Careless In Red (69 page)

Conditions were superb on this day, with swells that looked to be five feet. So the car park was littered with vehicles, and the lineup of surfers was impressive. Even so, when Cadan pulled in and parked, he could make out his father easily. Lew surfed the way he did most everything else: alone.

It was largely a solitary sport anyway, but Lew managed to make it even more so. His was a figure set apart from the rest, farther out, content to wait for swells that rose only occasionally at this distance from the reefs. To look at him, one would think he knew nothing about the sport because certainly he ought to be waiting with the others, who were getting fairly consistent rides. But that wasn’t his way, and when a wave finally came that he liked, he was on its shoulder effortlessly, paddling with a minimum of effort and the experience of more than thirty years on the water.

The others watched him. He dropped in smoothly, and there he was, angling across the wave’s green face, carving back towards the barrel, looking as if at any moment he’d catch a rail or the falls would take him, but knowing when to carve again so that the wave was his.

Cadan didn’t need to see a scoreboard or hear a commentary to know his father was good. Lew seldom spoke of it, but he’d surfed competitively in his twenties, harbouring a dream of worldwide travel and recognition before the Bounder had left him with two small children to care for. At that point, Lew had been forced to rethink his chosen path. What he’d come up with was LiquidEarth. From shaping his own boards, he’d gone on to shape boards for others. Thus he lived vicariously the peripatetic life of a world-class surfer. It couldn’t have been easy for his father to give up on what he’d hoped to do with his life, Cadan realised, and he wondered why he’d never thought about that before now.

When Lew came out of the water, Cadan was waiting for him. He’d fetched a towel from within the RAV4 and he handed it over. Lew propped his short board against the car and took the towel with a nod. He pulled off his hood and rubbed his hair vigorously. He began to peel off his wet suit. It was still the winter suit, Cadan noted. The water wouldn’t warm up for two more months.

“What’re you doing here, Cade?” Lew asked him. “How’d you get here? Aren’t you meant to be at work?” He stepped out of the wet suit and wrapped the towel round his waist. From within the car, he brought out a T-shirt and then a sweatshirt printed with LiquidEarth’s logo. He donned these and worked on getting out of his swimming suit. He said nothing else until he was dressed and loading his kit into the back of the car. And then it was to repeat, “What are you doing here, Cade? How did you get here?”

“Jago let me use his wheels.”

Lew looked round the car park and spotted the Defender. “Without your driving licence,” he said.

“I didn’t take chances. I drove like a nun.”

“That’s hardly the point. And why aren’t you at work? Have you been sacked?”

Cadan didn’t intend it and didn’t want it, but he felt the quick anger that always seemed to be the outcome of a conversation with his father. He said without considering where it would take them, “I guess you’d think that, wouldn’t you?”

“Past history.” Lew stepped past Cadan and went for his board. There were showers at the far side of the car park, and Lew could have used them to wash the saltwater from his kit, but he didn’t do so as the job he could do at home would be more thorough and consequently more to his liking. And it seemed to Cadan that that was his father’s way about everything. To my liking was the motto Lew lived by.

Cadan said, “As it happens, I haven’t been sacked. I’ve been doing a bloody good job over there.”

“I see. Congratulations. What’re you doing here, then?”

“I came to talk to you. Jago said you were here. And he offered his car, by the way. I didn’t ask.”

“Talk to me about what?” Lew slammed home the back of the RAV4. From the driver’s seat, he rustled through a paper bag and brought out a sandwich encased in a plastic box. He prised open the lid and lifted out half. He offered the other half to Cadan.

A peace offering, Cadan decided. He shook his head but was careful to say thanks. “About coming back to LiquidEarth,” Cadan said. “If you’ll have me.” He added this last as his own form of peace offering. His father had the power in this situation and he knew that his part was to acknowledge that fact.

“Cadan, you just told me—”

“I know what I said. But I’d rather work for you.”

“Why? What happened? Adventures Unlimited not to your liking?”

“Nothing’s happened. I’m doing what you’ve wanted me to do. I’m thinking about the future.”

Lew looked out at the sea, where the surfers patiently waited for the next good swell. “I expect you have a plan of some sort?”

