Reluctant Date (17 page)

Mollified, she grinned back at him.
 
She could manage Daniel when they were
surrounded by darkness and his eyes were nothing but black shadows.
 
It was looking at him in daylight that did
for her.

“How was your week anyway?
 
Did you manage to achieve everything you wanted to?”

He nodded, frustrated by the formality of their conversation
even while he acknowledged to himself that it was better than nothing.
 
“Yes thanks.
 
You too?”

“More or less.
 
Every
time I think I’m getting the hang of it, Scott comes up with something else,
but we’re beginning to formulate some good plans for the future. We’ll tell you
all about them next week, that’s assuming that you’ll have time to come into
the office.”

“I will.” Hearing the warmth in her voice as she referred to
Scott he decided that he wasn’t up to questioning her about their relationship
after all.
 
He would know how they felt
about one another when he saw them together again. Besides, what could he actually
say?
Are you and Scott and item
wasn’t
the normal sort of conversation an employer had with a member of his staff. She
would be quite within her rights to tell him to mind his own business.

“I guess it’s goodnight then,” he began to turn away, then a
thought that had been niggling at him all evening struck him, and he turned
back. He needed to understand why she was prepared to spend so much of her time
with his father when she was getting nothing for her pains except an occasional
grudging thank you, a thank you that was probably counterbalanced by a lot of
personal criticism when her pronunciation or reading style didn’t suit.

His question died on his lips, however, when he saw the
expression of desolation that filled her face. It was so stark and unexpected
that it tripped his tongue. For a moment he could only stand and look at her
and wonder what had prompted it. Then, seconds later, when she gave him an odd
little smile and began to speak, he wondered if he had imagined it after all.

“Daniel, I hope…that is I don’t want to seem inquisitive…but
what is the problem between Carl and your parents?” her voice was
tentative.
 
“His name wasn’t mentioned
once this evening. Scott and Beth have both alluded to difficulties too,
although without explaining anything.
 
So
did Tom Cook at the bookshop, so I know it’s not a secret. I’m sorry to ask
but…well, it’s just that I don’t want to be put in the position where I might
say something out of turn,” she added by way of explanation when he didn’t
immediately reply.

“You’re right to ask. I guess none of us mentioning his name
this evening was a bit of a giveaway,” he sighed. “I’m sorry Claire.
 
I would have told you earlier if I had known
you were going to get so involved with my family.”

She looked embarrassed.
 
“I hope you don’t mind that I’ve become friendly with them. It…just…sort
of happened. It’s the librarian in me I’m afraid. I thought that if I could
persuade your father to start using the Talking Books Service it would…well it
would help your mother. He doesn’t exactly try to make himself any less of a
burden to her does he?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “You can say that again!
 
And no, of course I don’t mind how often you
visit them.
 
I just don’t understand why
you would want to give up so much of your time for nightly readings to a
grumpy, embittered old man.”

“Oh that! That’s just a means to an end,” she told him with
the flash of the humour he so loved to see.
 
“I’m not going to do it forever. It’s the first stage of introducing him
to Talking Books. I know how good it is, and how much it would help him to feel
less isolated.
 
He just needs
persuading.”

He gave a slow nod. “Well I hope you’re right because I
don’t think my mother can cope with things as they are much longer.”

Her smile became warmer as she reached out and briefly
touched his arm. It was only a placatory pat but to Daniel it was as if a
thousand volts had shot through his body. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m
doing.
 
And Tom Cook is on my side too.”

Trying to ignore the effect her touch had had on him, he
stared at her, and then he laughed out loud.
 
“That incorrigible old rascal! He was one of Dad’s best friends once
upon a time but I thought he had abandoned him, like everyone else.”

“Nobody has abandoned him,” she told him.
 
“It’s just that he won’t talk to anyone
anymore. It’s fairly normal, this grieving for what he once had you know.”

“Is that what he’s doing?”

“Yes.
 
Any physical
loss can affect people badly. It can plunge them into depression and despair
although fortunately most of them recover in time.”

“And you’re determined my father will too.”

She nodded, and then returned to her earlier question.
 
“About Carl.
 
I wish you’d tell me what has happened between him and your father. I
don’t want to say the wrong thing and inadvertently undo everything I’ve
achieved so far.”

He nodded as he made a decision.
 
“That makes sense but let’s not talk about it
here.
 
It’s still early so how about you
come back to my place for coffee?
 
We can
sit out on the dock and talk about it there without any danger of being
overheard.
 
Besides I would like to hear
more about your week too.
 
After all I
did abandon you less than halfway through showing you the ropes.”

She took a deep breath as she also made her own
decision.
 
“Okay.
 
But tell me where you live so you don’t have
to drive along at four miles an hour while I follow you.”

“I can do better than that.
 
Go home and park your buggy and I’ll follow on in a few minutes and
drive you back to mine.
 
It’s a bit far
out for you to trundle back home on your own late at night.”

Chapter Fifteen

By the time Daniel arrived to pick her up from outside her
apartment Claire was in a state of panic.
 
Whatever had made her agree to spend another hour or so with him, and at
his house too? When he drew up beside her and leaned across to unlock the
passenger door, she leaned in through the open window to speak to him.

“Are you sure you want to do this now?
 
You must be tired after your busy week.”

“I’m sure,” he told her.
 
“Besides you already know how jet lag affects me, so you’ll be doing me
a favour…again!”

With no way out she climbed into the car. He turned it
around and drove back down Main Street until he hit the coastal road and then
kept going for several more minutes.
 
When he stopped there wasn’t a street lamp in sight.
 
