Wishing Water (12 page)

‘I think we’d better hurry and catch up with Jan,’ she said, increasing her pace. ‘What a speed she walks at.’
 

‘Jan loves walking, as I do. We spend days out on the mountains in the summer.’ He was staring down at his boots, as if something was troubling him.

‘Oh, so did I once,’ Lissa agreed.

‘Once? Why not now?’
 

She hesitated, feeling she’d blundered. ‘I mean when I was at home.’
 

‘You’ll soon get to know and love it here too,’ he said sympathetically and she felt emotion suddenly block her throat. She couldn’t deal with sympathy.

‘I’m not really homesick. Well, sometimes, but it passes.’
 

‘You are going to stay? You won’t go home yet, will you?’ he asked, sounding suddenly so anxious she glanced up at him in surprise. As their eyes met Lissa felt something warm unfold inside. He seemed to be passing some sort of message to her and her cheeks flooded with heat. Embarrassed, she quickly turned her attention back to setting her feet carefully on the stony path, and for the next several minutes ignored him completely, just to prove to herself that she could.

At the summit they sat on the wiry grass to catch their breath and admire the panorama of mountains. Lingmoor and Wrynose Fell, Tilberthwaite beyond, and Bowfell Links above, achingly green beneath a clear blue sky.

‘Isn’t it grand?’ Jan said, and Lissa, hugging her knees and drinking it all in, had to agree.

‘You’ll come on another walk some time?’ Derry asked, sounding so hopeful she simply couldn’t find it in her heart to say no. He rewarded her with a wide beaming smile.

‘Great. I knew we’d get on. Knew it the first moment I saw you looking in the shop window.’
 

‘Hark at him?’ Jan laughed, getting up and dusting down her jeans which were bright green and cropped just below her knee. ‘Right, last one down pays for tea.’
 

‘Oh, no,’ Lissa mourned, all pride gone. ‘I can’t rush, really. I’m shattered.’
 

‘There’re some clouds gathering,’ Derry said. ‘Time to make tracks.’
 

Jan won, of course. She looked like a tiny fairy perched on a stone by the lane. But Derry held his pace to match Lissa’s, for which she was truly grateful. She never enjoyed going downhill.

‘Don’t you think we get on OK? I can see you’re not really stuck up. You’re just shy. I know you like me, so stop pretending you don’t.’
 

Lissa might have thumped him for this patronising remark but he’d taken her hand again, as if to prove the sincerity of his words and she quite liked the feel of it. He held it tenderly, tracing each of her fingertips with his own. ‘Such lovely pearly nails. I certainly like you, Lissa. I like you very much.’
 

Lissa expelled her breath on a tiny sigh and then his lips were on hers, warm against the cool mountain breeze, tender and deliciously soft. She leaned against him, startled by the pleasing sensations swirling through her.

Somewhere high above a lark sang and her heart lifted with each climbing note.

When the kiss ended he squeezed her fingers, very gently, and smiled at her with that lovely secret message again passing between them, his brown eyes seeming to dance over her face. She wished, with a piercing sweetness, that he would kiss her again and swayed gently towards him, her head giddy with longing, then quickly pulled back, shocked by her own wantonness.

And when he held on to her hand for the rest of the way down the steep mountain track, Lissa did not pull away.

Afterwards they ate scones and jam and drank tea at the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, which Lissa poured from a silver pot. It was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Summer passed in the blissful pursuit of uncomplicated happiness. It seemed to be filled with raspberries and ice cream, happy laughter and daring pursuits.

They often took one of the many footpaths or trails that traversed the heights around Carreckwater, Ambleside and Rydal. From those windy tops the visitors looked liked ants, riding the toy steamer up and down the lake.

