Broken Places (36 page)

Eric rushed across. ‘Can you help me, please? I’m looking for my daughter. Have you seen a young, dark-haired girl – five-foot tall and wearing jeans and a pink top? She might have come in to your restaurant sometime after ten, with a boy about eighteen.’

The guy clearly hadn’t understood a word and answered in an
indecipherable
tongue. He probably wasn’t a waiter at all, but some humble kitchen assistant, without even basic English.

‘Don’t worry!’ Eric called, next trying the supermarket; sprinting up and down each aisle, in search of Erica. A pretty futile endeavour, since the place was almost empty and, in any case, no teen on a date was likely to go grocery shopping at ten minutes to midnight.

Dashing out again, he began searching the whole square for a red BMW;
scrutinizing
every
red car, since the makes and styles of automobiles weren’t exactly his strong point.

In vain.

The raw night air was bitterly cold, yet he was aflame with fear, trying desperately to dismiss the gruesome images of crashes, carnage, corpses. But he was wasting time – time that might be crucial. He must go straight home and ring the police. If it upset Kimberley, too bad. It wasn’t
her
daughter who was seriously at risk.

Veering across the road, he took the short cut through Pioneer Park, stumbling to a halt as he noticed the scarlet gleam of a car. It had been driven off the road and was tucked into the parking-spot used by local
dog-walkers
. And, yes, it was a convertible.

A couple were sitting in the front – two shadowy silhouettes. He had to force himself not to overreact. Lots of people probably parked here at night, taking advantage of the privacy to indulge in a bit of philandering. And red sports cars were two a penny, so he mustn’t jump to conclusions. He inched one step nearer; careful not to make the slightest sound, in case he was spying on a pair of strangers.

Straining his eyes, he spelled out the name on the car: BMW. Even more alarming, the two figures in the front – still blurred and indistinct – suddenly moved closer to each other in a long, impassioned kiss. Heart pounding, he crept another few paces towards them.

And then he saw her – Erica – his little girl, being kissed by some disgusting lout. He felt such extremes of rage, relief and horror, all curdled and mixed up, he stood all but paralysed. She was
safe
– thank Christ – not lying injured in the road, or naked in Larry’s bed. Those facts were so precious, one part of him was dizzy with relief, yet his overwhelming instinct was to prise her from the car and really vent his fury; tell her she was never, ever to behave so irresponsibly and give everyone such cause for fear. One thing made him hesitate: the recognition that he himself had kissed girls as young as her, when he was younger still. If he ruined what could well be her first kiss – shamed her and embarrassed her in front of her first boyfriend – she might never, ever forgive him, and their already strained relationship would deteriorate still further.

He felt awkward even watching – a sneaky Peeping Tom – yet another, furious part of him felt she had lost all right to privacy and deserved only punishment. Torn all ways, he finally decided to wait just one more minute and hope desperately the guy would restart the engine and bring her safely
home.
Then
he’d give her a rocket, wipe the bloody floor with her, bawl her out for breaking all the rules. Why involve this scum of a student, who would probably try to weasel out of it; pretend he’d thought Erica was older, or come up with some equally fatuous excuse?

All at once, he noticed that the pair were no longer kissing. Now, Erica seemed to be struggling, almost fighting off the boy. The sight was a match to a tinderbox. Springing forward, he wrenched open the car-door and saw, with horror, that the brazen sod was unzipped, and trying to force his daughter’s head down over his erection.

Without stopping to think, he attacked the brute, bare-handed, punching him and shoving him off; using every ounce of strength he possessed. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled.

The guy hit back, landing him a blow in the mouth. ‘What’s it got to do with
you
, you filthy pervert? I suppose you get your kicks from spying on innocent people.’

‘Innocent? I could get you put away for this!’

‘Fuck off, you arsehole!’

Reeling from another blow, Eric was forced to use his fists again, less in self-defence than in defence of Erica. Violence was totally alien to his ideals and temperament, but he would stop at nothing when it came to his daughter’s safety.

