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She felt no jealousy that she had no part in the scene she had just witnessed. If anything grew out of what she had just seen, and she was prepared to accept that having found herself in love she might be imagining a growing warmth between the two out there where none existed, she would be pleased. It was just that for a moment she had pictured herself out there with Crawford mowing a lawn they both shared, while she kept an eye open for any mischief her own babies, hers and Crawford’s, might get up to.

Presently she got up off the bed. Oh, to think of the way she had responded to him! Her face flamed at the remembrance of it. She’d asked for all she’d got. Vividly Crawford’s voice came back to her, his saying he had no intention of seducing her. ‘I just never expected to have so much co-operation,’ he had said. Oh where had the cool, calm PA. been then? Unable to bear the agony of embarrassed thoughts, Gerry brushed her hair and quickly escaped from the quietness of the room.

It was much better downstairs; at least she was able to occupy herself. She hurried round preparing a meal, her feet flying as she raced from pantry to kitchen to dining table as though trying to outstrip the thoughts that dived in on her when she was determined not to think at all. She slowed down when she heard the others coming, and moved away from the sink when Paul Meadows came in with Teddy to wash his hands.

‘Thanks for doing that job,’ Gerry said. ‘I fully intended to cut the grass this week but never got round to it.’

‘My pleasure,' Paul told her, the familiar twinkle in his eyes beaming in her direction, covering the fact he was also running a professional eye over her. "Actually Teddy had the same idea when I called, and was already wielding your piece of antique machinery with the same expertise as I imagine she would use with a combine harvester when I arrived.’

Gerry looked at Teddy to see how she was taking this piece of teasing. Teddy didn’t seem about to retaliate in kind as she half expected, but just looked at Paul as he turned to her, and smiled. Gerry looked away. There had been a friendly intimacy in that look that made her feel an intruder. It was a brief look, but long enough for Gerry to know that even if these two people didn’t know it yet themselves, Cupid was ready to have a go at them too.

She turned away, and as Paul had left the sink and was now drying his hands, took his place and turned on the cold water tap and started to fill up the bowl—though with no idea what reason she had for doing so.

‘How are you feeling, Miss Barton?’ She came to hear Paul addressing her, and turned off the tap and upended the bowl.

'Gerry,' she said, realising since she was his patient, where Teddy wasn’t, perhaps ethics made him unlikely to call her by her first name. Dr Bidley always called her Gerry, but he was old enough to be her father. 'I'm fine— I was coming to see you tonight to say I’m going back to work on Monday.’

Paul shook his head doubtfully. ‘I don’t think so, Gerry. Give it another week.’ He could see from her expression she didn’t like the idea. ‘Your employer would bring the G.M.C. down on me if he had to bring you home from work in the same condition as last time,’ he told her, trying to lighten her expression.

Since Paul had no idea what had transpired between her and Crawford that afternoon, Gerry forced a smile to hide her feelings. ‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘But I can definitely return to work the week after, can’t I?’

‘We’ll see,' said Paul noncommittally.

When she thought about it afterwards, Gerry came to think perhaps it was just as well she wasn’t going back to work on Monday. She didn’t know how she was going to face Crawford for one thing—and the longer she left returning to the office, the more likelihood there was of William Hudson, her new boss, being in the chair. She knew for certain Crawford would never again call at the cottage, and felt sick every time she thought of the cold way he had left her after he had brought her home from that drive—he had hardly waited to see her out of the car before he had roared away.

It was in the middle of the following week that Gerry elected to leave Teddy catching up on the ever-present pile of washing, while she took Emma and Sarah for an outing. She had been out for about an hour, and turned the comer into the road where they lived and could have sworn she saw Crawford’s car driving away up the hill. It wasn’t the convertible but the saloon model he used.

Her first feeling was of disappointment that she had missed seeing him. Then as commonsense homed in, she was glad—if indeed it had been him—that she had missed him. She couldn't think why he should call—could have sworn he would give Little Layton as wide a berth as possible, and knew she would have gone scarlet if it had been she who had answered his knock on the door.

