A Girl Called Tegi (2 page)

H
er mother said darkly, ‘Just wait until you fall in love! You’ll discover that what the man does is of little consequence. It will be what he means to you.’

‘I don’t intend to fall in love. I’m going to be like Dorothy and marry where money is,’ Tegi said sharply as she reached for the tea caddy.

‘Dorothy probably will make a good marriage,’ her mother said proudly.

Tegi tried not to be hurt by her mother praising Dorothy as she always did. Dorothy could do no
wrong with her mother. Her father could not have cared less; he had always been too wrapped up in himself.

Tegi made the tea while her mother buttered hot scones and placed them on a two-tier cake stand. On the lower plate were egg and cress sandwiches. Tegi preceded her mother into the lounge and almost dropped the tea tray. Her father had brought four friends home. Joe Kelly, Gerry Ortline and Bart Hume, two motorcyclists over for the races and
—
Tegi stared at the fourth visitor, Antonio Mastroni.

Aware of his dark eyes upon her, Tegi lowered the tray on to the table.

The first three men needed no introduction and her father did not bother introducing Antonio.

‘There’s a man for you
!’
chatted her mother when they had returned to the kitchen to clear up the result of the weekend’s baking. ‘The one they called Tony. Good-looking man, tall and well set up. He made me feel young again.’

‘He’s over here for the races, Mother, not for a wife which he probably has anyway,’ Tegi said dryly.

‘There you go!’ cried her mother, cleaning the scone baking fray with more vigour than was called for. ‘I’ll never get you married off. Wait until Dorothy sees him! He’s the kind of man who’ll take her places.’

‘I can name one place he’ll probably take her, it’s the goal of most men these days.’ Tegi dried the baking bowl and put it in the cupboard. ‘And don’t tell me that I’m a cynic,’ she added.

‘What’s a cynic—and please may I have a scone?’ The smallest member of the house threw himself at the table to grab one of the remaining scones already buttered on a plate.

Tegi tapped his grubby hand. ‘Wash those dirty paws first and what have you been eating, for goodness’ sake? Your mouth is all brown
!’

Gary went to the sink and reached for the soap as his mother put away the scone tray, then took off her apron.

‘I’m slipping out for something from the shops. Look after your father and make another pot of tea. Use the willow one.’

Tegi obediently took down the teapot from a shelf and warmed it. Her mother was right about Tony Mastroni; he could certainly take her places and teach her a thing or two.

Gary was splashing water anywhere but on his hands and face. She whipped up a towel and going to him grabbed his thick mop of brown hair gently and with the towel under her arm lathered his face.

‘Grubby little imp!’ she scolded fondly. ‘I bet you’ve spent all the money Dorothy gave you.’

Gary was uttering something unintelligibly as she smothered his face in the towel.

‘For an eight-year-old you’re as helpless as a baby,’ she went on. ‘And don’t you dare move until I’ve combed your hair!’

Taking a comb from a drawer, she parted the mop of hair into a neat side parting and kissed his glowing face.

‘Thanks, Tegi,’ he said politely. ‘There’s a smashing car outside our house. It’s a Jag, a white one
.’

‘Really?’ She watched him reach for a scone and munch it excitedly. ‘You’re not to touch it, you understand?’

He gazed up at her with angelic, wide brown eyes. ‘I bet he’s filthy rich. I’d love to have a ride in it.’

‘I suppose you would, but you aren’t to go into the lounge until the visitors have gone.’

‘May we have some more tea, please?’

Tegi swung round with a startled gasp to see Tony Mastroni strolling into the kitchen. The lightweight summer suit he was wearing was well tailored and his slacks had a knife-edge crease in them.

‘Yes, of course,’ she murmured, surprised that she could articulate at all above the beating of her heart.

‘Nice kitchen,’ he observed, looking around with unabashed curiosity before coming to perch himself on a
corner
of the kitchen table. ‘The appetising smell of baking reminds me of home.’

‘Is that your car outside?’ asked the irrepressible Gary, working his way through a second scone. ‘The white Jag, I mean?’

‘Gary
!’
Tegi cut in wa
rn
ingly, trying to keep her head by not being swamped by the wild leaping of her blood. There was something special about Tony, a kind of sheer masculine attraction which made a mundane kitchen seem suddenly to be a special place. He was too alive, too vital.