But suddenly he realized she was trying to intervene and that, with all the uproar going on, he had failed to hear her panicked croak of a voice.

‘Stop it, Larry. That’s my … my
dad
.’

Ignoring the blood streaming from his lip, he turned to look at her – a daughter he barely recognized: her hair dishevelled; her lipstick smudged and an expression of utter terror on her face. Was he too late? She was fully dressed, thank God, but anything might have happened. After all, she had been with this shit for close on a couple of hours.

‘Are you OK?’ he barked, unable to keep the anger from his voice – anger with Larry, with himself, with the whole cruel and dangerous world.

‘Y … yes.’

The word was barely audible, despite the sudden silence. The boy was looking shocked; clearly punctured by the revelation that Carmella’s father had caught him in the act. But, although he’d had the grace to zip up, his loosened tie and half-unbuttoned shirt made Eric want to murder him. The only reason he desisted was for his daughter’s sake. She, too, looked shamed and guilty, and began trying to explain away the incident.

‘We … we just pulled off here to … to have a drink.’

The admission enraged him further, especially when he noticed the
beer-cans
on the floor of the car – empty cans, at least three or four. ‘A drink? You’re far too young to drink!’ Then, turning on the boy, he shouted, ‘How dare you let my daughter drink, or lay your filthy hands on her! She’s underage – for everything. And you’ve no right to be drinking either – not when you’re in charge of a car. You could have smashed Erica to smithereens. And it didn’t seem to bother you that you might have got her pregnant.’

Larry gave a sullen shrug. ‘We were just having a bit of fun.’

‘Fun? I could see full well what you were up to, so don’t pretend you’re innocent, you scumbag! She’s a minor – a child – so your behaviour’s
downright
criminal.’

‘Dad,
don’t
. Please don’t.’

Despite his fury, he could hear the pain in his daughter’s voice, the note of near-hysteria.

‘Right,’ he snapped. ‘We’re going home –
now
. Get out!’

‘I’m OK to drive her,’ Larry muttered, sulkily.

‘Like hell you are! I never want to lay eyes on you again – or your fancy car. And if you ever dare get in touch with my daughter, I’ll go straight to the police. Is that clear?’

Erica hadn’t moved, so he all but lifted her bodily from the car, then slammed the door, with a last shouted curse at Larry. The boy accelerated off at such a rate, the car passed within an inch of them and, in trying to push Erica to safety, he lost his balance and fell backwards into the bushes. He picked himself up, brushed the bits of twig from his clothes; saw his daughter a few yards away, cowering with her head down, shoulders hunched. Gently, he approached, wrapped his arms around her, held her very close.

‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ he whispered. ‘I’m not cross with you – not any more. Just so long as you’re all right.’

She didn’t answer.

Still horrified at the thought of virtual rape, he asked again, ‘You
are
all right, I hope? I mean, nothing … happened, before I turned up? Larry didn’t…?’

She shook her head. ‘No. You … you came just in time.’ Then, suddenly, she buried her face in his chest and began to sob – great racking, heaving sobs, as if she were crying a whole lifetime’s grief.

‘Oh, Dad,’ she choked, ‘Oh, Dad. I’m just so glad you’re here.’

‘Y … you’re bleeding, Dad.’

Eric mopped his lip again; a tide of red-stained Kleenex now surrounding him on the kitchen table. ‘It’s OK. It doesn’t matter.’

‘And a big lump’s coming up on your forehead.’

‘Look, what I’m concerned about is you, darling – whether
you’re
OK.’

His daughter shrugged, affecting a cool he knew she couldn’t feel. ‘Yeah. S’pose so.’

‘You haven’t drunk your tea.’

The way she picked up the cup, it might have weighed a ton.

‘And are you sure you won’t change your mind about the pizza?’

‘Told you – not hungry,’

‘You’re tired out – I can see that – and I should let you go to bed, but first we need to talk. It’s OK, I don’t intend to nag. I just want you to realize how dangerous it can be, going off with a boy you barely know.’

