Tainted (7 page)

He put his hands up in the air.

“Time out. That's all. We're getting ahead of ourselves.”

“I don't understand.”

“Holly.” He put his hands back on her face. “Come on—let's go back to your house and chill out and I'll have a cup of coffee before I go home.”

“Right. OK.” She wished she could shake her body the way a dog shakes itself when it gets out of the water, to try to rid herself of the feelings she was having, go back to where she had at least a modicum of control.

She picked up the flashlight and they turned around, headed back to their shoes and the path. Side by side but not touching.

Holly stared at the flashing red lights on the towers of the railroad bridge in Buzzards Bay. An ingenious edifice, its middle section, which ran between the towers, had a track on it; when a train needed to cross the canal the section was lowered. In its normal, upright position, it looked like a huge steel goalpost.

Time out
, he'd said.
Referee.
As if this were a game. He must have had so many girlfriends. English girls with perfect complexions and perfect bodies. Outgoing and self-confident girls who knew exactly how to kiss and how to flirt and how to tease him back. Girls with names like Emma and Sophie who rode horses and played tennis.

“So . . .” She felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder. “Holly Barrett. What should we do next time we see each other? I was thinking bowling. Or maybe mini golf. I think we should take a pass on Nancy the fortune teller, don't you?”

Pleasure and relief coursed through her just as the blush had on the bus.

“That might be wise.”

The rising tide had almost claimed their shoes. Holly slipped hers on, felt the sand crunching into her feet. Normally she wouldn't have noticed, but Jack Dane had thrown a physical switch on in her: her mouth, her shoulders, every place he'd touched her felt alert, wholly present. Waiting for more contact. She had begun this walk thinking they were going to talk and get to know each other more. She was ending it in a state of hypersensitivity, as if she'd taken a drug which had woken up all her nerve endings.

“I'd opt for mini golf,” Jack said. He seemed to be in control, but then he always seemed to be in control; even when he was kissing her. “Bowling might be a little hectic. There's a lot of noise in bowling alleys.”

“You're not a big fan of noise, are you?”

“No. No, I'm not.”

“Sorry about the Lobster Pot. It's very noisy in there.”

“Hey—don't knock the Lobster Pot.” Unzipping his wind-breaker, he pointed to his T-shirt. “I'm fiercely loyal to my brand. Uh-oh, I see we're coming to poison-ivy territory.” Again, he picked up his feet and tiptoed with ridiculously huge steps.

When they reached her house, Holly opened the screen door, flicked the living room light switch on. “I'll go make you some coffee. Sit down anywhere, I'll be right back.”

Flicking another light on in the kitchen, she got the coffee out of the cupboard, poured the water in the coffee maker, stretched up to get the filters from the shelf above the sink. She hadn't made coffee here for anyone but herself and sometimes Anna since her parents had died. Every morning at nine o'clock, she and Katy would go to Henry's for coffee on his porch. Katy would get a mug like theirs, but hers would be full of apple juice.

Katy.

I haven't—

“Holly.” Jack Dane was in the kitchen doorway. “Listen, don't bother with the coffee. I have to go. Can you drive me back into town?”

“You have to go right away?”

“Yes.”

“The coffee won't take long.”

His arms were crossed over his chest. He looked so distant she found herself stepping forward, trying to close a gap. He took a step back.

“You have a daughter, don't you?”

“Yes, Katy. I—”

“I saw the photographs. Where is she?”

“At Henry's—my grandfather's. Next door. I was going to tell you. In fact, I was just thinking how strange it was I hadn't told you yet. I was just about to. I'm a single mother . . .” She was aware her words were speeding up, her voice was sounding nervous. “She's five years old. And she's so sweet, Jack.”

“I'm sure she is.”

“Is this . . . I mean, does Katy . . . Do you still want to go to the mini golf?” Every word of that sentence was feeble, lame, desperate, she knew.

“I don't think so.” He shook his head. “No. I'm really sorry, Holly, but I can't.”

“Because of Katy?”

“It doesn't work for me. I'm sorry.”

“But why not?”

“There's no big reason. Just that a child complicates things.”

“But we could get to know each other and you could get to know Katy.”

“And what if it didn't work out? That would be harder on everyone. It's better if I leave now. Really.”

“Are you angry I didn't tell you about her right away? On the bus?”

“What makes you think I'm angry? I'm not.” He rubbed his temples. “I should leave.”

There was nothing she could think of to say in response. He turned, left the kitchen and she followed, into the living room, out of the house. When they got into her car, she grabbed the keys from under her seat and started the engine.