Tony grinned, showing white teeth, and his eyes twinkled.

‘Do you like it?’ he asked.

‘It’s great. I...’

Tegi cut in hastily, ‘My brother Gary. He’s safe when he’s eating
!’

Tony laughed and reached out a lazy hand to ruffle the boy’s thick hair.

‘Which is what a boy should be, alive and full of mischief,’ he said.

Tegi was looking round for the tray on which to place the tea pot and he was there putting it on the table for her. It was a purely domestic scene, she thought, one in which Tony would have no part. Not
him! He liked his fun without responsibility. He was not husband material. Tuscany was his haven.

A small sound distracted her, and she looked up from making the tea to see Dorothy standing in the doorway. She was wearing a stunning housecoat in cyclamen silk, evidently put on for the occasion.

Tegi was transfixed, pushed back her long hair, blinked thick lashes, and gazed at her sister as if she, was going round the bend.

‘My ... er ... my sister Dorothy,’ she managed. ‘Tony Mastroni.’

Dorothy lifted a cigarette between crimson-tipped fingers.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I came down for a light—I seemed to have mislaid my lighter.’

Gary exclaimed, ‘Gosh
!’
as Dorothy drifted for
w
ard showing a shapely leg through the opening in her housecoat. Then Tony was there, bestowing a warm calculating smile on the red head as Dorothy bent to his lighter.

Dorothy blew out a line of cigarette smoke ceiling-wards, lifting her chin to show a lovely white column of throat. Her glance at Tony was provocative.

‘So, Tegi hides you in the kitchen,
’
she drawled with a lift of delicate eyebrows
.

‘Tony has come to see Dad,’ Tegi explained, and Gary, finding the conversation only fit for adults, gulped down some milk, grabbed another scone and left them to it.

Dorothy gave a practised laugh. ‘How kind of you
,
Tony,’ she cooed softly. ‘Poor Dad! He lives for the visits of the boys who come over for the races. But surely you aren’t one of them?’

‘Why
not?’

‘You are?’ Dorothy lifted a soft innocent glance tip at him. ‘How nice! I love the boys on their magni
f
icent machines,’ she cooed. ‘They’re a fine breed of men, so polite and well-mannered. I adore them
!’

Tegi’s mouth fell open at such hypocrisy. Her sister had never had any time for the boys or their motorbikes, preferring the expensive cars of her wealthier friends. Placing the pot of fresh tea on the tray along with a hot water jug and a few more of the sandwiches her mother had made, Tegi was prevented from lifting the tray by Tony.

‘Allow me,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

When he had left the room Dorothy took several deep draws of her cigarette.

‘Cup of tea?’ Tegi asked, reaching for cups and saucers from a shelf.

Dorothy nodded, then said thoughtfully, ‘Is he really a rider in the T.T.? I’m a little curious, since most of them are on a budget when they come and Tony seems to be prosperous.’

Tegi put milk in two cups and made tea. ‘Probably makes a good thing out of it. His name rings a bell. Isn’t he famous internationally? I’m sure I’ve see him in commercial advertising for multi-grade oil and things.’

Dorothy clicked her fingers. ‘Of course! He’s some looker. I was trying to remember where I’d seen his face before—I remember now. He came to the studios once to do a commercial. Smiled a lot, but didn’t
m
ix. He was o
f
f directly it was over. Rather intriguing, isn’t he? I can see I’m going to enjoy my visit home.’

A calculating expression came into her face as she drank tea and smoked her cigarette. ‘Any idea where he’s staying?’ she asked.

Tegi shook her head and tightened her hold on the cup of tea she was drinking.

Dorothy gestured with her head towards the lounge. ‘Have you seen the rest of the company in there? What are they like? Anyone worth cultivating with me in mind?’

Tegi drank the rest of her tea and put down the cup.

‘They’re boys who’ve been coming to see Dad for some time. They’re all in the races and they’re all married. Sorry I can’t present you with a millionaire,
’
she said drily.

‘I’ll get my own,’ Dorothy said pertly. ‘You have a fairly safe job here with the parents behind you. You’d be looking for model suits in expensive material regardless of what kind of man is wearing them if you had to rough it for a while.’

