Rachel Lindsay - Man Out of Reach Read online

  Sara colored beneath the intentness of his gaze, and seeing it, he smiled and flipped open a cigarette case.

  "Smoke?"

  "No, thank you." She hesitated. "I suppose you know why I've come to see you? It's about my brother."

  I gathered as much. But I'm afraid I can't do anything. When P.J. digs his toes in, the only thing to do is to retire gracefully."

  "I'm sure you've done everything you can." Sara's words came out with a rush. "But I d still like the opportunity of seeing Mr. Stafford myself. I've tried to make an appointment, but he won't see me. I was hoping that—that you'd do it for me." She leaned forward, her nazel eyes sparkling with green fire, her breasts rising and falling with agitation.

  The man gazed at her, his tongue running slowly across his lips.

  "It'll have to be now or never," he said at last. "He's flying to New York tomorrow. Hang on and I 'll see what I can do."

  The door closed behind him and she walked over to the window and stared into the street. A prayer rose to her lips and she closed her eyes, the lashes wet against her cheeks.

  "It's okay," Patrick Dorland said behind her. "He'll see you now."

  She swung around, her face alight with gratitude and, seeing it, the man shook his head.

  "Don't look so hopeful, Miss Lister. You won't do any good, you know. If I had any sense I wouldn't have fixed up for you to see him."

  "But you did," she said swiftly. "So you must be a little bit optimistic!"

  "It's got nothing to do with optimism—merely that I'm a sucker for green eyes!" He touched her arm. "Come on, I'll take you to his office."

  He led her down the corridor and, disregarding the elevator, climbed the stairs to the next floor. It was quieter here; no typewriters or the endless stream of piped music that permeated the rest of the building could be heard.

  "Here we are," Patrick said as he stopped outside a mahogany door. "I won't come in with you, but the best of luck anyway."

  Sara drew a deep breath and, tapping on the door, entered a large, thickly carpeted room, the far end of which was taken up by an enormous black desk at which a man was sitting writing.

  "Sit down, will you," he said without looking up. "I won't keep you a moment."

  Sara did as she was told, her first wave or irritation at his discourtesy in not getting up to meet her tinged by surprise at finding him so different from what she had expected. He was considerably younger than she had thought—somewhere in his late thirties—with dark hair graying at the temples and a rugged build more reminiscent of an athlete than of someone who spent his life in an office. His face was square and heavy, with lines deeply engraved on either side of a wide, thin mouth, and a large, beaky-looking nose.

  He looked up and she found herself staring into the palest, coldest gray eyes she had ever seen.

  "Well, what can I do for you?" His voice was low and deep.

  "I—I'm Sara Lister and I've come to see you about my brother."

  "Ah, yes, the young man who stole the money. Well, I'm sorry, Miss Lister, but I'm afraid you've wasted your time. Your brother is under notice and there's nothing to discuss. I'm not having a thief working in my company!"

  Anger rose in her, but with an effort she controlled it.

  "My brother isn't a thief, Mr. Stafford. He's young, and like lots of young men, he got into trouble. He didn't know where to turn and when he saw a chance of borrowing some money he couldn't resist the temptation." She stepped forward. "My brother's paid back every penny and he'll never do anything like it again. Please give him another chance."

  "No!"

  'Why?" Desperation lent vigor to her voice. "If you sack him without a reference his career will be ruined. I'm not pleading just for Brian, Mr. Stafford, it's for my mother, too. If she finds out what he's done the shock might kill her."

  "Your brother should have thought of that before he took the money," came the harsh reply. "If all wrongdoers were let off on the grounds that an innocent person might suffer, the world would be in even a bigger mess than it is now!"

