'A love letter?' He was heavy-handed in his teasing.
'No,' she returned calmly. 'An offer of a job, and I must answer it straight away, so if you'll excuse me…' She twisted her face into a remote, meaning-less smile. 'Lunch will be ready at one, it's a lamb casserole, so if you want something different you'd better let me know.'
When Stephen had gone, she returned her attention back to the letters. One of them was an offer of a post as fashion buyer in a big London store; the other was from a monthly magazine and looked much more interesting. The editor wanted her to do a series of articles on fashion and beauty, one a month for a year, and she rather liked the idea. After all, she'd had five years as a human clothes peg and it had taught her a lot. She counted herself something of an expert when it came to clothes and make-up.
It didn't take her long to make up her mind. The magazine won; fashion buying was a chancy business. She could so easily make a mistake, go for a line which didn't 'take'. No, she'd accept the magazine's offer, and she swiftly wrote the editor a short note to say she was interested in the offer and would be in a town on Friday and would call in to discuss it.
At three o'clock, she walked down to the village and posted her letter, watching the envelope slip through the slot with a feeling of satisfaction. At last she would be out of the rat race, a race where there were always dozens of young, nubile girls willing and ready to step into her shoes. At twenty-five, nearly twenty-six, she thought she was getting a bit too old for close-up photography, and in any case, she was bored with it. There must be something better in life than constantly smiling into a camera!
At four o'clock, Freda, her elder niece, hopped off the school bus and claimed her attention. 'Has Mummy still got that baby?' she demanded.
'It's a permanent fixture, I'm afraid,' Roz grinned down at Freda's solemn little face. 'Like you asked, I had a word with the doctor, but he says there's no chance of sending it back. You'll just have to grin and bear it,' and she clasped Freda's six-year-old, rather grubby hand in her own and together they walked down the little side road which led to the house, Freda explaining as they went that she had no rooted objection to babies in general but that she would have preferred another sister. School had taught her that boys were noisy, rough creatures who, when they weren't playing football, pulled pigtails and made rude noises.
Roz comforted the little girl with the promise of baked beans on toast for tea, followed by apple tart and cream and the thought that when her baby brother was old enough to play football and pull pigtails she, Freda, would be too big to be bothered with such infantile pastimes.
Stephen had forgotten to approach the daily woman with the request for a full day's attendance on Friday, so Roz had to arrange it herself, and it was more difficult than she had imagined. The daily woman 'couldn't,' she had her other ladies to consider, but eventually she thought of somebody who 'could' and who'd be glad of the money. Roz was to travel up by train and return either late on Friday night or on Saturday, depending on how long her business took.
'But you promise to come back!' Eve clutched at her sister's hand and then let go of it swiftly. 'Sorry, Roz.
I've grown so used to your being here again, but I shouldn't cling, should I?'
'Certainly I'll be back,' Roz soothed. 'It's only an interview, they aren't going to lock me in an office, you know. In any case, those things which can be done to prepare the British female for her summer holidays have already been done. I should think I'll probably start in September, telling those same British females how to get into shape for Christmas.'
'You could work from here,' Eve mused aloud. 'Think how lovely that would be, just like the old days before you went up to university.'
Roz didn't think it would be lovely; she didn't think it would be wise either. Her naturally quick mind examined that possible future, weighed it up and discarded it swiftly, but she was wise enough not to say so. 'We'll see.' She was comfortably encouraging.
In London she found her editor, a charming woman who patiently explained what would be required of her but who was remarkably firm on the subject of what the magazine wanted.
'We'll need a few more photographs. These,' she tapped Roz's portfolio, 'I'm afraid they won't do.'
Roz raised her eyebrows. 'Won't do? What's wrong with them, they're all very recent.'
