An Ocean Apart (35 page)

“Hullo. I hope you don't mind my coming over today. It's only that—”

“No! Not at all!” she cut in. She looked down at the rhododendron that he had just dug into the ground. “Are you putting in new plants?”

David followed her eye-line downwards. “Yeah, I'm afraid that the last gardener
did
leave a number of holes, so I thought I'd fill them in.” He looked back up to her. “I hope that's all right.”

“Of course it's all right. Where did you get them?”

“Oh, I found a small garden centre out on the Montauk Highway. They've really got good stuff out there.”

“How much have you bought?”

“Oh, well, it's all right,” he said, realizing that she might be thinking that a huge bill was imminent. “I just thought one or two here and there might help.”

“But how are you paying?”

“No, I mean, that's all right. I just thought it would look better.”

“But you must give me the bill. I can't expect you to pay for them.”

“Well, I—”

They were interrupted by a ball coming high over the back netting of the court and landing on the lawn ten yards from David. He walked over and picked it up and lobbed it back over the netting.

“You must tell me how much I owe you, David.”

He smiled, embarrassed, rubbing his hands together to rid them of the loose soil. It was the first time she had mentioned his name.

“Okay.”

“And in future, if you go there, open an account, okay?”

“Right.”

She turned and gazed around the garden. “It looks wonderful.”

“Well, it's getting there.”

“No, it's not. I think it looks wonderful now. I mean it. You really do know how to garden, don't you?”

David scratched at the back of his head. “Well, I have had a bit of experience.”

They stood looking at each other for a moment, and David, unsettled by their lengthy eye contact, picked up his spade and made to start digging again.

“David?”

He straightened up again.

“I, er … well, I just want to say how much I appreciate what you're doing for Benji. He really loves his tennis with you, and his ukulele … and er, I'm quite happy to pay you extra for what you're doing, especially for taking him to school.”

“For heaven's sakes, no!” David said, almost too forcefully. He smiled to mollify his tone. “I mean, no, I really don't want to be paid for that. It's a pleasure, believe me. He really is a great boy.”

The remark had the most staggering effect on Jennifer, suddenly unleashing the full natural beauty of her face. Her mouth broke into a wide grin which wrinkled her cheeks into smile lines that had been imperceptible beforehand, her lips drawn back to reveal the perfection of her glistening white teeth. David was so taken aback by his own reaction to her that he looked down at the ground and started to kick nervously at the blade of his spade.

“Thank you for that.” She let out a resigned sigh. “Well, at least promise me you'll open an account at the garden centre.”

He looked up at her and smiled. “Okay, I'll do that.”

“Jennifer!” Alex's voice called out from the court.

“What?”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, fine.”

“What're you doing? Gerry's arrived. Come and see him.”

Both Jennifer and David looked to the other end of the court where a tall, thin young man was sitting down on the bench outside the summer-house. He was dressed in tennis whites, his hair sleeked tight to his scalp and gathered in a pony-tail at the back of his head.

“Okay, I'm coming!” She turned and gave David a smile. “See you.”

“Right.”

He watched her for a moment as she walked back up the side netting of the court, then turned back to his work in the flower-bed.

The players had just started on the second set when Jasmine came out from the house and called Alex to the telephone. David glanced out the side of his eye to see him leave the court immediately, asking the pony-tailed young man to take his place. As he ran towards the house, Jennifer, who had been knocking a ball back and forth with Benji on the lawn, watched him intently. After a brief discussion as to the score, the game continued, with the older man called Sam serving to the athletic and fiercely competitive Russ, who partnered Sam's dumpy little wife, Molly, at the end nearest to where David was working.

The first ball of the new game had hardly been hit across the net before Russ was jogging over to Molly to whisper urgent words of encouragement and new tactical ideas in her ear. The effect on her game was immediate, and of the next two balls that came to her, one was missed completely and the other dribbled harmlessly into the bottom of the net. Russ turned round and stood looking at her, hand on hip, his tennis racket over his shoulder and his head cocked to one side.