  "And if all people were as hard as you the world wouldn't be worth living in anyway!" Sara retorted, and realizing nothing could change his mind, was filled with an anger so intense that she was barely conscious of what she was saying. "What right have you got to sit in judgment!" she stormed. "We're all human beings and we all make mistakes. Yet you have the audacity to ruin a young boy's life without caring! Haven't you ever done anything you've regretted in the past? Have you always been so superior and right?" She thumped on the polished surface of his desk with her clenched fist. "Can you look me in the face and tell me you don't regret anything you've ever done? Can you tell me that if you had the chance you wouldn't change one single thing about your life?"

  Her voice died away and she was appalled at her outburst. She glanced at him fearfully and saw such a remote expression on his face that she felt he neither saw nor heard anything she was saying. After what seemed an eternity he spoke in an expressionless voice.

  "You've made your point very well, Miss Lister. I'm neither inhuman nor callous. And I will not look you in the face and say I have never made a mistake in my life nor that there is nothing in the world I regret. There are many things I regret." He stood up unexpectedly. "I'll give your brother another chance. Naturally he'll have to be transferred to a program where he won't be tempted to make such a mistake again. But I promise I'll wash the whole thing from my mind as far as he's concerned."

  Sara stared at him, dumbfounded, wondering what had caused him to change his mind so suddenly. It was obviously something she had said, something that had triggered off thoughts of a past action than he regretted, one he wished he could undo as he was now undoing his treatment of Brian.

  She held out her hand. "I don't know how to thank you, Mr. Stafford. You won't regret it, I promise you."

  Unexpectedly he smiled, and she was amazed at the way it seemed to take at least ten years from his age. "I hope you're right, Miss Lister." He took her hand in a brief but firm grasp and she smiled at him and walked to the door.

  As she opened it she looked back and saw that he was seated at his desk again, writing, and she knew he had already completely forgotten her existence.

  As soon as she left Philip Stafford's room Sara hurried down to the next floor, eager to tell Patrick Dorland the news. She had her hand raised to knock on his door when it opened and the man himself came out.

  "I've been looking for you!" she exclaimed, and stopped as she saw a tall, slim woman beside him.

  Even in the dim light of the corridor she was one of the most beautiful women Sara had ever seen. Raven black hair, thick and lustrous, framed a face that seemed made of alabaster, so flawless and pale was the complexion, while her features were so perfectly formed that they gave her a serenity that was heightened by the simple elegance of her clothes.

  "I didn't realize you were busy," Sara apologized. "I'll telephone you later.''

  "Hang on. I'd like to talk you now." Patrick Dorland looked at the woman beside him. "Tina, this is Miss Lister: she's young Brian's sister. Miss Lister, this is Mrs. Philip Stafford, and incidentally, my cousin."

  Sara smiled at Mrs. Stafford, who returned her greeting absently before looking toward the man.

  "I'll see you at eight tonight then," she said. "Don't be late."

  "I'll try not to be, but I've a story conference that might go on a bit."

  He waited till the woman had walked down the corridor and then drew Sara into his office.

  "I needn't ask whether your interview was a success. I can see it was by looking at your face."

  She grinned. "Mr. Stafford's agreed to give Brian another chance."

  "P.J.'s like that," he said. "Unpredictable." He perched on the edge of his desk. "I think it was a helluva thing you did—giving up your legacy in order to get Brian out of this mess. '

  "I didn't have any choice."

  "I'm not sure a family isn't more of a bother than it's worth," he shrugged. "What are you going to do with yourself now you've given up singing?"

  "I don't know."

  " You 'll miss it, won't you? "

  The question hurt so much that she could not bear to answer it and she blinked her eyes, forcing herself to think of something different.

  "Miss Lister," Patrick Dorland's voice was vibrant, urgent. "How much do you know about music? About composers and symphonies and so on?"

  "Quite a lot, I think. Why?"

  "Because I've just thought it might be an idea for you to appear on one of our quiz programs. If you were lucky you could win enough to cover what you gave Brian. And now that he isn't working on the quiz, you wouldn't be breaking any rules. What do you say to it?"

  Sara frowned. She had often watched the quiz programs, but it had never occurred to her to enter one herself. Yet why shouldn't she? If she won, then her problems would be solved.

