'Oh! Bloody hell!' she cried.
The street was empty, not surprisingly, it would be sheer madness to go forth in this, but then she had no choice. A fleeting thought came, a memory of herself some twenty years ago at school in that pink plastic mac, that spring when it never seemed to stop raining. She could do with that now. And wellingtons, and a brolly. Why haven’t you got a bloody brolly yet?! came an exasperated voice inside her. She kicked herself mentally, then, taking a deep breath, pulling the coat up over her head, stepped out of the doorway, leaving the main door to clunk to behind her, and entered the deluge.
The sprint to the car took place in slow-motion as each pellet of rain splattered hard on her frantic figure and she was quickly soaked from top to toe long before she made it to the car. She looked at her hair in the interior mirror and surveyed her sopping coat and less than smart, squelchy shoes and dirty puddle-splattered nylons. Lacy knickers. She felt such a fool and a sense of littleness came over her. Her wet hands slipped on the steering wheel. Such a mess! You're pathetic, came the voice, and with that judgment and a feeling that this was just deserts, she turned the ignition.
Her new place of work was on the other side of the city, just beyond the leafy suburbs, and although she had taken careful note of the route on the way back from the interview, with the heavy rain pounding the windscreen and the other windows, the city she was moving through was now unrecognizable as its passing features were dissolving and running in the rain streaming down the glass. Her heart raced as she tried to see something, anything that she knew, but all that registered was the truck in front, or rather its dark mass and dazzling rear fog-lamps and the blinding glare in her rear window from the headlights of the car behind. Cars swept by in grey shapes on her inside and she realized she was in the outside lane and, at the junction ahead, she would be forced to turn right. ‘Oh no!’ she cried. She was going wrong and panic gripped her. Her mind seized up and she followed the large truck as it made the turn right, her own indicator clicking with insistence as she turned the wheel.
Beeeep!!
The car horn pulled her up at once and she realized what she had done. She had gone through the lights on red behind the truck which hadn't but which had waited past the stop line to make the turn. She was slap-bang in the middle of the junction, blocking the lane of oncoming traffic and her exit blocked by the one in parallel now moving across her front. The man looked at her, furious. She was riveted to her seat, the burning heat of embarrassment shrivelled her up. She gulped hard and felt ghastly. She regained her senses, looked back through her rear window, then trying not to get flustered even more, reversed her car back to free the way for the line of blocked traffic. She sat there rigid and numb staring straight ahead for what seemed an eternity.
Beeeep!!
Another horn and she jumped. The lights had changed to green, and still not with it, she stalled the engine. Then, after an eternity of hell, she was away and out of the nightmare.
She pulled into the driveway just as the last spent raindrops spotted her windscreen and the sun was breaking through the black mass of clouds. It shone on the house the way it did last week when she first attended for interview but this time, the wet stonework rendered it darker and gave the house an altogether foreboding cast. So many windows, she thought. Her car crunched to a halt on the loose gravel as she pulled up just past the main entrance.
Keep calm, she told herself, taking in a deep breath, and looked at herself in the rear view mirror. Her hair was not the mess she thought it was earlier and her confidence began to recover. Her feet were still wet but she would probably be able to dry out her shoes during the course of the day. She quickly dabbed the back of her calves and ankles with a tissue moistened with spit to remove the dirty blotches on her pale nylons. She completed the sprucing up by wiping and polishing her shoes with more tissue. The dashboard clock caught her eye. Ten past ten. I’m late! and the panic returned. She grabbed her handbag and moved to get out of the car. Her coat belt got tangled in the seat lift handle and she dropped her car keys on the gravel, and for a few awkward moments she was in difficulty trying to extricate herself from the car. She suddenly felt the inhabitants of the house were watching her. What a way to start off! she thought, and turned toward the door of the main entrance.
