Or as bait?'

His shoulders hunched, his hands slid through his knees to the floor. The ultimate in dejection. ‘There are times,' he said, not looking up, ‘when I don't much like myself. But,'—he thumped the floor like a madman—‘Why didn't she know?'

‘Know what?' probed Karen, swallowing to stem the full blast of her feelings. ‘That she wasn't beautiful or voluptuous, or any of the
things
you said she was? That all the time her mirror was right? You're a rat, Mitch.'

‘I know, I know. I should have been destroyed, not her.'

‘Is it too late?'

‘I think so. The show is over . . . I guess. Like you, she wasn't interested in making fifty a week.'

‘Fifty?' Her breath bucketed in her throat. ‘Fifty what? For goodness' sake, not pounds? I'm not greedy, I don't want fifty a week. One straight fifty would do me.' There was in her voice a ring of galloping excitement and earthy realism. She was interested. She was interested!

His dissipation vanished. He was keen, alert, confident. ‘Curse my perspicacious grandmother for letting me down. I placed the money last!'

She looked down her nose. ‘Then you're a fool.'

‘We'll practise. Work up a routine. We'll start with the little clubs and go on to the big ones.' Now they were both equally excited. He caught her to him and she hugged him back. And the embrace was light and superficial, as lacking in passion as the other had been fraught with it.

‘My hat! This is it. I feel it.'

She clutched her throat, dropping from the heights to a sobering low.

‘I won't wear itsy-bitsy costumes. I insist on
decent
coverage. And I shan't tell Ian.'

‘You shall have a hand in choosing your gear. But tell Ian,' shouted Mitch, all the way from his lofty mountain top of glory. ‘Tell him to go to . . .'

‘I can't. Not until I've made the first fifty. Anyway, he'd laugh. I can't bear to be laughed at.'

‘Darling,' said Mitch, tossing her a peculiar look. ‘He'd do more than laugh. He'd throw you out on your ear.' He was grinning and sniggering, as if he knew something she didn't. ‘If he did throw you out, would it be so bad? You could move in with me. On a platonic basis, of course.'

‘Thank you. But . . . no.' Marvellous how she kept her voice on an even keel.

‘Okay . . . We'll rehearse here, in my flat, during the day. But if you're not going to tell him, you'll have to think up a decent cover story for when we start taking bookings. They won't be afternoon jobs.'

‘I know, Mitch. I'll think up something when the time comes.' The trouble with Mitch was, he couldn't bear the thought of anybody not being ensnared. She must never let him know that she had resisted, not only him, but a flame quickening, a response to all that was evil in him, when he had brutally kissed her. She would never feel safe, when resistance was low, on a dark night . . . in a storm.

CHAPTER TEN

‘I've changed my mind about Mitch. I don't like him,' she informed her troll doll. ‘Not only do I not like him, I positively dislike him. He's working me to an early grave. I'm losing weight. And I can't afford to lose it.'

Mitch said the act was going well, after rehearsing for only two weeks. She tried to be infected by his fervour, but she felt unprofessional, raw. Perhaps because he was so polished and professional. He said the ‘rawness' as she called it, was the quality she mustn't stamp out. ‘It's what you're selling darling. You are raw. Cultivate it.' He said that before long they'd be ready to take bookings. One night stands. As breakers in. She panicked. She couldn't do it. What had possessed her to think she could?

She was also teased by another consideration. When the time came, how could she explain her absence to Ian. All right to say blithely, ‘I'll think of something.' Another to think it. It wasn't as if she had a convenient friend to visit, or a relative.

Ian gave her housekeeping money, plus a wage. The latter he kept to a scrupulously fair amount, wisely knowing she wouldn't feel justified in accepting more. Not being what one would call a proficient housekeeper, she
still
felt grossly overpaid. He bullied her into writing to her father, to let him know she was well, and in employment.

Her father, who had never been known to keep other than a dry pen, did not write back. Angela did. She was reading the reply at the table she shared with Ian. Val was still upstairs, presumably putting on her morning face. Karen's own morning face was doleful, matching perfectly the heaviness of her heart. The letter, Angela's pen was not only well filled, but sprung with an amusing nib, did much to restore her spirits. She felt that at last her father had met his match. He should have tangled with her, years ago.

