Dreams to Sell by Anne Douglas

Author:Anne Douglas [Douglas, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780727883308
Google: 4VxCnQEACAAJ
Amazon: 0727883305
Goodreads: 18143349
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Thirty-Six

Of course, she had to let him in. There was no way she could stand arguing with him in front of the interested eyes of Mrs Atkinson, who would already be wondering why Roz was at home during the day and who the young man she seemed about to entertain might be? And why were they not exchanging words, as Roz let him in and closed the door after him?

‘All right, Roz?’ Mrs Atkinson eagerly asked.

‘Fine, thanks, Mrs Atkinson. Mr Shield’s just called round with something about work,’ Roz answered, keeping her face averted, though she had no hope that her ravaged face would have gone unnoticed. ‘This way, Mr Shield.’

With a polite nod to Mrs Atkinson, Jamie followed Roz up the stairs to the first-floor flat, where she showed him into the living room.

‘Thank you for seeing me,’ he said, standing very still, his face, like hers, showing the effects of the ordeal of the day.

‘I had to,’ she said coldly, ‘but I don’t want to talk to you. We’ve nothing to say to each other now.’

‘That’s not true, Roz! I have to talk to you – you have to listen to me. Please, let me tell you how it was, how it’s all happened. Please, Roz. I’m not the monster you think I am!’

‘I don’t think you’re a monster, just a cheat and a sham. Someone I trusted and who let me down. And Ella, too. I wonder how she’s feeling now, at her seminar? I suppose she does know … about me?’

He lowered his eyes. ‘She knows. Knows I love you.’

‘Oh, don’t!’ Roz cried. ‘Don’t talk like that any more!’

‘You have to listen to me,’ he said doggedly. ‘At least, give me that.’

They were both silent for some moments, then Roz sighed.

‘You’d better sit down,’ she told him.

Looking away from each other as they sat apart, they were silent again, until Jamie began to speak.

‘The thing is, Roz, Ella and I have known each other all our lives. We went to the same school, our mothers are friends, and I played rugby with Ella’s brother. We were all sort of intertwined. Somehow, as we grew up, it just became accepted that we were a couple. There was no more to it than that. And when the war came and I was called up, Ella started nursing. We wrote letters and all that, but I used to wonder sometimes how things would be for us when the war was over. Turned out, they were just the same.’

He paused and shrugged a little.

‘I didn’t mind. I suppose it was what I expected, but I think now I should have asked myself, why didn’t we get married? There always seemed to be something in the way – my studies, Ella’s nursing exams – it was always going to be someday. Then I got the job at Tarrel’s and couldn’t see her so much – she lives in at the hospital and couldn’t come up to Edinburgh.’

Turning his head, Jamie fastened his eyes on Roz’s face.

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