Unconsciously, her feet had quickened their pace; they seemed to know what she wasn’t ready to admit, that she wanted to get to the cottage as quickly as possible to find out what Crawford had been doing in Little Layton. As far as she knew they were the only people in the village he knew—and he wouldn’t come in the middle of a busy working day just for the ride.

‘Was that Crawford's car I just saw?’ Gerry asked her sister without preamble as soon as she was inside the back door.

‘Er ...’ Teddy blushed, and made a job of rinsing out the last of the nappies.

‘You’ve gone red,’ Gerry said with sisterly candour. ‘What did he want?’ She was sure now it had been him— and witnessed With growing disquiet the colour staining her sister’s cheeks. Teddy never blushed unless she had been found out in something she had been up to.

‘Er—it’s meant to be a surprise,’ Teddy said, recovering her composure.

Oh God, he’s asked her to marry him, Gerry thought for no logical reason, and knew she just wouldn’t be able to take being his sister-in-law.

‘What is?’ She made her voice sound calm and disinterested, while her fingernails bit into her palms as she waited.

‘Crawford’s had your car repaired—it’s being delivered tomorrow.’

‘Oh!’ All that sank in was the fact that her worst fears hadn’t been realised. ‘That was nice of him.’ Nothing she tried could put any warmth into her voice—she felt frozen inside at the torment of her emotions, and said anything to get off the subject of Crawford. ‘The twins’ pushchair doesn’t squeak any more,’ she said it as if it was news she didn’t think Teddy could wait to hear.

Teddy looked her in the eyes then for the first time, only Gerry had been too tense to notice she had been avoiding looking at her. 'I know,’ she said. ‘Paul oiled it.’

It was Gerry’s turn the next morning to rinse through a few of the children’s things while Teddy took the twins out. Most times when Gerry wasn’t working, they went out together, but Teddy had said yesterday she didn’t feel like a walk, and today Gerry wanted to be in when the A35 was delivered.

She still couldn’t weigh up why Crawford had called personally with the message when he could easily have telephoned. But after a lot of thinking about it, she came to the conclusion that he must have been going in the general direction of Little Layton, and had decided Honeysuckle Cottage wasn’t too far out of his way. She could well have gone herself to collect it, she mused—it would probably not have taken too long since a bus went from the village at half past nine, and she would have no need to wait hours for another bus back—but still, she had to concede, having her tyre mended and having the car delivered back to her had been more than she could have expected since Crawford had no opinion at all of her.

Mrs Chapman came in from where she had been busily occupied in the living room, bringing Gerry’s thoughts away from Crawford for a brief while—though not for long, since it seemed impossible to get him out of her mind these days. She would have to do something about that soon, but what, she had no idea. She couldn’t afford to leave a job that paid so well—though when he went back to London she wouldn’t see him again ...

‘We’ve run out of polish,’ Mrs Chapman brought her back to earth.

‘I’ll get some when I go shopping tomorrow,’ Gerry promised with a smile, and heard how Mrs Chapman’s mother used to make her own polish with vinegar and paraffin. Then in the same breath Mrs Chapman said she would pop up and ‘do’ upstairs.

After Mrs Chapman had gone upstairs Gerry reflected over the conversation she’d had with her soon after Teddy had gone out. Conversation, she mused, was hardly the word to describe the few sentences that had passed between them when she had told her she would be paying her wages from now on.

‘Oh, but Mr Arrowsmith’s paid me to the end of the month,’ Mrs Chapman stated, seeing nothing wrong in the arrangement, apparently. ‘He said he’d send me a cheque at the beginning of next month too—I haven’t got a bank, but our June will change it for me—he’s nice, isn’t he, Mr Arrowsmith. A lovely man.'

Gerry could hear Mrs Chapman moving the furniture about upstairs, and went into the living room to see if there were any signs of her car coming. She was going to pay him back somehow, she determined. Somehow he was going to be made to take his money back. As yet she wasn’t sure how this was going to be achieved since the last time she had attempted to do just that he had very nearly broken her wrist—well, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but she’d certainly had bruises for a day or two.