Instead, his house was lit up by the
moonlight that reflected off its walls and windows, and danced across the white
boat tied up to the dock.

“Wow! And I thought I had a wonderful view,” Claire climbed
out of the car and looked around her. His house was actually on the beach,
tucked into a hidden cove well away from the places used by visiting tourists.

“Unfortunately I don’t get to see enough of it,” Daniel led
the way around to the back of the house and unlocked the folding glass doors that
opened out onto the dock.

Claire followed him inside and propped herself against the
kitchen counter while he spooned instant coffee into two mugs.
 

“I’m sorry but I’m out of milk,” he told her as he opened
the refrigerator. “In fact I seem to be out of everything,” he added, peering
into an empty cookie barrel on the counter. “It’s one of the many downsides of
being away so much.”

“Without milk is fine by me,” Claire picked up her mug and
carried it outside.
 
She didn’t want to
stay in his house any more.
 
It was too
full of Daniel, too redolent of everything she found attractive about him.
Casually furnished but with a comfortable couch and a rocking chair, it had
shelves of books, and sturdy pegs on which all-weather gear jostled with
baseball caps and backpacks. A jumble of walking boots and trainers were stored
in a wooden box beside the door alongside a coil of rope, several oars and,
surreally, a rusty anchor. It was masculine but welcoming, painted white, but
somehow full of warmth.

After a few false starts she had finally learned that the
suited and booted Daniel who followed her outside wasn’t the real Daniel.
 
The real Daniel was someone who was more at
home in a boat, or with binoculars swinging from his neck as he strode across
fields or through woodland, and his home exactly illustrated that, which was
why she had to be outside, her face unreadable in the shadows of the evening.

Daniel joined her, and for a few moments they sat in silence
on the edge of the dock, their feet barely skimming the water. Then he began to
talk about Carl.

“It all began when he had to start thinking about college,”
he said. “Up until then he was just a normal kid. He wasn’t even very
rebellious, mainly because he liked learning while I was always looking for
ways to escape the classroom and make for the beach.”

He stared out across the bay as he spoke and because he
wasn’t looking at her Claire was able to study his face in the moonlight. She
saw how tired the past few weeks of travelling had made him; how too much time
driving or sitting in a plane and too much time spent in long and difficult
meetings, had leached the suntan from his face. She saw, too, how his hair
needed trimming, how it was beginning to grow into a tangle of waves instead of
its usual neatly groomed shape, waves that she wanted to run her fingers
through. With a sharp intake of breath she sat on her hands and forced herself
to concentrate on what he was saying.

“I guess he was…is my best friend.
 
There’s less than two years between us, so
although we are very different we always spent a lot of time together as kids.
When I went off to college though, months could go by without us talking to
each other, so I didn’t know there was a problem until it was too late.”

He turned and looked at Claire, his expression unexpectedly
fierce as it was disturbed by bad memories. “You see he loves music and he’s
good at it.
 
His guitar was always his
most prized possession. He never went anywhere without it until Dad decided
that his obsession was stopping him from getting good grades in his senior
year, and locked it away in his study. Apparently there was a ferocious
shouting match, but then Carl just seemed to give up and accept it, except he
didn’t of course.
 
If only I’d been at
home I would have realized and perhaps been able to stop what happened next…”

“Which was…?” Claire was too immersed in the story to
remember that being close to Daniel was dangerous, so she didn’t drag her eyes
away from his.
 
Instead she stared
straight at him as she waited for him to continue.

“He spent a few weeks making plans and then he cracked open
the cupboard in the study one evening when my parents were attending some sort
of fundraiser and reclaimed his guitar. Then he threw a few clothes into a
backpack along with every penny he had saved from working weekends at the local
store, and disappeared.

“It took us years to find him because he stayed on the move,
living in squats and dosshouses while he put a band together, and always
playing under a different name. Mother was beside herself with worry of course,
but Dad was too full of fury to care.
 
He
wouldn’t take any of the blame for what had happened. He couldn’t see that he
had brought it all on himself. As far as he was concerned Carl was just
feckless and lazy.”

“But surely Carl contacted you so you wouldn’t worry?”

Daniel nodded.
 
“Yes,
a few times, just to let me know he was okay; but only by postcard, and never
from the same place twice.”

“And that’s it? That’s why your father still refuses to
speak to him, just because he did something stupid when he was a kid?”

“If only it were that simple but there’s more.
 
You see after a while Carl became successful
and with his success came money, quite a lot of money, enough to get him hooked
on the highlife.
 
There were three-day
parties, too many girls, and too much booze…
 
I guess you can fill the rest of it in for yourself.”

Daniel paused for so long as the memories of the past
flooded through him that in the end Claire was again forced to ask him what had
happened.

“Eventually, after years, I received a phone call from one
of his friends saying Carl was ill. He gave me an address where I could find
him. It was in a city on the other side of the country. I caught the next plane
out without telling anyone where I was going. I didn’t want to do anything that
might jeopardize some sort of family rapprochement.

“Unfortunately it was too late. The Carl I found was a
different person from the boy who had left home.
 
He was a bitter man, thin and emaciated, and
suffering in every possible way from the effects of a hedonistic life on the
road. He was pleased to see me though, and right then that was enough.

“I took him to a doctor who told him in no uncertain terms
that he was killing himself.
 
He said if
he didn’t get out into the country, eat good food, fill his lungs with fresh
air, and take stock of his life, he’d be dead within a year. Carl was too weak
to do any of that on his own though, so I brought him home. He protested all
the way but really he didn’t have a choice.”