The River Flows On (26 page)

She was crying. Quietly, so as not to waken him up. It had all been so beautiful, with Jack laughing and kissing her and telling her how lovely she was ... Then he had changed - become urgent and demanding ... overpowering ... and he’d been so strange afterwards - distant and cool. She had expected him to take her in his arms, to kiss her and hold her, but he had simply patted her arm and turned away.

‘Have a little snooze,’ he’d said, as though what they’d just done had meant nothing.

She stifled a sob. The body lying beside her stirred.

‘Why are you crying?’

‘I’m not.’ She sniffed and turned quickly away from him, rubbing her eyes with her hand, pulling the sheet up to cover herself.

‘That’s all right, then.’ She felt the bed dip. He was getting up.

‘Sorry if it hurt. It’ll be better next time.’ She heard the rasping sound of a match being struck. A second or two later the smell of tobacco reached her nostrils. ‘You’d better clean yourself up. I need to do something about the sheet.’

Kate turned in time to catch the look of distaste on his face. He raised the cigarette to his lips. Sorry if it hurt? As though he’d stepped on her foot?

He was looking at her in exasperation. ‘Get a move on, Kate! It’s nearly seven o’clock. What time did you tell your parents you’d be home?’

‘About eight,’ she said, her voice dull. They’d planned to go back into the city early, just the two of them, collect her things from the Art School, and have a bite to eat somewhere. She’d thought he might be going to use the opportunity to ask her a question - the same one Robbie had posed yesterday. She didn’t think so now.

He pulled up, as usual, two tram stops before Yoker Ferry Road. Tonight of all nights Kate wouldn’t have minded being taken all the way home but he hadn’t given her the option. They’d barely exchanged a word during the drive from his home to hers. People said that men lost respect for girls who let them do what she and Jack had done this afternoon. Was that why he had gone so quiet and cold?

Yet when he leaned across to open the door for her, he smiled and kissed her cheek. She made no move to get out of the car, looking at him with a mute appeal in her green eyes.

‘Shall we see each other again next Sunday? As usual?’

She was hoping he wanted to see her earlier than that. He lifted a finger to stroke her cheek.

‘Sorry, sweetie. I’m going to a house party near Dumfries next weekend.’ She waited for him to say more, to suggest another date. He didn’t. It was left to Kate to stutter something about having to collect her things from the Art School, her everyday clothes, her two paintings and her pottery - an awkward load for her to bring home on the tram by herself.

‘I’d forgotten about that,’ he murmured. ‘Why don’t you meet me there on Wednesday night - about six o’clock?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Look, Kate, I’ve really got to be going.’ He dropped another light kiss on her mouth and then somehow she was out of the car, standing on the pavement. Usually she waved to him but tonight she didn’t, turning her face for home, listening to the sound of his car disappearing in the other direction.

The tears weren’t far away. She could feel them rising in her throat. She had to get home before she disgraced herself by crying in the street. She quickened her pace and stopped suddenly, wincing. It had hurt - more than she’d expected - and what hurt even more was the way Jack had been afterwards, as though he didn’t want to know her after he got what he wanted.

‘Hello there, Kate. Been out on the town?’

It was Mr MacLean, touching his bunnet to her as he passed. She gave him the briefest of smiles and turned her burning face away, sure he must be able to see her for what she was.

You were supposed to save yourself for your husband. She knew that. It was the way she’d been brought up. Girls who didn’t were fallen women, laughed at and gossiped about, unworthy of any decent man or woman’s respect. She, Kate Cameron, had broken the rules, crossed a line which could never be re-crossed, because she had thought... But there had been nothing in return - no words of love, no promises, not even a comforting hug when she had been crying.

Maybe all men were like that afterwards. Perhaps it was the way things were. Kate shook her head angrily. She didn’t want to believe that. She tried to think of another explanation for Jack’s coolness. Could he be feeling guilty? Embarrassed that he had succeeded in persuading her to forget her principles? Perhaps he needed a few days to come round, was feeling as confused as she was. And he had spoken of the next time. Surely that meant he loved her really?

By the following evening Kate had made some decisions and come to some conclusions. There wasn’t going to be a next time - at least not until after they were married. She loved him and she thought he loved her. Didn’t the fact that their feelings had carried them away show that? Caught up in those powerful feelings, he had panicked about marrying her, worried about the social difference, worried about how his mother and his friends - including Marjorie - were going to react. Being Jack, he had covered up by being flippant and trying to pretend that nothing had happened. She, Kate Cameron, was going to have to sort all those confused feelings out. No bother. She could do that. As long as they loved each other, that was all that mattered.

She was at work on Tuesday when all the doubts came sweeping back in. Was she fooling herself? Had she been just another conquest? Jack was a sophisticated man in his late twenties. Did she really imagine she was the first girl he’d ever made love to? With miserable honesty she admitted to herself the answer to that question. He was experienced. Any fool could see that, so where did that leave her theory about him being worried and confused?

It left Kate worn out and exhausted, tossing and turning that night, going over it all again in her head at work on Wednesday. By the time she got the tram into Glasgow that evening and walked up the hill to the Art School, she knew only one thing. She had some straight questions for Jack Drummond and she wanted some straight answers.

Brave words. She felt anything but brave as she headed for the stairs, nodding at the porter on duty. There was no sign of Jack.