'Wrong image.' The editor was firm again. 'They're much too glamorous. All right, I daresay, for an advertiser, but for your articles we'll need something much more approachable, somebody our readers can identify with. You know what I mean; we want less of a fashion mask, more of a woman. Somebody who will understand and sympathise, somebody they can write to for help. Honestly, if you didn't know what to do to make yourself look better, would you ask her?' She tossed over a black and white glossy, and Roz examined herself for the first time in years.
There was sophistication there, and an utter lack of humanity; the face was like a stylised portrait painted on a smooth oval. She shuddered slightly and pushed the photograph back. So this was what she had become! She was glad she was getting out of it. While she was thinking this, she heard the editor's voice as from a distance.
'We've made an appointment for you with Charles for tomorrow morning at ten. We've told him what we want and as you've worked with him before you know you can safely leave it all in his hands. I've made a note of the address for you, although I suppose you don't really need it; you must know your way there blindfold. Will that be convenient for you? Because if not…'
'No, it'll be quite convenient.' Roz gave a little smile. 'I can go back to Sussex tomorrow evening or even Sunday.'
Roz took a taxi back to the small hotel where she was staying, bought a couple of paperbacks in a nearby newsagent's, ate her dinner and went to her room intending to read, but the books held no appeal. As if it was some sort of talisman, she constantly fingered the piece of paper on which Charles's name and address was typed. As her editor had said, she didn't need it, she knew it already, by heart. It was where her agent had sent her when she had first come to London and she had been going to him in the course of her work for five years. If one could ever think of a photographer's studio as home, Charles's was hers.
She had been new to the job then, and her agent had dismissed her portfolio of photographs with a wave of his hand and a look of contempt. Too provincial,' he had explained. 'They're not bad, but I want something better. Make an appointment with Charles— Charles Maine, here's the address.'
But tomorrow wouldn't be like that first time she had gone to him, she grinned at herself as her mind slipped back to that time. There had been an agonising week's wait before she could be fitted in and then she had to get past his secretary, no easy thing, because the secretary was sophisticatedly efficient and had frightened Roz into a fit of trembling. She had walked up the stairs on shaking legs and into the big, bare studio at the top of the house. She had been conscious of a feeling of disappointment when she had first seen him, although she hadn't known really what she was expecting.
'Miss Roz Wilshire?' He had come towards her, well over medium height but short of Stephen's towering magnificence. A slender, dark man, his hair unfashionably short with one lock falling over his high forehead. His face, she decided, wasn't moulded, it was hewn out of something hard and durable, and it was expressionless, only his eyes were alive. Dark, shrewd eyes which looked at her, dismantled her into her separate component parts, evaluated each and then had put her together again carelessly.
He had called her 'darling', but so did every other photographer she had ever worked with. She thought it was because none of them could remember names, only faces; it seemed to be a standard form of address, but for all that, his way of working was completely different. There was no frantic clicking of the shutter, not then or at any time later. Charles came towards her, gripped her chin firmly in his fingers and turned her face to the light.
'Go and wash it off, darling!' He had sounded weary. 'Take off that muck on your eyes and
wipe away that ghastly lipstick. Minimum make-up, blusher here and here,' he traced the areas with a careless finger. 'Not too much eyeliner, a paler lipstick and only a little gloss right at the centre.' And he had pushed her in the direction of a small washroom. 'Five minutes,' he had warned, and then he had apparently forgotten all about her.
Roz had felt vaguely humiliated, like a small child who had been caught playing with her mother's cosmetics, but she had done as she had been told so that when she had emerged from the washroom, all her sophistication was gone and she was just a good-looking girl with wide eyes and a soft, pink, generous mouth.
Charles had nodded his approval of the transformation, tilted her chin again in his fingers, said, 'Twelve o'clock high,' to the boy with the lights and they had started work. After about a quarter of an hour Charles had abandoned his camera and advanced on her.
'Are you wearing falsies?' he had demanded.
Roz had felt herself colour all over with embarrassment. 'No!'
'Then take off that damn bra, it spoils the line,' and once more he directed her to the washroom. As she went, he called after her, 'The place for breasts is where yours are,' and she turned to find him grinning at her derisively. 'And they're a nice size, so there's no need for you to drag them up underneath your chin.'
