Sara Craven - Past All Forgetting

In all but one thing, it suddenly occurred to her after she had gone back into her office and resumed her task of filling in the endless forms that were part of her daily routine. Janna was a lovely thing and had never lacked for masculine admirers, long before Colin Travers had arrived on the scene. Yet there had always been something cool, even remote about her, although Vivien had always considered her husband Bill was exaggerating when he described Janna as ‘an icicle’. Nevertheless, there was a promise of generosity in the curves of Janna’s mouth that Vivien could swear had never been fulfilled, and allied to this was the constant suggestion that Janna was holding herself back in some way—constantly reserved.

‘One thing’s certain,’ Vivien told herself as she thrust an envelope into her typewriter and began to type the address. ‘If she ever does let herself go, someone will be counting his blessings for the rest of his life.’

Meanwhile, the unconscious object of all this speculation had retrieved her full-length suede coat from the cloakroom, and was standing near the main entrance watching out for Colin’s car.

A group of older children, who would be attending the second dinner sitting, came racing over to her. ‘Miss—Miss—have you seen that car?’

Alison Wade, who had been in her class the previous year, caught her hand. ‘Come and see it, Miss. It’s—it’s fantastic!’

‘It must be,’ Janna said amusedly, knowing that Alison was not easily impressed.

Half-resignedly, she allowed herself to be shepherded round to the side of the building where the staff and visitors parked their cars, and her jaw dropped a little. Alison had not been exaggerating. She knew very little about cars and she could place neither the model nor its country of origin. What she could recognise was the understated suggestion of power and performance in the streamlined, low-slung shape, and an unmistakable aura of luxury.

The children were staring at it and murmuring, resisting the temptation to touch it and leave fingermarks on the immaculate pale grey body.

Kevin Daniel nudged her. ‘Eh, Miss,’ he said in awe, ‘it’s like something out of a James Bond film.’ He pointed at the headlamps. ‘D’you think there’s concealed machine-guns there?’

‘I doubt it,’ Janna told him apologetically, but even she was taken aback by the instrument panel on the dashboard. Maybe there were no machine-guns, but she was sure every gadget in the history of the world was included somewhere in that terrifying array of dials and switches.

A car horn blared sharply, and involuntarily she stepped back, wondering just for a second if the car owner was somehow able to warn people away by some form of remote control … Then she saw Colin’s car parked outside the school gates, and chided herself for her own fancifulness. She paused long enough to shoo the children safely back to the playground and out of temptation’s way, then went out of the gates where Colin was waiting impatiently, holding the passenger door open for her.

‘We haven’t got much time,’ he remarked as he swung himself into the driving seat, leaning across and brushing his lips against her cheek.

Janna glanced at her watch. ‘We’ve over an hour. The service at the White Hart isn’t that slow and …’

He shook his head. ‘We aren’t going there. There’s something I want to show you first. We might manage a drink and a sandwich at the Crown afterwards.’

‘The Crown?’ Janna stared at him, puzzled. ‘But that’s out of town.’

He sent her a brief, triumphant smile. ‘I know. Sit back, my sweet, and prepare for a surprise.’

Janna complied, faintly bewildered by the air of barely suppressed excitement that hung about Colin. He was generally so imperturbable, so much in control of his emotions. It was one of the things that she admired about him, and certainly an aspect of his character which explained his success in business. It was an open secret locally that Colin was the driving force now at Travers Engineering, and that his father, who had founded the firm, was content to be a figurehead, and leave the running of the company in Colin’s hands.

Travers was the only large works in the locality, and it had expanded dramatically in recent years in spite of the generally depressed economic climate. With the expansion had come a change of role for Carrisford, with a brand new housing estate springing up on its outskirts, and a hurried building programme to add to the capacity of its primary and comprehensive schools. Yet in many ways it still remained a rather sleepy little market town, Janna thought with affection as Colin’s car threaded its way through the crowded square bordered by tall grey stone buildings. The tradition was there in the market cross, and the square Georgian town hall set firmly at one end of the market place.

It had always looked the same for as long as she could remember. She had gone away to do her training, and in many ways had been glad to go, and she still wasn’t sure what had brought her back as a newly fledged teacher in her probationary year. Her parents were undemonstratively glad to see her. They regarded it as part of the scheme of things that the daughter of their marriage should live at home until she set out on a married life of her own. There was a reassuring sense of permanence, of stability about things, and Colin’s advent into her life seemed, as far as her mother was concerned certainly, merely an inevitable piece in the pattern.

Janna and Colin had met two years earlier, when Colin had first come to the Carrisford works. Up to that time, he had merely been a name to many of the local people, having followed school and university with a prolonged training period, both abroad and at the other works in the north-west of England.

They had met at the cricket club one warm Saturday afternoon when Janna was helping some of the players’ wives with the teas. When the match was ended prematurely by a drenching thunderstorm he had asked her to go out to dinner with him. Before many weeks had passed Janna knew she was being courted. At first, she could only feel dismay, but she soon discovered Colin had no intention of rushing her either physically or mentally into a relationship she was not prepared for. His pursuit of her, though determined, was leisurely. As she had come to know him better, she realised that this was not solely out of consideration for her, but because there was an instinctive element of caution in his nature. He too wanted to be absolutely sure before committing himself.

They had been officially engaged for just over three months now, and Janna had begun to sense a slight change in his attitude of late. They had not planned an exact date for their marriage, but she knew he was thinking in terms of the following spring. But though this had led to a new sense of urgency in their relationship, Janna had not discovered any determination in Colin to take it to a more intimate level which she might have expected. After all, he was going to be her husband. She wore his very expensive ring and was a frequent guest at his father’s rather ostentatious house in the neighbouring dale. In many ways, there was not the slightest reason why they should hold back any longer. And yet … Janna gripped her hands together in her lap until the brilliant solitaire she wore on her left hand bit into her flesh. At the back of her mind there was always that memory, no matter how deeply buried she thought it was. Savagely, she dammed it back into the recesses of her brain. It was over—had been over for years. Anyway, she’d been hardly more than a child. She couldn’t still go on blaming herself for that …

She dragged herself back into the present with a start, aware suddenly that the car had turned left at the last fork and was climbing steadily.