At last, she raised her head and looked at him; her make-up streaky from the tears. ‘You don’t understand, Dad. I’m, like, retarded, compared with Brooke.
She’s
had a boyfriend since she was eleven-and-a-half. And the other day she asked me if I’d ever been kissed – I mean, just like that, straight out – and I felt completely gutted, having to say no.’

‘Surely loads of twelve year olds haven’t been kissed.’

‘I’m thirteen in four days. And, anyway, it’s different over here. And different from the old days. When
you
were young, people probably didn’t kiss till they were, like, engaged or married.’

He had no intention of telling her that he had kissed a girl when he was ten – a decidedly inauspicious encounter. The girl in question had worn glasses, stuck together with Sellotape and, when he took them off, they fell to pieces in his hand. End of kiss. End of girl. In truth, the whole of his early sex-life had been pretty much disastrous: the bad start with ‘Uncle’ Frank;
then the bigger boys at Grove End and The Haven, who would sneak into his bed at night and demand ‘services’ – or else. And the much older woman he’d worshipped, at fourteen, as a kindly mother-figure, who had ended up abusing him. That particular incident he had always tried to suppress, but now the painful memory, along with all the rest, made him even more
determined
that Erica’s own experiences should be different altogether.

‘What I want for
you
, darling – not now, of course, but when you’re older – is for you to meet a guy who really loves and values you. And why you have to be so careful at this stage of your life is that most teenage boys just aren’t grown-up enough to treat you as you deserve. I know what guys are like, Carmella. Often, they’re not thinking of the girl at all, only what
they
want. I mean, did Larry really care about your interests?’

She shook her head. ‘At first, it felt really cool, being out with a college student and driving round in his snazzy car and everything. He’s so different from the boys my age who are still, like, into skateboarding. And he could have had any girl he wanted, yet it was
me
he picked, and that made me feel sort of special. But … but when he … kissed me, it was nothing like I’d
imagined
. I mean, it seemed quite … violent, yet was all slobbery, as well, and—’ She broke off, blushing so furiously, he felt himself flush in sympathy.

‘So maybe thirteen year olds are still a bit too young to kiss?’

‘Maybe.’

‘And are you brave enough to tell Brooke that?’

She shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

‘But at least you’ll promise faithfully to be super-careful in future?’

She nodded. ‘Actually’ – she gave a nervous laugh – ‘I feel quite scared of … all that stuff now.’

‘Well, sex
is
scary in a way. I mean, if you rush in before you’re ready, you can end up in dead trouble – way out of your depth, or even pregnant, God forbid! That’s why I’d like you to wait, darling, until you find the right person, and not settle for a sordid grope with some testosterone-fuelled jerk who’s out to take advantage of you.’

‘Yeah, but if all the others have boyfriends …’

‘I just don’t believe they
all
do. And, anyway, it’s terribly important to try to make your own decisions, rather than simply copying what your friends do. One of the hardest things about growing up is trying to work out who you are and what you want, and being able to resist the pressures – all those people out there desperate to convince you that you must be thin and sexy and glamorous and follow the latest trends. It’s just a commercial racket,
half the time. They want you to buy this or that, or splurge cash on beauty treatments or whatever, so they keep pumping out the message that if you get the perfect body and perfect teeth and hair and clothes, that’s the way to perfect happiness. But it isn’t true, Carmella, and you don’t have to go along with it. In fact, if you do, you’ll always feel dissatisfied because perfection’s an impossible ideal.’

‘Yes, but my friends are always buying stuff and keeping up with fashion. So if I don’t do the same, I’ll feel even more of an outsider.’

‘Only in the best sense – being wiser than they are and thinking things out for yourself.’ Was he wasting his breath? Most teens were desperate to conform, simply to be ‘normal’ and accepted, and just didn’t have the
maturity
to stand against the crowd. He tried a different tack. ‘You’re pretty as you
are
, Carmella, and—’

‘I’m not. Compared with Brooke, I’m rubbish.’