Roz had crept away from the studio that day feeling humiliated, but those pictures had started her career. They had also started a rather bitter friendship with Charles, a pin-pricking relationship. He was a marvellous photographer and he made the most of her; he had even taken her out to dinner occasionally. 'Good for your image,' he had explained sardonically. There was a magnetism about him, a strange magic, because he wasn't all that good-looking or good-tempered either. But Roz was off good looks and good temper; Stephen had put her off. Even so, Charles got through to her sometimes so that, if she wasn't careful, she found herself nearly doing what he wanted.
She liked to think of Charles as a friend, but Charles didn't wish to be thought of as friendly. He had his sights set on a much warmer and deeper relationship, and this had upset her. Somehow the thought of herself, Charles and a temporary affair had jarred. She wasn't the type for affairs anyway.
His studio was in some mews behind Church Street and she made her way there on Saturday morning, arranging it so that she was dead on time. Charles loathed waiting for anybody. It was a hidden, quiet little street, difficult to find, as though he shunned publicity, as though he preferred to be apart from the crowd, a lone wolf. Roz grinned to herself; no, not a wolf, just a very choosy cat that walked by itself. The place was probably described as a 'mews cottage', but it wasn't Roz's idea of a cottage. Upstairs was the studio, together with the darkroom and cubicle washrooms, but downstairs elegance reigned. That was where Charles lived, and he was a stickler for elegance and perfection.
Today, there was no secretary to bar her way and Charles met her at the studio door. 'I've to humanise you, darling. Take away the magic, remove that "untouchable" look.'
She smiled at him. 'Will it be very difficult? I've brought some other clothes with me if you'd rather…'
He eyed the striped silk shirt which she was wearing and the gently flared grey flannel skirt. 'No, I don't think so. Those are country type clothes; they'll do nicely. Take off your jacket and undo the top button of the shirt, otherwise you'll look like a schoolmarm. We won't bother about the rest today, not until we see how this lot turns out.'
CHAPTER TWO
The photographic session lasted for a good two hours, and at the end of it Roz's 'sympathetic' smile felt like a death's head grin; her shoulders had stiffened and there was a nagging pain in the back of her neck. Charles came behind her where she sat, his thin, strong fingers finding the spot and massaging expertly until the hard knot of tension softened. Unaccountably, she shivered at his touch.
'Tell me about it,' he suggested.
'Tell you what?' She turned her head and winced; the pain wasn't so bad, but it was still there. 'There's nothing to tell.'
'No?' He came round in front of her and tilted her chin to look down at her with wry amusement. 'The first time you ever came here, you were as nervous as a cat, but you refused to let it show. I admired you for that, because I'd not have known except for your fingers which kept clenching into claws. But today it's different. You're putting on a good show and your hands are under control, but the tension's showing through. You aren't calm and serene any more. That's why your neck hurts and that's why I say "tell me about it".'
Roz moved away from him. Today, he was upsetting her just by looking and she felt safer with just a few feet between them. For something to do, she stretched out for her jacket and began to struggle herself into it.
'It's nothing,' she murmured. 'A bit of family trouble, that's all, it's nothing I can't handle.'
'Mmm, I've noticed your absence—how long is it, six months? For one mad, delirious moment, I thought you were running away from me.'
'Running away from you?' She summoned up a look of wonder. 'Now why would I do that?'
'Because I'd started to get through to you, darling. The last time we met I turned you on—and don't bother to deny it, I wouldn't like to call a lady a liar to her face.'
'So you did!' she grinned at him impertinently. 'But it was only a little bit, wasn't it? Nothing I couldn't control. I'll start running away from you when I get weak at the knees, and I'm not that far gone yet.'
'Then I may still hope?' Charles grinned back and started to unship the camera from its tripod, handling the ugly, boxy-looking thing with almost exaggerated care.