“The building’s closing at seven, miss,’ the man said. Kate smiled an acknowledgement. Most students, she assumed, had collected their bits and pieces by now, halfway through the first week of the summer holidays. She found her own exhibits quite easily. She tied her two paintings together, face to face, with some string, fashioning a handle out of it to make them easier to carry.

Somebody, Marjorie probably, had already wrapped her Rowan Tree cup and saucer in tissue paper. Kate found a small box to put them in. Then, glancing up at the clock on the wall and seeing that it was already quarter past six, she went out into the deserted corridor to look for Jack. Still no sign of him. Pushing down the thought that he might have stood her up, she walked along to the cloakroom. She would splash some cold water on her face and comb her hair. That would make her feel better.

She pushed open the door of the cloakroom. The girl who stood there, smoking and leaning against the wall, looked as though she’d been waiting for some time. She straightened up, stretching stiff shoulders, and smiled at Kate, her mouth, as ever, painted a perfect scarlet. The glittering eyes looked her over from head to foot.

‘Well, well, well... If it isn’t the little mouse,’ she drawled.

Chapter 15

Suzanne Douglas sauntered across the room.

‘I have to hand it to you. You kept him dangling longer than most. Can’t figure out the attraction myself. The little Miss Innocent act, I suppose.’ She leaned forward and hissed the words into Kate’s face. ‘Not so innocent now though, are you? A sinner like the rest of us.’

Kate felt her face drain of colour. ‘He told you about us?’

Suzanne smiled her hateful smile. ‘You have no idea, do you? Not a clue about how the world works.’

Then she told Kate how the world works. Told her about herself and Jack Drummond, told her that he had planned Kate’s seduction, told her how the price for the job at Donaldson’s was marrying the boss’s daughter.

‘After all,’ said Suzanne callously, fitting another cigarette into her holder, ‘she’s no oil painting, is she? And Old Man Donaldson would do anything to keep his little girl happy - even take on a penniless charmer like Jack.’

Kate’s mind was frantically trying to throw up barriers to the poison dripping from Suzanne’s mouth. She fixed on one word.

‘Penniless?’

Suzanne took a puff. ‘Fooled you, did he? He advised his mother badly - they’ve lost a lot of money on the stock market over the last couple of years. I can’t imagine why she thought Jack was worth listening to, except that she’s devoted to him. Thinks he can do no wrong.’ She caught sight of the expression on Kate’s face. ‘Don’t tell me you swallowed the neglected little boy story? I thought he’d given that one up.’ Her speech had grown calmer. She was beginning to enjoy herself, drawing the veils from Kate’s eyes.

‘The cook and the parlourmaids at the party? Hired in for the day. They had to let all the servants go in March. No, if dear Mrs Drummond and her little boy are going to continue to live in the style to which they’re accustomed, Jack has to marry money - or Marjorie, which amounts to the same thing.’ She gave Kate a bitter little smile.

‘But he doesn’t love Marjorie! He loves me!’

‘You? Don’t make me laugh! You were just an amusement to him - a game he was playing.’ Suzanne put the cigarette-holder once more to her lips, drew on it and blew the smoke out in rings, taking her time over it. ‘He told me all about it; he always does. That’s the game he and I play, you see.’ Just for a second, the poise faltered. There was an edge to the mocking voice. ‘Jack Drummond can be very cruel.’

She must be lying. Wasn’t she?

‘Kate! Are you in there?’ It was Jack, banging at the cloakroom door.

‘Why don’t you come in, darling?’ Suzanne called out. ‘We’re having such an interesting conversation in here - your little girlfriend and I.’

He was through the door in a second.

‘Tell me she’s lying,’ whispered Kate, turning stricken eyes on him.

He let the door close behind him and advanced further into the room. His eyes were narrowed. ‘What has she told you?’ he asked cautiously.

Suzanne gave a short bark of laughter, and stubbed her cigarette out in a wash basin. ‘The game’s up, Jack. I’ve told her everything.’

‘Tell me she’s lying,’ Kate said again. She was beginning to tremble.

‘Oh, Kate!’ There was a peculiar expression on his face - a mixture of affection and exasperation, and something else she couldn’t decipher. ‘Oh, Kate!’ he said again, moving closer to her. The trembling became a violent shaking. She was getting hot and it felt as though someone had tied a bandage around her forehead and was pulling it tighter and tighter. Making it into one of the toilet cubicles just in time, Kate was violently and comprehensively sick.

Slumped in an upright chair which stood against one wall of the cloakroom, Kate lifted her head and looked around. ‘Where is she?’ For Suzanne, her mischief-making done, was nowhere to be seen.

‘I got rid of her,’ he said grimly.

Kate stared at him, green eyes glittering in a face as white as paper. ‘Why did you tell her about us?’

‘I didn’t,’ he said tersely. ‘She guessed. She’s got sharp eyes. You know that, Kate.’ He put a hand under her elbow to lift her to her feet. ‘And I didn’t know she was going to be here either - don’t go thinking that! We were at a party together on Monday night and I must have mentioned that I was meeting you. I’d no idea she was going to lie in wait for you! Come on, now. Let’s get you out of here. You and I have to talk.’

He drove to the Art Galleries. It seemed the appropriate place. They sat in the Morris Cowley in the cool evening air and looked up at the University, high on Gilmorehill, and they talked. Well, Jack talked - and smoked - and Kate listened as he demolished, brick by brick, those defensive walls she’d tried to throw up against Suzanne’s words.