LITMIR.BIZ

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to look up at him, ‘you shouldn't waste yourself in this wilderness. You'd have far more chance in London.'

      ‘Wilderness?’ Catriona faced him bewilderedly. ‘But, Jeremy, I thought you liked Torvaig.'

      ‘I do like it,’ he said. ‘But I like it because you're here. Without you, I wouldn't have spent a second day here. It's too quiet for me. I like some action.'

      Remembering this now in the homely warmth of the McGregor kitchen, Catriona felt her spirits plummet. It was the only difference they had ever had. When he had finally gone back to London, he had promised to return the following spring, if he could. But Easter had come and gone and no sign of him, and then shortly before Whitsun, Aunt Jessie's ill-used weak heart had finally given way, ironically enough as she sat watching one of her beloved sunsets over the western sea.

      It was Jeremy's parting words that Catriona had remembered in the bewilderment of grief, when she had realised that the house would have to be sold to pay off various creditors, as well as the mortgage which she did not feel capable of shouldering.

      ‘Here's my address.’ He gave her a folded piece of paper. ‘Keep it safe. If you ever need me, that's where I'll be.'

      They had kissed and she had clung to him, her face wet with tears, promising to wait for him. At first his letters had come often and hers returned as eagerly. Then the frequency began to falter, although he still talked of the time when they would be together always. Now, if she faced it, five months had gone by with no word. Catriona had salved her pride by telling herself that Jeremy was busy with his studies and that he had important exams coming up, which, as he'd said in an early letter, could make all the difference to their future together. It was this, and the address carefully treasured in her trinket box at home, that had decided Catriona on her next course of action, now that she was alone.

      She looked up from her reverie and found Mrs McGregor watching her concernedly. She smiled back at her.

      ‘It'll be all right,’ she said. ‘I know it will. I can't bear to stay here with Auntie—and the house—gone like that. And I can't bear to see what the Mackintoshes are going to do with the place either. Besides, London will be an adventure, and Jeremy will be there.’ She smiled again, more gaily. ‘I'll send you a piece of wedding cake.'

      ‘So I should hope—when you find a husband,’ Mrs McGregor said a trifle caustically.

      She confided her misgivings to her husband over supper that evening.

      ‘But she's set on it,’ she added, and sighed. ‘London's a gey long way to go, just to have your heart broken. I doubt yon poor lassie knows what she's getting herself into.'

      A week later, standing completely bewildered in the bustle of Euston, Catriona was wondering exactly the same thing. The noise from the loudspeakers, the roar of the traffic outside, and the shouting and banging on the station itself as trains arrived and departed filled her with unreasoning panic. After the silence of Torvaig, where the hum of the telegraph wires was often clearly audible even in the middle of the day, she felt as if her eardrums would burst. What was worse, everyone but her seemed to know exactly where they were going. She followed the crowd to the barrier and gave up her ticket.

      Outside in the sunlight, she felt even more uncomfortable. Jeremy's address was tucked safely in an inside pocket of her leather shoulder bag, but she had no idea how to get there. Awkwardly she shifted her rucksack on to her other shoulder and leaned her guitar case against a newsvendor's stand while she tried to take stock of her surroundings. Most of the money she possessed in the world—just under two hundred pounds—was safely locked up in a small cashbox in her rucksack, but she had kept a few pounds in her handbag for emergencies. Catriona decided ruefully that the first emergency was now. Picking up her guitar, she walked purposefully to the queue of people waiting for taxis. But when her turn came, she found to her astonishment that she was calmly elbowed out of the way by two smartly dressed men. She stood indignantly on the pavement watching the last cab draw away, and a certain grimness crept into her expression. As another cab pulled up, a fur-coated woman stepped forward, brushing Catriona aside. Catriona swung her rucksack and there was a startled yelp as its bulk encountered the fur coat. The woman tottered, momentarily off balance, and Catriona squeezed past. ‘Mine, I think,’ she said, pushing her guitar case on to the back seat. She sat back feeling a little guilty at her discourtesy, but at the same time faintly victorious. If this was how Londoners conducted themselves, then a Muir could do just as well!

      ‘Where to, ducks?'

      ‘Oh.’ Catriona produced Jeremy's slip of paper and pushed it through the glass partition. The driver looked at it and whistled. ‘It's quite a way.’ He turned and studied his passenger, from the attractive mass of curly dark hair on her shoulders down over the duffel coat and slim-fitting levis to the well-worn brogues. ‘It'll cost you.'

      ‘I have money.’ Catriona lifted her chin at him.

      ‘Suit yourself, love,’ and he let in the clutch.

      By the time the journey was over, Catriona was too sick with nervousness to worry over-much about the amount on the meter, although one corner of her thrifty soul registered a momentary squeal of outrage as she handed over the fare and added a generous tip.

      ‘Shall I hang on?’ asked the driver, apparently moved by the unexpected gesture.

      Catriona looked up at the house where the cab had halted. It was not quite what she had envisaged, being a narrow terraced building with peeling stucco. The paintwork needed renewal, and the front garden was untended. Almost unconsciously Catriona's nose wrinkled. It was not the rendezvous she would have chosen for an ecstatic reunion with Jeremy. She bit her lip uncertainly. She wished now she had written to him in advance telling him that she was coming. She acknowledged now, standing in the dirty street, that she had been secretly afraid that he might try to deter her. For a moment she found it hard to remember even what Jeremy looked like, and again that odd sense of panic gripped her. She turned to the driver hesitantly.

      ‘Perhaps—you would wait.'

      She mounted the short flight of cracked steps and rang the bell.

      ‘Probably not working, love,’ the driver called. ‘Bang on the door instead.'

      Catriona complied with his advice, and after an endless moment or two the door was flung open. She was confronted by a thin woman in a soiled blue nylon overall, her hair in rollers under a yellow chiffon scarf.

      ‘No vacancies,’ she snapped, and made to close the door again.

      Catriona stepped forward with a determination that she was far from feeling.

      ‘I'm looking for one of your tenants, a Mr Jeremy Lord.'

      ‘Are you now?’ The woman's eyes appraised Catriona suggestively, lingering for a moment at her waistline. ‘Well, you're too late, dear. He's gone.'

      ‘Gone? Where?’ Catriona felt the world spin round her. This was one development she had failed to take into account in her planning. Jeremy had told her she would find him here and she had believed him. She fought to remain calm.

      ‘He left about three months ago. A nice Indian gentleman's got the room now.’ The woman waited for a minute. ‘Well, if that's all, dear, I must get on.'

      Catriona moved impulsively. ‘Did he—was there any forwarding address?'

      ‘Now let me think. Some do, and some don't, of course. And there's a few who don't want to be traced.’ She gave Catriona a malicious smile. ‘But I'm sure that won't be true in your case, ducks. You wait here, while I see.’ She disappeared to the rear of the musty hall and went through a door.

      Catriona, fighting her tears, stood forlornly on the step. What if there was no address? She supposed there would be a hostel somewhere she could go to for the time being. Perhaps the driver would know. He seemed kind. Yet at the back of her mind were all the warnings she had ever heard about trusting strangers in big cities. She had never felt more alone, even at Aunt Jessie's funeral, for there the unspoken sympathy of the rest of the village had been like

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