“This is really sad, Jack.”

“I know.” He nodded. “I just didn't figure you'd have a child. You must have been really young when you had her.”

“Eighteen.”

“And her father?”

“He left town.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It's not your fault.” She switched on the headlights, backed the car up.

They drove in silence, down the Birch Point Road, past the Catholic retreat, past the cemetery where she turned left to go into Shoreham. The already strained atmosphere in the car became even more palpably awkward as they passed the cemetery. Neither inhaled.

“I'm in that building right beside the boatyard,” he said when they entered the town.

“I know, you told me.”

“I was lucky to get ahold of a flat so quickly. I'm going into Boston tomorrow morning to pick up the rest of my things. I start working tomorrow night.” His tone was distantly pleasant.

“Well . . .” She pulled up beside the building, turned to him. “I hope you enjoy the job, Jack. And I know you're right for being honest with me. Katy's the most important person in my life. If you can't try to get to know her, there's no point in trying to get to know me.”

“I really am sorry, you know.”

“It's OK.” She made herself smile. “You've apologized enough, really. No problem. As my grandfather often says, ‘Worse happens at sea.' ”

“Was he a sailor?”

“No. He just likes the saying.”

“Right. Well, goodbye, Holly Barrett. I'm sor—OK, enough apologies. I suppose I shouldn't say, ‘Let's be friends,' should I?”

She shook her head.

He kissed her on the cheek, opened his door and left.

Holly drove off without looking back. Five minutes down the road toward home, she pulled over, put the car into park, reached down, took off her shoes, opened the door and shook them over the pavement.

Stay away from the damn beach, you idiot. Never take a walk with a man there ever ever again. The first time you get pregnant within seconds, the second time you get dumped within minutes.

She had to get the sand out of them. Every last grain of it. Before she pounded the steering wheel with her fists and cried.

“When's Mommy coming?”

Henry checked his watch. “In ten minutes. Just after I beat you.”

“I don't think so.” Katy lifted a black checkers piece, jumped it over his red one, and grinned as she took it off the board.

“Early days, young lady. Plenty of time for me to make a comeback.”

“Where did she go last night?”

“She told you. Out with a friend.”

“What friend?”

“A friend she met on the bus.”

“Did she have a sleepover at the friend's house?”

“I don't think so, Katy.”

“Then why did I stay here last night?”

“Because she thought she might be out late.”

He moved a piece, sat back in the dining-room chair. Being cross-examined by a five-year-old wasn't easy, even with his legal training. But Henry was pleased that there was finally a subject, aside from her supposed “Explorer” father, about which Katy was asking difficult questions. How he had let Holly convince him that he had to go along with the ridiculous Explorer story she'd made up, he'd never understand. But at least now he wasn't trying to think of yet more faraway countries the Explorer had gone off to explore; this time he was trying to explain Holly's absence without saying the word “date” and having to then define to Katy exactly what “date” meant.

With age came wisdom, or so people said. But Henry knew better. With age came other people's inability to understand that age didn't change your mind, only your body and face. He didn't have to plumb the foggy depths of memory to recall what it was like going out on a first date: he knew exactly how nervy and exciting and awkward and promising it could be. And he hoped with every ounce of his heart that Holly's date had been a success.

Studying Katy's face as she puzzled over which move to make next, he was struck by how much older than five she appeared. She looked, when she was concentrating like this, as if she had the weight of the world on her little bony shoulders. She looked like her mother: an old soul in a youthful guise.

All that crap about loving yourself being the crucial element of every person's psychological happiness was bullshit, Henry knew. Holly was doing fine, certainly. But she'd be a different woman if she found a man to love who loved her. Human beings needed appreciation and acknowledgment from other human beings. They needed romantic words and wonderful sex and the whole nine yards of a proper relationship. Maybe some self-loving individuals could live blissfully in caves, but he had yet to meet one.

And if Holly were less stressed, Katy would be too.

“I'm going to get the ping-pong net out today and set the table up. You'd like to play, wouldn't you?”

“Is it hard?”

“It takes practice, that's all.”

“Henry . . .” Katy took the piece he'd just moved. “You messed up again. You're not paying attention enough.”

“You're right. I'm being foolish.” He lifted his cap off his head, placed it on backward. “This is the new me. You won't be able to take another of my pieces now.”

“You look silly,” Katy giggled.

“I am
not
silly.” He made a silly face, pleased beyond measure as her giggling increased. It was his job, he knew. His responsibility to bring silliness and games and fun into her life. “All right. Enough funny business. Now, let me see. Where shall my next move be?”

