Some of Daniel's shows were being re-run on afternoon television. Lee watched them eagerly. She'd seen one or two before but not as many as she would have liked. As the programme went out during the day she had to tape it, and in the evening she was usually too occupied with the man himself to have time for his screen image.
Now she could study him, and realise what a consummate professional he was. He could work a crowd as skilfully as any showman, making it look easy.
'With so much happening, don't you ever lose track?' she asked one day. 'Or get nervous?'
'I used to. Then I discovered the secret was to have everything at my fingertips and always be in control.'
He was the reverse of conceited, judging his screen self ruthlessly. 'I lost it there,' he admitted. 'I shouldn't have let that woman go on so long-and here the argument got derailed and I didn't pull back fast enough.'
'You looked fine to me.'
'That's sweet of you, darling, but you don't know anything about it.' He wasn't being deliberately rude. He was just a professional fixing a laser gaze on his own work and refusing to be distracted. 'Fool!' he suddenly yelled at his screen self. 'I don't know why anyone employs you.'
'Do you normally shout abuse at yourself?' she asked laughing.
'Always.' He grinned self-consciously. 'I see so many things that could be improved.'
'But you can't be in control of every little detail.'
'You can try. There, thank heavens, it's over! We won't have to watch that idiot any more. Come on, woman. Baked beans on toast.'
There were moments of comedy too. Through tele-phone calls they were able to follow the progress of Mark's disastrous journey to Paris. He managed to get as far as the Dover ferry, but when the boat had crossed the water and docked at Calais the car refused to start. In the end it was ferried back and forth three times, with the shipping company growing increasingly irate.
Finally a tow was arranged on the French side of the water and the car was deposited in a Calais garage. There followed four days of mounting frustration and lively discussions with the mechanic, in the course of which Mark enriched his French vocabulary with a number of pungent phrases that were unlikely to be of use in academic circles.
He finally reached Paris the day before Phoebe was due to leave. Sensing what was coming, Daniel made a frantic call to Madame Bresson, begging her to ensure that Phoebe returned by air and not 'with that young maniac and his collection of welded safety pins'. After that the telephone lines hummed. Phoebe called her father to protest at his high-handedness. Daniel, who was terrified for his daughter's safety, responded by laying down the law in a manner that would have amazed his public.
The next day Phoebe flew home. In a terse scene Daniel further demolished his reputation in his daughter's eyes by flatly forbidding her to set foot in Mark's old car ever again. Phoebe set her chin stubbornly at this edict, but was deprived of the chance to defy it by the fact that Mark didn't get home for another three days, having broken down again at Dover.
Phoebe's return was the signal for Lee to depart. Daniel set out for the airport to meet his daughter while Lee drove home, a heavy ache in her heart. Daniel and Phoebe were going to spend a week with his family in the Midlands. Their parting had been a painful wrench that left her fighting back tears. She tried to tell herself that she was being absurd. She would see him again soon. But it wouldn't be the same as the blissful world where there had been only each other.
He called her that night and they had a long, loving talk. But when the call was over the house was very quiet and the sadness lay on her heart like a weight. The golden, enchanted time was over, and who could tell if she would ever know such happiness again?
It was a relief when the young people returned.
Mark could talk of nothing but his misfortunes, and Lee and Sonya had to hear the story several times.
'So you'll just have to get a decent car,' Lee said sympathetically at last. 'That offer of three thousand pounds is still open.'
'Oh, hell, Lee! Why can't you be reasonable now and let me have the seven thousand?' he snapped. 'If I had a really good car it would impress Mr Raife no end.'
'Only if it was safe. And you can be just as safe on three thousand as you can on seven.'
'If it comes to that, you, can be perfectly safe in a one-thousand-pound car if you choose it properly,' Sonya remarked, stirring the embers of discontent with an enthusiastic hand. 'Honestly, Mark, how could you be such a dozy prawn as to buy that thing just because it was the first one you saw?'
'That's enough!' said Lee, quelling the incipient riot. 'Sonya, if you can't be any more helpful than that, try keeping quiet.'
'Sorry, Mum.' Sonya subsided, cheerful at having added her mite to the proceedings.
'That car is safe,' Mark said furiously. 'The gearbox is almost new, and the brakes never fail-'
'I shouldn't think they get the chance if you can't start it,' Sonya observed cheekily.
'I'm just saying those brakes never let me down. One touch and they're solid.'
'That's probably why you can'; start it. The brakes are still on-'
'Now look, you little brat-'
'Shut up, the pair of you!' Lee said in exasperation. 'There's no point in going on about this now. Mark, think about that offer. Three thousand pounds is all you need. In the meantime, when Phoebe comes back, if you want to take her out, you can borrow my car.'
She was guiltily aware that her fuse had shortened abruptly because she was miserable. She missed Daniel desperately. Offering her car to Mark had been an act of pure self-interest. The thought of Phoebe remaining home every evening, never allowing her a moment alone with Daniel, was unendurable.
I wonder if it'll be like this until she goes to university? she thought. And even then, now Sonya's home, it's going to be a terrible problem getting some time alone together. Unless…
Unless she married Daniel. Then everything would become simple. She managed to push the decision aside for the moment. She wasn't yet ready to take that final step. But she knew she'd moved one important stage nearer.
If she'd had to define what was holding her back Lee would have said that Daniel was too perfect. His charm never failed him, his good humour was never seriously disturbed, his manners were delightful.
She knew she was being illogical, since the first time she'd met him he'd been in a raging temper, but, as Mark had said, that was 'driverism' and in a special category. It didn't tell her what she wanted to know.
All his life Daniel had been favoured by the gods. His brains, his looks, his personal magnetism had combined to create for him a climate in which he generally got what he wanted-often because people were falling over themselves to give it to him. Even the battle for Phoebe, painful though it had been at the time, had finally gone his way. Phoebe herself was a daughter any man might be proud of. Why shouldn't Daniel Raife be charming?
Only when his delightful surface had been shattered by something more serious than a dented car would she know if she could live with him.
She longed for the courage to match Daniel's whole-hearted willingness to commit himself to her. But she'd learned caution in a hard and bitter school, and it was too late to free herself of it now.
One afternoon, when Phoebe and Daniel had been home a week, Lee was getting through her work as briskly as possible. She and Daniel were going out, and she wanted to leave the studio promptly. But at the last minute the phone rang. The caller turned out to be Brenda Mulroy, the senior partner in the model agency Mulroy & Collitt.
'Hello, Brenda. What can I do for you?'
'You've already done it,' boomed the other woman's deep, cheerful voice. 'You really do have a genius as a talent-spotter, Lee. Bless you for sending her to us.'
'Sending who?' asked Lee, bewildered.
'Phoebe Raife, of course. Those pictures are fantastic'
'What?'
'Don't tell me you've already forgotten giving her our address?'
'Brenda, please-I don't know what you're talking about.'
'Didn't you take those pictures of Phoebe Raife?'
Lee sat down abruptly. Some glimmering of the awful truth was getting through to her, but her mind refused to accept it. 'Yes, I took the pictures,' she said. 'Tell me what's happened. How did you get them?'