‘Well, don’t compare yourself! Everyone has good points, but also things they dislike about themselves – even Brooke, I bet. But if we can just accept those things, we’re more likely to be happy.’

‘That’s easy for
you
to say.’

‘No, it isn’t, actually. If I could choose, I’d love to be much taller and have good teeth and hair that wasn’t a joke. But I’m damned if I’m going to ruin my life wishing I was someone else.’

She looked at him, in silence – an uncomfortable sensation: being found wanting by one’s teenage daughter. Should he revert to the subject of Larry; emphasize the perils of being alone with virtual strangers? No, lectures at this time of night were probably self-defeating.

She suddenly drained her tea, tepid as it was, in three successive gulps. ‘D’you know, I sometimes wish I was back at my old school. When there’s only girls around, it doesn’t seem to matter so much how you look, or whether you have a boyfriend or not. And we weren’t allowed to wear
make-up
or nail-varnish or jewellery and stuff, and that actually made things easier.’

‘Well,’ he said, choosing his words with care, ‘it’s not totally out of the question for you to come back to England. I mean, Mum and I would need to discuss it, of course, but if you’re so unhappy over here, you could live with me, instead, and return to Tolworth Girls’.’

In the pause that followed, he allowed himself to hope, despite the raft of problems, including Christine and the lawyers. If he could somehow make his ex see sense, he and Erica could be an almost-family; he a
hands-on
dad again; she removed from the pressures of being sexualized so young.
And, since his job was far less punishing than Christine’s, he’d have more time and energy to devote to being a parent than his busy, stressed-out ex would ever manage, with her new husband and her demanding social round. Of course, he would need to move to a nicer flat, with a decent bedroom for her and—

‘No, I wouldn’t fit in there either – not any more. I’m not one thing or the other; neither English nor American.’

‘You seem very English to me. You’ve still kept your accent and—’

‘Yeah, and the other girls tease me for that, as well, especially when I use the wrong word. The other day, I said “rubber” for “eraser” and they all went completely hysterical.’

He let his hand reach across the table, until it was almost touching hers. ‘Darling, I do understand how difficult it is. Which is why maybe you should consider a change, or at least not rule it out entirely.’

‘But the Kingston house is sold now and that was home for me. So it just wouldn’t be the same.’

His dream was already foundering. He could tell from her face that she had no intention of returning. And could he really blame her? Why should she wish to swap this ritzy mansion for a poky London flat, or her five-star lifestyle for a poorer, more restricted one?

‘I like it here in some ways,’ she said, as if picking up on his thoughts. ‘There’s much more to do than there ever was in England – skiing, riding, sailing, all that sort of stuff. So I don’t think it would work if I came back. And school’s not
that
bad,’ she admitted, with a shrug. ‘I probably made it out worse than it is. The only thing that bugs me is I still don’t quite fit in.’

‘You’re bound to need time to adjust.’

‘I’ve
had
time. I’ve been here ages.’

‘Only fifteen months. That’s nothing. And you’re doing wonderfully well.’ However keen his disappointment, he could see it would be wrong to try to lure her away from a life she was just beginning to enjoy, quite apart from the little matter of Christine’s opposition. ‘It’s always tough moving anywhere new. Everything feels strange, at first, and you don’t know a soul and you think you’ll never be accepted or find your way around.’
He
should know, for God’s sake, after all the uprootings and dislocations in his
childhood
. ‘But gradually it all settles down and things slot into place. And, don’t forget you’ve always had real courage, so you’ve got what it takes to
overcome
the problems, unlike your cowardly Dad.’

‘You’re not a coward, Dad – you’re very brave. I only realized that
tonight. I mean, the way you stood up to Larry, when he’s captain of the football team and super-fit and everything. He trains almost every day, you know, and works out in the gym for hours, and the football coach thinks he could well become a pro. Yet you tackled him head-on and didn’t even think about your safety. Just look at your swollen lip and all those bruises! I feel quite proud when I think you took those risks for
me
.’

