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That night she drugged herself to sleep with massive doses of work. When she put the light out at eleven she felt like a zombie and fell asleep almost at once, slept heavily all night and woke up when her alarm went off with a shriek that sent her leaping out of bed before she even knew she was awake. Dazedly she stumbled into the kitchen, put on the kettle, trudged into the bathroom and showered in half-cold water that at least opened her eyes fully, towelled herself vigorously and went to get dressed, after she had rushed to the kitchen to make some tea. When she sat down to eat a slice of toast and a boiled egg she felt more human. Her copy of the Financial Times arrived as she was eating her egg; she was able to read its pink pages while she was drinking her tea and nibbling some toast and marmalade. She hadn't eaten last night and her lunch had been tiny: she was hungry.
There was a large policy meeting that morning; Luke was already there when Judith arrived. She was nervous, it would be the first time she had seen him since she walked away from him in his mother's garden.
He was listening to one of the other executives with a frown, but as Judith walked through the door Luke turned his head, his gaze shooting across the room, and she knew he had sensed her arrival. It made her so tense to know that he was as aware of her presence as she was aware of his that she could hardly manage a polite smile when someone else said: 'Hallo, Judith, you look very elegant.'
'Thanks,' she said, feeling Luke listening. She was wearing a lemon silk shirt and a pale grey skirt with a broad leather belt. She looked cool and immaculate; it was an image she had decided to project this morning. It wouldn't give away too much of the turmoil inside her.
During the long meeting Luke at one time passed a letter to her. 'Have you seen this?' he said levelly, but Judith felt his fingertips brush her hand and she couldn't meet his eyes.
'No,' she said. It was the first time she had spoken directly to him. It amazed her that all the others were so blind to what was going on; they hadn't picked up anything odd between Luke and herself, obviously nothing showed, yet she felt so screwed up that her facial bones ached.
She left the meeting just before twelve. She felt Luke walking behind her; his stare seemed to be fixed somewhere between her shoulder blades, but someone was with him, talking rapidly, he had to let her walk away.
She went through some letters with Janice until lunch time, then shot out of her office to drive across London to a lunch with someone with one of the major banks. It was four o'clock when she got back, and as she parked her car in the underground car park she saw Robert getting out of his own car.
'What are you doing here?' she asked, smiling, as he walked over to join her by the lift. His footsteps rang in the high-ceilinged concrete vault; if he hadn't been smiling it would have given him an air of menace.
'I'm here for a meeting with your Mr Aldridge.'
'Aldridge,' she thought aloud. She hadn't yet familiarised herself with the names of all the executive staff. Hundreds of people worked in the Doulton-Klein building; probably she never would know all of them even by name.
'Overseas Development,' he prompted, and then the name rang a faint bell. Judith nodded, smiling. 'I'm early.' Robert admitted. I’m on my way back from another appointment and there seemed no point in wasting time going to the office first. I thought I might get a cup of coffee from Aldridge's secretary if I had to wait.’
'Come to my office, we'll find you some coffee,' she promised.
'How hospitable!' Robert mocked, laughing.
'We try to make our friends happy.' They stepped out of the lift and she stopped off at Janice's little office to say: ‘Make some coffee for two, would you, Janice?' Then she and Robert went into her own office and she sat down behind the desk and waved a hand at the chair in front of it. 'Sit down, Robert.'
He was looking around, his face wry. 'Very impressive. You're obviously highly thought of to get an office this big—you were very wise to come here instead of coming to us. I doubt if we could have given you anything bigger than a cardboard box.'
It was a very large, elegantly furnished office, far bigger than she had ever expected to be given; the carpel was a soothing creamy beige and the windows were masked by slatted blinds which she could use to keep oat the sunlight on a very hot day, the furniture was modem and expensive and on the matt blue walls hung a few beautifully reproduced prints of modern paintings. It had the air of being more of a sitting-room than an office, it was a place in which you could relax— if you ever had the time and no mound of work to get through.
Robert perched on the edge of her desk and scanned the paperwork on her desk briefly. 'Do you get much aggro from the men? Much backbiting because you got the job and they didn't?'
'If they have dark thoughts they keep them to themselves. I'm not the only female assistant Luke has—he has several in the States, too.' Judith had talked to them on the phone now; they seemed to be older than herself and they had been with Luke for some time, she had picked up a certain amount of possessive self-interest in the way they talked about him.
'We all know he likes women,' Robert said drily. He sauntered around the desk to look out of the window. 'Not much of a view.'
'I wouldn't have time to look at it anyway.'
'You work too hard,' said Robert, bending over her chair to kiss her, so suddenly that she only just had time to move away before he did. He froze, staring at her, flushing, and she regretted her hurried duck away.
'I'm sorry, Robert,' she stammered while he looked at her in that hurt surprise, and at that moment the door opened and they both looked, guiltily, towards the door, expecting to see Janice with the coffee. Instead they saw Luke.
He stood on the threshold, looking at them, his lean face harsh. Judith went scarlet, then white, she saw his lips fasten into a tight line and his nostrils flare angrily. She knew he had caught something in the atmosphere between herself and Robert.
'Hallo, Luke,' Robert said uneasily, dragging a smile into his face.
Luke gave him a curt nod. He kept his eyes on Judith as he did so, only flicking a brief glance Robert's way. 'I want to talk to you, Miss Murry. My office in five minutes.'
He went out, closing the door very quietly.
'Aren't you allowed to have callers?' Robert asked jokily, but he gave her a curious, puzzled look.
'I'm here to work, remember,' Judith said as lightly as she could. Janice came in with the coffee and a worried, uncertain smile.
'Mr Doulton asked me to let him know when you got back. I didn't expect him to come himself, I just phoned his secretary and told her you'd arrived and the next minute he…'
