Princess Dottie

“Then since my clothes have given me away, you'd better tell me something about yourself so that I can decide whether you're worth three camels.”

That made her crow with laughter, and to his ears it had a pleasant sound.

“My name's Dottie Hebden,” she said, unwittingly sinking his last hope. “It's short for Dorothea. I ask you! Fancy saddling someone with a name like Dorothea!”

“Perhaps it's a family name.”

“Funny you should say that because as a matter of fact it is. According to my grandpa, anyway. If you believed him we come from a grand family, years and years ago.”

“Did he ever tell you anything about this family?”

“I'm not sure. The trouble was, he was a terrible man for the drink, and when he was tipsy everyone stopped listening. No, it was just Grandpa spinning pretty tales.”

“Haven't you ever wished that they were true?”

“Heavens no! What, me? Swanning about in a tiara and acting grand? Don't be funny!”

Her smile died as something attracted her attention. Randolph followed her gaze and saw that Mike was talking into a mobile phone, looking as annoyed as his good-natured face would allow. He finished the call, shrugged helplessly at Dottie and rose to his feet.

“Sorry, love,” he said, coming across. “Gotta go out and see to a breakdown. Important customer. It sounds like a long job, so I won't see you tonight. Never mind. Tomorrow's half day. Meet you in the park as usual.”

He kissed her cheek and departed.

“Oh heck!” Dottie sighed. “Just when we're about to close. Brenda, come and help me clear up. Brenda? Brenda?”

“I'm afraid she's gone,” Randolph told her. “She slipped out straight after Mike.”

“The lousy, rotten… She's not supposed to leave until I say so. You wouldn't believe it, but I'm supposed to be the manageress here.” Dottie stood in the middle of the floor, raised her fluffy head to heaven and cried, “I am Authority, with a capital A. Underlings tremble when I talk to them.” There was a cheer from the other customers, evidently used to this, and she reverted to normal. “But for all the notice she takes of me I might as well be the dogsbody. In fact,

I am the dogsbody, because now I've got to clear up on my own.”

“I'm afraid that's the price of scaling managerial heights,” Randolph said sympathetically.

Dottie pointed a sausage at him. “You can hush!”

She went around the tables collecting money, and the cafe slowly emptied. As she started the washing up a wall phone buzzed. Under cover of taking his crockery to the counter Randolph shamelessly eavesdropped, but it gained him little. Dottie's face, full of exasperation, was more revealing.

“I'll strangle Jack,” she said, hanging up. “Someone called Holsson made a reservation for tonight and Jack forgot to tell me, so I've got to get his room ready before I go. Oh blast Jack. I hope his milk curdles and his socks rot. And the same goes for Mr. Holsson, whoever he is.”

Chapter Two

“I'm afraid you have to go now,” Dottie said. “I'm locking up.” “Can't I help you clear away to atone for my crime?”

“Crime?”

“I'm the awkward Mr. Holsson,” he confessed.

“Oh heck!” She clasped her hand over her mouth, looking so much like a guilty child that he had to laugh. “Me and my big gob! I'm always doing it.”

“Don't worry. I won't tell anyone if you don't.”

“I'm not usually this disorganized.”

“It's not your fault if nobody told you.”

“Thanks. That's nice of you. Just give me a minute and I'll be over there to make you comfortable.”

Randolph felt that nothing short of a miracle could make him comfortable in this nightmarish place, but he held his tongue. He was growing to like Dottie.

She was loudmouthed, over-the-top and totally unsuitable to be a queen, but she had a rough good nature that appealed to him, and her ability to laugh in the face of her dreary life touched his heart.

She was just finishing the cashing up. “This is supposed to be Jack's job,” she sighed.

“But tonight he's giving you a wide berth,” Randolph reminded her. “That way you can't complain about his 'high crimes and misdemeanors'.”

“His whaters?” Dottie asked, her eyes on the till.

“His failure to pass on the message.”

“Oh, I see. Why not say so in English?”

“It is English,” Randolph said, suppressing a desire to tear his hair.

“Not where I come from.”

He drew a long breath. It was her language, wasn't it? If he could speak it, why couldn't she?

But he abandoned the subject as fruitless. “Since this is partly my fault, why don't you let me help you clear up?” he suggested.

She agreed to this readily, and within a few minutes they had finished. She vanished into a little room at the rear to remove her waitress uniform, and returned in a blouse that looked faded from much washing, and shorts that revealed a pair of dazzling legs.

He had a sudden aching memory of his much loved but erratic father, a “leg man” and proud of it. Gazing at Dottie's shining pins Randolph wondered if he had more in common with his wayward parent than he'd suspected.

She locked up, turned out the lights and together they went next door, where, despite Jack's promise about a porter, Randolph's bags were still standing in the hall where he'd left them. It was a measure of how far he'd traveled in the past hour that this didn't surprise him.

Room 7 came as a nasty shock. With his first step he had to hold onto the door frame as a loose floorboard wobbled underfoot. The wallpaper was a sludgy green that suggested it had been chosen to hide stains, the mattress seemed to be stuffed with cabbages. The curtains were too small for the window, and the drawers beside the bed didn't shut properly.

An inarticulate sound behind Randolph made him turn to see a pile of sheets and blankets walking around on Dottie's legs. He guided her inside and removed the top layer, unblocking her view.

“Sorry,” she said, dumping everything on the bed. “The furniture's a bit…a bit…”

“Yes, it is,” Randolph said with feeling.

“Jack buys it secondhand, you see. Never mind. It's clean, I see to that.”

“I believe you. Let me help you make up the bed.”

This wasn't a success, except that his efforts reduced Dottie to tears of laughter. “I'll do it,” she said when she'd recovered. “It'll be quicker.”

She proceeded to attack the bed in a wild frenzy of efficiency, punching seven bells out of the pillows until they took on some sort of shape.

“I still feel I should atone for making your life difficult,” he said. “Let me take you for a meal.”

“But you've just had a meal.”

He looked at her.

“No, I suppose not,” she sighed. “You didn't really touch it, did you? But you don't have to-”

“I should like to. Please.” When she hesitated he added shamelessly, “Just think of Brenda making up to your fiance.”

“Right,” she said, setting her chin firmly. “Let's go.”

At his suggestion she used his mobile to call a cab to collect them in Hanver Street.

“Why Hanver Street?” he asked. “Is this a pedestrians only area?”

“No, but cabs don't like coming here because of all the one-way streets,” she explained as they stepped