In the Still of the Night

Trudie Lang studied him with wary eyes. ‘Got a job?’

‘I’ve just started working on the local paper.’

‘Where d’you work before that?’

‘I’ve been at college, this is my first job.’ His voice was excited; Annie looked over her shoulder at him. His eyes shone, dark blue and thick with long black lashes. Longer than hers. She’d never seen eyes like them before, on a boy, anyway. He’s beautiful, she thought. It sounded odd to say that about a boy, but no other word applied.

‘Why aren’t you living with your family? Don’t you come from around here?’ Trudie Lang was staring at him, too, her face uncertain, but Annie could tell she liked him; her voice was softening.

His face changed slightly, Annie thought she saw sadness in his eyes. ‘I only have a grandmother. She lives too far from here for me to go home every day.’

Trudie hesitated. Annie crossed her fingers behind her back. Let her say yes, let her say yes. Her heart was beating so hard it shook her chest.

‘The house is just around the corner. I’ll walk round with you and show you the room. It isn’t very big, and there’s no cooking facilities, and you’ll have to share the bathroom with us. I’ll throw in breakfast every day, and if you like you can eat with us in the evenings, but I’ll have to charge extra for that.’ Trudie took off her apron and hung it up behind the door. ‘Annie, mind the shop. This is my daughter, by the way, Annie.’

She went to get her coat from the room behind the shop. Johnny Tyrone watched Annie, who was automatically polishing apples; her mother disapproved of idle hands and liked to see her keeping busy when there were no customers in the shop.

‘Hi.’

‘Hello,’ she shyly whispered, turning to face him. He had a wonderful smile; his face was so open and friendly when he smiled. His good looks didn’t seem to have spoilt his character – at school Annie had often noticed that the best-looking boys were often the most unkind, the vain ones, the ones who made fun of other people. Of her. She was often a target for their idea of a joke. Could Johnny Tyrone be an exception to the rule? Or was he clever enough to hide his real nature? Was she having the wool pulled over her eyes?

‘How much for one of those?’ He pulled a handful of coins out of his jeans pocket. ‘I’m starving. One slice of toast for breakfast and I won’t get anything else until I get back to Grandma’s tonight. Those apples look awfully good to me. I could eat a horse.’

Annie speechlessly held out two apples.

‘I can only afford one,’ he said. ‘How much?’

She pushed the coins away, then heard her mother coming back and just had time to whisper, ‘Don’t tell her!’

He caught on at once. Pushing both apples into the pocket of his blue denim jacket, he gave Annie a slow, warm smile, his eyes searching her face as if he liked what he saw.

‘Thanks. See you again soon,’ Johnny said, following Trudie Lang out of the shop.

Annie stared after him, trembling with happiness.

That evening at supper, her mother told her what she had found out about him. ‘Irish family, I knew it the minute I heard that name. Tyrone; Irish name. He looks Irish, too. His parents are dead. He’s been living with his grandmother for a couple of years, but she lives in Epping; he wouldn’t be able to travel here and back every day. He got the job from an ad in a trade paper; he says it’s tough getting a reporter’s job, too many people chasing every job, so he had to take this one, even though it means leaving his grandma alone.’

‘He’s very fond of her, then?’ Annie was so interested she wasn’t eating; her mother looked at her untouched plate, clicking her tongue impatiently.

‘Don’t waste good food, girl!’

Annie hurriedly forced some potato into her mouth while her mother watched her. Only then did Trudie go on, ‘I liked the way he talked about his grandma; most kids his age don’t care about old people, but he said he would be going back to her house most weekends, doesn’t want her to feel he’s gone for good. He said he would be out a lot. He will have to work late some nights – they work them hard on those little local papers. Sounds as if he really wouldn’t be any trouble.’

Eagerly, Annie asked, ‘So are you going to let him have the room?’

‘I can always t

ell him to leave if it doesn’t work out,’ Trudie thought aloud.

‘Yes,’ Annie said, breathlessly, fighting to hide her joy.

He moved in a week later. He only had one suitcase; it seemed heavy as he dragged it upstairs. ‘Books, mostly books he brought,’ her mother told her next day, shaking her head. ‘Not much money there; all he has to wear is jeans and sweatshirts and one cheap suit. That’s what he wears to work every day. I suppose journalists have to wear suits, to impress people.’ She had inspected his wardrobe while he was out at work, to Annie’s shame. She only hoped Johnny Tyrone hadn’t realised his room had been searched.

Annie didn’t see much of him at first, because as the latest newcomer on the newspaper he was landed with all the boring jobs nobody wanted to do, he explained. Church fetes, flower shows, funerals, making a daily tour of the police station, the churches, to check up on any possible story. The court cases were covered by one of the senior reporters and any big news story went to them, too. Johnny was just the dogsbody, learning his trade, even though he had studied journalism at college.

Annie didn’t even see him at breakfast because Mrs Lang always sent her off to open up the shop, so she had her tea and toast and left the house long before Johnny came downstairs.

She heard a lot of him, though; his room was next to hers. At night she heard him get home late, often after midnight, creep upstairs, the creak of the bathroom door, the discreet flushing, the running of water as he washed, then his tiptoeing across the landing, the give of springs as he sat down on the bed to take off his shoes, his movements as he undressed, and then the long sigh of relief with which he finally got between the sheets.