Free Live to Tell by G. L. Watt Page B

had been sitting his stool was occupied by someone else and he had gone.
    A few days later I was on duty again and there he was. I hadn’t noticed him come in but when I turned round from adjusting one of the optics, he was sitting there, looking at me.
    “Oh,” I gasped, nervous anticipation taking hold of me. I should have assumed he wanted a drink as he was sitting in a bar, but it never occurred to me. I knew he had come to see me.
    “Before anyone interrupts us this time, I’ve come to ask, can I take you out one night? When are you next free?”
    “I, er, um, I don’t know.” I felt anxious, and watched for Jim’s cadaverous form. He didn’t believe in his staff fraternising too much with the paying, or in this case, non-paying, customers.
    “What about tomorrow then? Shall I pick you up? Where’s the best place?”
    “I’m not sure.” This was the first date that I had even contemplated since I’d met Joe in Carnaby Street and I felt a bit pressurised, wondering what he expected from me. Danny was powerfully built and was staring at me in a very direct way. “Do you know Maida Vale at all,” I asked. “We could meet by the tube station. Is eight o’clock alright?”
    He leaned across the bar and kissed me on the cheek. “See you there, then” he said. “At eight, OK?”

    I was making a special effort with my make-up. I toyed with the idea of wearing false eyelashes but was worried that they would come off unexpectedly so I just made do with mascara, eye shadow and glitter powder instead.
    “You look nice,” said Aidan looking up. “Where are you off to?”
    “I don’t know, probably just a drink,” I said.
    “For God’s sake be careful, won’t you?” He sounded extremely worried. “Please be careful where you go. Avoid, you know where. Promise me.”
    “Don’t worry, silly Billy. I’ll be fine. I’m never going anywhere near there again. Are you all ready for the hospital tomorrow?”
    He was booked into St. Mary’s for his operation in two days time, and had to be there the night before for the preparations.
    He frowned. “Well I’ve got to come to terms with it haven’t I? Thank God for the NHS. Oh by the way, Dermot says he’ll take me in his car, so if you can’t get the time off college it’ll be alright. I have to be there by four.”
    “Oh, it’s Dermot, now, is it? What happened to “that damned priest” I wonder?”
    “Well, I can’t call him Father, can I? I’d feel stupid doing that.”
    I waited in front of Maida Vale station in the dark for twelve minutes, before it dawned on me that I might have been stood up. A lump came into my throat and I swallowed hard facing up to the humiliation of having to go home early to Aidan. A strange man kept wandering past, eyeing me up and down, and I was getting ready to run up Elgin Avenue, to the Vale, when a horn blasted out and a car stopped in front of me. Danny leaned across the seat and opened the passenger door.
    “Hi, sorry, I’m late. The traffic’s at a stand-still in Cricklewood. God, I was so worried. If you hadn’t waited I’d have had no way of contacting you. I haven’t even got your phone number.”
    “Where have you driven from, then,” I asked, climbing in, not saying that I didn’t have one.
    “Mill Hill. That’s where I live when I’m working in London. Not that it’s very often. I’ve been all over the place this year. I don’t know if there is anywhere special that you’d like to go but I know a nice little place near Hampstead Heath. I thought we might go there. You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”
    He parked outside a restaurant, on a side street in Hampstead and we went in. I had pulled my hair back, behind a tortoiseshell comb that Aunt Jess gave me. It cascaded down my back and over my coat, but some strands had escaped and were curling over my forehead. I was pleased, given the surroundings, that I had made quite an effort to dress up.
    In the well-lit cosy room, he held me