An Ocean Apart (15 page)

Sophie sucked her teeth. “That's not a game, Harry!”

“It could be, though, couldn't it, Daddy?” She turned her face up to David, pressing her curly mop of jet-black hair against his arm, a pleading look in her eyes, willing his support in her argument.

“Well, I suppose you could fry eggs against the clock.”

Sophie flicked up her head in disdain. “You would say that, Dad, just to agree with teeny-weeny.”

Harriet kicked her foot against her sister's leg. “
Don't
call me teeny-weeny, Sophie!”

“All right, you two,” David said, catching Harriet's foot as it flashed out for another strike.

Sophie turned, resting her cheek on her knee, and smiled lightly at her sister. “Teeny-weeny,” she teased in a high-pitched voice.

“Sophie!” David laughed, “that's enough. Leave your extremely grown-up younger sister alone.” He glanced across to the cricket game and saw with relief that at last Charlie was about to start bowling. “Come on, there's Charlie on now! Let's watch him.”

Out on the distant pitch, Charlie sped into the wicket as fast as his spindly young legs would carry him, and with a somewhat over-complicated bowling action sent a looping ball towards the batsman. It was given a solid, yet sadly deserving blow, and as the young fieldsman chased off after it towards the boundary, Charlie stood watching him, hands on hips and disappointedly kicking the toe of his shoe into the ground. Taking this all as a sign for immediate congratulations, Harriet began clapping heartily and David grabbed her hands before her badly timed applause could be heard by her brother.

She tilted back her head and looked up at David. “Wasn't that any good?”

“No, not really.”

Sophie let out a long sigh. “If he keeps bowling like that, we'll be here all day!”

Charlie's next ball was identical to the first, only this time the batsman, lulled into a false sense of security by the snail-like pace of Charlie's bowling, bounded down the wicket to take another fearsome blow at the ball—and missed. The diminutive wicket-keeper fumbled the ball into his oversized gloves and knocked off the bails, and an immediate unison cry of “Howzat” rang out from the pitch. The umpire raised his finger to signify the batsman's dismissal and the fielding side descended both upon Charlie and the wicket-keeper in a frenzy of excitement.

“Thank goodness for that,” Sophie said, clambering to her feet. “Let's go into the school now.”

“Hang on a minute!” David laughed, getting up and dusting off the damp grass clippings from the seat of his trousers. “Wait for Charlie. He's coming over.”

They stood watching as Charlie ran towards them, his sweater thrown over his shoulder and his loose shirttail flying out behind him. He arrived in front of them, a grin spread across his freckled face, and blew upwards at the long string of auburn hair that fell in front of his eyes.

“Did you see that, Dad?” he asked excitedly.

“I certainly did.”

“Not bad for second ball!”

David walked over to him and tousled his hair. “Not bad at all!”

“Can we go in now?” Sophie asked, running rapidly on the spot.

Charlie took no notice of his elder sister. “Dad, I'm not batting until number ten and they're going to have tea first, so Mr. Hunter said that we could go off for a bit.”

“Where would you want to go?”

“McDonald's in Perth! Please, Dad! I'm famished.”

The idea was greeted with an immediate shout of approval from Harriet. David looked across at Sophie.

“Is that all right by you?”

She shrugged noncommittally. “I don't really mind, as long as we go somewhere warm.”

A quarter of an hour later, following a speedy drive around the Perth ring road, they sat in the car-park outside McDonald's with the tangy, sweet smell of fast food wafting about the fuggy interior of the Audi.

“Are you sure you don't want anything more than that?” David asked Sophie, who sat beside him picking at the smallest bag of fries that she had been able to order.

Sophie shook her head. “No, I'm not that hungry.”

“Dad!” Charlie exclaimed from the back seat between slurps at his milk shake. “Harriet's just dropped a piece of gherkin on the floor.”

“I don't like them,” Harriet retorted quietly.

“Doesn't mean you have to throw—”

“All right!” David interjected. “It couldn't matter less.” He turned in his seat and, picking up the offending object, jettisoned it out of the window. The children sat without speaking, munching loudly on their meals. David took in a deep breath.

