Wild Melody

They had kissed and she had clung to him, her face wet with tears, promising to wait for him. At first his letters had come often and hers returned as eagerly. Then the frequency began to falter, although he still talked of the time when they would be together always. Now, if she faced it, five months had gone by with no word. Catriona had salved her pride by telling herself that Jeremy was busy with his studies and that he had important exams coming up, which, as he'd said in an early letter, could make all the difference to their future together. It was this, and the address carefully treasured in her trinket box at home, that had decided Catriona on her next course of action, now that she was alone.

She looked up from her reverie and found Mrs McGregor watching her concernedly. She smiled back at her.

‘It'll be all right,’ she said. ‘I know it will. I can't bear to stay here with Auntie—and the house—gone like that. And I can't bear to see what the Mackintoshes are going to do with the place either. Besides, London will be an adventure, and Jeremy will be there.’ She smiled again, more gaily. ‘I'll send you a piece of wedding cake.'

‘So I should hope—when you find a husband,’ Mrs McGregor said a trifle caustically.

She confided her misgivings to her husband over supper that evening.

‘But she's set on it,’ she added, and sighed. ‘London's a gey long way to go, just to have your heart broken. I doubt yon poor lassie knows what she's getting herself into.'

A week later, standing completely bewildered in the bustle of Euston, Catriona was wondering exactly the same thing. The noise from the loudspeakers, the roar of the traffic outside, and the shouting and banging on the station itself as trains arrived and departed filled her with unreasoning panic. After the silence of Torvaig, where the hum of the telegraph wires was often clearly audible even in the middle of the day, she felt as if her eardrums would burst. What was worse, everyone but her seemed to know exactly where they were going. She followed the crowd to the barrier and gave up her ticket.

Outside in the sunlight, she felt even more uncomfortable. Jeremy's address was tucked safely in an inside pocket of her leather shoulder bag, but she had no idea how to get there. Awkwardly she shifted her rucksack on to her other shoulder and leaned her guitar case against a newsvendor's stand while she tried to take stock of her surroundings. Most of the money she possessed in the world—just under two hundred pounds—was safely locked up in a small cashbox in her rucksack, but she had kept a few pounds in her handbag for emergencies. Catriona decided ruefully that the first emergency was now. Picking up her guitar, she walked purposefully to the queue of people waiting for taxis. But when her turn came, she found to her astonishment that she was calmly elbowed out of the way by two smartly dressed men. She stood indignantly on the pavement watching the last cab draw away, and a certain grimness crept into her expression. As another cab pulled up, a fur-coated woman stepped forward, brushing Catriona aside. Catriona swung her rucksack and there was a startled yelp as its bulk encountered the fur coat. The woman tottered, momentarily off balance, and Catriona squeezed past. ‘Mine, I think,’ she said, pushing her guitar case on to the back seat. She sat back feeling a little guilty at her discourtesy, but at the same time faintly victorious. If this was how Londoners conducted themselves, then a Muir could do just as well!

‘Where to, ducks?'

‘Oh.’ Catriona produced Jeremy's slip of paper and pushed it through the glass partition. The driver looked at it and whistled. ‘It's quite a way.’ He turned and studied his passenger, from the attractive mass of curly dark hair on her shoulders down over the duffel coat and slim-fitting levis to the well-worn brogues. ‘It'll cost you.'

‘I have money.’ Catriona lifted her chin at him.

‘Suit yourself, love,’ and he let in the clutch.

By the time the journey was over, Catriona was too sick with nervousness to worry over-much about the amount on the meter, although one corner of her thrifty soul registered a momentary squeal of outrage as she handed over the fare and added a generous tip.

‘Shall I hang on?’ asked the driver, apparently moved by the unexpected gesture.

Catriona looked up at the house where the cab had halted. It was not quite what she had envisaged, being a narrow terraced building with peeling stucco. The paintwork needed renewal, and the front garden was untended. Almost unconsciously Catriona's nose wrinkled. It was not the rendezvous she would have chosen for an ecstatic reunion with Jeremy. She bit her lip uncertainly. She wished now she had written to him in advance telling him that she was coming. She acknowledged now, standing in the dirty street, that she had been secretly afraid that he might try to deter her. For a moment she found it hard to remember even what Jeremy looked like, and again that odd sense of panic gripped her. She turned to the driver hesitantly.

‘Perhaps—you would wait.'

She mounted the short flight of cracked steps and rang the bell.

‘Probably not working, love,’ the driver called. ‘Bang on the door instead.'

Catriona complied with his advice, and after an endless moment or two the door was flung open. She was confronted by a thin woman in a soiled blue nylon overall, her hair in rollers under a yellow chiffon scarf.

‘No vacancies,’ she snapped, and made to close the door again.

Catriona stepped forward with a determination that she was far from feeling.

‘I'm looking for one of your tenants, a Mr Jeremy Lord.'

‘Are you now?’ The woman's eyes appraised Catriona suggestively, lingering for a moment at her waistline. ‘Well, you're too late, dear. He's gone.'

