Free Goodmans of Glassford Street by Margaret Thomson Davis

was the most successful financially, and in every other way, in the store.
    She began to feel more positive and cheerful. Yes, she was really looking forward to her visit.

10
    ‘You’re spoiling them, darling,’ Moira said. Sam Webster went on handing out notes to each of his daughters.
    ‘They work hard and deserve a bit of a reward now and again. Away and treat yourselves, girls.’
    ‘Thanks, Daddy.’ His daughters hugged and kissed him before hurrying off to examine all the windows of the Princes Square speciality and designer-label shops. They’d all enjoyed a good dinner in the downstairs courtyard and he and Moira had just been served with coffee.
    They looked out on to a huge area with a brightly coloured floor and, overhead, was a clear glass roof. At one side stood a grand piano. Nobody was playing it at the moment but often there was a pianist there. People would lean from the upper galleries to look and listen. Sometimes there would be a group playing or a choir singing. The place had a great variety of restaurants as well as shops, and a wall of paintings and counters of silver and jewellery. You name it, Princes Square had it, and all at the luxury end of the market. To think that it had once been a dark, dirty lane with stables and offices and coach houses. Now even the outside on Buchanan Street was luxurious and impressive. Glass arched canopies contained within flowing wrought metalwork extended over the pavement. High on top of the building sat a huge silver peacock with its silver tail stretched wide, and hanging from the edge of the roof was a line of silver chandeliers.
    Moira sighed. ‘I wish you didn’t need to keep going away down south. I hate it when you’re away from home. It’s not so bad when it’s just somewhere in Scotland where you can get back the same day, or the next morning.’
    ‘I hate it too, Moira, but it’s the nature of the job.’
    She sighed again. ‘I know, but I can’t help hating it at times.’
    Oh, didn’t he hate it at times too! The words ‘away down south’ immediately brought back all the worries and now horrors of South Castle-on-Sea. When Mrs Goodman announced she was coming with him, he had gone rigid with shock and horror. What on earth had possessed her – now of all times – to suddenly decide to go to South Castle-on-Sea? Things had been bad enough without her adding to the problem and complicating the situation even further. How on earth was he going to prevent her bumping into Viv? Or Viv seeing them? He could skulk around the back streets. Mrs Goodman would not. She would expect him to show her around all the best parts and Viv’s B. & B. was in the best part, on the seafront, looking right onto the pier. Indeed, Mrs Goodman would wonder why he didn’t book her in there. He had compromised by booking a couple of rooms in a good hotel on the seafront, but away at the other end from Viv’s place.
    He was still in an agony of anxiety and suspense. In the end, he decided it might be best to write to Viv or phone her and tell her that he was coming with his boss on his next visit. He would not be staying in her place because, as he’d already made plain, their relationship was over and he thought it wiser in the circumstances to make a booking elsewhere.
    Otherwise, if Viv did bump into him with Mrs Goodman, she might think he’d got another woman and be enraged. There was no telling what Viv was capable of. Mrs Goodman was older than him, but she was a nice-looking woman with her blonde hair and shapely figure. She didn’t look her age.
    He phoned eventually and was much relieved to get Viv’s answering machine. Better that than having to have any sort of conversation with her.
    The few days at work passed almost in a dream. Or a nightmare, to be more accurate. Moira noticed and said worriedly, ‘Sam, is there something wrong? You look so tense.’
    ‘Oh, I suppose it’s just the thought of the boss coming with me on this next trip.