“Listen … erm, I've got something to tell you. I'm going to have to go to America next week on business.”

Sophie glanced round, a chip half-way to her mouth. “For how long?”

“Well, it should only be a couple of days. It depends really on how long it takes.”

Charlie leaned forward between the front seats, licking ketchup off his fingers. “Does that mean you won't be coming down next weekend?”

“I don't know, Charlie. As I said, it all depends.”

Charlie let out a moan of disappointment. “But we're playing Clevely Hall on Saturday.”

“I know you are. But if I'm not back, I'm sure Granny will come down to watch you play.”

“Granny doesn't understand cricket,” Charlie whined. “She just spends her time talking to people and not watching.”

“Oh, do stop moaning, Charlie!” Sophie said sharply. “It's really kind of Granny to come at all. Anyway, Dad will probably be back by next weekend.” She looked round at her father, a flash of uncertainty in her eyes. “Won't you?”

David smiled reassuringly at her. “Well, it depends, but I'll certainly do my best.” Stretching across, he took an over-cooked chip from Sophie's bag and, crunching on it, eyed the glum faces of Charlie and Harriet in the rear-view mirror.

“Listen,” he said after a pause. “I know that we discussed this all before, but, well, now that you've been back at school for a bit, I wondered if you had any second thoughts about being away from home. It's just that I spoke with Mr. Hunter this morning and he says that he would quite understand if you did want to come back to Dalnachoil.”

Sophie was shaking her head even before he had finished his last sentence. “No, I
really
don't think it would be a good idea.”

“Can I ask why not?”

Sophie let out a long sigh. “Because we did discuss it, Dad, not just with you, but between ourselves as well. We all agreed that we didn't want to leave our friends, and well, since we've been back, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter have been really kind. We go up and see them every night and they, well, just talk to us.”

“They don't play cricket
or
rugby at Dalnachoil,” Charlie interjected quietly.

“We are really all right here, Dad,” Sophie continued, “unless…” She stopped and looked across at her father.

“Unless what?”

“Unless you want us to come home.”

David put his hand on her head and smoothed back her sleeked hair. “No, please, I really want what you want. It's just that, well, I thought it was worth asking the question again.”

“
I
want to go home.” The voice sounded so distant and so diminutive that everyone turned to look at Harriet. She was sitting contentedly munching on her hamburger and staring out of the window at a screaming child who had just covered the car-park with chocolate milk shake. Seeing everyone staring at her, she grinned broadly and readied herself for another bite. “Not now, though—in the holidays.”

Everyone let out a groan of relief, then burst out laughing. David reached forward to turn the ignition key, but stopped when he felt the light touch of Sophie's hand on his arm.

“Dad?” A serious expression had suddenly come over her face.

“Yeah?”

“Are
you
all right?”

David paused for a moment, then smiled and slowly nodded. “Yeah, I'm all right.”

“Good.” She sat back in her seat. “Then we're all all right.”

David looked round at the faces of each of his children in turn. “Yeah, we are, aren't we?” He fired up the engine. “Come on, let's get back to school before our master batsman misses out on his big moment!”

Chapter
  
TEN

Despite having left Inchelvie at six o'clock, the journey down to Glasgow Airport on Tuesday morning took one hour longer than planned, due to the endless stream of temporary traffic lights set up for roadworks between Perth and Stirling. Consequently, when David pulled the car to a halt outside the terminal, he had only time to bid a fleeting farewell to his parents before grabbing his cases from the trunk and hurrying into the building. At the check-in desk, the taut-faced girl glanced at his ticket, then told him, with acid delight spread across her over-made-up face, that the flight was due to leave in an hour and that she was only accepting late arrivals for Business Class passengers. Silently cursing the fact that he had the last seat on the plane, and that it happened to be in Economy Class, David had to use every ounce of his guile and charm to persuade the girl to allow him to proceed.

“Departure gate two then, sir,” she said without a trace of a smile as she handed him back his documents, “and as fast as you can. The flight has just about finished boarding.”