Tegi laughed derisively. ‘You’re breaking my heart! The times you send home for money. You’ve never had to rough it.’

‘I don’t intend to.’ Dorothy put down her cup and stubbed out her cigarette firmly. ‘The thing is to set your sights on what you want and to go out for it deliberately. I’ll start now by putting on something
eye-catching
and joining the boys in the lounge. Who knows, I might at least get a lift into Douglas for the evening? Cheerio.’ She pushed herself to her feet.
‘
What about you coming along?’

Tegi rose to her feet to carry the used cups and saucers to the sink.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I promised to play Scrabble with Gary this evening.’

‘Big deal,’ scoffed Dorothy scathingly. ‘Don’t get carried away.’

The remark stung as Tegi washed up. Little chance of getting carried away by anyone romantic here, she thought. But then did people get carried away these days by knights in shining armour as they did long
a
go? Dorothy had not got one romantic bone in her body, but she was the kind of girl to meet some nice romantic kind of man who would cherish her for the rest of her life.

But Dorothy was going after him, wasn’t she? Tegi quivered. She would not know where to begin.

Dorothy came in that night in the small hours in a whiff of tobacco smoke and perfume. Sitting on the bed, she dropped off one shoe and then
the
other.

Tegi opened one sleepy eye. ‘Enjoy yourself?’ she asked on a yawn.

‘Not bad, not bad at all. We went to the casino. The decor was very interesting and Tony is quite a boy.
G
oodness, I’m tired, and this zip is stuck.’

‘Let me undo it.’ Tegi pushed herself up in bed. ‘Did he kiss you goodnight
?’

‘Who?’

Tegi pulled down the zip. ‘Tony, of course.’

‘What do you think?’

Tegi did not want to think because her thoughts would agree that Toni Mastroni was exactly what she had thought he was, out for anything but marriage.

Dorothy would not care because she might even get him around to that way of thinking. Tegi punched her pillow to make a hollow in which to bury her face. She was seeing him again in the sunlight by his machine, throwing back the dark lock of hair from his handsome face, and wished she had looked the other way. The miracle was that he had ever looked at her at all.

She lay awake long after Dorothy had gone to sleep. Sick with mortification at imagined hurt, she reckoned that all the happenings of the day had been her fault. Hadn’t she been bemoaning the fact that nothing ever happened? Well, all kinds of things had happened today. She had met a dream man, a Renaissance prince on a magnificent machine. But it was only a dream; she alone had tried to make it a reality. From now on she would stick to her dull Saturday afternoons. At least they did not bring heartache like some horrible discord inside her that prevented her from sleep.

CHAPTER
TWO

Something
soft was borrowing into the side of her neck. Tegi struggled reluctantly through the blanket of sleep, opened her eyes and lay perfectly still. With her heart threatening to knock a hole into her ribs she cast a slow cautious glance downwards towards her shoulder.

In that moment shock drenched her like a shower of ice cold water, but the scream gathering strength in her throat was halted at source by the appearance
of a small tousled head at the side of her bed.

Gary was whispering urgently, ‘It’s only Sam. Mum didn’t call you because of wakening Dorothy,
s
o
she asked me to waken you quietly.’

‘Quietly?’ Tegi echoed on breath regained as she watched him gather up the small furry bundle from her neck. ‘You’d better make yourself scarce and take that mouse with you!’ She was fully awake now and speaking through her teeth in her anger. ‘Scram, before I beat the living daylights out of you
!’

In one swift fluid movement she was sitting up in bed to aim a pillow at his retreating back. Then in a manner of an engine letting off steam she swung her legs out of bed and reached for her wrap, discharging her anger in an audible sigh.

Waken Dorothy! she thought exasperatedly. That would be the day! Nothing short of an earthquake would ever get Dorothy out of bed at first attempt. She lay unconscious to the world as Tegi padded across the carpet to the bathroom. In a very short
s
pace
of time Tegi had cleaned her teeth, washed and was soon wriggling into a neat tailored skirt and
s
triped shirt blouse mated by a black patent belt ar
o
und her slim waist.

