Infatuation

'When does he get back from Australia?' asked Mrs Murry, and Judith moistened her dry lips before she replied.

'He's back.' She tried to sound casual. 'Got back today. '

'Oh, he was down there, was he?' her grandmother asked in a quick, sharp voice.

'Yes. '

'How much longer is Baba going to be away?' Mrs Murry asked. What was she thinking? Judith hated to imagine.

'No idea. Ruth hasn't heard from her.'

'I don't understand young people today; they seem to behave in a very offhand way. Those two hardly seem to have seen each other since they got engaged; Baba shot off almost at once. It looks to me as though this is going to be a very long-distance marriage.'

Judith murmured something vague and a moment later rang off. She wasn't hungry, she couldn't concentrate on her work, she made herself watch television for an hour, but once she was in bed couldn't remember anything she had seen. It had been so much moving wallpaper for her to stare at blankly while her mind relived those moments down by the swimming pool. Catching herself at it, she grew angry. She must not let herself think about it, about Luke; she must put all such thoughts out of her head. If she gave in to her own craving to remember his mouth, his hands, the way he had looked at her, she would only be storing up trouble for herself later. Love was like an insidious disease, you didn't fight it by giving in to it; you drove it out using every weapon you had; however unpleasant the cure, the disease was far worse.

When she went in to work next day she was coldly tired; she hadn't slept and-she knew it showed. Her dark eyes had shadows under them, her mouth lay in a weary curve. She was dreading seeing Luke, she trembled as she got up to their floor in the building, expecting him to emerge from his office or walk into her own at any moment.

Her secretary, Janice, came in with a pile of post and put it in Judith's in-tray with a smile. 'Good morning, Miss Murry. Did you know that Mr Doulton's back? He left a message to say he was taking the Christopher meeting himself and you needn't show up. He should be back around three, he said. He has a lunch appointment with Sir Henry Morton and he'll raise that matter of the platinum shares then.' Janice looked up from her notebook, having read that from her shorthand. 'So you've got the morning free.'

'Is this what you call freedom?' Judith asked drily, lifting the dozens of letters from her in-tray. 'We might as well go through these now—sit down, Janice.'

Janice pulled a chair forward and sat down. She was a slim, attractive girl of twenty-two with smooth brown hair and blue eyes; not particularly pretty but with a lively smile which could make her seem pretty at times. She was always calm and cheerful, her job wasn't very important to her, Judith had gathered, she planned to get married in a year or so to a trainee architect with whom she had been going out for years. They had been at school together. Judith didn't get the impression that Janice was madly in love, but she was quietly happy with her young man.

They worked for an hour on the letters, then the phone rang and Janice answered it. Looking up, she said softly: 'It's Mr Howell from Span Plastics, he's been trying to talk to Mr Doulton for days, he says. Will you talk to him?'

Judith considered her thoughtfully. 'No, tell him I'm in a meeting.’ Span was one of the companies Luke was currently buying into and she knew that his appearance on their horizon had put the fear of God into the board: she did not want to discuss Luke's plans with one of the directors.

Luke's chief accountant came in to see her just before lunch, a box folder in his arms. 'Time to go through these with me?’ he enquired hopefully, and she made a wry face.

‘What is it?’ Ralph Golding was a persistent man obsessed with figures and graphs; he had been working with Luke for years and had spent five years over in the States familiarising himself with that side of Doulton-Klein. He was very definitely a power in the organisation and he knew it; Judith had rapidly realised that she had to get Ralph on her side if she wasn't to have trouble.. Like any large organisation, Doulton-Klein was split into various lobbies who each had particular axes to grind and who pursued petty vendettas with each other in subtle ways which made them hard to pin down and defeat. Judith had met that sort of thing before at the bank she had worked at until she joined Luke; she knew the wisdom of staying neutral if you could.

'I'm just taking soundings,' Ralph said smoothly, sitting down and opening his box folder. 'Trying this out on people before I take it to Luke—best to iron out all the problems first and it helps to get a new eye on the subject.'

Judith looked grimly at her own work, then pushed it aside. 'Go ahead,' she said with as much calm as she could muster. She couldn't afford to offend Ralph.

By the time he left she only had half an hour for lunch, she sent Janice out for some sandwiches and fruit and ate at her desk. Janice was gone over an hour, she was meeting her fiancé.

Judith had a meeting that afternoon. Luke wasn't involved and it was nearly six before she went back to her office. Janice was just covering her typewriter. She gave Judith a sympathetic smile.

'You look worn out.'

'I am—any messages?'

'Mr Doulton dropped by, I told him where you were and he said it wasn't important, he'd catch you tomorrow. Span Plastics rang again, so did Mr Wilkins…' Janice ran through a long list of telephone calls and Judith nodded, making an occasional note on her pad when a call had to be returned quickly.

When Janice finished Judith asked: 'Letters go off okay?'

'Yes—was there anything you wanted before I left?'

Judith shook her head. 'I'm going home myself shortly. See you tomorrow, Janice.'

'If I were you

I'd have a long bath and go to bed,' Janice told her. 'You're tired, anyone can see that, you need a good night's sleep.'

'I'll make sure I get one,' Judith said drily. Janice smiled at her and went, and Judith sat down behind her desk, contemplating the mass of folders she should take home and study. She had never felt less like work in her life. She had kept thoughts of Luke at bay by working herself into the ground; now she felt dead.

She debated whether to take the paperwork home or leave it, then with a sigh knew she had to take it—she still hadn't caught up with all the ramifications of her job and if she left the outer limits of it untouched she probably wouldn't ever quite understand what was going on in the organisation.