Free Primrose Square by Anne Douglas

unexpectedly.’
    He was not to know that saying those words, ‘my father called to see me’, was a really quite extraordinary experience for her, and only nodded with a smile.
    â€˜That’s good. Well, I see the caretaker is waiting to boot us out – may I walk with you ladies to the tram?’
    â€˜That’s all right,’ Brenda replied. ‘I don’t take a tram; I only live up the road.’
    They stood in the street in the dusk of the evening, hesitating a moment, until Brenda walked away, calling goodnight over her shoulder, to which the others called, ‘See you next week!’ Then Mr Muirhead looked down at Elinor.
    â€˜If you’re on your way back to the Primrose, I believe we’ll be taking the same tram. I live in the West End myself, or at least my mother does, and I share her flat.’
    â€˜Nice,’ she commented.
    â€˜Yes, though I’ll probably find a place of my own eventually. Just haven’t got round to it.’
    They walked in companionable silence to the tram stop, where they stood only a moment or two before their tram arrived and they climbed on, Mr Muirhead insisting on paying for Elinor’s ticket.
    â€˜What’s a penny between friends?’ he asked lightly over her protests. ‘I don’t think it’ll break the bank.’
    As they were shaken along on their short journey, she was aware of his grey eyes often on her face and racked her brains for something interesting to say, only nothing came to mind. Finally, she asked where in the West End his mother lived.
    â€˜Shandwick Place. We live over a dress shop.’
    â€˜My folks live over a shop, too. Dad’s a cobbler; we live over the shop he rents.’
    â€˜And where’s that?’
    She hesitated, looking for his reaction.
    â€˜Friar’s Wynd,’ she said at last, and found no real reaction at all, apart from a polite nod.
    â€˜Here we are!’ she cried, gladly rising for their stop. ‘This is us.’
    When they’d left the tram, he said he would see her to the club, looking surprised when she immediately said that that wouldn’t be necessary.
    â€˜Thanks all the same, Mr Muirhead, but it won’t take me a minute to get to the club. I’ll be quite all right.’
    As though she could possibly risk being seen with him outside the Primrose! There might well be someone looking out, and she could just imagine the questions that would be thrown at her when she got in, after they’d seen her with her handsome escort.
    â€˜As you wish, then,’ he answered, touching his hat. ‘Goodnight, Miss Rae. We’ll meet again next week, I hope.’
    â€˜Oh, yes, next week – I’ll be there! Goodnight, Mr Muirhead.’
    Wonderfully relieved, she darted away through the traffic, knowing he was watching until she’d turned at Maule’s Corner and was out of his sight. By the time she’d reached the Primrose, she knew he would be home in Shandwick Place, probably telling his mother about his class, probably not mentioning her, just as she would eventually be talking about the class, too, and not mentioning him. Thinking about him, though.
    â€˜How did it go?’ asked Mattie and Gerda in their attic room, when she was back, taking off her jacket, unpinning her hat. ‘Did you enjoy it?’
    â€˜Went very well. Yes, I enjoyed it. Met some interesting people.’
    â€˜Any men?’ asked Mattie.
    â€˜The class is nearly all men, as it happens.’
    â€˜Aha!’ cried Gerda. ‘Told you, I might be signing up for night school next year.’
    â€˜Me, too,’ said Mattie, as Elinor turned aside, smiling a secret smile.

Fifteen
    Saturday afternoon found Elinor back at Friar’s Wynd, walking with a light step through the children playing the old games she remembered playing herself – peevers, which was a sort of hopscotch, giant steps and baby steps, tig, cock a