Down an English Lane (51 page)

She asked Maisie how she was liking Scotland and wanted to know all about the tour. They had coach parties to stay at the hotel in Inverness, but Galaxy had not yet ventured so far north. Maisie found that she could not help but like her. There was none of the instant animosity that she had felt on first meeting Christine, nor did she sense any possessiveness in Laura’s attitude towards Andy. Maybe there had been something between them in
the past, but there was no sign of it now. He was behaving towards both of them as though they were good chums, not girlfriends, either past or present.

Maisie sang ‘The Bells of Saint Mary’s’, an old-fashioned song which she enjoyed and the audience enjoyed too; Andy sang a selection of the Hebridean songs; and then, together, they performed ‘The Heather on the Hill’, which they always included at least once during the three night stay.

‘You sing well together,’ Laura told them; Maisie noticed that she had applauded enthusiastically at the end of the number.

‘Aye, we’re no’ so bad, are we, Maisie?’ Andy winked at her and grinned. ‘Now, I must tell you – well, ask you, I mean – about the new duets I have in mind for us…’

The songs that he had chosen – and how could she do anything but fall in with his ideas? – could not have been less romantic. They were both by Irving Berlin; ‘A Couple of Swells’ from
Easter Parade
, and ‘Anything you can do (I can do better)’, from
Annie get your Gun.

‘I thought it would make a nice change,’ he said. ‘A couple of wee comedy numbers. Shall we give them a try?’

‘Yes…why not?’ she said. ‘Judy Garland, eat your heart out. And… Betty Hutton, wasn’t she Annie Oakley?’

‘To say nothing of Fred Astaire and Howard Keel,’ laughed Laura.

She stayed with them later that evening, when nearly all the other guests had retired, whilst they practised their new numbers with Jeanette.

And so it was for the rest of Maisie’s stay there. It was as though they were a threesome, during the evenings at any rate. On the second day, of course, she was on her tour of the Trossachs, but she wondered if, on the final day, Friday, Andy might ask her to go out in the car with him as he had done on the last tour. But he did not do so. Maybe he had gone house hunting with Laura…? But she did not find out.

On the Friday night she could not settle to sleep. She tried to read, but to no avail, and then she tossed and turned for what seemed like hours. And an extra glass of wine, which a man from the tour had insisted on buying her, meant that she needed to pay a visit to the little room along the corridor. She sighed and put on her dressing gown, easing her feet into her slippers, then crept along the passageway. On her way back she caught a glimpse of Laura, also clad in her dressing gown, disappearing down the flight of stairs which led to the first floor. Andy’s room was on the first floor…

To her surprise she remained dry-eyed and even managed to sleep. She awoke with a sense of purpose, but not one that cheered her; she was sad at heart and her mind felt numb, but she knew what she had to do. She must forget all about Andy Cameron; she must put him right out of her mind.
He was not for her. As it had been with Bruce, it was just an impossible dream.

Laura was with him and his father as they stood by the coach to say farewell to the guests.

‘Goodbye; it’s been nice meeting you…’ Maisie waved to Laura as she stepped on to the coach. She did not give Andy the chance to even kiss her on the cheek. ‘Bye, Andy…’ she called.

‘Yes… Bye, Maisie,’ he repeated, rather bemusedly. ‘See you in three weeks’ time?’

‘Yes…see you,’ she said. But she was determined not to see him again.

She was quiet on the return journey, as she usually was. The passengers did not want to hear any more stories or information about the scenery they were passing as they had heard it all on the outward journey. Bob, too, was quiet, concentrating on his driving, and Maisie did not attempt to talk to him until they had their lunchtime stop at a little wayside café near the border.

‘Well, Maisie, how’s tricks?’ he asked her.

‘Not too good,’ she replied, ‘if you are referring to what I think you are.’

‘Give the lad a chance,’ he remarked. ‘From what I could see of yon lass she was hanging on to him like a drowning man to a raft. Talk about a clinging vine…’

‘That’s what I’m not sure about,’ said Maisie. ‘I
don’t know what’s going on there… But I’ve decided to give myself a break. I told you, didn’t I, that I made a fool of myself before over a fellow, and I’m not going to do it again.’ She paused, then, ‘I won’t be coming with you on the next tour,’ she said.

‘Now, Maisie love, you mustn’t be hasty. And I don’t see why you should run away…’

‘I’m not doing, Bob. I’m not saying that I won’t go back on the tour sometime…but for the time being I think it’s for the best if I give it a miss.’

‘Aye…’ Bob nodded soberly. ‘It might make that young feller-me-lad come to his senses.’

‘I doubt it, Bob.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that he likes me as a friend, somebody to sing duets with, but as far as anything else is concerned…’ She shrugged. ‘I can’t allow myself to get in any deeper… I told you how I feel about him,’ she added quietly.

‘I shall miss you, Maisie,’ he said. They were both in a pensive mood for the rest of the homeward journey.

She rang Henry Galloway at his home on the Sunday; she was due to set off to Stratford the following day. He listened carefully to her suggestion that Sheila should take over the Scottish tour for a while.