‘Gone? Where?’ Catriona felt the world spin round her. This was one development she had failed to take into account in her planning. Jeremy had told her she would find him here and she had believed him. She fought to remain calm.

‘He left about three months ago. A nice Indian gentleman's got the room now.’ The woman waited for a minute. ‘Well, if that's all, dear, I must get on.'

Catriona moved impulsively. ‘Did he—was there any forwarding address?'

‘Now let me think. Some do, and some don't, of course. And there's a few who don't want to be traced.’ She gave Catriona a malicious smile. ‘But I'm sure that won't be true in your case, ducks. You wait here, while I see.’ She disappeared to the rear of the musty hall and went through a door.

Catriona, fighting her tears, stood forlornly on the step. What if there was no address? She supposed there would be a hostel somewhere she could go to for the time being. Perhaps the driver would know. He seemed kind. Yet at the back of her mind were all the warnings she had ever heard about trusting strangers in big cities. She had never felt more alone, even at Aunt Jessie's funeral, for there the unspoken sympathy of the rest of the village had been like a rock for her to lean on. Here there was no one and nothing if Jeremy could not be found.

‘Here we are, lovey.’ The woman was coming back, flourishing a piece of paper. ‘Mr Lord—11 Belmont Gardens. I thought I could recollect him saying where he was moving to.'

‘Oh, thank you.’ Catriona took the paper, realising that the woman's hand was remaining outstretched. For a moment she wondered if she was expected to shake hands, then she realised. Flushing, she dug into her shoulder bag and produced a pound note. Before she could say anything, it was gone from her hand and tucked away into a pocket of the nylon overall.

‘That's very good of you, dear, very good.’ The woman beamed at her. ‘Now, if you were wanting a room, my first floor front is giving notice this week.'

‘No,’ Catriona said quietly. ‘No, thanks. I must be going now.’ And she ran back down the steps to the waiting taxi. She gave the new address to the driver.

‘It's from the sublime to the gorblimey with you, girl,’ he commented, as the cab drew away. ‘Dead posh, Belmont Gardens.'

Catriona didn't find this piece of information particularly encouraging either. She realised for the first time how little she really knew about Jeremy and his background. She knew that he was an only child, and that both his parents were living, but little more.

It had never occurred to her during those happy sun-soaked days in Scotland to probe too deeply. Nor had she speculated too much while they were apart. She had preferred to remember the warmth of his kisses, and the glow in his eyes when he looked at her in that secret way that seemed to shut them off from the rest of the world even when others were there. These things were somehow more real than Jeremy's family, Jeremy's friends and the rest of his life in London in which as yet she had no part.

She realised of course that she would have to accept her part in them, but Jeremy had fitted so easily into her background that she had few doubts that she would slot as quickly into his. Now she was not so sure.

Looking out of the cab window, she realised the area they were in now was a marked improvement on the one where Jeremy used to live. Here the rows of houses were tall and spacious and trees edged the streets in neat lines.

The taxi turned right, swerving into a small square. In the centre of the square was a tiny railed-off park, with lawns, seats and flower beds. The houses that surrounded it were tall and elegant with delicately wrought iron railings in front of them. Many of them had window boxes filled with gay flowers, and Catriona could not help a little cry of pleasure and surprise.

‘Told you so,’ the driver commented smugly. He drew up with a flourish. ‘Here we are, ducks—number eleven. Shall I bring your gear up?'

‘I—I can manage, thank you.’ Catriona was feeling nervous again. As the taxi drew away and vanished round the corner, she felt almost as if she just lost a friend. Her palms felt moist and she wiped them down the sides of her jeans, before shouldering her rucksack and picking up the guitar case.

‘Here we go,’ she thought, gazing up at the white façade of the house. A scarlet front door confronted her and as she counted the six immaculate steps which led to it, she noticed a gleaming brass bell surmounted by a name-plate in the wall.

The stark black lettering on the card seemed to leap out at her. ‘J. Lord,’ she read with relief, and pressed the bell.

Almost immediately she heard steps inside the house, and her stomach muscles contracted. She licked her dry lips, controlling her instinct to run away as quickly as she could, now that the moment of truth was here.

But it was a small woman, neatly dressed in a dark frock and apron, who opened the door this time, and looked at her inquiringly.

Catriona tried to speak with an assurance she was far from feeling.

‘Mr Lord, please.'

‘Well, I don't know, I'm sure, miss.’ The woman looked at her searchingly, taking in the shabby coat and the rucksack. ‘Is he expecting you?'

‘Yes,’ said Catriona, mentally crossing her fingers. It wasn't really a fib, she told herself. Jeremy had said she could come at any time. ‘Please tell him Miss Muir is here.'

The woman held the door open and stood back to allow Catriona to enter. ‘Come in, Miss Muir. I'll tell Mr Lord. Perhaps you'd like to leave your luggage in the hall.'

Catriona felt almost embarrassed to do so. It was a spacious hall with a black and white tiled floor and gleaming white walls. A carved chest stood against one wall supporting a tall Chinese vase. She put her rucksack and guitar in a corner, where she hoped they would not be noticed, and followed the woman to a door on the right.