He fingered the lump on his forehead, aware that it was throbbing, yet almost glad of his battle-scars, if they raised him in his daughter’s
estimation
. ‘I’d have
murdered
the guy, if he’d hurt you.’

‘Yeah, I saw that.’ She glanced down at the table; traced a careful pattern with one finger. ‘Actually, I didn’t know you cared so much.’

‘Of course I care. For me, you’re the most important person in the world.’

‘Really?’ Only now did she meet his gaze; her own eyes wary, as if subjecting his to a lie-detector.

‘Yes, really. Oh, I know I should have visited before this, but I let my fears get in the way – and that’s unforgivable. But I promise you I’m—’

‘Dad,’ she interrupted.

‘Yes?’

‘I … I want to say I’m … sorry.’

‘It’s OK. I understand. I can quite see Larry’s attractions. He’s tall,
good-looking
and athletic, so it’s only natural you should jump at the chance of going out with him.’

‘No, I don’t mean about Larry. Well, I
am
sorry about him and causing all that crap, but I really meant I’m sorry about the awful things I said – you know, your being weak and a loser. You’re
not
a loser, Dad – no way. I think I said it just to hurt you, though I don’t actually know why. Sometimes, I get so mixed up, I can’t even explain what I feel. And I suppose I was angry and—’

‘You’ve every right to be. It’s totally my fault that I haven’t seen you for so long. Which means now we’re a bit out of touch and need to get to know each other again. That may take a little while, but we could make a start right now – maybe have some supper together; talk some more and—’ He was being irresponsible in keeping her up so late; putting his own desire for closeness before her need for sleep. Yet the sheer relief of being able to communicate seemed to override all else. ‘I know it’s ridiculously late and we ought to be in bed, but we can always sleep tomorrow. What do you think?’

‘I’m not fussed. Whatever you want.’

‘The pizza will be inedible by now, but I could make some scrambled eggs.’

‘Yeah. Great.’

Never had he scrambled eggs so quickly, fearing she might change her mind before he had set their plates on the table. But she seemed hungry, all at once; grabbing a piece of toast from the toaster and eating it, unbuttered, standing up.

‘Do you think I’m – you know, spoilt, Dad?’ she asked, once they were sitting over supper, side by side. ‘I mean, living in this house and having so much stuff? When
you
were, like, my age, you had almost nothing.’

‘Oh, it wasn’t too bad,’ he said, touched that she should have thought about his life.

‘It must have been terribly hard, though, not having parents, or a proper home, and being moved from place to place so often. We’ve never really talked about it, have we?’

‘Mum preferred us not to.’ It still irked him that Christine and her family should have found the subject so distasteful. ‘And, of course, Grandma always hated any mention of my past.’

‘Yeah, I know. But I’ve often wondered about my
other
grandma and why she left you in the first place? It seems so … sort of cruel. People wouldn’t do that now – just dump their babies and run.’

‘Well, it’s much easier these days, of course, to be an unmarried mother. It used to be regarded as a shameful sin and everyone would shun you and call you a fallen woman. All the same, a few babies
are
still abandoned, although it’s extremely rare, thank goodness. Only about fifty a year in England.’

‘Fifty’s a lot.’

‘Well, in countries like Russia and China, the numbers are much higher. And even here in America, there’s quite a—’

‘Hey, Dad,’ she cut in, suddenly, ‘
I
wasn’t found, was I? Or adopted or…? I mean, am I truly yours and Mum’s?’

He laughed. ‘You’re absolutely mine and Mum’s. And that’s as important for me as it probably is for you. You’re the only blood relation I have in the whole world, or the only one I know about. We even share a name – or used to, anyway. I wasn’t present at your actual birth, but I saw you minutes afterwards and when they put you into my arms, I was just – well, over the moon. I sat there, quite besotted, smiling and smiling and smiling, until I felt my face must be stretched all out of shape. In fact, if there’s a league table for smiles, that one would have definitely made the championship!’