The train was shuddering to a halt. She had to manoeuvre her way through the crowds to get out.
She headed for the door, leaving her boss to follow. If he could. And she wouldn’t really mind if he couldn’t.
The train dumped them and left, rolling away into the night, civilisation on wheels, leaving them where civilisation wasn’t. Nine o’clock on the Tandaroit rail head. Social hub of the world. Or not. There was a single electric light above the entrance, and nothing else for as far as the eye could see.
‘So…where exactly are we?’ William said, sounding as if he might have just landed on Mars, but Meg wasn’t listening. She was too busy staring out into the night, willing the headlights of Letty’s station wagon to appear.
Letty was always late. She’d threatened her with death if she was late tonight.
She couldn’t even phone her to find out where she was. There was no mobile reception out here. And, as if in echo of her thoughts…
‘There’s no reception.’ Her boss was staring incredulously at his phone.
‘There’s a land line at the farm.’
‘You’ve brought me somewhere with no cellphone reception?’
Hysterics were once again very close to the surface. Meg felt ill. ‘It’s better than sleeping at the airport,’ she snapped, feeling desperate.
‘How is it better?’ He was looking where she was looking, obviously hoping for any small sign of civilisation. There wasn’t any. Just a vast starlit sky and nothing and nothing and nothing.
‘She’ll come.’
‘Who’ll come?’
‘My grandmother,’ Meg said through gritted teeth. ‘If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll come right now.’
‘Your home is how far from the station?’
‘Eight miles.’
‘Eight!’
‘Maybe a bit more.’
‘It’s a farm?’
‘Yes.’
‘So Tandaroit…’
She took a couple of deep breaths. Hysterics would help no one. ‘It’s more of a district than a town,’ she admitted. ‘There was a school here once, and tennis courts. Not now, though. They use the school for storing stock feed.’
‘And your farm’s eight miles from this…hub,’ he said, his voice carefully, dangerously neutral. ‘That’s a little far to walk.’
‘We’re not walking.’
‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘of how long it might take to walk back here when I decide to leave.’
That caught her. She stopped staring out into the night and stared at her boss instead. Thinking how this might look to him.
‘You mean if my family turn into axe-murderers?’ she ventured.
‘I’ve seen Deliverance.’
Her lips twitched. ‘We’re not that bad.’
‘You don’t own a car?’
‘No.’
‘Yet I pay you a very good wage.’
‘We have Letty’s station wagon and a tractor. What else do we need?’
‘You like sitting on rail heads waiting for grandmothers who may or may not appear?’
‘She’ll appear.’
‘I believe,’ he said, speaking slowly, as if she was ever so slightly dim, ‘that I might be changing my mind about travelling to a place that’s eight miles from a train which comes…how often a day?’
‘Three or four times, but it only stops here once.’
‘Once,’ he said faintly. ‘It stops once, eight miles away from a place that has no mobile phone reception, with a grandmother who even her granddaughter appears to be feeling homicidal about.’
Uh-oh. She ran her fingers through her hair and tried to regroup.
‘Not that it’s not a very kind invitation,’ he added and she choked. She was so close to the edge…
‘I thought it was kind,’ she managed.
‘Kind?’
‘I could have left you in the office.’
‘Or not. It was you,’ he reminded her, ‘who got me into this mess.’
‘You could have listened to the news on the radio this morning as well as me,’ she snapped and then thought-had she really said that? What little hope she had of keeping her job had finally gone.
‘That’s what I pay you for,’ he snapped back.
Well, if she’d gone this far… ‘I left the office at eleven last night. I was at your hotel just after six. I don’t get eight hours off?’
‘I pay you for twenty-four hours on call.’
‘I’m not fussed about what you pay me,’ she snapped. The tension of the last few hours was suddenly erupting, and there was no way she could keep a lid on her emotions. ‘I’m fussed about the ten minutes I spent washing my hair this morning when I should have been listening to the radio and hearing about the airline strike. I’m fussed about being stuck with my boss, who doesn’t seem the least bit grateful that I’m doing the best I can. And now I’m stuck with someone who has the capacity to mess with my family Christmas if he doesn’t stop making me feel guilty and if he spends the rest of Christmas playing Manhattan Millionaire stuck here, and it’s All My Fault.’
She stopped. Out of breath. Out of emotion. Out of words. And it seemed he was the same.
Well, what could he say? Should he agree? He could hardly sack her here, right now, Meg thought. If he did…she and Letty really could be axe-murderers.
Or they could just leave him here, sitting on the Tandaroit station until the next train came through late tomorrow.
‘Don’t do it,’ he growled, and she remembered too late he had an uncanny ability to read her mind. He hesitated and then obviously decided he had no choice but to be a little bit conciliatory. ‘It’s very…clean hair,’ he ventured.
‘Thank you.’ What else was there to say?
‘This…grandmother…’
‘Letty.’
‘She’s backed up by other family members? With other cars?’ He was obviously moving on from her outburst, deciding the wisest thing was to ignore it.
‘Just Letty.’
‘And…who else?’
‘Scotty. My kid brother.’
‘You said no children,’ he said, alarmed.
‘Fifteen’s not a child.’
‘Okay,’ he conceded. ‘Who else?’
‘No one.’
‘Where are your parents?’
‘They died,’ she said. ‘Four years ago. Car crash.’
He was quick. He had it sorted straight away. ‘Which is why you took the job with me?’
‘So I could get home more,’ she said. ‘Ironic, isn’t it?’
But he was no longer listening. Had he been listening, anyway? ‘Could this be Letty?’ he demanded.
Oh, please… She stared into the darkness, and there it was, two pinpricks of light in the distance, growing bigger. Headlights.
‘Deliverance,’ she muttered and her boss almost visibly flinched.
‘Just joking,’ she said.
‘Don’t joke.’
‘No jokes,’ she agreed and took a deep breath and picked up her holdall. ‘Okay, here’s Letty and, while you may not appreciate it, we really are safe. We’ve organised you a nice private bedroom with Internet. You can use our telephone if there are people you need to contact other than over the Web. You can stay in your room and work all Christmas but Letty is one of the world’s best cooks and here really is better than camping in the office.’
‘I imagine it will be,’ he said, but he didn’t sound sure. ‘And I am grateful.’
‘I bet you are.’
‘It’s lovely hair,’ he said, surprisingly. ‘It would have been a shame to leave it dirty for Christmas.’
‘Thank you,’ she managed again. Cheering up, despite herself.
Letty was coming. She could send W S McMaster to his allocated room and she could get on with Christmas.
Anger was counterproductive. Anger would get him no where.
Yes, his PA had messed up his Christmas plans but the thing was done. And no, he should never have agreed to come with her to this middle-of-nowhere place. If he’d thought it through, maybe he could have rung a realtor and even bought a small house. Anything rather than being stuck at the beck and call of one wiry little woman called Letty who seemed to own the only set of wheels in the entire district.