He alternated between making moves which would help her and ones which were neutral, knowing she was quick enough to work out if he was losing to her on purpose. Trying to let her win without being too obvious about it required a certain skill and was a game in itself.

“Ah, I see your mother coming across the lawn. She's a few minutes early. I'd better go put the coffee on.”

“What about our game?”

“We'll finish it after coffee. Don't worry. Leave it right here on the table.”

He put his cap back on straight, went to the kitchen, switched on the kettle and got Katy's apple juice out of the fridge. This was their morning ritual—coffee and apple juice—when he and Holly and Katy gathered to start the day. Before he'd heard about Holly's “sort of date,” he'd planned to broach the subject of her getting a job. She didn't need the money, she had inherited a more than sizeable amount when John and Julia had died. But she needed something to do, a place to go where she could meet people her own age. Katy would be starting first grade in September. It was time that Holly thought about starting a different first grade, the first steps back into the real world. She would balk at the suggestion, would say Katy needed her to be a full-time mother; she'd come up with all sorts of reasons for staying hidden in Birch Point. But he would persist and coax her into at least thinking about it. Because that was his job too: to help Holly emerge from her hibernation and re-enter her own life. And he had to move her toward it as carefully as he had to pretend to play checkers.

Introducing the topic of a job had been his plan for this Monday morning; now that Holly had taken a different step, one on her own with this man on the bus, he would postpone the conversation. A little at a time—that was his game plan. Holly had been through so much in such a short space of time, she needed patience.

“Almost ready,” he said when he heard her footsteps; then looked up from the cafetière to where she was standing at the threshold of the kitchen. “Sweetie, are you all right?”

“I'm fine, Henry.”

But she wasn't, he could tell. Her face was anxious, her eyes tired. She looked defeated, as if someone had set her a task she couldn't perform. He could sense straight away that whatever was wrong was not anything he could tease her out of. And that he'd have to approach her obliquely, not head on.

“Katy and I are having a game of checkers. She's beginning to really get the hang of it.”

“Good,” Holly nodded. “That's good. I'll take the coffee out to the porch.”

“Thanks.” He poured out two mugs' worth, put milk in them both and handed them over to her. “I'll bring Katy's apple juice.”

Careful
, he told himself.
Tread carefully, Henry
.

The weather was veering wildly. After the rain of the day before, it was sunny again; sunny and hot. John had died on a day like this. In his office, working at his desk. He'd keeled over and died at the age of fifty-three. Henry had wanted to call God, to tell him he'd taken the wrong Barrett.
Take me, take me, take me
, he kept saying over and over; but no one listened. Then Julia died three days later. The natural order had gone haywire; he'd had to bury his son and daughter-in-law together. On another hot, sunny day.

The three sat out on the porch as they always did, whatever the weather. Holly cradled her mug in both hands, taking sips, avoiding his eyes. Katy was telling her mother about the checkers game, how silly Henry had been putting his cap on wrong and making funny faces. Holly, who usually concentrated intensely on whatever Katy was saying, was nodding and saying, “Mmm-hmm,” with a preoccupied voice and look.

It was physically paining him, this sadness of hers. And baffling him as well. He'd had to admit to himself years ago that he had never been the kind of parent he was now. He had loved John with all his heart, but Isabella had been closer to their son; she'd been such a natural mother, he'd taken a back seat. Now he was both mother and father, entirely hands-on, trying with all his might to give both Holly and Katy all that they could ever need or wish for. But he couldn't fix a date which had obviously gone wrong. He could only hope she'd tell him about it.

“Here, Katy.” He rose from the wooden rocking chair, went to the side of the porch, retrieved an old tennis ball. “Why don't you play a little catch with Bones on the lawn?”

As old as Bones ever became, he'd always be able to chase a tennis ball. Katy jumped up, took the ball Henry handed her and called Bones down the porch steps to the lawn. Taking his seat again, Henry waited. At first Holly continued to avoid his gaze, watching Katy toss the ball to Bones, but after a few minutes, she turned to him.

“It's hard,” she said. Stopping himself from saying, “What's hard?” he willed her to continue.

“We had a nice time. But I hadn't told him about Katy.” She frowned. “It was stupid, I know. I should have. When he found out, he was nice, but he wasn't interested any more. I don't blame him. It's the way things are, that's all.”

“And who is he?” Henry asked, softly.

“His name is Jack Dane. He's a waiter at Figs. He's English. His parents died too—in a car crash when he was eighteen. He was so easy to talk to. But I understand. It's hard, that's all.”

