Susan Hedder walked down Shaftesbury Avenue and paused at the corner of Denman Street as a taxi cautiously edged into the stream of traffic flowing towards Leicester Square.
A man said out of the darkness, “Hello, girlie, going my way?”
Susan ignored him and as the traffic lights turned from green to red, she crossed the street and walked on towards Piccadilly. Eight men had said precisely the same thing to her during the past hour. It was her own fault. She must stop this aimless walking. She must go home. Home? She thought of the small bed-sitting-room on the top floor of an old-fashioned house in Fulham Road. You couldn’t really call that home. Until tonight, she had regarded it only as a place where she kept her things and where she slept, but now it was all she had got. The home she had planned and which seemed, a few hours ago, so certain had vanished with the coming of the letter. But she wasn’t going to think about the letter. There would be plenty of time to think about that later on. So far as she could see, she could read the letter and think about it every night for the rest of her life. Tonight, she wasn’t going to think about it.
But she couldn’t go on walking the streets. It was getting late. Besides she had been walking now for two hours and her legs were aching. She felt if she went back to her room, away from the glittering Sights, the noise of the traffic and the bustling surge of people she would start thinking. Tonight she just could not bear to be alone and that was what it meant if she went back to her room. She knew eventually that she would have to go back, but she wanted to postpone that moment for as long as she could.
She was tired. The man who had spoken to her was walking a few paces behind her. He had a dragging step as if one of his legs was shorter than the other. She knew without looking round that he was following her. She wasn’t alarmed because there were so many people about, but all the same it was a nuisance to hear this persistent shuffling behind her and to know that he thought she was a likely “pick-up.”
She followed the gradual curve past the Monico into Glasshouse Street.
That, of course, was a mistake because
Glasshouse Street was dark and a haunt for “pickups.” The man kept close behind her and she quickened her step, annoyed that she should have so deliberately left the safety of Piccadilly. A snack bar a few yards up the street offered the solution. Without pausing, she walked straight in and shut the door in the man’s face. She did not look back, but she could feel his frustrated gaze boring into the back of her head.
It was hot and a little steamy in the cafe. The place was fairly full and every table was occupied. She looked round uncomfortably aware that most of the people looked at her either curiously or with vague interest. She hastily sat down at a table whose occupant paid her no attention. This man was reading the Evening News and he held it open so that she could not see him. All she could see was the paper and the two black gauntleted hands that held it open.
A waitress said coldly, “We’re closing.”
Susan looked at her, feeling suddenly exhausted. The bright light and the steamy heat of the place seemed to absorb all her remaining energy. The back of her legs ached and her body felt as if it were dissolving into a pool of lassitude.
“Oh, I thought—I just wanted a cup of coffee,” she said, thinking that the waitress’s face looked like a suet pudding.
“We’re closing,” the waitress repeated inexorably.
Susan thought, I must rest. I just can’t go out into that street again, anyway not for a moment. He’ll be out there, waiting to follow me. But she saw people were watching her, and she was frightened of the waitress, who looked tired and ill— tempered. I know she’ll make a scene if I don’t go, she thought dismally. So she picked up her bag which she had placed on the marble topped table and pushed back her chair.
“There’s still twenty minutes before you shut,” a soft, timbreless voice said. “Give her a coffee.”
Both Susan and the waitress glanced at the man who was sitting at the table.
He had lowered the newspaper and was staring at the waitress with bleak, grey eyes.
The waitress opened her mouth to repeat that the cafe was closing, but she changed her mind. There was something about the man’s thin, white face that made her uneasy. She couldn’t say what it was, except, perhaps, that his will was stronger than hers. Somehow she felt that if she did not serve the coffee he would go on and on at her until she did so, even if he stayed there all night.
She went to the counter, drew coffee from the urn and came back. She slapped the cup and saucer down in front of Susan and stood over her while she scrawled a bill. Then she went away.
While she did these things, the man watched her, his newspaper still open, but lowered. When she had gone away, he compressed his lips, grunted and hid himself behind the newspaper again.
Susan sat looking at the thin, steaming coffee, feeling that everyone was staring at her and not sure whether she ought to thank the man for coming to her assistance. Obviously he had no interest in her because not once had he looked at her.
While he was watching the waitress, Susan had examined him. He was in chauffeur’s uniform, well fitting, expensive, smart.
The peaked cap was pulled down over his eyes, but she could see his face well enough. He was young—she guessed he was her age— twenty-one. His features were small and regular. His skin was very fair. His black eyebrows looked out of place against the fairness of his skin.
His grey eyes under somewhat long curling lashes held her attention. They were hard, experienced eyes. They frightened her.
She stirred the coffee, wishing in a way that he would lower the newspaper.
It would be so much easier just to thank him and then dismiss him. Somehow this newspaper barrier made things not only difficult but, oddly enough, rather mysterious.
She decided that she wouldn’t say anything.
She opened her bag and took out the letter. She looked at the crabbed, immature writing and she thought of all the other letters she had received. It had brought her no joy. She thought dully that it was a pity it had to be the last letter she was to have from him as all the other letters had been so loving.
He had tried to be kind and let her down lightly, but he had only succeeded in being stilted and insincere. Of course, she knew he was fond of his mother, but why hadn’t he thought of that before?
“I’ve decided it wouldn’t be fair to mother,” he had written. “It’s a question of waiting until I earn more and it may be a long time. I don’t think I ought to ask you to wait all that time.. .She couldn’t read any more just then, the writing suddenly became blurred, and she folded the letter carefully and put it in her bag. She was aware of a tear that rolled down her cheek and splashed into her coffee.
She became aware of the chauffeur again. He was watching her. He sat with his back to the wall, holding the newspaper so that only she could see him.
“It won’t get you anywhere,” he said, his lips scarcely moving. “It never does.”
She felt blood rush to her face and for one horrible moment she thought she was going to burst into uncontrolled tears.
“You’re soft,” the chauffeur went on, his bleak, grey eyes never leaving her face. “I suppose you’re howling over some man. Well, don’t. It doesn’t get you anywhere.”
“Please mind your own business,” she said, suddenly angry and she turned her head so that she need not took at him.
“That’s better,” he said. “That shows you’ve got spirit. Only don’t tell me what’s wrong. I don’t want to hear.”
“Please don’t speak to me,” she said, her tears and self-pity forgotten.
“I want you to help me,” he said. “It’s important.” She turned back so that she could look at him. “I don’t know who you think you’re talking to . . .” she began, her eyes flashing.
He made an impatient movement with his head.