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Lord, it was grotty!
    She tried to work the little pump over the sink and no water came. Frozen, of course. Of course it would be. Duncan Keld probably never bothered about washing. He looked a scruffy individual.
    There was some water in the kettle and she poured that into a plastic bowl in the sink and soaped her hands and face. She couldn’t strip. It was arctic cold in here and he could come marching in any moment. Usually she used a cream and gentle toner on her fine skin which felt tight and tender after the soaping. The towel was rough too, and she longed for the soft caressing towels at home. She had to rub to get her make-up off, but her mascara was probably streaked all over the place and — wouldn’t you know it — there was no sign of a mirror.
    She was trying to smooth her hair by running her fingers through it when she heard him coming and she stiffened, then stood very straight and dignified, her lips a thin disapproving line. He looked everything she disliked most in a man; appearance rough, dishevelled, his thatch of black hair unkempt and the shadow of a beard quite pronounced. Pattie shuddered when she saw him, and he shuddered too and groaned, ‘Strewth, I hoped it was a nightmare!’ He was only wearing trousers. There was dark hair on his chest and arms and she felt goose-pimples on her own skin at the sight of him. He tried the pump, then picked up a big plastic jug from the corner and poured water from that over his head, standing over the sink. He seized the towel and began vigorously rubbing hair and face, at the same time looking at her as though words failed him for the moment but soon he would have a lot to say.
    She said, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but the interview was my editor’s idea. I said you wouldn’t talk to me.’ She tried to defend herself. ‘Although I probably did Jennifer Stanley a good turn. If the man she was going to marry was such a wet that he walked out on her because of something that happened before he met her she was well rid of him.’
    ‘You’ve a point there.’ He dropped the towel and looked at her straight and hard. ‘But thanks to you it was probably the most publicised jilting of the year. Have you ever been rejected, Miss Ross?’
    She had always played safe. She had never put herself in a situation that might end in rejection. She admitted, ‘Not like that,’ and he said savagely, ‘Then think yourself lucky, girl.’
    She did think herself lucky, every time she remembered the car. ‘My car ’ she began.
    ‘Where is it?’
    She explained, ‘I went off the track. It’s at the bottom of a hill. It’s out of action, you’ll have to give me a lift.’
    The same expression crossed his face that she had seen last night, when she suggested he ran her back to Grimslake. A blend of frustration and fury. He almost yelled at her, ‘Damn you, I can’t give you a lift! I don’t have a car.’
    Pattie gasped, ‘But how—? I mean –'
    ‘I come up here to work.’ He sounded as though she was simple-minded and needed every word spoken very slowly. ‘If I had a car I’d get in it if I got bored, so friends give me a lift here and leave me for a month.’
    Marooning him, as it were. Marooning her too, God help her. She faltered, ‘What if you were ill?’ and he dismissed that,
    ‘I never am.’
    ‘There’s always a first time.’
    ‘Do you write in clichés too?’ He turned away, and she shouted,
    ‘There’s nothing wrong with a good cliché if it fits!’ as he slammed the door at the bottom of the stairs behind him.
    If he didn’t have a car and her car was out of action how was she going to get away? The enormity of her position was overwhelming her, numbing her mind. She had to get away. She couldn’t stay here. Duncan Keld was back almost at once, but she had had time to start to panic and to bite hard on her lip.
    She clenched her hands so that the nails bit into her palms and thought, he’ll move heaven and earth to get rid of me. I