Dangerous Male

by Marjorie Lewty

  'Speak up, I can't hear you.' His voice came clear and crisp over the wire.

  'Yes, Mr Durrant.' Gemma tried again.

  'You're all right, are you, Gemma? Not ailing or anything? You seem a trifle woolly.'

  Gemma swallowed. 'I'm perfectly well, thank you, Mr Durrant.' This time she sounded fairly normal.

  'Good. How are you getting along? Any calls for me?'

  'Just one this morning,' she said. 'A Miss Knight.'

  She heard his groan from the other end of the line. 'Oh Gawd, not that one again! What did you tell her?'

  'I said you were away, I didn't know where, or how long you'd be.'

  'Good girl—that's the stuff, you're doing fine. If she rings again tell her you've heard from me and I've gone to Siberia or the Kalahari Desert.'

  Gemma couldn't control a giggle. 'I don't think she'd believe me. As it was she accused me of lying.'

  'Never mind, Gemma dear, it's all in a good cause. Now, to business—has Brenda turned up yet?'

  Gemma's heart sank. Brenda? Not another of his girl-friends! 'I haven't seen anyone called Brenda. What do I tell her?'

  'What do you—oh, I see. No, Gemma, you've jumped to a wrong conclusion this time. Brenda is Brenda Johnson and she's coming up from my office here in London to put you in the picture about the word-processor. She should be with you any time now. She's a wizard with the technology— a tremendous girl.' His voice was warm with appreciation. 'Do what she tells you and you'll pick it up in no time.'

  'Yes,' said Gemma, glaring at the blank screen beside the typewriter, which seemed to glare back at her superciliously.

  'Nothing more to ask about?'

  'No, Mr Durrant.' Only a completely crazy desire to ask when he would be coming back. What could she be thinking of?

  'Good. 'Bye, then, Gemma.'

  'Goodbye, Mr—' Gemma began. But he had rung off.

  She sat staring at the receiver in her hand and then replaced it slowly on its cradle. It was annoying and inconvenient that Harn Durrant should have such an effect on her nervous system. Even hearing his voice on the phone made her inside squeeze up. Perhaps when she had been working with him for a little longer familiarity would breed contempt, or at the very least indifference. She sincerely hoped so.

  Brenda Johnson arrived an hour later. She breezed in and brought the atmosphere of London and international big business with her.

  'Hullo—you're Gemma, are you? Harn Durrant told me all about you.' She grinned in a knowing sort of way that set Gemma wondering exactly what Harn had told her. But her smile was friendly too, and Gemma felt relieved as she smiled back. Brenda Johnson was a tremendous girl, Harn had said, and that might have applied to her appearance as much as to her wizardry with a word-processor. She was very tall, very slim, with shining raven-dark hair brushed back with deceptive casualness from an ivory-skinned, attractive face. She wore an easy-fitting black suit and a scarlet silk blouse, and the whole elegant effect was completed by a pair of high black suede boots. There was a wide, chased-gold wedding ring on her left hand.

  She glanced round the office with its scratched desks, ancient filing cabinets, ornate ceiling and peeling paintwork. 'Is this where our Harn works? I don't believe it. It's like something out of—'

  'A Charles Dickens novel?' Gemma put in. smiling. 'That's what he says. He's having it all rebuilt, I understand.'

  'Ah!' Brenda Johnson nodded. 'That figures. A man geared to the twenty-first century, is Mr H. Durrant. And what about you?' She looked Gemma over rather curiously, taking in her neat grey skirt and white striped blouse. 'Do you go along with his streamlined efficiency?'

  'Oh yes.' Gemma took Brenda Johnson's jacket as she shrugged it off, and placed it carefully on a hanger on the mahogany coat-stand. 'I'm quite willing to be modernised along with the office.'

  Brenda laughed. 'Good for you! We'll get along fine, then. I hate trying to train girls who put up every kind of resistance to being trained, and quite a few of them do.'

  She had a nice, gurgly laugh and Gemma decided that she wasn't nearly as frightening as she had feared. In fact, she rather liked her. She glanced towards the desk on which stood the dreaded word-processor. 'Is it very difficult to learn?'