  "All right," she said breathlessly. "I'll do it."

  Sara left CTC with her spirits higher than they had been since she had first known of Brian's defection. But as the days passed and her appearance on the program drew nearer, her optimism turned to pessimism and she wished she had never agreed to it. Patrick Dorland had given her a great pile of reference books and though she studied them diligently, they only served to make her more confused. She had always believed she possessed a fair knowledge of music and the musical world, but by the time she had read everything she was expected to, her confidence had ebbed to zero.

  All too soon the night of the show arrived, and though it was not due to go on the air till eight o'clock she had been told to arrive at the studio an hour earlier.

  "I don't know what you're worrying about, darling," Mrs. Lister said as she kissed her goodbye. "If you win, y
ou win, and if you don't—well, I'm sure that won't bother you, either."

  Sara held back a sigh and, as she left the apartment, wondered what satisfactory reason she could give her mother for not continuing her studies. If she failed this quiz it would be impossible to go on pretending—as she had done in the past few weeks—that she was still studying with Professor Vallombrosa. Yet whatever reason she decided to give, one thing was certain: it could not be the truth. For it was in order to keep her mother ignorant of Brian's weakness that she had sacrificed her own future.

  The taxi drew up outside the theater—another part of CTC property—which was used for outside broadcasting, and she hurried down a narrow alley to the stage door where, clad in shirt-sleeves and seated in a glass cubbyhole, a man guarded the entrance.

  Following his instructions Sara reached the room she wanted and went inside. A dozen people were talking together, but no one took any notice of her and she listened to a man in corduroys and bottle-green shirt giving some last minute advice to a young woman next to him.

  "Don't keep looking at the emcee while you're talking," he said, " but don't look fixedly at the audience, either. Try to forget you 're on the air if you can."

  "It's difficult with all those lights on me," the woman replied.

  "Don't think about them," said the man with weary patience, and he ran a hand through his hair. As he lowered is arm he saw Sara. "Who are you?"

  Sara told him.

  "Oh, yes, Pat's told me about you. Come along and I'll show you the stage."

  He led the way along a labyrinth of corridors and down a flight of steps until they came to a heavy iron door. He pushed it open and Sara found herself on the stage. The sets, representing the London skyline, were already in position and the floor was thick with electric cables. She picked her way carefully over them to the far side where she was introduced to a man with a pencil stuck behind his ear.

  "I'm the assistant producer," he said with a smile. "You met me the other day." He looked at her keenly. "Feeling nervous?"

  "Yes. I wish I could have had a rehearsal."

  "Rehearsals take away the spontaneity and, once that goes, the audience might think the whole thing was rigged."

  "Rigged? What does that mean?"

  "That the contestants are told the answers." He chuckled. "Anyway, the more nervous you are, the more the great British public loves it."

  Quickly the program got under way and one by one the competitors went on stage. There was applause for those who lost and a great deal more applause for those who won, and all the while Jack Reddin, the emcee, made it seem so effortless that Sara found her fears evaporating.

  "You're on next," someone said, and gave her a push onto the stage.

  Sara answered the first few questions in a voice so faint that she had to repeat herself on two occasions, but as the questions continued her confidence increased.

  "You're doing very well," Jack Reddin smiled when she had successfully answered five questions. "But now you must enter the soundproof box for the final and most difficult question of all. That is if you want to go on? As you know you can take the money you've won up to date, which is—" he looked at his notes "—which is one thousand pounds."

  "I'd like to go on," she said, and stepping into the small soundproofed box, put on the headphones that were placed on a little ledge in front of her. The front of the box was made of glass and a television camera was trained on it, so that every move she made, every twitch of her muscles, every blink of her eyelids, could be seen by the millions of viewers. Would Sara Lister answer the most difficult question of all and win two thousand pounds or would she, like so many other contestants, fail at the last hurdle and lose everything?

  She closed her eyes and waited.