Derry’s friends would often come along too, bringing their girlfriends to form a happy, relaxed group. They would spend whatever spare time they had either on the lake messing about in boats and dinghies, or high on the fells. Loughrigg was a favourite walk. Or they would explore the eastern sides of the lake, even so far as Jenkyn’s Crag, from where they had a wonderful view of the whole Windermere valley. Once they climbed right to the summit of Wansfell Pike, relishing the sparkle of clear fresh air after the dusty days confined to shop and office.

Derry made no move to repeat that magical kiss, which proved how little it had meant to him. Lissa took care to studiously avoid being anywhere alone with him, preferring to keep a safe distance between them at all times. She watched the other girls hang on his arm and told herself Derry Colwith was not her sort at all.

If she saw something like disappointment in Derry’s eyes she refused to let it trouble her. He was only playing a game, wanting to notch her up on his belt along with his other conquests. She was not so stupid.

In July she paid a fleeting visit home to Broombank, and found she could return quite happily to Carreckwater. She worked hard in the shop during the week, and the Sundays she wasn’t out with the gang she spent tidying the boathouse, or resting by the lake where she loved to hear the slip-slap of water against the shingle. Cooking a good meal for herself and Jan.

Once Lissa saw Philip Brandon eating his lunch on a bench by the lakeshore and she stopped for a chat. He seemed embarrassed to be caught doing anything so human as eating and she very nearly giggled out loud, only that would have been unkind.

‘I’ve been meaning to call upon you,’ he said in a rush and she took him to mean concerning the sale of Ashlea.

She was anxious suddenly. ‘I should have called on you. I’d rather you didn’t come to the shop.’
 

He looked attentive and sympathetic. ‘Of course. Then perhaps you could call at the office one evening next week?’
 

‘No problems I hope? Meg wrote to say that Nick was happy with the price.’
 

‘Everything is splendid. I need you only to sign some papers. Though I’m sure you could have got a touch more for it.’
 

Lissa shook her head. ‘I told you. The family have lived there for donkey’s years. It wouldn’t have been fair.’
 

Mr Brandon very kindly assured her that she might call upon him at any time, should she feel the need of advice. Lissa thought how much smarter he looked now summer was here. He’d stopped wearing that old fashioned trilby and given up the dull black suits. Today he was wearing pale grey and looked quite dashing.

‘You’ll soon think of me as a friend, I hope,’ he said, and Lissa felt grateful and humbled that he could spare her so much time from his busy schedule.

But even as she talked to him, her eyes lifted to scan the path that led out from the church yard through St Margaret’s Walk, in case Derry should appear as he sometimes did at lunchtime. ‘Must get to work,’ she said, backing off. ‘I’ll settle my account with you next week, if you’d like to have it ready.’
 

Then she whirled about and skipped away on light steps, looking so young and carefree it made his heart ache to watch her. He wished he’d thought to ask her out. What was the matter with him? He’d missed an ideal opportunity. Wished she’d look back and give him a bright wave then he could call her back, perhaps offer to take her for a sail.

But Lissa was too busy wondering where Derry was and feeling ridiculously disappointed that he hadn’t come.

But then why should she care? He was far too interested in himself anyway, in her opinion. If he wasn’t talking about his music and his guitar he was planning how he would win the Yacht Club races which were held every year in the first week of September.

‘Have you ever won one’!’ she had asked him.

‘No,’ he’d said, the light of battle in his eyes. ‘But I intend to. This is my year. I can feel it.’
 

When September came and the races were held it was Philip Brandon who won, as apparently he usually did. His yacht was so smart and fast Lissa didn’t wonder at it. Derry was disappointed, and vowed to persuade his father to help build him a better boat for next year.

‘I’d give anything just to win one race, so he couldn’t lord it over me in the office and make me feel so small. If I got a boat like his I could enter in the same class and maybe beat him.’ Derry’s eyes lit up. ‘God, that would be something.’
 

‘He wouldn’t like being beaten by his clerk,’ Jan warned. ‘I should stick with your dinghy if I were you.’
 

Lissa kept quiet, not understanding all the fuss. Later, Jan asked her to come to the Yacht Club dance and hear Derry and his group play but she refused.

