Anne Douglas by Tenement Girl Read Free Book Online Page A

chilled as she clasped them together and finally raised her eyes to Neil’s.
    ‘Just want to talk to you about something,’ she said huskily. ‘While the band’s away.’
    ‘Something? What something?’ Neil asked with a smile. ‘You’re looking very serious. Now, why would you be serious in a dance hall?’
    Clearly he had no worries about whatever she wanted to talk to him about – see how he was smiling!
    ‘Oh, I’m all right,’ she answered quickly, lowering her gaze. ‘There’s nothing to be serious about. It’s just that a young man came into the shop the other day – he’s from Leith, works for the council helping the homeless – and we got talking – and – well – he asked me if I’d like to go up Arthur’s Seat with him.’
    Finding the courage to look up again when she had finished speaking, she saw that Neil had stopped smiling. Stopped smiling and somehow changed. Changed from the Neil she knew to some other man, still handsome but cold, very cold, his grey eyes wintry, his face drained.
    ‘And what did you say?’ he asked. It seemed to Lindy that even his voice was different, as cold as his face.
    ‘I – well, I said I would. I mean, it’s been years since I went up Arthur’s Seat.’
    ‘You just wanted to see it again?’
    ‘No. Well, I did, but I’ll be honest, I thought it’d be nice to go with him.’
    ‘So, when are you going?’
    ‘Going?’
    ‘You said you would go,’ he said impatiently. ‘When? When are you going up Arthur’s Seat? With this fellow?’
    ‘Oh.’ She looked away. ‘We went yesterday.’
    Though she couldn’t see him, she knew now how he would be looking. She also knew that her stepmother and Jemima had been right to try to prepare her for this, and that her own fears had been realized. Friend he might be, but Neil was not reacting like one. He was not saying, ‘Fine, I’m glad you’ve met someone you want to go out with, because I’m only a friend and it makes no difference to us, as long as we can still be friends ourselves’. And if he had said that, she knew she would have cried, ‘Oh, yes, that’s what I want too, Neil! Seeing Rod Connor will make no difference to us at all!’
    Suddenly she was aware that the band was back and tuning up, that people were drifting from their chairs on to the floor while Neil was on his feet, looming over her. Surely they weren’t going to dance again at this moment?
    They weren’t.
    ‘Better get your coat,’ she heard him say. ‘We’re leaving.’
    Out in the street she thought they would be taking the tram home as usual, but when they reached the stop Neil strode straight past it and she had to run to keep up with him.
    ‘Wait, Neil, wait!’ she called. ‘Aren’t we taking the tram?’
    He stopped and stood still until she reached him, his face still strange in its coldness as he looked down at her.
    ‘No, we’re walking,’ he snapped. ‘So that you can tell me what you think you’re playing at, without folk on the tram listening.’
    ‘Playing at? I’m no’ playing at anything! All I’ve done is go out with someone who isn’t you, but why should you mind?’ Lindy was shaking as she faced him, her voice quite high, her eyes glittering in the lamp light. ‘I’ve thought about it and I know I wouldn’t have minded if you’d met someone else, as long as we’d stayed friends. You’ve always said that’s what we were – just friends.’
    ‘Special friends,’ Neil said with emphasis. ‘
Special
friends, Lindy. That means something more than ordinary friends, eh? That we had a special affinity. Means I would never have taken out some other girl. Means I’ve a right to mind if you decide to see some other fellow – who’ll no’ want to be a friend at all. I don’t know him but I know what he’ll want, oh, God, yes, and you say I shouldn’t mind? I tell you, this news is pretty upsetting for me. Very upsetting, in fact.’
    Turning on his heel he began to walk fast away