Her make-up was negligible, a brush was drawn quickly over her gleaming hair and she
w
as treading in high-heeled sandals in record time. With a
half-
sm
ile
she had to admit to herself that Gary’s method of waking her up had results. Normally she would be snoozing again for a further period of time waiting for her mother’s second call.

Her mother was picking up a breakfast tray from the table already laid for breakfast.

‘Breakfast is ready,’ she said, making for the door. ‘Why can’t you get up this early every morning instead of lying in bed until the last minute?’

Tegi’s dark eyes widened as she shared her glance with her mother and Gary, who was sitting at the table sheepishly spooning up cornflakes.

He said, ‘I’m glad you didn’t tell her about Sam. She doesn’t like him. Nobody loves him, only me. He must feel awfully lonely when I’m at school. Do you think he needs a companion?’

Tegi took off the top of her egg and reached for bread and butter, then looked at him darkly. She said, ‘I suggest that you have a very serious talk with Sam and explain to him that he’s lucky to
be here at all. Furthermore, if you want to keep him don’t play any tricks on Dorothy, like using Sam
as an alarm clock for waking her up.’

Gary looked up with a rim of milk around his mouth from his soaked cornflakes.
‘Why?
’
he demanded.

‘Why? You little Idiot! You’ll scare the pants off her. I’m used to Sam because he’s been around for some time—even so, I was scared myself this morning until I knew who was sending the prickles down my spine.’

Gary gave a disgusted sigh. ‘Whoever heard of anybody being scared of a mouse? Girls are nuts
!’

T
egi paused with a spoonful of golden yolk halfway to her mouth. ‘As one nut to another, let me tell you something.’ She popped a piece of bread and butter into her mouth to follow the spoonful of egg and regarded him sternly. ‘You know how fond Mother is of Dorothy
a
nd how happy she is to have her home. If you do anything to upset her where Sam is concerned, out he will go.’

Gary sulked into his cornflakes. ‘How long is Dotty
st
aying?’ he mumbled.

‘I don’t know. Look, Gary, it’s her home too, you know.’

‘
I
know. Why can’t she be more like you?’

‘Because we’re two different people. I’m Tegi and
she’s
Dorothy, just like Sam is Sam and you are you,’
she
told him gently. ‘Try to remember that she’s your
sister
.’

‘I
’m not likely to forget it while Dotty is around.’
H
e lifted his cornflake dish and drank the remainder of the milk noisily.

Tegi shook her head and gazed at him as if he was
a
mathematical problem.

‘I wish you wouldn’t call your sister Dotty. Dot would be much nicer and kinder, don’t you think?’
s
he suggested.

He gazed at her with the wide-eyed innocent look he always assumed
when he wanted to be stubborn, a
nd said nothing.

Kids, she thought, who would want them anyway? The sound of rain pattering on the window brought her gaze to the frilly curtains and the patch of
windowpane
jewelled with rain.

What a start to the week! she thought dismally. She always hated Mondays, with half the population
se
eming
to be still
sleeping
off the results of the weekend.

Her mother came in with a worried frown, which did not help.

‘Your father’s back is playing him up again. I’ll have to telephone the doctor to call,’ she said.

Tegi did not answer. She gulped down the last of her coffee and dashed to get her raincoat. The sound of the car hooter came as she was shrugging into her coat, and Tegi snatched up her shoulder bag and gave her mother a quick kiss.

‘Don’t worry about Dad,’ she said gently. ‘It could be purely psychological. Now the boys are here for the races he might be indulging in a few memories, including the accident in which he injured his back. Tell you what, I’ll bring him some of those pills from that nice little chemist in Douglas. They did him good last time his back played him up.’

Her mother nodded with harassed smile. ‘That reminds me.’ She thrust a list of goods into Tegi’s hand.
‘Call in at Marks in your lunch hour for these. I want to give Dorothy a treat.’

Tegi was breathless when she had run through the rain to the car waiting for her outside the garden gate. She tumbled in with raindrops glistening on her face and eyelashes.

‘You’re early,’ she gasped. ‘What a morning
!’

She wiped the rain from her face and shook back her damp locks to smile at her companion behind the wheel of the car.

Beryl smiled back warmly. As fair as Tegi was auburn, she made a striking contrast to her friend as she started the car.