‘I don’t think it’s really me.’
 

‘Aw, come on,’ Jan urged. She moved about their small home, closing windows against the growing chill of the September evening, clicking the latch on the door then shutting it firmly against the world. Lissa had lit the lamp and it was cosy here, by the fire. ‘He won’t take no for an answer, not this time. The group has never played at the Yacht Club before and they’ve been asked to fill in at the interval while the main band is taking a break. They’re a bit toffee-nosed up there, more into trad jazz, and he says he needs all the support he can get.’
 

‘Do you mean that rock ‘n’ roll stuff?’ Lissa asked, feeling herself weaken. She wished Derry no harm, for all his arrogance.

‘They play skiffle mainly, but some rock ‘n’ roll too. The dancing is pretty much the same.’
 

‘You go. I’ll be quite happy here. I could start to crochet that cover for the old arm chair.’
 

Jan pulled a face. ‘Or knit socks?’
 

Lissa’s lips curved into a smile. ‘Don’t mock. People in my dale are good at knitting socks. And sweaters. Meg and I spent hours each evening doing it. Sally Ann too.’
 

‘What a talented family you have.’
 

Lissa grinned. ‘Not really, there’s not much else to do up there.’

‘Well, we don’t knit socks in Carreckwater. In the evening we jive and rock. So do come, you’ll be an old woman in bed socks soon enough.’
 

‘But I don’t know how.’ There was a tremor of longing in Lissa’s voice and Jan burst out laughing.

‘Is that what this shyness is all about? Right, no time like the present.’ She selected ‘Hound Dog’ from her collection of 78s and put it on the record player. The music rang out with a tinny fervour, echoing wonderfully in the wooden building. What followed was the most hilarious hour and a half of Lissa’s life. She twirled and shook, jived and rocked, till her head was spinning and both girls fell gasping on to the rag rug.

But she agreed to attend her first dance.

Chapter Six

The dance floor was crowded when they arrived at the Yacht Club and Lissa very nearly changed her mind and went straight home again. She hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. Now they’d actually arrived, fighting for space against a tide of other girls in a stuffy cloakroom, Jan was urging her to put on some pink lipstick.
 

Lissa looked doubtful. ‘I’ve never worn lipstick.’ But seeing Jan’s expression, obediently took out a small mirror from her bag and complied. She did feel rather good in a lavender linen dress that had a small Peter Pan collar and turned back cuffs on the short capped sleeves. Its skirt was full, the waistline fitting snugly, nipped in with a broad black belt.

Jan nudged her. ‘Look at these toffs coming in, all dressed up to the nines in their little bow ties. Lord, they look like penguins.’ She started to giggle. ‘I can’t see them getting up and dancing to our Derry’s racket, can you?’
 

Since Lissa hadn’t yet heard him play so felt unable to comment but they did seem somewhat forbidding, very stiff and formal. The two girls put their cloakroom tickets inside their shoes and headed for the dance floor.

It was crowded, hot and stuffy with a big silver ball hanging from the ceiling that sent little coloured lights all over the walls as it turned. The band was playing ‘Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing’, and a host of stout dowagers in stiff taffeta and satin were dancing, elbows at 45 degrees, with even stouter men in evening dress.

There were girls in long dresses with elbow-length gloves and matching satin slippers, and others like themselves in bright summer dresses. Such a rainbow of bouncy net petticoats that Lissa wondered how some couples could get near enough to dance together.

When the dance ended everyone stood about gossiping, as there weren’t enough chairs for everyone to sit down. Then the band struck up a cha-cha and there was much chatter and laughter as people started following each other to pick up the steps.

Jan went off to dance with a young man with a toothy grin while Lissa hid in a corner, hoping no one would notice her. It was a world far removed from the quiet fells of Broombank. Would she ever have the courage to get on to that floor herself? The prospect seemed too daunting.