again … The flowers I put there week before last … those beautiful roses and gypsophila … they were strewn all over the place. Somebody’s filled the vase with new flowers! I didn’t know what to do, so I squeezed ours in.’
She was close to tears. ‘That’s three times now, when somebody’s deliberately vandalised our flowers. Should we let Mr Arnold know, d’you think, Mrs Taylor?’
The manageress considered it for a swift moment before coming to the conclusion, ‘It can’t be children. They might take it into their nasty little heads to destroy the flowers, but they’re not likely to spend a fortune on replacing them with their own, are they?’
‘So, who is it then?’
‘I wish I knew!’ She had given it some thought before but she had not come up with any answers. ‘Who would do such a thing?’ she asked angrily. ‘Anyway, I don’t think we should worry Mr Arnold about it. We’ll just have to keep an eye on the situation.’
‘Well, I think it’s weird!’
‘That’s because you’ve got too vivid an imagination.’
Resuming her work, Margaret Taylor gave the order, ‘Move yourself, young lady. There’s work to be done.’
LILIAN WAS IN a bad mood. With Tom gone, she felt lonely and irritable. Even her bright new colleague, Alice, with her bubbly manner and quick smile, couldn’t cheer her up.
‘Whatever’s the matter with you?’ Alice was at the end of her tether with Lilian’s misery. ‘You’ve been so bad-tempered … downright rude sometimes! Are you ill, is that it?’
All day long, Lilian had been snapping and snarling, and now with only five minutes to go before finishing for the day, she was seated at her desk, head in hands, seemingly oblivious to everything that was going on around her.
On hearing Alice’s remarks, she sat up to stare at the other young woman, her face unhappy. For a moment it seemed she might angrily rebuke Alice, but the moment was gone when Dougie walked in through the door. ‘All right, are you, girls?’
Delighted at having just concluded a new deal, he was full of himself. ‘So, who wants to kiss the man of the day?’ Holding out his arms, he turned from one to the other, pretending to swoon when Alice planted a smacker on his cheek. ‘Well?’ Leaning across her desk so he could look Lilian in the eye, he teased, ‘Too good to kiss an old mate, is that it?’
‘Some other time, eh?’ Lilian was in no mood for Dougie’s high spirits.
‘Oh, dear, caught you in a bad temper, have I?’ Catching Alice’s warning glance, he backed off. ‘Right then, I’d best get back to my desk … I’ve a few phone calls to make before I can get off home.’
As he went, he warned them, ‘It’s raining cats and dogs out there, so mind how you go, eh?’ Alice thanked him. Lilian allowed a curt nod, and the merest of smiles.
Ten minutes later, after tying up a few loose ends, she had her coat on and was ready to leave.
‘See you tomorrow,’ she told Alice.
‘I hope you’re in a better mood by then!’ Alice muttered as the door closed behind her fretful colleague.
Giving Alice the fright of her life, the door opened again, and Lilian’s eyes sought her out; for a minute Alice thought she’d overheard her mutterings.
‘Look, Alice … I’m sorry I’ve been in a foul mood all day.’
Relieved she wasn’t about to be hung, drawn and quartered after all, Alice told her not to worry, because she knew what it was like to have a bad day.
One by one the other offices emptied, until ten minutes later Alice and Dougie were the last to leave. ‘What’s wrong with Lilian?’ Pausing in the foyer to prepare for the pouring rain, he remarked on how he’d never known her to be in such a bad mood.
Alice didn’t know for sure. ‘Maybe she’s not well,’ she suggested. ‘I think she pushes herself too hard. She does twice the amount of work I do.’ It was an odd thing. ‘Some days she seems tormented. It’s like she has to keep herself occupied every minute. Me … I like to go down the street to the coffee shop for my lunch. It breaks the day up, if you know what I mean. But Lilian doesn’t leave the office from the minute she comes in to the minute she goes home. She has her tea and sandwich at her desk, and if she goes to the ladies’ room, the first thing she wants to know when she gets back is whether there’ve been any calls for her.’
Dougie was beginning to understand. ‘And have there?’
‘What?’
‘Been any calls?’
Alice pondered on that. ‘It’s usually one or other of the architects, asking for her to go in when she gets back … or the boss sometimes calls down. Why?’
‘I just wondered, that’s all.’ Turning his collar up, he asked her if she needed a lift. ‘You’ll get soaked to the skin in this lot.’ By now the rain was bouncing off the pavements, and leaving puddles in its wake.
Alice graciously declined. ‘Mum and Dad have got friends for dinner, so Ron’s taking me back to his place. I’m cooking us a meal.’ She glanced down the road. ‘He should be here any minute.’
Dougie gave her a playful nudge. ‘Sounds to me like there’s marriage on the cards.’
Blushing all shades of pink, she told him shyly, ‘You sound like my mum!’ She laughingly mimicked her: ‘“You’re coming up to twenty-five, Alice my girl! It’s time you settled down with some nice young man!” Honest to God, she goes on all the time.’
He winked. ‘Well? Is there or isn’t there?’
She shook her head, and he got the idea that the discussion was over.
‘Right then. I’d best make a run for it.’
Taking his life in his hands, he bid her good night and went out into the rain. Looking this way and that, he ran across the street, splashing through puddles and trying to dodge the deluge that rained down on his back. ‘Bloody weather!’ he grumbled, scrambling into his car. ‘Brilliant sunshine one minute and all hell let loose the next! It’s enough to give you pneumonia!’
Fumbling with his keys, he took a minute to open the car, during which he got soaked through to his shirt. ‘Brr!’ Falling into the seat, he let out a long, withering sigh. ‘Straight into a hot bath when I get in –’ he gave a little chuckle – ‘after I’ve had a sizeable tot of brandy to warm me up.’ He began to look forward to it.
As he pulled out, he saw Lilian huddled in a doorway near the bus stop. ‘Hey!’ Winding down the window, he called out to her, ‘Get in the car, I’ll take you home.’
She waved him on. ‘It’s all right, thanks. The bus will be along any minute now.’
He wouldn’t take no for an answer. ‘Come on, get in! I can take you right to your doorstep.’ Flinging open the door, he urged, ‘Hurry up. Make a run for it!’
With the nose of his car jutting out in the road and traffic having to swerve round him, Lilian could hardly carry on arguing the point, so she pulled her coat over her head and ran for it.
Once she was safely inside, she gave him instructions to her house. He pushed the car into gear and was on his way.
‘Sensible woman,’ he said as he drew out onto the road. ‘If you’d waited for me back at the office I could have saved you getting all wet.’
‘I’ll soon dry out, don’t worry.’ She glanced round the interior of the car. ‘This is