'The Hasselblad!' She made a face at him. 'Your treasured best in cameras! I'm honoured. You've never used anything better than a Nikon on me before.'
'Mmm, you are honoured—but stop trying to change the subject. I'll allow you that three months when you were doing that series of TV commercials, but then you vanished from the face of the earth. Where have you been, and what in hell have you been doing with yourself—dieting?' While he was speaking, he had packed away the camera and come to sling a companionable arm about her waist and pressure her towards the stairs. Roz tried to turn back to retrieve her make-up case and the small holdall which contained her change of clothes, but the arm about her didn't slacken, it forced her willy-nilly down the stairs and into the neat, sunny little kitchen.
'Have some lunch,' Charles offered.
She was becoming angry, first with the way he was pulling and pushing her about and then by his altogether unexpected interest in her private affairs. 'I don't diet,' she informed him frostily, 'and I'm not at all hungry. Thank you for your kind offer, but I must get back.' That should have been the clinching line which would stop him in his tracks, but he paid no attention to it.
'No?' He smiled devastatingly and rattled about in the cutlery drawer, coming out with a handful of knives, forks and spoons. 'Here, set the table like a good girl while I see to the food.'
Roz accepted the cutlery with a bad grace and dumped it all on the table. 'I'm afraid I really can't spare the time,' she raised her nose several inches in the air. 'If I leave now, I could get a train back late this afternoon…'
'… And if you leave now, you might have to come up to town again next week,' Charles shrugged. 'It's entirely up to you. I tried for something special in those shots today and I shan't know if I've succeeded until I've seen the prints; which won't be until tomorrow at the earliest.'
'What happens if they're not up to standard?' Roz enquired. 'What should I have to do?'
'Make another appointment.' His dark eyes gleamed. 'But if you happened to be in town tomorrow, I would break the habit of a lifetime for you and work on Sunday. Suit yourself.'
'I could stay in town overnight,' she temporised, 'but all the same…'
'Make up your mind, sweetie, but if you're staying you may as well sit down and eat. You say you haven't been dieting, but I estimate you've lost about seven pounds, and you can't afford it.' His eyes slid over her with a cruel light i
n their depths. 'If you were a teenager, it wouldn't matter, but you're—how old— twenty-six? You've started to look scraggy and haunted. You haven't noticed it yet and I don't suppose anybody else has, but I can see it, and the camera will pick it up.'
'Then you can expect scraggy and haunted prints, can't you?' She eyed him dourly. 'If I'm that bad, I wonder you bothered. Why are you getting at me?'
'Because, under your make-up and that bra which I told you not to wear, you're losing your looks. It used to be a pleasure to photograph you; I could take a print straight off the negative without going to a lot of trouble to make it look good. As you are now, I'll have to fog them a bit.'
'I like foggy prints.' She knew she was wriggling. 'Foggy, scraggy and haunted; it will add an air of mystery…'
'… And about ten years to your age.' Charles continued to be cruel.
She would have liked to tell him about it. She tried it out in her mind and it sounded awful, almost unbelievable. If it came from a teenager, it could be excused, but from herself at a more mature age; it wouldn't do. How could she say, 'I'm having trouble with my brother-in-law. I fell for him like a ton of bricks when I was nineteen, but he married my sister. Now he's starting to get ideas about me and I can't say anything because it would break my sister's heart, and I can't remove myself from the scene because I've promised Eve that I'll stay with her until she's better?'
No, she couldn't say any of those things; he'd probably laugh his head off, either that or be coldly cutting. It was all right for him, he could wield a surgeon's knife, tell her to get out and be damned to anybody; but he wasn't involved.
'So tell me,' he returned to the attack. 'If you refuse, I shall start making guesses. A man, I think, and probably married. Sit down and eat!' The last words came out with a sharp crack, like a shot from a gun, as he fished in the microwave oven and came out with a large pie. 'Steak and kidney,' he informed her, 'and quite good.'
Tame a Proud Heart Page 2