Returning her lack of animation with a flashing grin, David rushed through passport control and sprinted the full four hundred yards to gate 2 before thumping his way noisily down the telescopic bridge onto the plane. He was immediately the star attraction, The Man Who Dared Arrive Late. Every seat was taken and every eye turned towards him as he walked up the aisle between the rows of disgruntled passengers.

His boarding pass did say that he was in seat number 21F, but when he arrived beside it, all three in the aisle row seemed to be already taken. A young woman in a garishly purple nylon shell suit sat in the seat nearest to him, clutching the pudgy fist of a baby girl who occupied the middle seat, while a hyperactive five-year-old boy, sporting a Celtic football strip with matching nylon track-suit bottoms, bounced energetically on the third seat, playing peekaboo with the elderly couple behind. David delved his fingers into the top pocket of his blazer for the stub of the boarding pass, finding it just as a stewardess approached him.

“Have you not found your seat yet, sir?”

“No, not yet.” He handed her the stub, and she studied it for a moment before turning to the woman.

“How many seats did you reserve, madam?”

“Only twa,” the woman replied in a broad Glasgow accent. “The wee yin is meant to be sittin' on my knee, but I wis hopin' this one wis free.”

The stewardess smiled at her. “I'm afraid not. This seat is reserved for this gentleman.”

David expected the woman to sigh heavily at this last-minute inconvenience, but instead she grinned up at him. “Och well, it wis worth a try.” She unbuckled her seat-belt and, picking up her daughter, moved into the next seat. “C'mon, Tracy, you come onto my knee, darlin', and you, Darren, sit doon and dinnae be such a pest!”

Smiling a thank-you at the woman, David slumped down into his seat, buckled up, leaned back against the head-rest and let out a long sigh of relief.

That was cutting it far too fine. In fact, the past twelve hours had been cut too fine. He had really done very little to prepare himself for the trip over the previous two days, preferring to try to finish off the work in the garden with Jock and do most of his organization and packing on Monday evening. But then on Monday afternoon he had picked some daffodils from the garden at Inchelvie and had taken them to the small churchyard in Dalnachoil to put on Rachel's grave. Once there he hadn't wanted to leave, and consequently he had sat for hours, talking quietly to her until the sun eventually dipped away behind the hills.

The engines of the plane rose in volume and it edged slowly away from the terminal building. David turned his head to stare past the occupants of the window-seat as the plane taxied out onto the runway. He remained in that position until they had risen far above the river Clyde and had begun the ascent through the low cloud base. Once nothing was left in view below, he turned away, only to find himself being eyed with uncertainty by his three travelling companions. He gave them a smile, then suddenly realized that he was clutching tight to Darren's hand. “Oh, God, I'm sorry about that!” he said, letting go immediately and looking over at Darren's mother. “It's a natural reaction, I'm afraid. I always seem to grab hold of one of my children's hands during take-off.”

The woman's face broke into a smile once more. “How many do
you
have?” she asked.

“Three.”

“Jeez, twa's quite enough handlin' for me. You must be a glutton for punishment.” She let out a throaty laugh which ended in two rasping coughs, and instantly David wondered how on earth she was going to survive the long non-smoking flight with the tantalizing sight of the pack of two hundred duty-free cigarettes protruding from the basket at her feet.

Darren, meanwhile, had not taken his eyes off David. “Mum's takin' us tae Disneyland,” he said in an unanimated monotone.

“Is she?” David replied. “Well, you're a pretty lucky boy, aren't you!”

“Dae ye like Mickey Mouse?”

“Yeah, I think he's great! Is he your favorite?”

“No. I think he stinks.”

“Darren!” the mother exclaimed, a look of embarrassed horror spread across her pasty features. “Dinnae be so cheeky tae the man.”

“I'm no' being cheeky, Mam. You think he stinks too.”

“Darren, that's
ENOUGH
, laddie!”

David smiled a fixed grin at the happy little trio, and as a form of diversion to return to his own company, he opened his brief-case and took out the Glendurnich document.