She agreed. ‘Dreadful, isn’t it? I came a bit early because of possible mist on the mountain road
—
thought it might slow us up. Have a nice weekend?’

T
egi grunted. ‘So-so. Dorothy is, home. How
a
bout you?’

Beryl laughed joyously. ‘Adam is here.’

Tegi became suddenly alive. Her dark eyes sparkled.

‘He is?’ she cried. ‘Does that mean...?’ She
looked
pointedly at the engagement ring sparkling on her companion’s hand.

‘That we’re going to be married soon?’ Beryl’s eyes were dreamy. ‘Yes. He’s found a house for us.’

‘I
’m so happy for you,.’ Tegi said sincerely, and her face grew wistful. ‘I am going to miss you.’

‘We aren’t going yet. It all depends on whether we nm get a mortgage or not.’

A watery sun was struggling through the clouds when Tegi alighted from the car in Douglas. The morning air was fresh and sweet. She took in a deep
breath
and tried to dispel a picture from her mind of her friend Beryl beaming beneath a shower of confetti on her husband’s arm. She titled it ‘The one that
g
ot away’.

Adam was a teacher in the south of England and
h
e was hoping that Beryl would get a position in the
same s
chool. He was a determined young man who knew where he was going. He would look after Beryl, and Tegi was glad about that.

Business was brisk at the bank that morning with all the work of the previous Saturday to take into account, and at lunchtime Tegi shot off to the shops for her mother. She was out of breath when she joined Colin Qua
rn
e in their favourite cafe for lunch.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said.

‘That’s all right.’ Colin smiled and the sun caught the edge of his ginger eyelashes. He had the face of an urchin who might have been mischievous but, though he had grown up, his face had remained the same.

There was nothing remarkable about him. You could lose him a crowd. And there might be, as Dorothy had said, something uninspiring about him. Still waters do not always run deep. But whatever he was, she liked him.

‘I didn’t expect you back today,’ she said happily. ‘Did you enjoy your visit across the water? How is your mother?’

‘Fine. What is it to be, chips and egg?’

She nodded and they exchanged smiles. The sun was out now in force and everywhere had dried up. The cafe was in the centre of the shopping precinct and people drifted by the window.

Tony Mastroni and Dorothy and another couple were strolling by. Dorothy had her arm linked in Tony’s and she was laughing up at him. As Tegi watched, she reached up to kiss his tanned cheek. Then they had gone.

‘Someone you know?’ Colin asked. ‘That red-haired girl kissing that fellow reminded me of your sister. I missed seeing her face, but her back view was remarkably like your Dorothy.’

‘It was Dorothy,’ she answered.

All right, she thought, with a grimace of pain at her egg and chips, I am a sensitive introvert. One little hurt is nothing. I met my prince or my Mr
.
Right, as the corny saying goes, and I was beginning to find out what life is all about by coming out into the sunlight after twenty-five years of nothing. Then
wham! Fate is right to push its big fat hand slap hung in my face before I get out of my depth.

Tegi had not strayed far from this way of reasoning when much later that day she was hurrying to meet Beryl who would be waiting at the Cenotaph on the promenade to pick her up.

Beryl was a teacher at a junior school at the other end of town and she loved her job. She’s the right kind to get married, Tegi thought; she’s used to handling children. I’d spoil them terribly.

The Cenotaph was in sight when she remembered
th
e pills for her father and she had passed the chemists. Calling herself all kinds of a fool, she
d
oubled back. There were two people waiting for prescriptions and the chemist was on his own.

Tegi cooled her heels, glancing first at her watch,
t
hen around the shops at the cosmetics. She picked up a lipstick in her favourite pink and prayed for the chemist to hurry. Every moment seemed like an hour. A
t
last she was being served. The chemist had to count out the pills and she waited impatiently, aware of time running on.

The speed she set up running back to the meeting place would have earned her a place in the Olympics. But Beryl had gone. Tegi gave a deep sigh as her breath came in short pants. She looked at her watch
. She
was not surprised to find Beryl had not waited. They had an agreement that if she failed to turn up a quarter of an hour past the specified time Beryl would go on
without
her and she would return home
b
y bus. Normally Beryl would have waited longer, hut Adam was waiting for her and it was only
natural that she should dash off home as quickly as she could.