“Come on, Moll, what the hell's gotten into you? You were doing better than that before!”

“Sorry,” Molly said meekly, returning to the backhand court and trying to give her partner the impression that she really was trying by crouching in concentrated readiness for the next ball to come to her. Sam wound himself up for the serve and it winged its way down to Molly's backhand. This time she made perfect contact, so much so that it sailed clean over the back netting of the court, landing at Benji's feet on the lawn.

“Oh dear!” she said, her voice faltering slightly. “I do apologize, Russ.”

“That's game!” Sam called out from the other end, and proceeded to hit the balls down to Molly's end of the court. They finished in a clump against the back netting beside David.

“Right, your serve now, Moll,” Russ said, his voice sulky at the thought of inevitable defeat. “Try and get them in.”

Molly walked over to retrieve two balls from the back netting next to David, talking to herself as she did so.

“Oh dear! Oh dear! What
am
I doing wrong, I wonder?”

David tilted his head slightly towards her, never stopping his work in the flower-bed.

“Nothing,” he said quietly.

Molly, being in the process of picking up a ball, glanced up at him. “Sorry?”

“You're doing nothing wrong. Just play to your husband's backhand. It's very weak.”

“But I can't even get the ball over the net!”

“That's because they're playing to
your
backhand. Just run round the ball and play it on your forehand. You hit
them
well enough.”

Russ turned round from his position at the net. “Molly! What's holding you up?”

“I'm coming.” She looked at David and smiled.

David did not watch the next point, but listened to the ball being hit hard and often across the net. The rally ended with a shout of frustration from Sam, and a whoop of joy from Russ.

“Great shot, Molly! That's a helluva lot better!”

David smiled to himself in satisfaction as he dug his fingers into the ground to loosen the roots of a particularly stubborn dockleaf. He heard the squeak of tennis shoes approach him, and Molly bent down to pick up another ball.

“Thank you so much,” she said quietly, and he turned to see her upside-down head grinning at him. He gave her a wink just as the weed came away in his hands.

*   *   *

Jasmine waited for Alex by the door that led into the hallway, and watched as he bounced his way up the steps at the side of the terrace.

“It's the phone in the study,” she said, standing aside to allow him into the house first.

“Okay, thanks.”

He walked down the hall and entered the drawing-room, closing the door carefully behind him, while Jasmine returned to the kitchen to finish putting the bottles of beer and iced tea into the cooler. She was just pushing the door of the refrigerator closed with her backside, a bowl of mixed salad in one hand and a plate piled high with tuna sandwiches in the other, when Benji ran into the kitchen.

“Have you seen Dad?”

“He's in the study, darlin'.”

“Great! I want him to come and meet David,” he said, running back the way he had come.

Jasmine called after him. “Just leave him be, darlin'. He's on the telephone right—”

“Dad, come and meet David!” Benji's voice carried through the house, as he yelled into the study.

She smiled and shook her head, and transferring the plate and bowl to one hand, she picked up the cooler in the other, and walked back through the hall.

The door of the study was slightly open, Benji obviously having failed to close it properly before running back out into the garden. Jasmine tutted and put down the cooler and walked over to the door. She was about to put her hand out to close it, when she heard Alex laugh quietly into the telephone.

“That's wicked!” he said in a hushed voice. “You shouldn't say those kind of things over the phone! Are you sure there's no one there that can hear you?”

Jasmine drew back her hand, wondering if she should close the door or just leave it as it was.

“Look, I really don't know if I can make it. I promised Jennifer that I'd be here this weekend.” He laughed again. “I know you are. I'm horny too. But we'll just have to wait until next week.”

Jasmine clasped her hand to her mouth and turned slowly away, feeling a sudden flush of panic burn at her cheeks.