The name on the plaque confirmed this was where she was meant to be. Blackthorne. She stepped up and rang the door bell. Nothing happened as the seconds ticked away, then a whole minute or more. She was afraid her lateness was being made even worse. She waited further and still no response, then, suddenly desperate, rang again. The door opened at once and she was taken aback. There standing before her with a smile but with no warmth in it, was Anne.
‘Ah, Miss Day!’ she said, ‘I do hope you've not been here waiting long?’
‘No, oh, no,’ she said. ‘I've just arrived. I'm sorry I'm late but I took a wrong turn.’
‘Did you now?’ said Anne, in a manner which left Catherine under no doubt the question was rhetorical. ‘Well, you're here now, so do come in.’ She stepped back and Catherine awkwardly entered the house. The reception hall was just as she remembered it except it looked smaller now and there was a stillness that seemed to exude from the very walls themselves. The solid door shut to with a heavy click! and the hallway was suddenly full of shadows.
‘I'll take you to the library and explain a few things’, and with that, Anne set off with Catherine trailing one step behind. Neither spoke. The silence punctuated the clacking of Anne’s high heels on the parquet floor. She looked smart in a navy dress that showed off her enviable figure.
She looked more beautiful than she was first time round at the interview and had natural poise and elegance which Catherine could not but notice and an air of self-assurance to match. She was wearing, unmistakably, Iced Fire, a perfume Catherine coveted but could not afford.
The library was down the ‘south’ wing of the house, off to the left of where Catherine had entered; the other wing - the ‘west’ - ran off straight ahead from the foyer opposite the front door, and past the grand-looking spiral staircase, the view of which first greeted Catherine when she originally entered the house. Down the corridor on the right, past one door then where a door stood open, there, on entering behind Anne, she at last saw her place of work. Her heart sank. Dark, pokey, shuttered, cluttered. Her immediate impression caused profound dismay. A dungeon! To be trapped in here from ten till four every day. Oh shit!
‘Let's let some light in,’ said Anne.
She weaved her way gingerly through the countless assorted piles of books and documents covering the floor and opened the venetian blinds on the window immediately opposite. The light transformed everything.
Catherine now saw the room was bigger than had at first been apparent, that the stacks and rows of books were in fact neatly arrayed, that there was a spacious modern desk with personal computer under the pile of music magazines, plus a comfy-looking swivel chair to go with the desk. With the other sets of blinds open this room could be full of light, she thought.
‘Well, Miss Day, this is, as you can see, the library where Mr Richmond – ‘, she checked herself. ‘Look, we can't stick to formalities for the duration of your stay with us. Is it Catherine or Kate or Cath or perhaps Cathy that you'd like to be called?’
Catherine smiled spontaneously. Most people assumed she was a Cath or Cathy and called her that accordingly though the name she had once regarded as hoity-toity and an embarrassment in the over-sensitive years of her adolescence, now, more lately, appealed to her. Paul, her ex-fiancé, thought it lovely.
‘It's Catherine,’ she said, already feeling more buoyant.
‘I'm Anne,’ was the response, though with no comparable smile.
‘Do I call Mr Richmond just that or, was his first name Michael?’
‘He'll decide that,’ came the reply, with a slight touch of frost in the tone. The next ten minutes or so were occupied with Anne explaining the contents of the room w
hile Catherine stood by, uncomfortable, in her damp raincoat and bag still slung over her shoulder. There was nowhere to put her coat and Anne made no offer to take it. A feeling crept over Catherine that she was not actually welcome. Mr Richmond - Michael - came to mind and the thought struck her that this Anne may have known him for some years and a sliver of something, of maybe jealousy, cut her quietly as Anne droned on.
‘Naturally, you'll know better than I how to process them.’
The room was full of material yet the house itself seemed oddly empty. Where was Michael? was the thought now uppermost in her mind.
‘Any questions?’
She had not been listening and it showed in Anne's face.
‘No, no questions. At least not at the moment, I'm sure I'll....’
‘Good,’ said Anne. ‘What else? Bathroom? Later - unless you...?
‘Oh, no, I'm fine, thanks.’