“You need a sprayer,” Cadan said.

“I need a shaper as well. Summer’s coming. We’re behind on our orders. We’re competing with those hollow-core boards, and what we have over them is—”

“Attention to individual needs. I know. But part of the need is the artwork, isn’t it? The look of the board as well as the shape. I can do that. That’s what I’m good at. I can’t shape boards, Dad.”

“You can learn to shape them.”

It always came down to this in the end: what Cadan wanted versus what Lew believed. “I tried. I wrecked more blanks than I shaped properly and you don’t want that. It wastes time and money.”

“You’ve got to learn. It’s part of the process and if you don’t know the process—”

“Shit! You didn’t make Santo learn the process. Why didn’t he have to learn it, start to finish, like you’re telling me?”

Lew gave his attention back to Cadan. “Because I didn’t build the goddamn business for Santo,” he said quietly. “I built it for you. But how the hell can I leave it to you if you don’t understand it?”

“So let me spray first, get that down pat, and go on to shaping afterwards.”

“No,” Lew said. “That’s not how it’s done.”

“Jesus. What the hell difference does it make how it’s done?”

“We do it my way, Cadan, or we don’t do it.”

“That’s always how it is with you. Do you ever think you might be wrong?”

“Not in this. Now get in the car. I’ll drive you back to town.”

“I’ve got—”

“I won’t have you driving Jago’s car, Cade. You’ve had your driving licence taken—”

“By you.”

“—and until you prove to me that you’re responsible enough to—”

“Forget it. Just bloody fucking forget it, Dad.”

Cadan strode across the car park to where he’d left Jago’s car. His father called his name sharply. He kept on going.

He headed back to Casvelyn, burning. All right, he thought. Bloody all right. His father wanted proof and he would prove. He’d prove until he was blue in the face, and he knew just the place to do it.

He drove with far less care on his return to town. He blasted over the bridge that spanned the Casvelyn Canal—mindless of the yield to the oncoming traffic sign, which earned him two fingers from the driver of a UPS van—and he took the roundabout at the bottom of the Strand without braking to see if he had the right of way. He coursed up the hill and charged down St. Mevan Crescent and onto the promontory. By the time he reached Adventures Unlimited, in a lather was the best description of his state.

His thoughts ran circles round the word unfair. Lew was unfair. Life was unfair. The world was unfair. His entire existence would be so simple if other people would just see things his way. But they never did.

He shoved open the door of the old hotel. He used a bit too much force, and it hit the wall with a crash that reverberated through the reception area. The sound of his entry brought Alan Cheston out of his office. He looked from the door to Cadan to his wristwatch.

“Weren’t you meant to be here this morning?” he asked.

“I had errands,” Cadan said.

“I think errands get done on your own time, not on ours.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“I hope not. Truth is, Cade, we can’t have employees who don’t show up when they’re intended to show up. In a business like this, we’ve got to be able to depend—”

“I said it won’t happen again. What more do you want? A guarantee written in blood or something?”

Alan crossed his arms. He waited a moment before making a reply and in that moment, Cadan could hear the echo of his own petulant voice. “You don’t much like to be supervised, do you?” Alan said.

“No one told me you were my supervisor.”

“Everyone here is your supervisor. Until you prove yourself, you’re rather a bit player, if you know what I mean.”

Cadan knew what he meant, but he was sick to death of proving himself. To this person, to that person, to his father, to anyone. He just wanted to get on with things, and no one was letting him. That fact made him want to hurl Alan Cheston into the nearest wall. He itched to do it, to act on the impulse and to hell with the consequence. It would feel so good.

He said, “Fuck it. I’m clearing out. I’ve come for my clobber.” He headed for the stairs.

“Have you informed Mr. Kerne?”

“You can do that for me.”

“It’ll hardly look good—”

“Like I almost care.” He left Alan staring after him, lips parted as if he was about to say more, as if he was going to point out—correctly—that if Cadan Angarrack had some sort of kit he’d left at Adventures Unlimited, it would hardly be on the upper floors of the building. But Alan said nothing, and his silence left Cadan in command, which was where he wanted to be.

