Free To Have and to Hold by Anne Bennett Page A

‘It’s all right.’
    Paul smiled. ‘Just all right?’
    ‘What d’you want me to say?’ Carmel cried. ‘It’s good. I’ve enjoyed it.’
    ‘Have you anything like this where you come from?’
    ‘No, not really.’
    ‘You hail from Ireland, Lois said?’
    ‘That’s right?’
    ‘Which part?’
    ‘Why do you want to know?’
    Paul was nonplussed. He wasn’t used to having this reaction, especially from girls. He shrugged. ‘Just interested.’
    ‘Why?’ Carmel demanded. ‘You don’t even know me.’
    ‘Maybe I was trying to get to know you.’
    ‘I don’t see the purpose of it.’
    ‘It’s just…it’s what people do, that’s all.’
    ‘It’s not what this person does,’ Carmel snapped. She looked around frantically for the others, but found herself somehow positioned at the edge of the group with other people in front of her, separating her from her friends. Everyone was singing with gusto about it being a long way to Tipperary.
    Paul, though taken aback by Carmel’s response to his innocent questions, was not one for giving up easily, especially with a girl as lovely-looking as Carmel. He thought maybe she was shy and so he drew her away from the group slightly and said, ‘Please don’t be offended. I really meant no harm. It’s just that I am interested in people. It’s partly why I want to be a doctor, I suppose, and with you in the same line of work, as it were, and a room-mate of Lois’s, I just thought it would be nice to get to know you a little better.’
    ‘So now you know I’m not worth the effort.’
    Paul gave a slightly hesitant laugh as he said, ‘Surely, Carmel, I should be the judge of that?’
    ‘No,’ Carmel said. ‘I should. I really have no wish to talk to you further and I want to rejoin my friends.’
    That wasn’t so easy, however, because there was a body of people in front of her that she couldn’t push past and so she stood awkwardly on the edge of the group with Paul beside her. He was wondering how in heaven’s name he could break down this delicious-looking girl’s reserve, but Carmel had many secrets in her past she had no intention of sharing with a virtual stranger.
    The musicians finished and began tidying away. Carmel sighed. Now perhaps she could meet up with the others and they could all go home, away from thisirritating man and his constant questions, but as she thought this, the strains of a brass band could be heard in the distance and she lifted her head to listen.
    ‘That’s the Sally Army playing “Jerusalem”,’ Paul told Carmel, seeing her interest.
    ‘Sally Army?’
    ‘Salvation Army I mean really,’ Paul said. ‘But you would hardly knew about those either, coming from Ireland. They come here every Saturday evening and collect up all the hungry and destitute, the sort of person you or I would cross the street to avoid, for they are usually none too clean and alive with vermin. The Salvation Army don’t seem to care about that, and they will take these people back to the Citadel, which is what they call their headquarters, and give them hot broth and bread, and try and find the especially vulnerable a bed for the night.’
    It happened just as Paul said. From the minute the Salvation Army swung into view, singing with all their might, tramps began emerging from every corner.
    However, some of the crowd had begun to melt away and Carmel was able to push past the rest and rejoin her friends again. Unseen by Carmel, Lois raised her eyebrows quizzically at her cousin and he shook his head slightly.
    Jane was saying to Carmel, ‘D’you want to stay and sing some more?’
    ‘I don’t know any of these,’ Carmel said truthfully as the band announced they would be singing ‘The Old Rugged Cross’. ‘I’m ready to call it a day if you are.’
    ‘But the night is young yet,’ Paul said. ‘How about a drink to round it off?’
    Alone, Carmel would have refused. She had a horror of drink and drunks and pubs, but she wasn’t