“When are you off?…
Monday?
 … Christ, you didn't tell me you were going away … yeah, and I want to see you too … goddamn it!… Okay, listen, I'll get out of this thing today … no, no, I'll just say I've been called away on business … no, just leave it with me. I really want to see you before you go … okay, meet you at your place in a few hours…”

Jasmine had heard all that she wanted. She tiptoed over to where she had left the cooler and, picking it up, hurried out of the door into the garden.

Alex put down the telephone and sat for a moment drumming his fingers on the surface of the desk. He turned to look out the window and caught sight of Jennifer and Benji hitting a tennis ball to each other on the lawn. Pushing back the chair, he rose and walked over to the window, where he stood watching them as they counted out the number of shots in their rally. It ended with Jennifer lobbing a ball high over Benji's head and he threw his racket up in the air in a desperate attempt to intercept it. He leaped to pick up the racket and the ball, then directed a yell towards the new gardener at the other end of the court. Jennifer looked round and laughed at the remark, as the man straightened up from his task and smiled in their direction, acknowledging whatever it was that Benji had said with a wave of his hand. As Alex watched this, he felt an unexpected pang of jealousy course through his body, as sudden and as powerful as an electric shock. He shook his head and turned from the window, giving the chair at his desk a kick as he walked towards the door.

“
Shit!
What a
fucking
mess you've made of this!” he said, slamming the door shut behind him.

Jasmine was on her way back to the house when he passed her on the terrace. Alex smiled at her, but she kept her eyes low and hurried past. He turned to watch her enter the house, then, pulling a face at her odd, unfriendly behaviour, he walked down the steps of the terrace and around the side of the hedge, arriving at the summer-house just as the players were coming off court. Jennifer and Benji had brought their own game to an end and were moving across the lawn to meet them.

“Hey, Alex,” Russ called over to him as he approached. “You really should have seen that! Molly played like a woman possessed! She won that match single-handed!” He turned to his blushing partner and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

Alex smiled and stuck his hands into the pockets of his shorts.

“Yeah, I wish I had,” he said in a flat voice.

Jennifer looked at him, a worried expression on her face. “Are you all right, darling?”

“Yup.” He glanced down at his feet and rubbed the toes of his tennis shoes together. “Listen, Jennifer, I'm afraid I've got some bad news. I've got to go.”

Jennifer let her tennis racket fall limply to her side, and Benji ran over to his father and grabbed hold of his hand.

“You can't go, Dad. You haven't met David yet, and I want to show you how well I can play tennis now! Please, Dad!”

“I know, Benji, it's a real pain. I want to see you play tennis as well, and meet David, but this is sort of an emergency.”

“How much of an emergency?” Jennifer asked.

“I'm not sure. That was Harry. Something's not good with the contract in Dallas. I have to meet him at the office in two hours. He says we can't afford to leave it until Monday.”

Jennifer threw down the racket. “Oh, for heaven's sakes! Can't they manage without you for once?”

“Doesn't look like it. I may have to fly out there. I'm not sure.”

Jennifer turned to the rest of the tennis party and held up her arms resignedly. “Sorry, folks.”

Alex nodded. “Yeah, sorry about this, everyone. I'm afraid it's just the nature of the job!” He walked over to his wife and took her by the arm and led her around the hedge towards the terrace steps. “Look, I really
am
sorry about this.”

Jennifer smiled and shrugged. “It's not your fault. It's only that sometimes I wish that we had the weekends to be a little more like a normal family—if not for our sake, for Benji's.”

“I know.” He paused. “Listen, I don't know if I will be going to Dallas, but I'm certainly heading back to San Francisco Wednesday night. So I was wondering if we might have an early dinner together?”

For a moment, Jennifer held off giving an answer, thinking about the work she still had to do on the Tarvy's proposal. Then she nodded. “Okay. Where?”

“We could try the new fish restaurant on Forty-eighth between Lex and Park. I think it's called the Ocean Floor. Supposed to be good.”