‘She could do with the experience, couldn’t she?’
she asked, ‘and I don’t want to feel I’m hogging the tour. From what she has said to me, I think Sheila would like the chance to do rather more. And I can perhaps do relief work for a while. You did suggest that at one time…’

If Henry felt there might be another reason for Maisie’s request he did not say so. He arranged to meet her in Leeds on the following Saturday, when she returned from her tour in the Midlands.

‘I’ve been thinking about what you said,’ he told her, over their lunch table. ‘In fact, I have acted upon it already, and Sheila is willing to do the next Scottish tour; I might say she jumped at the chance. The trainee courier, Linda, is experienced enough now to take over Sheila’s work, so it should work out very well…

‘I don’t know if you had any ulterior motive to your request, Maisie, and I am not asking. But it made Trixie and I come to a decision.’ He nodded at her in a satisfied way. ‘Now, this is what we have decided… You are not going to London on Monday; Sheila is going to do that tour as well. Instead of that you will be on a flight to Paris with Trixie…’ Maisie gasped, both with surprise and delight.

‘There are a couple of hotels that we want to “recce” there. And the following week you will be in Amsterdam. We want you to make the most of your time there. As well as assessing the hotels, I want you to get acquainted with the cities and the
outlying areas. We will be needing experienced couriers when we start our Continental tours next summer…

‘Now, have you anything to say, or to ask me about it? I know you may feel you are being thrown in at the deep end, but you did request a change, didn’t you?’

‘Indeed I did,’ she said. ‘I’m pleased that you think I’m capable of going abroad. Gosh! How wonderful…’ Her personal problems were receding further back in her mind, as she had been trying to make them do for the past week, as she thought about the exciting times that lay ahead. ‘Trixie will be with me, though, won’t she?’

‘She will at first, but not all the time. We both know, Maisie, that you are capable of doing anything that you set your mind to, and we want you to start finding your feet on the Continent as well as in our own country. You and Trixie are booked on a flight to Paris with Red Rose Airlines, departing from Leeds airport on Monday morning. So off you go now and start packing…’

Henry had insisted she should apply for a passport when she became manageress of the Leeds branch, just in case she might need it. She took it out of the drawer and looked at it wonderingly. Red Rose Airlines was the company that Bruce worked for. She wondered, in passing, if he might be the pilot,
and if, on arrival in Paris, the hotel they were to ‘recce’ might be the one he had mentioned, near to the Tuileries Gardens? But coincidences such as that were unlikely.

She knew it for a fact when she sat in her aeroplane seat with the safety belt fastened and heard the pilot’s voice over the intercom.

‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain, John Whitfield speaking…’ He promised them a smooth flight with no turbulence ahead.

In a few moments, after the deafening roar of the engines and whizzing of propellers, during which time Maisie kept her eyes tightly closed, they were airborne. From her window seat she watched the houses and factories growing smaller and smaller, and the cars on the roads looking like Dinky models, almost topsy-turvy for a moment as the plane turned. Then they were soaring above the clouds.

She was glad of Trixie’s expertise when they arrived, in dealing with the luggage and the taxi to the hotel. Of course it was not anywhere near the Tuileries Gardens, but in a suburb to the east of Paris. Trixie explained that the hotels on the outskirts of the city – in fact, of any city – were far more reasonable in price than those in the centre, an important consideration to the tour managers and to the travellers as well.

They stayed for two nights in two different
hotels, and then decided on the first one. It had a more friendly ambience, well cooked food – a simple evening meal as well as the inevitable rolls and butter for breakfast – and a pleasant leafy locality. It was convenient, too, for the excursions that they planned as part of the tour: a visit to Versailles, the palace of the Sun King, Louis the Fourteenth; and another to the chateau of Fontainebleau; as well as the city tour of Paris itself.

Maisie, with Trixie as her guide, became familiar with the metro – a quick and easy way of getting around, although the coach passengers would be driven to most of the sights by courtesy of Galaxy – and the familiar landmarks. The Eiffel Tower; the Champs Élysées and Arc de Triomphe; the cathedral of Notre Dame and Sacré Coeur; the river trip along the Seine… So many sights and impressions there were to take in on her first visit. But she would need to know them all thoroughly if she intended to conduct a tour in this glamorous city.

The following week found Maisie and Trixie in the Netherlands, investigating a farmhouse type hotel in the rural Friesian area, to the north of Amsterdam. They agreed that it was perfect. They explored the places they intended to include on the tour; the city of Amsterdam with its tree-lined canals and bridges, cobbled streets and colourful flower markets; the fishing village of Volendam; the picturesque villages of the Iselmeer – once known as
the Zuider Zee – Marken, where the elderly people still wore national dress, and Edam, famous for its round red-coated cheese.

This was the week, of course when Maisie would normally have been in Scotland…

Andy Cameron was looking forward to seeing Maisie again. He had known at once, on first meeting her, that he was attracted to her, but as was his wont, he had proceeded with caution. She was a travel courier, here for a few days, and the next week somewhere entirely different. How did he know but that she had male friends – a regular boyfriend, maybe – elsewhere?