  Brenda laughed again. 'Dead easy,' she said reassuringly. 'Come on then, let's get cracking.'

  It wasn't exactly dead easy, but it was absolutely fascinating, and two hours and several cups of coffee later Gemma sat back in her chair and let out a huge sigh. 'That's about as much as I can take in one go. How do you feel about lunch, Brenda?'

  'A splendid idea! I'm putting up at the Dennington, so we'll go there. My treat—I have my own expense account.'

  Gemma looked with frank admiration at the tall elegant girl from London. How would it feel to have a top job and an expense account and travel around in a company car and be able to afford to buy wonderful clothes? she wondered. Would she ever make the grade herself? In the ordinary course of events the answer would be almost certainly No. A young typist with no experience had a long, long way to go. But if she took full advantage of the lucky break she had had, then who knows? she thought with a heady stirring of excitement. It really all depended on whether she could satisfy Harn Durrant.

  Brenda stayed two days, during which a feeling of mutual friendliness developed between the two girls, although neither of them volunteered very much in the way of personal information. Brenda merely remarked that her husband was in the Navy and that she was a grass widow much of the time, although she didn't get bored, with such an interesting job to devote herself to. Gemma spoke of Beth and her hopes of one day being an artist, but said nothing about her having worked for Durrants for many years. Most of the time, however, was devoted to work on the word-processor, and at the end of the four sessions Brenda expressed herself very satisfied with Gemma's progress.

  'I'd planned to give you two more sessions,' she said, when Gemma went down to the car-park to see her off, 'but it would be a waste of time for both of us. You've picked it up very quickly and the thing to do now is to practise and practise and then have another session or two in a few weeks. I usually reckon that it takes a month or six weeks to become absolutely at home with a word-processor, but you're bright, Gemma, and I feel you won't need as long as that. You've got the manual to refer to, and if you get stuck I'll be on the phone and ready to help you at any time. If I'm not in the office myself they'll put you on to one of the other girls. And—of course—you'll have the great Mr Harn Durrant here to refer to. There's nothing he doesn't know about computers of all kinds.' Her lips twisted in a little ironic smile as they always did when she spoke of Harn. Gemma wished she knew why.

  She said quickly, 'Oh, I wouldn't want to ask him for help. That would be a confession of failure.' She realised suddenly how much she wanted to impress Harn Durrant with her expertise when he returned.

  Brenda glanced sideways at her. 'How long have you been working for Harn Durrant?'

  'Only a very short time.' Gemma hadn't said anything about the very odd way that she had acquired the job, and Harn had evidently not mentioned the circumstances to Brenda before she came.

  Brenda nodded slowly. 'He takes a bit of getting used to. He expects a lot.'

  'Oh yes, I realise that. He's got a fabulous brain, I've learned that already.'

  Brenda's lips twitched. 'It's not only his brain that's fabulous. Right, Gemma, I expect you'll learn as you go. But you're very young and very pretty, if that doesn't sound patronising from an old married woman, and Harn Durrant's a danger to any girl's peace of mind, so just watch your step with him, that's all. Cheerio, Gemma, it's been nice meeting you, I hope we'll see each other again.' She climbed into her smart white Mini and reversed neatly out of the yard with a hand raised in salute.

  Gemma climbed slowly back up the wooden stairs to the office. Everything was warning her to consider Harn Durrant merely as her employer, a man who could help her to a successful career, and not to allow herself to think
of him in any other way. But the memory of that moment he had held her in his arms and kissed her so expertly and so lingeringly, and the memory of his voice on the tape '—love me? I adore you,' kept coming back to make her heart throb unevenly.

  She wasn't falling in love with the man, she was merely getting a king-size crush on him, she assured herself. An adolescent crush—rather late, perhaps, something she should have had, but hadn't, at school when all the other girls were falling madly for pop stars. She would have to get over it and not make a fool of herself. She would pattern herself on Brenda Johnson—cool, competent, a thoroughly modern girl who could conduct her own life on intelligent lines and not get in a messy emotional tizz about any man.

  Having come to this sensible resolve, Gemma went back to the word-processor, which was still switched on and buzzing away on her desk. It looked almost like an old friend now, but somehow the two little red lights on the cabinet seemed to her ominously like danger signals.

