Part Twelve: SUNDAY MORNING ECHOES OF THE NIGHT BEFORE

Miss Laird had slept only fitfully through the night. By the morning it seemed as if she had not slept more than an hour at any one time and this, she thought, was worse than not sleeping at all.

During her periods of wakefulness, which accounted for most of the night, the phone conversation repeated itself over and over again like a record with a needle stuck in the groove. She flushed with embarrassment that she had ever thought that Lachlan could be interested in her in that way.

What HAD she been thinking of, for goodness sake? Of all the silly schoolgirl nonsense. She would have hoped that Bill Todd had cured her of all that and she was sick with herself that she had not seemed to have learnt her lesson - not even after all the pain that "sly Todd" had caused her.

She was supposed to be working hard to repair her fortunes after that "basket" had fleeced and jilted her - not jeopardising her current livelihood, for goodness sake. What a fool she had been. What a bloody little fool. What would her dear Mother make of all this? Then, as was the pattern of the night, after a brief, intense burst of self flagellation, she would drift off to sleep again only to repeat the whole dreary performance again in less than an hour.

Eventually, about 8a.m., tired of this demented roundabout and the effort of trying to ignore the shabbiness of her room - it always seemed more depressing in the morning - Miss Laird decided to have a bath. There was always the chance that all the little imps responsible for her shame and self loathing would shrivel up in the steam and never bother her again.

Certainly, some of them succumbed as she wallowed in the hot bath water but enough survived to keep Elizabeth at least an arms length from piece of mind. Slowly, though, as the steam subsided, the sheer power of sour resentment came to her rescue.

Here she was, living in conditions which, to her sensibilities, were little short of Dickensian, and yet she, and she alone, was the reason that Lachlan was making so much money out of that little hat shop in the West End. She was pretty sure, too, that it was one of his more profitable ventures - apart from his flats anyway and, lets face it, she thought, driping vinegar, any idiot could make money out of flats in Edinburgh these days. It didn't exactly take much imagination or flair. Certainly not as much as she needed to run that little shop which, by the way, regardless of what he might think, didn't run itself.

And you had to have an eye for colour and style - and price! Let's not forget about price. The whole thing was you had to be able to deal with people and that was never Lachlan's strong suit. Lets face it he needed her more than she needed him, if it came to that.

She bit her lip, poisoned by her own venom. She was not by nature angry or vicious and this spate of the aforementioned unattractive traits had exhausted her.

A tear rolled down her cheek. She was making Lachlan a small fortune and getting peanuts back in return. The man couldn't even make a simple dinner arrangement and stick to it. It was hard not being appreciated. It was hard not having the ownership of your own success.

The tears flowed freely now and a veritable volcano of anger was churning in her belly. She pounded the water with both fists.

"Bloody Lachlan," she shouted out loud, not caring who heard her. "Bloody dinner. Bloody Todd. Bloody threadbare carpets. Bloody tatty wallpaper."

She paused just long enough to get her breath back. "Bloody life. My bloody, bloody life!"

Somewhere, out of reach of the steam, a choir of imps were laughing themselves silly.



No17 struggled to greet another day. The sun tried its best to bring illumination to the establishment but there were some places where the sun would never shine. There were just too many shadows in that house for one sun to conquer.

Driscoll sat on the end of his bed sucking on the first Capstan Full Strength of the day and trying not to think about his recent "haunting". In fact he was hoping that he could spend the whole day on "automatic pilot" as far as the thinking went.



The sound of old Josef having a coughing fit carried up the stairwell.Miss Laird smoothed down her skirt and wondered if she should go down and check on the old chap but before she had time to make a decision the coughing stopped and she was suddenly aware of how much anger can whet your appetite. Besides, she thought, if living well really was the best revenge, then surely a good breakfast would set you off in the right direction.

She settled on bacon, eggs and fried bread and a mug of tea. She remembered that she'd got some good bacon from that nice little grocer on the corner and those lovely local eggs of his.

She was not to know that the house's latest arrival had also been thinking of his stomach.



As she walked into the kitchen the first thing she was aware of was Buster's cavernous open mouth about to bear down on a fried egg sandwich. The second thing was an open carton of eggs, with two missing, sitting on the kitchen table. The third thing?........They were her eggs, her bloody eggs!!

"Excuse me", she said, suddenly furious at the impotence of those two words.

Buster froze in the act of mid mastication. The two eyed each other like alleycats in a territorial dispute. Miss Laird was about to launch into the Riot Act when there was a flurry of activity in the region of Buster's jaw as he chewed away like a maniac then swallowed hard.

Mouth empty, he launched into a pre emptive defence. Mr. Straczynski wassogenerouswhatwithbuyinghimthatbigbitofcheesecaketheotherdayandgivinghimgaribaldisanddundeecakeonhisfirstnightthathethoughtthattheoldmanmeantthatallthefoodinthehousewasfreehewaseversosorrybutitwasanunderstandablemistakewasitnotyoucouldn'tblamehimcouldyou.....couldyou?

Buster only fell silent when he had run out of breath. He studied Miss Laird's twitching features and hoped against hope that his eloquence had won the day.

His adversary's expression bore a strong resemblance to a haddock's just after it had been landed and lay gasping for breath on the deck of a trawler and, after she composed herself, Buster knew there would be no escape.

"As if it weren't bad enough that you think you can commandeer the bathroom with a complete disregard for the convenience of others, you now feel free to purloin other people's groceries."

She was aware of her finger wagging, involuntarily, in front of her and this ludicrous little creature eyes being focussed on it like a hypnotised, cross eyed rabbit.

"I shall certainly be having words with Mr. Straczynski about this. You've gone too far this time. I know some rather strange people have crossed the threshold of no. 17 but I thought he would stop short of giving house room to an obvious mental defective.........."

The minute the words had passed from her lips she pulled herself up short. It was too much. It was just too cruel. She had been thoroughly provoked but she should not have used that word.

She was not a cruel person. It was not the way she had been brought up and something deep inside her, like a long forgotten admonition from a parent, told her that she had crossed one of those invisible, but all too real, lines that should never have been crossed. Still the word could not be "unsaid" and she was not yet ready to apologise to someone that she had just caught stealing from her.

She needn't have worried quite so much though, as Buster did not actually understand the word. He understood anger though and sat shaking while he wondered what she would do next.

Long seconds passed and still Miss Laird remained silent as she stood staring at the egg carton.

Suddenly, a light bulb switched on inside Buster's head. He was sure he had thought of a way to repair some of the damage that had been done. Gingerly, he edged the carton toward her, mentioning as he did so, that there were enough eggs left if she still wanted a sandwich for herself.

Miss Laird looked at him eyes, blazing. The match had lit the touch paper and it seemed to Buster as if the woman had expanded to twice her normal size.

"Get out. Get out of my sight you wretched little man".

Buster didn't need telling twice. He dodged past her in wild eyed terror, heading for the stairs, the main door and the open road.

Miss Laird leaned over the bannister to deliver her parting shot. "And you can be sure the landlord will find out about your thieving ways."