'No, thank you. You're probably as biased against us on that subject as you are about everything else.'
She had the satisfaction of seeing him bereft of speech. 'Me?' he managed to say at last. 'Me-biased against women?'
'Yes, you. Just because you're in the wrong, your reaction is to turn and bully a woman.'
Phoebe's reaction to this was disconcerting. She laughed until Lee thought she would never stop. Her companion appeared to be choking on his own emotions.
'Look,' he managed at last, 'this young lady-will you please hush?' This was directed at Phoebe, whose mirth was reducing her to a state of collapse.
'Ignore him,' Lee told Phoebe. 'I'm glad you can find it funny. If I were you I'd run for my life. Someone who looks like you doesn't have to put up with a man whose ideas come out of the ark.' She turned her attention back to her foe. 'This is the twentieth century, in case you hadn't heard.'
'Twentieth century be blowed!' the man exploded. 'Some things never change, and one of them is the way women drive. You were daydreaming back there, that's why you didn't see me earlier. If there's one kind of driver I dread more than any other it's some fluffy-headed little thing who-'
'Fluffy-headed little-?'
'Madam, it isn't me that belongs to an outdated species, but you-the little woman with nothing better to occupy her mind than her clothes and her hair-do. The one thing you've never thought of is what goes on under the bonnet of a car.'
'I think we have said all we have to say,' growled Lee through gritted teeth.
'Certainly. Here's my card, with the name of my insurance firm on the back. Please ask your husband to get in touch with me. Now, perhaps you'll be good enough to supply me with your own details so that we can get back into our respective damaged vehicles and try to give each other a wide berth.'
'Anyone who'd ever seen you drive would give you a wide berth,' she retorted with spirit. 'That's probably why you're such a rotten driver. You're used to the others scuttling for cover at the sight of you.'
Phoebe made choking sounds, but suppressed them under a baleful glare from her escort.
'And here,' said Lee, scribbling on something she'd drawn out of her coat pocket, 'is my card, with my insurance firm on the back. On the front you'll find both my home and my business address.' She had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes widen at this last piece of information. 'And now I'd be obliged if you'd move your car out of my way, because you are still on the wrong side of the road.'
She turned without waiting for a reply and got into her vehicle. She saw Phoebe take her card from the man and study it, then she gave her attention to starting up. To her relief the engine came to life at once. She let it hum for a few moments, and while she waited she examined the card she'd been given. It read, 'Daniel Raife'. After the name was a string of impressive-looking letters.
No wonder he got mad when I asked if he hadn't gotten beyond the third form, mused Lee. The thought cheered her up.
As Daniel Raife's car passed she had a glimpse of him in profile, his hands clenched on the wheel, his face still furious. Beside him sat Phoebe, who turned her head so that she could watch Lee until the last possible moment. To Lee's surprise Phoebe's jaw had dropped and she was staring as if she'd just received the shock of her life.
The next day Lee contacted her insurance firm. Then she sat back and waited for battle. Somewhat to her disappointment she received a speedy reply to say that the firm had already heard from Mr Raife, admitting full liability. By the same post came a letter from his insurance requesting estimates for the cost of repair.
So justice had prevailed when his temper had cooled. Lee put her car in for repair, hired another and tried to feel satisfied. But it was hard when a promising opponent had caved in without a proper fight.
She was also troubled by the feeling that his name was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it and at last she gave up trying. She had a mountain of work to get through and little time to think of anything else. Meredith Studios was a big name in fashion photography but it wasn't yet at the very top, and nothing less than the very top would do.
It wasn't only ambition that hounded her, but also the responsibility of being the breadwinner in her family. It had been that way for eight years now, ever since she'd finally accepted that her husband, Jimmy Meredith, was, to put it mildly, unreliable. From the day she'd earned her first fee as a photographer to the day Jimmy had left her she'd supported him. After their divorce he'd married a woman of independent means, with whom he now lived an apparently contented life.
Lee had been temporarily alone as it was the Easter holiday and her daughter, Sonya, was spending the time with Jimmy. Lee's eighteen-year-old brother, Mark, who'd lived with her since their parents had died two years earlier, was on a hiking holiday. But three days before the start of term they both returned. Lee and Mark had inherited the same face from their mother, making Mark appear baby-faced and absurdly young. He was a brilliant natural linguist, headed for first-class honours according to his university professors. Lee, who'd left school early, only semi-educated, was full of admiration for her younger brother. But the admiration extended only to his academic talents. Of his common sense-what there was of it-she had the poorest opinion.
Lee and Mark's mother had made herself Mark's slave, and it had been a shock for him to find himself living with a sister who had no time to wait on him and a niece, only five years younger than himself, who had no intention of doing so.
He was warm-hearted, emotional, idealistic and often charming. Lee thought that when she'd managed to undo the results of her mother's over-indulgence he would be delightful. But for the moment he could be exasperating to live with, particularly when he argued with her about money.
Their father had left him a legacy of thirty thousand pounds, which Lee held in trust until he was twenty-one. It was safely invested, and as Mark had grown older she'd begun making him an allowance out of the income, sometimes handing over an extra amount for reasonable expenses. But his idea of 'reasonable' was wildly different from hers, and if she'd yielded to him too often he would have had nothing left by now.
'What's that monstrosity doing out there?' he said when greetings had been exchanged and they were gathered in the kitchen.
'That's the car I've hired while mine's being re-paired, following a collision with a lunatic who was driving on the wrong side of the road. He actually dared to blame me.'
'How could he, if he was in the wrong?' demanded Sonya, scandalised.
'No man ever thinks he's in the wrong where his car is concerned,' said Lee. 'He was a first class MCP. I thought they were extinct, but he was an absolute porker.'
'How long before you get your own back?' Mark demanded.
'Two weeks at least. They're waiting for a part. And I'm afraid that one's only insured for my use.'
'Then don't you think,' he said, reverting to a battle that had been running between them for weeks, 'that it's time I had my own car?'
'I do not. You're on a direct bus route to the college.'
'Yes, but the car I've got my eye on-'
'I know the one you've got your eye on and it's far too expensive.'
'It's my money, isn't it?'
'Yes, and I'm going to make sure there's plenty left when you're twenty-one.'
Mark groaned, but dropped the subject and went upstairs to unpack. Sonya was making tea. She was a thin, sharp-faced girl of thirteen, with a candid tongue and a disconcerting ability to make her mother laugh. Despite some routine mother-daughter battles they were good friends.
'The way he goes on about that money,' she said now, 'you'd think he was the cheated heir in some Victorian melodrama. Honestly, he's a pain in the-'
'Sonya!'
'I was going to say in the neck,' Sonya insisted with an air of innocence that didn't fool her mother. 'And he is. It was much nicer when he wasn't here.'