  For the next few days Gemma worked against time, determined to be expert on the word-processor by the time Harn returned. He phoned briefly each day but she had little to report. What correspondence there was could easily wait until he could deal with it himself, and Mrs Brown and Ted, between them, were looking after the ordering and selling side. He didn't say how long he would be away, and she didn't enquire. He sounded detached and almost uninterested, and she guessed that the London business was absorbing all his energies. In short, the phone conversations were unsatisfactory and left Gemma feeling vaguely depressed when she put down the receiver. It was as if Harn had left this small backwater and was now engaged in his really important work in London.

  It wasn't much better at home. Beth was curiously preoccupied, and although she asked Gemma each day how she was getting on at the office, it was plain that her thoughts were elsewhere. With Ian, Gemma guessed, and that was only natural. Ian would soon be going away for six months at least, and that would leave a great gap in Beth's life. Gemma tried several times to interest her in the idea of art school, with no success. 'It's much too late,' Beth said firmly, and that was that. She cleaned the house and did the shopping and cooking and went about looking lost and unhappy. Gemma began to wonder uneasily if she had done the right thing, after all, in taking on the job in Beth's place. Perhaps Beth should have been left to work out her notice and then try for a secretarial job elsewhere.

  On Friday Derek Underhill came into the office. 'Hullo, Gemma, boss not back yet?'

  Gemma smiled at him, and—because she was feeling a bit lonely and depressed—perhaps the smile was a little more pleased and welcoming than she intended it to be. A broad grin spread across Derek's thin face. 'Hey, I believe you're really glad to see me!'

  'Of course I am,' she grinned back. 'How's the work going?'

  'Quite well, I hope.' He patted the portfolio under his arm lovingly and rested it against the leg of Harn's desk, and came down the office towards Gemma. 'I'm going to dazzle your perfectionist boss with the excellence of my ideas. When's he due back, by the way?'

  Gemma shook her head. 'I haven't heard yet. Not this week, evidently.'

  Derek studied her face thoughtfully for a moment. 'Well, don't let that get you down. You have a willing substitute here.' He patted his chest. 'How about coming out to lunch with me?'

  Gemma hesitated, glancing up at the clock. 'It isn't quite my time yet. I've got a couple more letters to do. Perhaps another day, Derek.'

  'I can wait for you,' he said. 'Do come.' He paused. 'No strings attached, you know.'

  She sighed resignedly. 'O.K., Derek. Ten minutes, then.' She turned back to the word-processor.

  Derek came round to her side of the desk. 'I say! You've got one of those space-age contraptions, have you? May I look, or does it bite?'

  'Only sometimes,' laughed Gemma, and proceeded to demonstrate, while Derek looked on admiringly.

  'You're a ruddy marvel, Gemma,' he said when the first letter appeared on the screen. 'When did you learn to work this gadget?'

  'Only this week—I've been taking lessons.' She turned and looked up at him, pleased with his admiration, her lips parted in a smile.

  She heard his quick intake of breath. He was leaning over her shoulder and their faces were very close together. 'Don't look at me like that, Gemma, or—'

  'Or what?' enquired a cold, steely voice from the open doorway. 'If you have any ideas about seducing my secretary, Underhill, you'd better forget them.'

  Derek straightened up, his cheeks flushing dully as Harn Durrant came into the office, looking like thunder. Gemma was struck completely dumb.

  'I assure you, Mr Durrant,' Derek said with some dignity, 'that seducing pretty girls isn't one of my habits. I merely admiring her skill with this new instrument she seems so expert at handling.'

  Harn snapped, 'Admiring more than her skill, I should imagine. Never mind, let it go.' He strode across to his desk without a glance at Gemma. She might have been part of the office furniture. She had a sick feeling inside. She had planned that Harn would find everything going smoothly on his return, and it could hardly have turned out to be worse. It occurred to her that he had climbed the wooden stairs very quietly. Had Mrs Brown told him that Derek was here? Had he thought he might catch her wasting office time in a flirtation?

  Derek followed Harn across the office and picked up his portfolio. 'I came in in the hope of seeing you, Mr Durrant,' he said in a businesslike tone, ignoring the cynical lift of Harn Durrant's dark brows. 'I have two alternative plans here, ready for your decision.' He took out the plans and laid them on the desk.

