Out of Control

'Oh, that—George, would you believe? I think that's why my mother insisted on calling me Bruno—my father hated the name, but she always gets her own way, twists all her men round her little finger, my Mama. Her parents gave all their children such boring, old-fashioned names, so she was determined I shouldn't have a name like George.'

'What's her name, then?'

'Phillipa!'

'What's wrong with that? I rather like it.'

'Well, she hated it. She made everyone call her Pippa, and that suits her much better.'

'Pippa—yes, pretty. Is she?' Liza had always been careful not to ask Bruno questions about his family; she hated people probing into her background and from Bruno's reluctance to talk about his she guessed that he felt the same.

'She's not bad,' he said uneasily and she smiled, glad he couldn't see her. 'Anyway,' he said hurriedly, 'I'm very sorry I won't be coming for the weekend—you will ask me again some time, won't you?'

'The invitation stands,' Liza said wryly, sure that he wouldn't want to come now, and half relieved because it meant that the cottage would not be invaded. Sometimes she felt as thought it was a time capsule, outside ordinary time and place; a small circle of peace for her alone.

She was afraid of what the arrival of someone else would do to that shining silence.

'Maybe one day you'd like to see Hartwell,' Bruno said vaguely and she laughed silently, sure that his family would never extend an invitation to her. Didn't he know why he was being summoned down to face his terrifying uncle and his mother? Bruno was about to be told to drop her; she wasn't suitable. Liza could imagine everything they would say. 'A girl like that? Who is she, anyway? What sort of family does she come from? Has she any money, influence, power?' Bruno's family had all three and they would want his wife to come from the right circles, have the proper credentials for a future Gifford.

'I wish I didn't have to go,' Bruno suddenly blurted out. 'If you knew my uncle 'He can't eat you!' 'He can try!'

'Oh, poor Bruno,' she said gently. 'Stand up to him, you're a big boy now.' Twenty-three, to be precise, and a broad-shouldered, solid-fleshed young man who could play an aggressive game of rugger and had boxed at university, which made it all the more bewildering that he should be so nervous of facing a middle-aged man who spent most of his time hunched at a desk.

'I must go,' Bruno said with a sigh. 'I wish you could come with me, Liza. I feel I can do anything when you're there.'

Then, horrified by his own admission, he muttered goodbye and rang off before she could answer. Liza frowned, replacing the phone. Bruno wasn't getting too fond of her, was he? She was very fond of him and he made a good playmate, but it would never be a serious love affair on her side. She hoped it wasn't developing into one on his side, because she would only have to be frank with him and she would hate to hurt Bruno.

Everyone in the office had read the stupid gossip in the paper, but nobody mentioned it to her directly; they didn't dare with Liza looking at them with frozen eyes and a remotely haughty expression. That was easy for her to assume; she had learnt how to look like that when she was modelling. It wasn't so easy when other newspapers rang up and wanted interviews, wanted a comment, a quote to put in among the acres of sheer invention they called a news story.

Liza was afraid to refuse to speak to them, in case that gave them carte blanche to invent what they chose. She had to tell them it wasn't true and she did with curt insistence, but they brushed her denials aside and fired impertinent questions at her without seeming at all aware of their own rudeness.

'Are you in love with Bruno?' one even asked her.

'I just told you…'

'How long have you known him?'

'What has that to do with ...?'

'What do his family think?'

'I have no idea.' Liza's voice was brusque.

'You haven't met them?' asked the reporter eagerly.

'No,' she said without expression, deciding to hang up.

'They won't meet you? How do you feel about being cold-shouldered by the Giffords?'

'I didn't say that!' Liza was beginning to panic.

'Have they tried to stop you and Bruno meeting?'

'This is ridiculous, listen to me ...'

'We've tried to get in touch with Bruno at his London flat in Hyde Park Gate, but he isn't answering his phone. Can you tell us where he is?'

'Down at Hartwell,' Liza said coldly, and with faint malice because that would transfer the baying hounds to the Gifford family's end of this muddle. Let G. K. Gifford face their persistence and their shameless curiosity!