Betty Neels - A Kiss for Julie

It was a difficult task but not entirely hopeless. Mrs Briggs was forty years old; her recollections of her previous visits were vague but positive. Say, anything between five and ten years ago... It was tiresome work and dusty and the fussy woman or her assistant should have given her a hand, although in all fairness she had to admit that they were being kept busy enough.

She longed for a cup of tea, and a glance at her watch told her that her teabreak was long past. Was she supposed to stay until the notes were found or could she go home at half-past five? she wondered.

It was almost five o’clock when her luck turned and, looking rather less than her pristine self, she went back to the professor’s office.

He was on the telephone as she went in; she laid the folders down on his desk and, since he nodded without looking up, she went to her office and sat down at her own desk. While she had been away someone had tossed a variety of paperwork onto it. ‘No tea,’ muttered Julie, ‘and this lot to polish off before I go home, and much thanks shall I get for it—’

‘Ah, no, Miss Beckworth,’ said the professor from somewhere behind her. ‘Do not be so hard on me. You have found the notes, for which I thank you, and a dusty job it was too from the look of you.’

She turned round indignantly at that and he went on smoothly, ‘A pot of tea would help, wouldn’t it? And most of the stuff on your desk can wait until the morning.’

He leaned across her and picked up the phone. ‘The canteen number?’ he asked her, and when she gave it ordered with pleasant courtesy, and with a certainty that no one would object, a tray of tea for two and a plate of buttered toast.

She was very conscious of the vast size of him. She wondered, idiotically, if he had played rugger in his youth. Well, she conceded, he wasn’t all that old—thirty-five, at the most forty... He had straightened up, towering over her, his gaze intent, almost as though he had read her thoughts and was amused by them. She looked at the clock and said in a brisk voice, ‘I can get a good deal of this done this afternoon, sir. I’m quite willing to stay on for a while.’

‘I said that tomorrow morning would do.’ His voice was mild but dared her to argue. ‘We will have our tea and you will leave at your usual time.’

She said ‘Very well, sir’ in a meek voice, although she didn’t feel meek. Who did he think he was? Professor or no professor, she had no wish to be ordered about.

‘You’ll get used to me in time,’ he observed, just as though she had voiced the thought out loud. ‘Here is the tea.’

The canteen server put the tray down on his desk; none of the canteen staff was particularly friendly with those who took their meals there; indeed, at times one wondered if they grudged handing over the plates of food, and the girl who had come in was not one of Julie’s favourites—handing out, as she did, ill nature with meat and two veg. Now, miraculously, she was actually smiling. Not at Julie, of course, and when he thanked her politely she muttered, ‘No trouble, sir; any time. I can always pop along with something.’

The professor sat down behind his desk. ‘Come and pour out,’ he suggested, ‘and let us mull over tomorrow’s schedule.’ He handed her the toast and bit hugely into his. ‘What an obliging girl.’

‘Huh,’ said Julie. ‘She practically throws our dinners at us. But then, of course, you’re a man.’

‘Er—yes; presumably you think that makes a difference?’

‘Of course it does.’ Perhaps she wasn’t being quite polite; she added ‘sir’.

They had little to say to each other; indeed, he made a couple of phone calls while he polished off the toast, and when they had had second cups he said, ‘Off you go, Miss Beckworth; I’ll see you in the morning.’

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