Chapter 72: Chapter 72: The Girl Who Came Back - Chapter Twenty-Eight

As Beth and I enjoy our High Tea, a couple of men roll in the door, clearly the worse for wear for drinking. We ignore them, but one suddenly points to me and Beth. “Hey, look at them. Must be sisters.”

Beth looks uncomfortable, turning away. The two don’t take the hint. “Hello, ladies. Mind if we join you?”

Leaning back from the boozy breath blowing my way, “Actually, we do mind. These seats are taken.

We’re waiting for our husbands.”

Beth glances at me, questioning my white lie with a look. I widen my eyes at her. There are times we have to do these things.

The louts take no notice. “Pair of lookers like you. Shouldn’t be sitting by yourselves like this.” One of them starts to paw at Beth. She says nothing, but looks upset and pulls away.

Why doesn’t she tell him to leave her alone?

But she doesn’t. The lout starts stroking her arm. Shrinking from him, she stares at the floor. “Leave her alone,” I say, “her husband won’t like it.”

He ignores me, continuing to rub his fingers up and down the immaculate chiffon of Beth’s blouse.

“Leave her alone,” I hiss. “Get your grubby paws off her.”

“Who’s gonna make me? You?” he sneers. “Anyway, Tommy here fancies you.”

As he speaks, the yahoo next to me makes a bid for a feel, but I jab sideways, hard, with my elbow into his ribs. He grunts. “You little bitch…” he roars, and turns to make a grab at me.

At the same moment, the other one makes a lunge for Beth. I stand and, over the table, punch for his face. I catch him squarely and, with coffee pot, scones and cream scattering in all directions, uproar breaks out….

*****

Beth and I sit together in the cell, holding hands. Being in here is not pleasant, and we are sitting as far away as we can from two teenage girls who are semi-conscious on some form of drug, and another one who is high on something else.

There is the rattle of keys, and a guard unlocks the door.

“You and you,” he says, jabbing a finger at me and Beth, as he holds the door open.

Out in the office are Richard, my Master, and Ross.

Haswell is incandescent. “Ross, please accompany my wife back to the car if you would. Take her straight home.” The look he gives me is one of pure fury.

My Master looks down at me “What the hell happened, Charlotte?” he mutters at me as we follow the enraged Haswell out of the building. But I don’t get a chance to reply as Haswell points a finger at a car parked up nearby. “In the back,” he barks at me.

The drive is silent. Back in the building, he marches me up to his office, pointing me to stand in front of his desk. He sits but does not invite me to do so.

Jabbing a finger towards me, “You may feel that you can break all the conventional rules, Ms Conners, but when I am obliged to bail my wife out of the city jail because of your behaviour….”

“Sir, I….”

“Did I invite you to speak?”

I bite my lip, hanging my head. “I am informed,” he continues, “that you assaulted a customer in the coffee room. The hospital reports a broken nose and contusions….”

The door bursts open. Beth is there.

“Elizabeth… I told you to go straight home. Where’s Ross...?”

“Ross tells me you are holding Charlotte to blame for what happened. I told him to bring me here.”

“Ross takes his orders from me.”

“Not on this occasion, while you have Charlotte standing there like that.”

“I was requiring an explanation of her.”

“The explanation, if you bothered to ask politely, is that two thugs were trying to molest me, and Charlotte put up a fight on my behalf.”

My Master looks at me. “Charlotte, you didn’t….”

Beth continues. “The one who was trying to grope me, she hit him in the face. She landed him a punch that any professional would be proud of. It’s not her fault if the security guard was too pig-headed to find out who did what, before he called the police.”

My Master looks down, shaking with laughter.

Haswell looks stunned. Speaking slowly, he says, “It seems I owe you an apology, Charlotte. I assumed…”

“Beth was frightened,” I say. “I could see that. She doesn’t know how to look after herself the way I do.”

My Master interrupts. “You will find that Charlotte feels strongly on the subject of men who won’t take a hint. The last time I saw her do something like this, a man, six inches taller than she is, wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer. She felled him with a single blow.”

Haswell finally thaws out completely. His eyes crinkle up in humour. “You mean, this has happened before?”

Embarrassed. I mutter, “I just believe in sticking up for myself….”

Haswell bursts out laughing. He turns to my Master. “And you paid for this woman?”

My Master coils an arm around my waist, kissing the top of my head. “Worth every cent.”

Richard looks at his wife. “Elizabeth, will you please go home now.”

As she turns to leave, she looks at me. “Thanks, Charlotte.”

Richard turns to me. “Sit down for God’s sake, the pair of you.” He looks me in the eye. “You’re right of course. Elizabeth is a gentle soul. She needs protection. You, I think, are made of tougher stuff. You are much more….”

My Master breaks in. “Self-reliant?”

“‘Feral’ is the word I was thinking of….”

He ponders for a moment. “Mmmm… Perhaps we can make this work for us. If you’re going to be spending time out on-site, which you surely are, it does no harm to have a reputation for not taking any rubbish from the men around you.”

“On-site?”

“Yes, on-site. You want to see the Project, don’t you? You’ve only seen the plans, and around the offices so far.”

“I’d love to.”

“Come on then. I’ll give you a tour.”

*****

On the Project site, Haswell shows me around, comparing what I see on the ground, to what the plans show.

Perhaps it is his apology for misreading me earlier. He is the soul of courtesy, pointing out where old sweatshops and slums have gone, to be replaced by the upcoming, sleek and modern homes; where the bridge, designed by my Master, will span the river, the foundations and pilings already being laid.

After a while, he is called away, his attention needed on some snag. “Go wherever you want, Charlotte,” he says. “See everything.”

I trail behind surveyors and engineers, following their tracks, trying to interpret groundworks, and transform them in my head into the soaring city I saw in the model.

Bulldozers are shifting huge tracts of rubble, crushing and flattening it, to lay the groundwork for the next phase of the building works. The old road layout is all but gone. Only because I know where I am, is any of it recognisable.

Feeling like a spare part, I wander around a bit, before coming to something I recognise; the remains of a timber sign, a notice board. Half smashed, and the paint peeling away, I can still read the letters ‘Blessingm….’ Half an image of a cartoon meadow, with butterflies and birds flitting about with fake cartoon smiles, rots off the surface of the timber.

Shivering, I fight down nausea.

There is a hand on my shoulder, and I startle violently. Spinning to face it, it is my Master, holding up both hands, apologetically, almost warding me off. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

He looks down at the board by my feet, his expression disturbed.

“Are you going to tell me about it?”

“Yes.” But the words stick in my throat.

Tell him.

He waits, then, “When you’re ready, Charlotte.”