A Very Public Affair. Sally Wentworth
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the cold of the wind was gone, making her give a sob of heartfelt relief. The inside of the car was very dark, but the back seat was deep and padded. Clare felt something fabric under her hand and found it was a rug, large and thick and beautifully soft. With a sigh of sheer bliss she lay back on the seat, curled into it and pulled the rug completely over herself.
The car must be new; she could smell the richness of the leather upholstery, catch the unmistakable hessian and wool smell of new carpet. But most of all she felt the warmth that still lingered. It was so long since she’d been warm. The winter had been so severe and she’d been cold for so long that it was almost impossible to remember what it had been like to be warm all the time, for it to be so commonplace that she hadn’t even thought about it.
Clare’s thoughts drifted, her tired brain unable to concentrate, and she fell asleep.
It was twenty minutes later before Jack Straker came out to the car. He had changed from the evening suit he’d been wearing when the phone call came and now had on jeans and a sweater, clothes more comfortable for the long drive north. He put his suitcase in the boot and threw his camel overcoat into the back, his movements brisk, compelled by the urgency in the voice of his father’s neighbour. Flu, she’d said, but his father hadn’t let her call him. Now pneumonia had set in and he wasn’t getting better, was not responding to treatment. She was worried, but now her own family had gone down with the flu virus, giving her no time to spare for her elderly neighbour, and the old man refused to go into hospital.
He would, Jack thought. Such obstinacy was typical of his father. It was what had made him insist, when he’d retired from business, on going to live in a remote area of the Lake District so that he could devote his life to the fishing that he loved.
The grimness in Jack’s lean face softened as he thought of his father. They didn’t see each other often. They were both men of independent spirit—his father because that was the way he wanted to be, and Jack because that was the way he’d been brought up—but the bond between them still went deep. Jack’s mother was dead, had died many years ago, and his father had shown no inclination to remarry, either out of love or the need for companionship. He was a man who could be perfectly content in his own company, and he had managed very competently until this illness had struck him down.
The unexpectedness of the neighbour’s emergency call had been a shock, especially coming as it had when he’d been at a nightclub after an evening spent at the opera. Reaching the motor way that ringed London, Jack put his foot down and headed north.
Having the coat thrown over her had startled Clare out of her sleep. She’d woken in fright, thinking that she was still in the shop doorway and that she was being attacked. But then the car had started to move and she’d remembered where she was. For a moment she was petrified that she’d been seen, but then realised that she couldn’t have been or the driver would have thrown her out. Clare hazily thought that she ought to let the driver know she was there, or heaven knew where she might end up. But the car was so warm, and the heavy overcoat had made her cosier still. She thought about it, and while she was still thinking fell deeply asleep again.
The big car ate up the miles, its engine the soft purr of a well-bred cat. Jack turned on the radio to a classical music channel but kept it low. The programme was interrupted from time to time by traffic bulletins which spoke of freezing temperatures and the threat of snow as he went ever further north. Two hours out of London he pulled off the motor way into a service area, where he filled the car up with petrol then went into the café where he bought a flask of coffee and a couple of rolls.
Clare didn’t wake then, but she did when Jack stopped again some time later and took a drink from the flask. It was the aroma of the coffee that got to her, filtering through the covers and making her insides ache with hunger. Gently, very slowly, she pulled the cover from around her face. The smell of the coffee was immediately stronger, making her throat tighten with thirst. She thought she’d die for a cup, for just a mouthful, a taste. Then she heard him unwrap a roll and smelt the ham that filled it, had to push her hand in her mouth and bite on it to stop herself crying out, the hunger in her belly a physical pain.
It was a relief when the car started off again and there was just the sound of music and the smell of the leather seats. She saw white wisps hitting the windows and knew that it was snowing. With a great shiver, Clare pulled the car rug close again. Fleetingly she wondered about the driver. She could see it was a man, but that was about all. His head was mostly hidden by the head rest, and all she could see of him was a wide pair of shoulders and the top of his dark head faintly outlined by the lights on the dashboard. Impossible to tell any more of him, but she had the impression that he was young. Was that good or bad? And how would he react when he found her, when they arrived at wherever he was heading?
Clare found she didn’t much care—about any of it. Things could hardly get worse for her than they were already, so what was the point of worrying? At least at the moment she was warm and comfortable, and she decided just to be thankful for that and to hell with the rest. So she slept again as the car continued on through the night—more slowly now in the bad conditions.
It was almost seven in the morning and the sky had lightened, but Jack still needed his headlights; the snow was becoming much heavier as the wipers incessantly cleared it from the windscreen. He had left the main road behind and the snow was worse on these minor roads, piling into drifts so that he had to use all his concentration. Coming to a crossroads, Jack slowed to peer at the signpost but was unable to read it. Pulling into the side, he looked at the map but realised it was no good; he would have to go and clear the damn sign.
Opening the door of the car, he felt the cold hit him. He stretched his shoulders, easing his aching back muscles, then opened the rear door and reached in for his overcoat. He pulled it out. Beneath it the rumpled car rug moved! Jack stared, then reached in and yanked the rug away to reveal the figure lying on the seat.
‘What the heck? How the hell did you get in there?’ And, grabbing hold of an enveloping anorak, he dragged the person out of the car.
Coming to with a shock, Clare almost fell as he pulled her roughly out into the road. Her legs had gone stiff from being curled up for so long and she could hardly stand, making her stumble and catch hold of him to steady herself. Immediately Jack pushed her away and then gave her a violent shake, his face full of anger and distaste.
‘Who are you? When did you get in the car?’ Clare didn’t answer and he gave her another rough shake. The hood of the anorak fell off and her hair, long and dark, tumbled about her head. ‘Good grief! A girl.’
For a moment they stood in the road, the snow swirling about them as they stared at each other. Clare, looking at him in nervous alarm, saw that Jack was tall and that she’d been right in thinking him young—he looked to be in his late twenties, his hair almost as dark as her own. His eyes full of startled anger, he said again, ‘Who are you? How did you get in the car?’
A snowflake settled on her lashes and Clare lifted her hand to wipe it away, then shivered and said, ‘Please—I’m cold.’
Jack hesitated, then gave a curse and strode over to clear the sign. Taking this as an acceptance of her being there, Clare quickly got back into the car. He joined her a minute later, closing the door to keep out the cold, then looked at her over the back of his seat. ‘Where did you get in—at the petrol station?’
Clare nodded, not seeing any point in telling him she’d been there all the way from London.
‘Damn! I haven’t got time to take you all the way back there. Where do you live?’ She didn’t speak and he said exasperatedly, ‘Haven’t you got a tongue in your head? Where do you live?’
‘I—I don’t live anywhere.’
His eyebrows rose, then he frowned. ‘I suppose you’ve run away from home.’ Again Clare didn’t speak and he thumped his clenched fist against the seat in annoyance. ‘What the hell am I going to do with you?’