Catherine needed a mirror, the sooner the better before she met Michael and she kicked herself inwardly.
‘Kettle. Ah yes, the kitchen - follow me,’ and so it went on as Anne orientated Catherine to the rooms, to the ground-floor of the two wings. The upper floor was Mr Richmond's private apartments, most of them apparently unused and locked up or reserved for guests. The west wing held the kitchen at the end, luxurious and modern; here, Anne said condescendingly, Catherine could store her tea-bags. The rooms Catherine recalled during this tour were Michael's study and, opposite, the lounge. She was shown neither but the thought passed through her that he might be this very moment on the other side of the door of his study, head down, writing. Something in property development, she thought he said. Very successful, judging from the size of the house he owned, that was obvious, and glamorous Anne, his personal assistant - I'll bet! She could not suppress the thought and the combination of success and wealth, and power, with Anne and her patronizing manner and the intimidating scale of the house, all combined to make her feel somewhat little, of no consequence. Teabags? Snotty cow! Her reaction to Anne’s put-down shocked her as she was anything but an aggressive person. But above all, what disheartened her most was his absence, his failure to meet her and welcome her to his world.
‘I imagine Mr Richmond is a very busy man, is he?’ she ventured.
‘Extremely. You’re very likely to see little of him. Even I, his PA, sometimes see neither hide nor hair of him, particularly when he goes abroad on business.’
Catherine felt the blow deep down and it served her foolish nature right, she felt. And that was that. Was he away today? Would he be back tomorrow, or when? She dared not press the matter and followed on slightly behind Anne. They were back at the library.
‘My office is down at the bottom,’ Anne said, pointing.
‘The end door?’ asked Catherine, looking at the door which the corridor led straight up to.
Anne’s response was as sharp as it was immediate. ‘No. The one on the left before you get to it.’
‘Oh, is that something else?’ enquired Catherine.
‘It's not used, it's nothing.’ There was a brief silence and Anne seemed to have lost her thread. ‘Yes, if you want me, my office is always open. Just knock first, I've often got confidential papers lying around, you understand. Have to clear them,’ then added, ‘Of course, not for one minute was I implying...‘ She did not finish, nor need to. And so it was. Once Anne had left her, Catherine was staring at the next six months of her life spread out before her, stacked, stowed and stashed away in a cramped cubby-hole, just like her. She felt sick and empty and the high she was on at home that morning seemed bizarre and cruel now. Her shoes felt slightly squelchy and her lace underwear silently mocked her. Tired, she let slip her bag to the floor, took off her damp coat and, draping it over the back of the chair, with a heavy heart, she set to.
It had already gone four before she noticed the time and stopped what she was doing. She had spent the hours since Anne left her that morning going through the endless piles of books, journals and papers that filled the room, not so much to create order as rather space to move around in, space to work in, space to sit down. Her clothes were smudged with grime from the layers of dust, her hands filthy and a fingernail had been split. The physical work had left her sticky and longing for a bath. She had been unable to open any of the windows in the library and, reluctant to ask Anne, had consequently endured the rigours of boiling in that confined and humid space. In fact, she had been increasingly uncomfortable throughout the day, only making occasional forays out of her cell to go to the toilet or make a drink in the kitchen. She had skipped lunch, mistakenly she now realized, thinking she might create a better impression by working through it.
Apart from the sound of doors closing every now and then there was no evidence that there was anyone else in the house. Once in a while, she heard Anne coming down, or up, the corridor and braced herself instinctively but she never stopped and came into the library and Catherine felt hurt, put-down, put in her place. It was not her nature to harbour strong dislikes but she knew now, had known not just since the door was opened to her when she first arrived, but from the interview itself last week, known that there was in Anne an antipathy bordering on animosity, and it was about Michael. She knew, Anne could see the effect that he had had on her. Catherine couldn't help it, couldn't help herself, couldn't hide it and she knew Anne knew the very same feeling. He had on her the same effect. They shared the same yearning, the same weakness. Anne was just like her. How could she be so superior? That's it! We are rivals! I'm a threat to her! The thought animated Catherine for the first time since she had left home that morning.
