The Silent Tide by Rachel Hore

page of the script, read a line or two, then stowed it in her shopping bag. It was the first time she’d been asked to do something like this, to venture an opinion on a book, and the prospect excited her.
    Yours faithfully, Stephen McKinnon Esq., she typed with careful fingers. She wound the paper out of the machine and slipped it into a blotting-paper folder with the other letters for signature. A stack of copy-typing still lay in her tray. It got no smaller because Audrey kept adding to it.
    ‘He won’t pay you any more for reading that,’ Audrey remarked of the typescript. Nothing escaped her, it seemed.
    ‘I really don’t care,’ Isabel said. It was vital that she prove herself to Stephen. She was too proud to tell Audrey that she might not be here to bother her after Christmas. There were two weeks to go.
    Audrey, however, was one step ahead. ‘Has Stephen said anything to you about staying?’
    Isabel shook her head.
    Audrey let the light sparkle off the tiny gem on her finger, ‘Of course, I don’t know yet how long I’ll be here,’ she said, with a little smile, like a cat’s. ‘Anthony doesn’t want me to work once we’re married, but that won’t be for ages and ages. We’re saving for a deposit on a house, you know.’
    ‘What would you do all day if you didn’t work?’ Isabel asked in disbelief.
    ‘Look after Anthony, of course,’ Audrey said in surprise. ‘He deserves to be looked after properly, poor love, he works so hard.’ Isabel had never met the Honourable Anthony Watkins, but she knew all about him as his name peppered Audrey’s conversation. He was a civil servant, currently reporting to a junior minister. Honourable he might be, but his family were as poor as church mice. Audrey went on: ‘But I’m sure there’d be time for luncheon with friends. And of course,’ she blushed a little, ‘a baby might come along. Anthony says we must find somewhere in town with a pretty garden and a room for a nursery.’
     
    Isabel left the manuscript on Stephen’s desk the next morning along with a short report that she’d rewritten twice. All day she waited for him to mention it, but he didn’t, nor the next day, and she was disappointed. The manuscript disappeared under a pile of others.
    One Friday, nine days before Christmas, she arrived early to find him already seated at his desk, surrounded by paperwork and writing furiously. He looked up at her, muttered, ‘Good morning,’ and though he smiled, his face was tired and greyish, as though he hadn’t slept much. She felt a rush of concern.
    ‘I’ll make you some tea,’ she said. As she withdrew he called her back.
    ‘Isabel, I read that report last night you wrote on the school murder story. I’m glad you liked it. You made some interesting observations, I thought.’
    ‘Oh, thank you,’ she said, with a swelling of joy.
    ‘And I agree about that middle section, it does wander about, but Trudy could make him tighten it. I’ll get on to his agent this morning, see what he’ll take. There’s just the space for it in the spring catalogue.’
    ‘That would be marvellous,’ Isabel breathed.
    Stephen was looking at her with amusement. ‘I’m glad you’re pleased,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you some more to look at, if you like. It’ll have to be in your own time. I can’t have reading in the office, there’s too much to do.’
    ‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Really. Only . . .’ She bit her lip. ‘It’s nearly Christmas.’
    ‘I had noticed,’ he said with heavy irony. His eyes were grave. ‘I know I said your job would be until Christmas.’
    ‘Yes,’ Isabel said, waiting in desperate hope.
    ‘Well now,’ he said, leaning forward on the desk, turning a cigarette packet over and over in his long, sensitive fingers. He extracted a cigarette, lit it and contemplated her through a haze of smoke. Again, she sensed his amusement.
    ‘I know I haven’t been here long,’ she said, ‘but I’ve done my best