Tegi gazed along the sea-front at the hundreds o
f
parked motorbikes there for the races, and she gave a start at the sound of a spanner on the concrete no
t
far away from where she was standing. From th
e
corner of her eye she saw the machine and th
e
leather-coated figure bending over it. She wanted t
o
run.

It was funny; no one else appeared to be around
.
The glittering array of bikes faded to a world co
n
taining herself and the man tinkering with his motorbike. Too late to run, her shaking legs would not carry her. Finally he looked up.

‘Sorry you missed your friend,’ he said. ‘She was in a hurry to go and asked me to tell you she would see you tomorrow.’ His dark eyes mocked the war
m
colour in her cheeks as he whipped a cloth from his pocket to wipe his hands. ‘What about a lift back on the bike?’

Her dark eyes widened. ‘You mean all the way to Ramsey?’ she gasped. ‘Surely the great Tony Mastroni giving a girl a lift on his beautiful bike isn’t the usual thing
or is it?’

Tegi knew she was being cynical, but a picture of Dorothy kissing him that lunchtime still rankled wit
h
a kind of pain. If Tony thought he was going to string her along as well as her sister then he had anothe
r
thin
g
coming!

‘Scared?’ he mocked, lifting a beautiful black eye brow tantalisingly.

‘Of you or the bike?’ she answered, lifting her chin
.

He gave a slow smile and her heart lurched. He r
ea
lly was enormously attractive. But looks were not
e
verything, she reminded herself sternly.

‘I
shall never know, shall I, if you refuse the lift home
?’
he answered on a note of satire.

Tegi stiffened, resenting being laughed at. Who c
a
red if he did regard her as being too prim and proper? She looked at her wristwatch, knowing she w
a
s taking the coward’s way out. Her hair was whipping across her glowing cheeks and her eyes were flowing.

‘My bus will be along soon, thank you,’ she said with some satisfaction.

The shrug of his wide shoulders was essentially foreign. His look and tone of voice cut her down to
size.

'Then I must not keep you,’ he said coolly. ‘Actu
a
l
l
y I am on my way to Ramsey to see a friend, so yo
u
would not have taken me out of my way.’

Instantly Tegi’s thoughts turned to Dorothy. She
sa
id stiffly, ‘If that’s
s
o I won’t keep you either.’

She turned to go, with an enormous sense of letdown weighing heavily upon her shoulders. On
s
e
c
ond thoughts it would have been fun to go with him on the bike, but she could hardly tell him that now.

H
e straightened up, narrowing his eyes as though
regi
stering every detail of her appearance.

H
e said slowly, ‘Your friend will be surprised when you tell her that you refused my offer of a lift home.’

Tegi swung round and brushed back the long
st
rands of hair from across her face as she met the breeze coming from the sea.

‘What do you mean?’ she demanded.

‘She asked me how long I would be here and if I would give you a message. I said I would go one further and offer you a lift home. She was very relieved,’ he explained. ‘She did not like the thought o
f
going without you. Very few words were exchanged
.’

Tegi regarded him with suspicion. Under the spel
l
of his liquid dark eyes she was ready to believe
anything
that astute brain of his could conjure up. She was so weak that he would believe him if he were to tell her the most unlikely story. When you feel like that about a man, you’re in trouble, she knew. She had to play it cool.

‘But how were you supposed to recognise a complete stranger?’ she challenged.

Amusement lifted the corners of his mouth, fille
d
his eyes. He paused.

‘Go on,’ she urged.

‘She gave a very apt description of you.’

‘So?’

He grinned. ‘Your friend described you as a smashing coppernob.’

Tegi froze. ‘So you do make a habit of taking girls on your motorbike,’ she cried.

‘Sometimes
,’
laconically.

‘So you were just waiting for a pick-up?’ Her eyes sparkled with scorn.

He nodded, unabashed. ‘By the name of Tegi. Sh
e
told me your name.’

H
er eyes flashed and her colour deepened. ‘The
n
you knew I was coming all the time? Wasn’t it rathe
r
deceitful not to tell Beryl that you knew me?’

‘No. Who was I to spoil her fun? She was happ
y
to know that you would get a lift home.’ Again the mocking smile made her feel weak. ‘I imagined she would have come with me like a shot in your place.’