Max's Proposal. Jane Donnelly

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СКАЧАТЬ more reliable than your notes?’ He had to be harking back to the time when Sara had given the impression he was turfing somebody out of a cottage when he had been doing no such thing, and the paper had had to print an apology in the next edition.

      She snapped, ‘You don’t forget, do you? I was a student then; I’ve learned a lot since.’ And suddenly he was smiling and it was more like it had been last night.

      ‘So where do we start?’ he said, and she went quickly into her first question.

      ‘Anything you can tell our readers about your local plans? Such as the cinema?’

      A supermarket near the town centre had closed down and options for the site were being considered. There was talk of a group of businessmen with Vella at their head building a cinema. ‘What do you think?’ he asked her. ‘Is there a demand? The last cinema closed down.’

      The Chronicle had printed letters from the public and Sara had done a street quiz asking the opinions of passers-by. This was a tourist town with a theatre. Most visitors and most of the locals would welcome the extra entertainment. ‘The old cinema was years ago,’ she said. ‘I’m sure a new one would do well this time.’

      ‘You’d patronise it?’

      ‘Yes, I would.’

      ‘What are your favourite films?’

      They discussed a few films—what she had seen recently, which she had enjoyed, which had bored her, which had made her think. It was such a relief to find him easy to talk to. She asked, ‘What were you doing here when you walked over the hills and first saw the Moated House?’

      He told her. ‘Working with a travelling fair. I was one of the strong-arm gang who put up and dismantled the heavy rides.’

      This was lovely stuff, and she recalled something else he had said last night. ‘You were only fourteen when you were doing this?’

      ‘I looked older. Big for my age and a good liar.’

      ‘And then?’

      ‘I started in the scrap-metal business, got a small yard in Yorkshire, went on the markets up and down the country, buying, selling, one thing leading to another.’

      It sounded easy but it must have been a killing struggle, and she said with real admiration, ‘From small-time huckster to tycoon was a magnum leap.’

      ‘A step at a time.’

      ‘Why did you leave the fair?’

      ‘Time to move on. And there was a fight.’ His smile made her smile. ‘Bordering on a brawl.’

      She tried to imagine him younger, hungrier, a scrapper, and couldn’t. The boy and the man were a world apart. His hands were smooth, the nails manicured, but they were strong enough to be a fighter’s hands, and she wondered when he had stopped using brute force because his brain was a deadlier weapon.

      She asked, ‘Did you get that scar in the brawl?’ She was feeling confident enough to ask, as if they were on their way to being friends.

      But he said, ‘I got it in the road accident that killed my parents.’

      And she cringed at her lack of sensitivity, stammering, ‘I’m so sorry.’

      ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said. ‘Now tell me about yourself.’ And somehow the conversation reverted back to Sara.

      She didn’t mind. She answered everything he asked about her job, her likes and dislikes, although it did seem more as if he were interviewing her than the other way round. It was when he said, ‘Which was your house when you lived in Eddlestone?’ that she became uneasy.

      She said abruptly, ‘The Grange, next to the church. That was a long time ago too.’

      He nodded. ‘You were Geoffrey Solway’s daughter.’ But she was not discussing her father with him. Max Vella had been here when Geoffrey Solway had died but Vella had always been in a much higher league. There had been no business dealings between them. If they had met it had been casually. That part of Sara’s life was no concern of Max Vella, and she resented him dragging it into this—interrogation.

      She was realising now that was the word for how the interview was going. She was being interrogated. She had been beguiled into believing this was a friendly meeting, but he had questioned her far more than she had been permitted to question him. ‘Where are you living now?’ he asked her.

      She said, ‘In a very small flat in the square. You’re not the only one to make a quantum leap. Only yours was up and mine was down.’

      A phone on the desk rang. Saved by the bell, she thought, and picked up her tape recorder. When she was calmer she would play it back and see what she could dig out.

      ‘I’ll be with you,’ Vella said into the phone, and to Sara, ‘We’ll continue this later. This evening over dinner. I’m thinking of offering you a job. I’ll collect you at your flat at seven-thirty p.m.’

      ‘Don’t bother,’ she said. She heard the words come out of her mouth but he didn’t seem to. He was glancing through a sheaf of papers he had taken out of a drawer, and the sharp-suited young man appeared at Sara’s elbow as suddenly as a genie popping out of a bottle. Max Vella could turn up where he liked at seven-thirty Sara decided; she would be anywhere but the flat.

      The young man saw her down in the lift and the commissionaire touched the peak of his hat in salute as she left the building. She sat in her car, fingers clenched, trying to quell a surge of frustration.

      There were several expensive cars in the car park and if she had to guess which was Vella’s she would pick the silver-grey Mercedes—it looked like his kind of car. Sara had a real urge to scratch the gleaming paintwork. He had annoyed and disturbed her. Bringing up her family background was probably no more than the bluntness of a man who never had to consider anyone else’s feelings, but it had hit a raw nerve in Sara. She was over-sensitive today with Beth going back to Jeremy, and the problem would be waiting for Sara: how much the bookies had let Jeremy run up this time.

      Beth would be phoning Sara or coming to the flat, and when Sara found the door at the top of the stairs unlocked she half expected to find Beth and Jeremy sitting in her living room, both looking woebegone and very young. Jeremy was another one who never seemed to age. He and Beth could pass as teenagers but Sara felt very old indeed.

      The living room was empty, and she called, ‘Hello,’ getting no reply. There was no one in the kitchen, and the bathroom door was ajar. Nobody in there either.

      She called again, ‘Hello, Beth,’ lifting the latch on her bedroom door. She couldn’t get in because the bolt had been slipped in there, and for a second she thought resentfully, They could have stayed in their own home to make up. But of course they would have done. And then she heard a little choking sound, like a strangled whimper.

      The children could have done it, if they had been left alone for a few minutes. She spoke through the narrow space edging the door that didn’t fit too well. ‘Jo, Josh, are you in there? Pull the bolt back. You can do it. Just pull it along.’ There was silence, and she spoke louder. ‘Who is in there?’ Rapping with her knuckles, ‘Can you hear me?’

      Nobody answered; something СКАЧАТЬ