She was in the kitchen when her car was delivered, so didn’t see it arrive, but the sounds of car doors being closed had her going out to investigate. The sight that met her eyes was enough to make her cry, but she fought back the tears and went to greet the two men who had delivered a shining A35 to her door. Her car was parked on the drive, and a van with Arrowsmith Electronics emblazoned on the side was parked by the kerb, the van driver having followed her car and now ready to take the other man back.

‘Not bad, eh?’ the older, shorter of the two men greeted her as he saw her eyes riveted in disbelief on the car that had been rusty, battered, dented, and held together more by prayer than by anything else.

‘What have you done to it?’ she gasped, unable to believe the evidence of her own eyes. For in place of the old wreck she had pointed out to Crawford that day he had brought her home was a shining, immaculate A35, with not a dent in it.

‘We had orders from the top to strip it down, report on it, and after that to build it up again.’ He then went on to tell her about the worn-out track rod ends and king-pins, talked some more about brake cylinders and shoes—all of which meant very little to Gerry and wouldn’t have sunk in anyway, for her eyes were still glued to the car which was shining so brightly, she couldn’t help but think it had been re-sprayed as well.

She was sure of it as she went to take a closer look, and said as much, and had her suspicions confirmed, plus further talk of welding and undersealing.

‘I was told to tell you to give it a trial run before you drive it into town,’ the short man told her. ‘The steering will be spot on now, so you’ll have to adjust to that.’ Gerry remembered there had been quite a bit of play in the steering before, and thanked the man wholeheartedly, since it became obvious he had done the majority of the work. ‘It was a treat to do it,’ he said, looking well pleased himself. ‘It was a good little car in its day.’

The two men went off down the path, only for the man who had done most of the talking to come hurrying back again. ‘Nearly forgot,’ he said, holding out a slip of paper. ‘Your M.O.T. certificate. You’ll be all right now for twelve months—though you shouldn’t have any trouble getting another seventy-thousand miles out of her now.’

Gerry couldn’t bear to think of the cost of restoring her car to its new pristine condition. She was already in Crawford’s debt over Mrs Chapman—hadn’t yet been able to come up with a way of settling that account, though she had thought vaguely of sending him a cheque with a polite note repeating what she had already told him, that she would pay Mrs Chapman herself from now on. But now here she was landed with a bill she could never hope to repay—it must run into hundreds since the mechanic had talked of new wings and various other parts. Crawford might think he had been doing her a favour, and she had to admit he had settled a very pressing problem that had been worrying her of how she was going to get to and from work on Monday—but it was against all her instincts to owe money. Something threatened to rise up and choke her at the thought of being in his debt. She sought through her mind for something to sell—there wasn’t anything.

The joy of seeing her car, so lovely, so immaculate, had disappeared. It didn’t help when Teddy came in with every appearance of having been on a spending spree in the few stores the village possessed.

‘I couldn’t resist these little T-shirts for the twins— aren’t they gorgeous?’ she enthused. ‘And while I was in the chemist, I bought us both a lipstick.’

Gerry’s
first day back at work was much less traumatic than she had been building herself up for. Ever since she had awakened that morning there had been one thought and one thought only in her mind—how on earth was she going to face Crawford again? That it had to be done, that there was no way she could get out of it, had been with her almost continuously since the last time she had parted from him. To tell herself he would have gone back to London by now, would have no need to visit the Layton branch of his company except for the occasional conference with the higher up executives, didn’t ring true in her ears. She knew instinctively that as sure as night followed day, some time sooner or later she was going to come up against him, and she couldn’t make up her mind whether she wanted to get it over and done with today or whether a few more weeks of not seeing him might ease the pain of that meeting.

‘Oh no!’ wailed Teddy, sitting up in bed and watching while Gerry dressed her hair. ‘Not that style again, love— it does nothing for you.’

Gerry continued to work her hair into its bun. She didn’t like it either, but felt better able to adopt the cool front she thought necessary to get her through the day if
he
was there.

‘You’re only jealous because yours isn’t long enough to do the same,’ she kidded Teddy, whose own hair had been cut short and professionally curled on Saturday.