Wild Melody

‘The Tower?’ Sally gasped. ‘I've never been there, and I've lived within twenty miles of London all my life.'

‘Then you should be ashamed,’ Catriona told her with mock severity. ‘It's a fascinating place—all those stones steeped in history. Just think of all the suffering that's gone on there down the centuries, the tears and blood that have been spilled there.'

‘There's enough blood and tears at the TV centre to last me for a while,’ said Sally with a groan. ‘Keep up the good work, darling, and I'll try and make it to the Zoo with you at least. I can't resist the bears.'

Under Sally's guidance, Catriona had made one or two modest additions to her wardrobe and a dark green trouser suit with a sleeveless tunic top had proved a favourite buy. Sally had shown her too how to blow-dry her hair into the style she had worn at the party and encouraged her to experiment with cosmetics in the day-time as well.

She had put the boxes with the evening gown and other articles on top of the wardrobe, and to her relief Sally had never questioned her about them.

Nor did she hear from Jason Lord, although he had told her, ‘Keep in touch.’ It was one of those meaningless phrases, like his perpetual ‘darling', she told herself. For the first few days, she had tensed each time the phone rang, but it had always been for Sally, and Catriona found herself in the odd position of not knowing whether she felt glad or sorry. She could tell herself vehemently that if she never saw Jason Lord again, it would be too soon, and yet at the same time it was not pleasant, she found, to be completely ignored.

She was homesick too in many ways. The air of London felt thick after the sparkling clarity of Torvaig with its sea and heather-laden breezes. The anonymity of the place distressed her too, coming from a closely knit community where a kindly interest was expressed in one's most mundane doings. Catriona soon gave up searching the faces of the people she passed in the street for some trace of friendly recognition.

Above all, she missed the sunsets and the blazing jewel colours that used to herald twilight over the western sea. Aunt Jessie had told her when she was a child that it was possible to pick up amethysts and sapphires in the hill burns, and Catriona had been convinced for a long time that these jewels were really pieces that had broken off the sunsets and been washed ashore by the whispering tide.

Jeremy and she had spent one rainy day wading in one of the burns looking for precious stones, she recalled with a pang. But they had found nothing, which made the little ring he had bought her in Fort William doubly precious. She still wore it on the chain round her neck because she could not think what else to do with it. To wear it openly was out of the question, but she could not bear to throw it away either.

Sometimes at night, when the noise of the traffic came between her and sleep, a sudden wave of misery would sweep over her, and she would cry into her pillow, fearful of waking Sally. In a way she welcomed the tears. She felt this continual longing for Jeremy proved that Jason Lord was wrong with his cynical remarks about the transitory nature of first love, although why she felt it necessary to justify her emotions in this way was something she did not probe too deeply.

Sometimes, as she wandered alone among crowded art galleries and museums, she let herself daydream that Jeremy was with her. Once in fact she had stepped through a doorway in the National Gallery and seen him standing there, his back to her, studying a catalogue. It was only when she ran to him and touched his arm and a stranger's face turned and stared down at her that she realised her mistake and stepped back blushing hotly.