Stranger Passing By. Lilian Peake
too,’ chorused many of the others.
There the conversation tailed off, the group dispersing to help themselves to more of the food and fill their glasses with the surprisingly good-quality wine. This last, Crystal calculated, with unaccustomed cynicism, Worldview had surely provided not only to soften the blow of dismissal, but also to keep reality from bursting in before the doomed employees reached home.
Hunger appeased, she wandered somewhat despondently away from the crowd, finding herself in the open air and standing at the edge of a softly illuminated paved area set about with wrought-iron tables and chairs.
Other guests sat under the evening sky, some alone, others in cosy twosomes, plainly at one with the world, secure in their jobs and their ways of life. Unlike, Crystal reflected, herself and her colleagues, who had just been informed of their impending loss of employment and plunge into near-poverty, if not actual destitution.
Losing the job she loved and the salary that went with it was a double blow. It was money she needed to enable her not only to eat but also to pay the rent of the old but cosy two-bedroomed end-of-terrace cottage she lived in.
‘Miss Rose.’ Her name wafted, a mere whisper, on the cool evening air. ‘Over here, Miss Rose.’ Crystal swung towards a shaded corner of the wide patio from which the voice had come.
A figure half reclined against a plinth that supported the statue of a somewhat scantily robed woman rising with dignity and proud beauty towards the darkening sky.
The height of the man, the width of his shoulders, the elegant suit, not to mention the fine shape of his head and slightly indolent pose, told Crystal at once who he was. But should she go at his bidding? Her feet made the decision for her.
‘Yes?’ was her whispered answer as her closer proximity to him allowed her to survey the features she had come to know so well through their constant appearance in her dreams.
He seemed to have no answer to offer, except to hold out the dish of savouries he had selected from an assortment of edibles that rested on the statue’s standing area. It was so reminiscent of the first time they had met that laughter tugged at Crystal’s throat, and a brilliant grey-eyed smile echoed her amusement.
‘I’m full, thanks,’ she answered his gesture, but, as before, the dish was proffered again, so she accepted, and wondered at the strange improvement in the taste of the titbit on that of those she had eaten inside. It wasn’t that the quality was better, she was sure of that. It was...what was it? The time, the place and the man standing there that had imbued the savoury with the flavour of nectar?
Should I, she found herself wondering, in view of the unhappy circumstances that now prevailed, really be on such—well, friendly terms with the top man? Wasn’t she in danger of letting her colleagues down?
‘You—you haven’t just returned from a trip abroad, I suppose?’ she queried, accepting—as before—the paper napkin he offered.
He nodded, consuming another portion of the mini-meal as if he could not appease his hunger fast enough.
‘I thought I recognised the signs,’ she commented with a smile, which he returned, with a devastating effect on her pulse-rate. ‘Your dislike of airline food?’
‘Full marks for an excellent memory.’ A sliver of salmon atop a bed of lettuce on a finger of toast was demolished by a crunch of formidable white teeth.
‘Where—where from this time?’
He swallowed, licking his fingers then using a paper napkin, looking vaguely round for a waste-bin. Crystal took the scrunched paper from him, depositing it on a plate.
‘Japan,’ he just got out before another colossal yawn enveloped him. For a couple of seconds his eyes closed. Allowing himself a mere moment for recovery—his stamina, Crystal found herself thinking, must be remarkable—he reached across the plinth for a wine bottle.
Having secured it, he realised that, with the other hand holding a savoury, he had no hand free with which to pick up the glass that perched precariously on the stone base.
It took Crystal a mere second to react, seizing the glass by its stem just before it toppled. Taking the bottle, she poured him a generous supply. This he gratefully accepted, raising the glass in a salute and drinking deeply, his eyes reflectively on her as he imbibed.
Then they narrowed and she heard him ask, ‘Who taught you to anticipate a man’s needs so promptly and so skilfully?’ The wine bottle was almost empty now.
‘Instinct, intuition. Maybe my genes?’
A smile flirted with his expressive mouth at her playful reply.
‘I,’ he straightened, hands in pockets, ‘would put my money on a demanding boyfriend.’
‘Then, Mr Akerman, you’d be throwing your money away.’ She didn’t want to talk about Mick. It hurt even now, just thinking about him.
A reflective pause, then ‘So keep off. I can hear it in your voice. OK, I won’t trespass on private grief.’
‘No, no, it’s not like that!’ And strangely, incredibly, it wasn’t. Out of the blue, she discovered that she just didn’t care any more about Mick Temple and the heartless way he’d thrown her over for another girl.
‘So tell me, then,’ he asked, ignoring her outburst, ‘who taught you to be so belligerent and bellicose?’
Crystal’s mouth fell open. ‘You can’t be talking about me?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Carefully he recorked the empty bottle. ‘Who jumped to her feet this evening at every opportunity and challenged the platform?’
‘Who—?’ How could she tell him she had been as surprised as he was? ‘Oh. I’m—er—sorry about that.’ A pause, then, tossing her head, ‘No, I’m not. What I said came from the heart.’
‘Crys—tal? Hey, Crystal! So this is where you’ve got to.’ Roger came round a corner and stopped dead, looking from one to the other, frowning uncomfortably. ‘Sorry to butt in, but Crystal, I—er—we missed you. Thought you might have gone home without telling us.’ With an apologetic lift of the hand, he made to leave, but checked himself. ‘About that other matter, Crystal—could I call you, reference what we discussed?’
‘Why not? Any time.’
Roger seemed pleased, and Crystal hoped he had not read more into her invitation than her agreement to do some office work for him.
‘You’d better go, Miss Rose,’ came the dry remark, Brent Akerman having plainly made his own—wrong—interpretation. ‘Betts is missing you.’
Brent Akerman, the chief executive of the group known as Worldview International, actually remembered Roger’s surname?
‘The others, too,’ he waved his hand vaguely, ‘are missing their leader, their spokesman.’ He folded his arms and leaned against the plinth, smiling mockingly. ‘Oh, dear. Womankind will be after my—’ an eyebrow darted upward ‘—be after me. I’d better feminise that word fast—spokeswoman. And,’ his head went back to rest on the statue’s hard bare thighs, ‘do let the management know, won’t you, if there’s going to be a strike, or a sit-in? Or even a march in the town. You must inform the police about that, did you know? The management would hate to see the lovely Crystal Rose thrown into gaol through ignorance of the law.’
Annoyed by his cynicism, she was about to retaliate when she saw that his eyes had closed. ‘Mr Akerman,’ she whispered.
‘Yes?’ without lifting his head.
‘Shouldn’t you go home? I’m sure your wife will be anxious. Could I—shall I use the hotel phone and tell her you’ll soon be on your way?’
‘Call my place, by all means,’ came from him harshly, ‘but there’ll be no answer. I have no wife, no clinging little woman waiting for me.’ The