The Baby Scandal(9)

"Stop  right there." He pressed, palms down, on the circular table and  looked  at her grimly. "Now you listen to me, because I'll only say this  once.  If you don't want to do this, then that's all well and fine, but  don't  think that you can hide behind a lot of hogwash about not being  gritty  enough and not being prepared for this kind of thing because  you're a  vicar's daughter and not being the right sort of person. Just  come right  out with the truth, which is that this particular assignment  doesn't  appeal to you Perhaps you don't like the thought of working  nights.  Perhaps you just find the girls we'll be interviewing  distasteful. Is  that it? Have I put my finger on the button? Do you  fancy that you're  better than they ate?"

Ruth's face had turned as white as a sheet, and when she picked up her glass of wine her hand was trembling.

How  could he say those things? He had got it all wrong! She had spent  hours  thinking about what she was going to say, working out her  explanations  in her head, and when it had come to the crunch her own  tongue-tied,  gauche, immature stupidity had let her down again! Had  left him with all  the wrong impressions.

"No!" she protested defensively. "I have  no objection to working nights  at all...I don't have any family  commitments...and I don't... How can  you say that I find those  girls...distasteful?" Her voice was shocked  and mortified at the  assumption, and she watched his expression change  from brutal, punishing  grimness to something gentler.                       
       
           



       

"Then what is it?" he asked quietly.

"I...I feel inadequate for the job," she said finally, which hadn't been part of the rehearsed speech at all.

"I  was appalled by those stories last night. Girls who leave home for  no  better reasons than lack of space and arguments with  step-parents-leave  home and at the age of seventeen drop the lid on  their futures for ever.  I wanted to take them home with me and, I don't  know...save them, I  suppose. Instead I had to jot down every word they  said, ask questions  and then say goodbye, because tonight we'll move  on to a couple of  different faces, with different stories and different  little tragedies."


"But  you can't make everything better, and hiding away from certain   unpleasant realities doesn't mean that they no longer exist. It just   means that you remove yourself from the inconvenience of having to   confront them."

Ruth hadn't tied her hair back Nor had she tied it back the night before. It fell like silk to her shoulders.

With  her hair loose and wearing a skirt that was a little shorter than   normal and a blouse that was a little less buttoned up than customary,   she felt strangely vulnerable.

She felt like a woman instead of a girl.

Particularly  here, now, sitting opposite someone so potently masculine  and in a  situation where the dress code of formality was not in  existence.

The  night before she had maintained a healthy distance, physically,  from  him. She had taken up her position on the chair furthest from his,   allowing the two young girls to sit between them, facing one another,   but even so, her eyes had slipped towards him with unerring regularity.   It was almost as though she had needed to feed off him, feast her eyes   on his image, allow his overpowering masculinity to seep into her like  a  liquid.

She suspected that all this was a little bit puerile, a little bit unhealthy.

Her  reaction to him frightened and confused her, and, because she had  no  slide rule against which to measure it, she ingenuously justified it  as  perfectly natural, absolutely normal to be fascinated by a member  of the  species who was so utterly different from any of his kind she  had ever  met before. She equated it with a lack of logic that she  tailed to  recognize, with the same sort of fascination that might grip  her were  she to find herself in the company of a two-headed monster.

"I don't have a problem confronting reality," she said awkwardly.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that you've led a very sheltered life, very protected, very cocooned.

You worked hard at school, did ballet, maybe a bit of horse riding, had every angle of your life mapped out..."

"There's  nothing wrong with that!" Ruth burst out vehemently. "I'm glad  I had a  sheltered life! I would hate to have been like those girls!"

"Is  that why you find it so hard to be in their company? Because you  can't  identify with them? Because they seem like aliens to you when in  fact  they're just less fortunate?"

"No," Ruth said wearily. "I told  you, I just feel too much  compassion... I also feel around a hundred  next to them, when in fact  I'm only a few years older. I feel like their  mums and I respond as  thought I were..."

"You feel older because of the way you project yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean..." Here he drew in a long breath and looked at her steadily. Look, at the way you dress."

Ruth automatically glanced over herself and blushed.

"You  spent the whole of last night huddled in your denim jacket as  though  you were terrified you might catch something if you took it  off."

"I felt cold."

"The place was packed with people and it was boiling hot."

"I...I..." She searched around for a logical reason for her sartorial reticence of the night before and found none.

The  truth of the matter was she hadn't dared expose the tiny  skin-fitting  top she had daringly slung on before she'd left the house.  It clung  lovingly, to every inch of her body. It was the sort of top  which was  comfortable enough for her to wear at home, when there was no  one  around, but was absolutely the last thing she would be seen  wearing in  pubic. She had no idea why she had worn it. Perhaps she had  been imbued  with a feeling of recklessness, but, in all events, she had  lacked the  courage to remove the jacket, even though she had felt  stiflingly warm  in the cafe. She was amazed that he had noticed.


"You have  the face of a girl, an angelic child, and you dress like  someone's  matronly aunt, as though you're ashamed of the way you look."  His eyes  skirted over her blouse and she nervously responded by  fiddling with the  top button.

"I'm not a child," was all she could find to say, hurt by the description.                       
       
           



       

"You  don't have to become these girls' social worker. You simply have  to  understand what makes them tick...the emotion will transfer itself  into  what we write; and what we write might change the lives of some of  them.  There are very good places of sanctuary where they can seek  refuge,  just until they get their heads together and their lives a bit  more  sorted out, but, like everything else, these places need  government  backing. The printed word can work wonders sometimes."

He could see the awkward embarrassment gradually ebbing away and her eyes lighting up with interest.

"Woman  she might well be, but she responded with the transparently  telling  emotions of a girl. He could sit and watch the changing  expressions on  her face for ever. It was as fascinating as watching the  rise and fall  of the sea on a moonlit night. Her grey eyes reflected  the smallest  shifts in her moods, from blue-grey, when she felt serene  and dreamy, to  a stormy dark grey when she was defensive and bristling.  Observing all  these minute alterations was more fun than reading a  good book.

He  was also feeling wonderfully fired up. He had watched her covertly  the  night before, had seen the way her eyes had rested on him before   hurriedly flitting away, as though she'd been terrified of being caught   out doing something unmentionable. It had been a most amazing turn-on.

She  had sat there, her legs discreetly but somehow sinfully clad in  what  had looked like the thickest possible black tights, her jacket  kept  severely buttoned so that his mind had been obliged to wander and   speculate on what lay beneath it. And when she'd taken notes, which   she'd done with remarkable efficiency he really must see about getting   her status at the office changed...her hair had brushed against her   cheeks and her fringe, which was short and straight, had become   permanently tousled from the way she'd expelled her breath upwards   whenever she felt hot or bothered or both.