She went to wash her hands and coming back, grabbing her coat and bag, went down the corridor to where Anne had her office. Outside the door, she paused and knocked. Silence. She waited a few seconds then knocked once more. Nothing. It was suddenly eerie on the corridor and she resolved to go. Then - did she imagine it? – a faint noise to her right, coming from the room at the end of the corridor. She did not feel it proper to go without seeing Anne and telling her what she had done in the library but something told her it would not be appropriate somehow. This is silly! she thought, and went up to the door and knocked. Her knuckles so resounded on the wood in the hushed silence that she felt pushy and immediately regretted her action. Stillness prevailed. No response. Not a sound. She turned round and, making for the foyer, she quickly left, closing the front door quietly behind her.
The journey home was calmer than the one she had made that morning and she made every effort to note the landmarks on the route.
'Can't go through that again,' she told herself as flashbacks came to her. Despite her concentration on remembering the way to go, her mind constantly veered towards Anne and all that had happened during the day. She was going to be a problem, it was clear, unless things improved, but how to win her over? My life could be a misery. The thought of spending six months, five days a week, creeping around in that place with just Anne in the building …Forget it! she thought. But reality kicked in immediately with the depressing thought that quitting the job meant going back to square one. Another voice piped up in her. It's only the first day, give it a chance, Anne likewise must be finding having a stranger around a bit of a strain. And then there was Michael. Yes, Michael. The day's tribulation vanished at the thought of him. Will I see him tomorrow? Will I see much of him at all? And with that, the sense of depression returned as she realized the whole thing was basically beyond her control.
The car windows were fully open but it was still very warm and sticky. The night promised to be oppressive. She could not wait to get out of her clothes and have a bath and wind down and as she drew nearer home her mood lifted. Ah, back on safe territory. As she turned, at last, into the street where she lived, her heart sank. There was not a parking space within a hundred yards of her flat.
'Every bloody time!' she fumed.
As she got out of her car she noticed the belt of her raincoat was missing and cursed, so forcefully, that a
passing woman gave her a disapproving glance and hurried past. It had been a bad day. The sun still could be glimpsed as a washed-out ghost in the watery sky. For Catherine, other clouds had gathered.
The bath, this time, gave an altogether different pleasure, simpler and lighter, welcome and soothing. She came down to earth gently as the balm of the deep, warm water worked upon her. Gradually, her mind let go of Blackthorne and all its associations and floated free as, lapped by the caressing water, she was suddenly tired and felt drowsy.
She awoke, and quickly alert, reckoned she could not have been asleep long as the water was still pleasantly warm. It came to her what she had completely forgotten about all day: her blind date tomorrow night. Oh dear, she thought, another waste of time, I'll bet, but then... But then the stakes were high. Finding the right man was never going to be easy, she knew that at the outset, and God knows, Val had gone on about it a thousand times every time Catherine had given her a blow-by-blow account of her latest encounter. ‘Your misadventures,’ as Val called them. ‘Your instincts will tell you,’ she said. Catherine knew that already, like everyone else, and had had some rough moments with her like when Val pressed her about Paul.
‘I still don't understand why you ended it!’ she would say in exasperation. ‘Cathy, a man like Paul, a lovely, beautiful man, a really decent, caring guy, he thought the world of you!’ she had said in bewilderment. ‘Why, for heaven's sake, why?!’ She had her reasons and these Val could understand but, as Val pointed out, and she inwardly agreed, these were minor. She loved Paul, she was sure of that and had told Val many times how close she felt towards him. It was just that, it was just that ... and, here was the crux of the matter. It was just that Paul was all wrong in another way and this was something she could never reveal to Val, her intimate friend, not in a million years, not ever. The water was cooler now, she was not comfortable any more and she decided to get out and get dried.
Hard Rain Page 2