‘Pleasant news?' enquired Ian, lifting his nose out of his letter, that had in turn come out of a buff coloured business envelope. Buff coloured envelopes never look pleasant.

‘You could say, inspiring,' she answered sweetly. ‘Angela wants me to get in touch with her parents. She thinks we should get to know one another. She suggests I pay them a visit.'

‘Yes,' he agreed. ‘You should get to know your stepmother's kin. Is she your stepmother yet?'

‘Hang on a tick,' said Karen reading furiously. ‘Not yet. Heck!' she exclaimed in dismay. ‘You don't suppose it won't come off? I mean, why haven't they tied the knot? What are they waiting for?'

He had seen that same keen look of dismay,
once
before on her face, when discussing her father's love. Then, as now, they had shared a table, but a strange table, and they had been so newly acquainted he hadn't known her name. It had rained hard, the day they met. In the bright, steamy atmosphere of the restaurant she had resembled a kitten, with misery drowned eyes. He remembered producing his handkerchief and wishing he could mop up the misery as well as the wet.

It amused him to remember she would have given anything to put the clock back, even Darling Ugly, the funny troll doll she was so much attached to, to a time before Angela. She had been progressively miserable because she thought her father was going to re-marry; now she was abjectly miserable because she thought he might not. Woman's prerogative, he supposed.

‘Oh, it's all right,' she breathed, her relief heartfelt. ‘It's further down. The wedding date, that is. It's fixed for October. I suppose that's something. She is hoping to come home before then. To do some trousseau shopping. If, and when, she will come to see me.'

‘And give me the once over, I shouldn't wonder.'

She put her hand to her mouth, smothering an exclamation, and gasped:

‘Do you suppose so?'

What is that meant to signify?' he enquired drily. ‘Don't you think I'll pass the parental eye
test?'

She giggled. ‘Angela isn't old enough to have a parental eye. And I don't know.'

‘You don't know! Well, that's very nice.' He pretended to look stern and dignified.

No, Ian, she thought, it's you who's nice, very nice. But the top layer, the face, dominated by the eyes, dark and satanic, coupled with the brutally bullying tongue, is all villain. Peel it away and you were smothered by the goodness of the man. If he bullied, he did so in your best interest. He made you face up to things that had to be faced up to. Like getting back behind the wheel of a car, to preserve your nerve. If he knew when to bully and prod, he also knew when to comfort and console. Like during a thunder storm.

In comparison, Mitch looked the bonny boy. With a blond forelock tumbling an unfurrowed brow, and bluer than blue eyes. Angels didn't come looking any better; yet underneath he was all that was bad and selfish.

‘It's not always what the cover says, is it?' Her tone, thoughtful, yet seeking, coincided with his own deliberations. ‘No, it isn't.'

‘How do we know when the cover is wrong? What tells us?'

‘Instinct?' he suggested.

‘Yes, that's good. I like that. Mine's latent, only just coming to the fore. I'm changing my mind about people.'

‘I had noticed.'

‘And
realizing it's better not to be too opinioned.'

‘In the first instance, a less stubborn, more flexible viewpoint can save embarrassment,' he agreed.

‘I wonder what Angela's parents are like,' she said conjecturally, thinking it wise to implant the notion firmly yet squirming because she hated laying bricks of subterfuge when the mood was so mellow. Yet she would need the cover when she and Mitch started playing the clubs, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. ‘You do think it's a good idea. For me to visit them?'

‘A splendid idea. Only not this week. I don't like the thought of leaving Val on her own, not at the moment when she's showing such remarkable signs of improvement, and I have a business trip planned. It's overdue, I'm afraid, something I've put off too long. If I don't fly to Paris and haul out an export order, someone is going to haul me out.'

Val, Val, always Val. ‘By the time you're forty,' she snapped irritably, ‘you'll be completely grey and have a brow like a basset hound.'

‘In that case I shall look very distinguished,' he returned, mystified. What had he said to cause such a large blot on such a beautifully peaceful cover?