  "Are you ready, Miss Lister?" came the emcee's voice. "Here is the final question and it's in three parts."

  Enunciating his words carefully so as not to stumble over the foreign names, he asked Sara to give the dates of various obscure concertos. After a momentary panic she did so, elated that she had had the good luck to read a book dealing with just this type of question. The second part of her ordeal was more difficult, for she was requested to hum the opening bars of ten different arias from little-heard operas. But this she was able to do and Jack Reddin beamed at her.

  "You're in the homestretch now, Miss Lister. And you're a very lucky girl because the third part of this question is by far the easiest." He rustled his papers and grinned. "Give me the names of the two songs that have come first and second in this month's Top Twenty."

  Sara was utterly taken aback by the question and desperately searched in her mind for song titles. But it was no use. Steeped in the classics as she was, she was totally ignorant of any other kind of music.

  "Come along, Miss Lister," Jack Reddin said encouragingly. "The first two songs in this month's Top Twenty."

  Sara shook her head helplessly and through the glass front of the box saw Reddin stare at her in amazement.

  "You mean you don't know?"

  She shook her head again and with a shaking hand removed her earphones and stepped out.

  "What tough luck," the emcee groaned. "You must be living in a world of your own not to know these two numbers." He sang a few bars from each and Sara smiled faintly.

  "I remember them now," she admitted, and hummed a snatch of the refrain.

  In the wings the assistant producer waved his arms to show they had plenty of time to spare and Reddin, faced with an extra couple of minutes, suddenly caught Sara by the shoulder.

  "How about singing one of the tunes for us, Miss Lister? It says on the card I have in front of me that you're studying to be a singer." He called over his shoulder to the bandleader. "Got a copy of the words, Paul?"

  A music sheet was handed to him and he passed it to Sara. She read the words, and as the orchestra began to play, she sang them. After a few bars she became conscious of tittering in the audience and soon the laughter grew so loud that she stopped, fighting back tears of mortification.

  "I'm sorry, Miss Lister," Jack Reddin also seemed to find difficulty in hiding a smile, "you're singing that song as if it's an aria from an opera. And believe me, the composer had no such thing in mind!"

  So that was it! Sara looked into the auditorium. Though she could not pick out one single face, the knowledge that hundreds of people were laughing at her—and not only hundreds, but thousands of viewers, too—filled her with such bitterness that embarrassment dissolved into temper. What did any of these people know about decent singing? What did any of them know of the years of training and effort that turned a voice into a thing of beauty? All they cared about was the moanings and groanings of posturing idiots! Well, if that was what they wanted then she would give it to them!

  "Tell the band to start again," she said angrily.

  "It doesn't matter," the emcee interposed soothingly. "Forget it now, there's a good girl."

  "I don't want to forget it, Sara said in a high voice. "You asked me to sing this song for you and I'm going to sing it. Tell the band to start again, please."

  Jack Reddin looked toward the control room and then signaled the bandleader. Once more the opening bars of the song were played and Sara began to sing.

  This time she deliberately suppressed the range of her voice and the purity of her notes, forcing each one to come out flat and strident. As she sang she closed her eyes, moving her body in time to the rhythm of the tune. She was no mean actress and she brought to mind every pop singer she had ever seen or heard. She gyrated and moaned, breathing passion into the banal words that had been hummed and whistled and sung over the breadth of the land for the past month.

  At last the final note died away and she stared defiantly at the audience. There was a moment of astonished quiet and then applause burst around her, applause that continued despite Jack Reddin holding up his hand to signify that time was drawing to a close.

  "I promise we 11 bring Miss Lister back for you," Reddin shouted above the noise, and realizing the show was over, Sara walked off stage. Only in the safety of the wings did she relax, and sink on to the nearest chair. Her television debut and farewell!

  A hand covered her own and with a start she glanced up to see Patrick Dorland.

  "I'm sorry you lost the quiz," he said, "but it might be the best thing that's ever happened to you."