He had no kit at Adventures Unlimited. No clobber, no gear, no anything. But he told himself that he would check each room he’d been in during his very brief time in the employ of the Kernes because one never knew where one had left a possession and after this, it would be a bit uncomfortable for him to have to come by and pick up anything he might have left behind….

Room after room. Door opened, a quick look inside, door closed. A quiet, “Hullo. Anyone in here?” as if he expected his supposed forgotten possessions to speak. He finally found her on the top floor, where the family lived, where he could have gone at once had he been practising honesty with himself, which he was not.

She was in Santo’s bedroom. At least, Cadan assumed that it was Santo’s bedroom by the surfing posters, the single bed, the pile of T-shirts on a chair, and the pair of trainers that Dellen Kerne was caressing on her lap when Cadan opened the door.

She was all in black, jersey and trousers and a band holding her blond hair off her face. She had on no makeup, and a scratch marked her cheek. Her feet were bare. She was sitting on the edge of the bed. Her eyes were closed.

Cadan said, “Hey,” in what he hoped was a gentle voice.

She opened her eyes. They fixed on him, the pupils so large that the violet of her irises was nearly obscured. She dropped the trainers to the floor with a soft thud. She held out her hand.

He went to her and helped her to her feet. He saw she had nothing on beneath her jersey. Her nipples were large, round, and rigid. He stirred at this. For once, he admitted the truth to himself. This was why he’d come to Adventures Unlimited. Jago’s advice and the rest of the world be damned.

He grazed the tip of her nipple with his fingers. Her eyelids lowered but did not close. He knew it was safe to continue. He took a step to be nearer. A hand on her waist and then circling round, cupping her bum while the other hand’s fingers stayed where they were and played like feathers against her. He bent to kiss her. Her mouth opened willingly beneath his and he pulled her more firmly against him so that she would feel what he wanted her to feel.

He said when he could, “That key you had yesterday.”

She didn’t reply. He knew she knew what he was talking about because her mouth lifted to his once more.

He kissed her. Long and deeply and it went on and on till he thought his eyeballs might pop from his head and his eardrums might burst. His slamming heart needed some place to go besides his chest because if it didn’t find another home, he reckoned he could die on the spot. He ground against her. He began to ache.

He broke away from her and said, “The beach huts. You had a key. We can’t. Not here.” Not in the family quarters and certainly not in Santo’s room. It was indecent, somehow.

“Can’t what?” She leaned her forehead against his chest.

“You know. Yesterday when we were in the kitchen, you had a key. You said it was for one of the beach huts. Let’s use it.”

“For what?”

What the hell did she think? Was she the sort who liked it said outright? Well, he could do that. “I want to fuck you,” he said. “And you want to be fucked. But not in here. In one of the beach huts.”

“Why?”

“Because…It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

“Jesus. Yeah. This is Santo’s room, right? And anyway his dad might come in.” He couldn’t bring himself to say your husband. “And if that happens…” She could see it, couldn’t she? What was wrong with her?

“Santo’s dad,” she said.

“If he walks in on us…” This was ridiculous. He didn’t need to explain. He didn’t want to explain. He was ready and he thought she was ready and to have to talk about all of the whys and wherefores…Obviously, she wasn’t yet hot enough for him. He went for her again. Mouth on nipple this time, through the jersey, a gentle pull with his teeth, a flicking of the tongue. Back to her mouth and drawing her near and it was odd that she wasn’t doing much in turn but did that really matter? “Jesus. Get that key,” he murmured.

“Santo’s dad,” she said. “He won’t come here.”

“How can you be sure?” Cadan examined her more closely. She appeared to be marginally out of it, but even so it seemed to him that she ought to know they were in her son’s room and her husband’s house. On the other hand, she wasn’t exactly looking at him now and he didn’t know if she’d actually seen him—as in registering his presence—when she had looked at him.

“He won’t,” she said. “He might want to, but he can’t.”

“Babe, you’re not making sense.”

She murmured, “I knew what I ought to do, but he’s my rock, you see, and there was a chance. So I took it. Because I loved him. I knew what was important. I knew.”