  Harn glanced at them indifferently. 'O.K., leave them with me.' He pushed the plans out of the way and picked up the unopened post that was marked 'Personal' and which Gemma hadn't dealt with.

  Derek hovered uncertainly, with a glance across at Gemma, which she pretended not to notice.

  Harn paid him no further attention, finished reading his letter, and then glanced in Gemma's direction. 'Come along, Gemma, we'll go out and have lunch. I have things to discuss with you.'

  Gemma looked helplessly at Derek, hoping that he would understand that their lunch date was well and truly cancelled, and why.

  After a moment or two of silence he did just that. 'Good morning, then, Mr Durrant. I'll expect to hear from you.'

  Harn raised his head from the letter he was reading, glanced vaguely at Derek as if he had never seen him before, then murmured indifferently, 'Oh—oh yes, probably.'

  Derek pulled a face of utter frustration, and with an angry shrug, left the office. Gemma felt angry too, on his behalf. It was really intolerable, the way this man Harn Durrant treated the people who worked for him. She began very deliberately to go through the procedure of signing off the word-processor, taking out the discs and putting them carefully in their cardboard covers.

  'Come along, hurry up!' Harn's voice was impatient and irritable but she didn't allow it to distract her concentration. It was, she knew, fatally easy to damage the discs if you were careless.

  She replaced the discs in their box and snapped it closed, switched off the machine, and only then did she join him at the other end of the office.

  'You took your time,' he said nastily. He really did seem to be in a vile humour.

  She smiled coolly, ignoring his rudeness. 'I'm ready now,' she said. She saw the dark look he gave her as she led the way out of the office and down the stairs.

  They lunched at the Dennington Hotel at the same table in the corner that they had had before. Gemma had no appetite; she felt that food would choke her. 'Just soup, please, and a roll.'

  Harn took a tray to the chefs table and brought it back with her soup and a loaded plate of cold meats and salad for himself. 'I didn't stop to eat breakfast,' he explained shortly.

  His plate was half empty before he spoke again, but Gemma had only managed to spoon a little soup down and was toying with her roll. 'Now then, Gemma, tell me what's been going on in my absence. And I don't want to h
ear about any funny business between you and Derek Architect Underhill either.'

  Indignation made her simmer inside, but she controlled it and said coldly, 'There was no funny business. He came in with new plans, that's all, only minutes before you crept up the stairs.'

  'Ha, you thought I was snooping, did you?'

  She met his ironical gaze squarely. 'Weren't you?'

  'Don't be childish, Gemma. I don't care what you get up to with young Underhill, just so long as you don't waste office time. And for the record,' he added with a grin, 'I've bought myself a new pair of shoes—rubber-soled.' The eyelashes lowered themselves. 'So now you won't know where I am, will you?'

  Gemma smiled reluctantly. He could make her look a fool with no effort at all. She was no match for him.

  His expression changed; it was back to business again. 'Well, what's the report? How did you get along with Brenda? I saw her briefly when she came back and she said you were very quick on the uptake. Did you enjoy your training?'

  Gemma went pink with pleasure. 'Oh, yes, very much. Brenda was marvellous, as you promised she would be, and very patient with me. I'm beginning to feel at home with the word-processor by now. It would be quite a bore to go back to an ordinary typewriter.'

  Harn was looking at her oddly. 'That's my Gemma,' he said. And then, 'Do you know your eyes change colour when you're excited—they sparkle like blue diamonds. It's quite an interesting phenomenon, one that I've never seen before.'

  Gemma blinked. 'Really?' she murmured dazedly. The man's moods changed like quicksilver. You didn't know where you were with him from one moment to the next.

  Rather to her disappointment he didn't pursue the subject. 'I'm glad you're getting expert with the technology.' he said. 'That will be very useful. What about the day-to-day business? Anything unusual turn up?'

  She shook her head. 'I don't think so. Mrs Brown was busy with the books and Ted was stocktaking. I typed some of her letters so that Ann could help in the shop. I think they got on pretty well with the stocktaking. There were one or two phone calls for you, but none of them seemed urgent. I've made notes of them for you to deal with..'