Henry nodded.

“I think it's always going to be this way. I mean, it's too much for someone, a five-year-old. I'm a package. No one who doesn't have children . . . but then someone who does have children, that would be hard too. He'd love his child or children and I love Katy and how can that possibly work out?”

“I think you'll find it does, sweetie. Lots of people merge families. And lots of men wouldn't mind having a package, as you call it.”

“I don't think so, Henry. Men are like Billy, you know. Men my age, anyway. They like their freedom.”

“Yes, but at some point, when they fall in love, men understand their freedom is just that: their love, their families.”

Holly shook her head.

“That's a sweet thing to say, Henry. But it's not really . . . I don't know. I only know that Jack can't deal with the fact of Katy. And I'm . . .” Henry could hear the tears in her voice. “I'm not, I don't know how to . . . I'm not exactly a catch.”

“You're the best catch in planets full of seas, Holly.”

“Yeah, right. You're slightly prejudiced on that one.” She smiled thinly. “But it doesn't matter, not really. The only thing that matters is Katy. Anyway, I have to concentrate on this whole Billy situation.” She straightened in her chair. “That's what's important. Making sure he doesn't hurt Katy in any way.”

“Right.”

He wanted to tell her not to let this one incident stop her from trying again; he wanted to tell her she had to stop hiding away, that the world wasn't as bad and scary a place as she had experienced it to be. He wanted to dispense advice that would make her listen and believe in herself. And yet he knew, if he pushed her too hard, she'd only withdraw further. Her one and only experience with men to date had ended in a teenage pregnancy. Her parents had died unexpectedly and she'd been left with a small child to bring up. What Holly hadn't done was to go crazy and run away from her responsibilities. She hadn't gone off on drug binges or been in any way, shape or form a delinquent mother. Retreating to Birch Point was not, given the circumstances, a wrong choice to have made. He only wished she could see that there were other options open to her, that her life, at such a young age, was not buried in these woods.

“Maybe you could talk to Billy, Henry. He might listen to you.”

“I doubt that, sweetie, but I'll certainly try if you want me to.”

“Let me think about it.” She looked over at Katy again, who had rolled the tennis ball in front of Bones. Then her gaze turned outward, over to the canal. “You know, I think you would have liked Jack. He's funny. And he teases, like you do.”

“I'm not a huge fan of his at the moment.”

“Don't blame him, Henry. He was honest. Which is a good thing.” She stood up. “We should get going. Coffee time is over.”

“Katy wants to finish our game of checkers. Let her stay; I'll bring her over when we're through.”

“OK. I wouldn't mind taking a quick swim to clear my head. See you later.”

“See you.” He watched her as she walked over to Katy, gave her a hug, then headed home. A young girl in blue jeans and a baggy white T-shirt, with a slightly pigeon-toed, hunched-shoulders walk. A young girl who always hid a face that was far prettier than she thought it was behind a mass of curly dark hair. A young girl who was self-conscious, sympathetic and shy. Above all, a young girl with a huge, generous heart. Any man, if he got to know her—any good man—would be lucky as hell to have her as his partner.

“Come on, bumblebee, time to finish our game.” He waited for Katy to come up the porch steps, put his hand on her shoulder. “And be prepared for defeat.”

Henry wasn't sure exactly when the plan popped into his head; some time during the afternoon. He'd let Katy win the checkers, taken her back to Holly's, spent time answering emails on his computer, gone for a swim, come back, reheated the clam chowder, picked up the chainsaw and headed for the trees by the path down to the Front Beach where some dead wood needed clearing. And sometime in the middle of sawing, he'd thought of it.

It was a slightly crazy idea, he acknowledged that. On the other hand, he didn't think it could hurt.

“There's no harm in it,” he repeated to himself as he showered. “I'm not meddling.”

Yet as he put on a suit for the first time in months, he had a twinge of guilt. This had to be the first time he'd kept any kind of secret from Holly. And he was aware that he'd have to lie to her if she came by or called for any reason. So he made a pact with himself: if she did call or come by, he wouldn't go ahead with this scheme. He could keep something from Holly, but he couldn't lie outright to her.

Figs was definitely not his type of restaurant. The older he became, the more he yearned for simplicity in all things. As he found a parking space a few feet away, he thought about the bait shop which had once been where Figs now was. It had been as basic as a shop could be; designed for fishermen who knew what they wanted and who didn't want to have to spend much time getting it. The owner had been taciturn, abrupt and extremely adept at finding whatever was needed quickly, ringing it up quickly and avoiding any small talk.
What had happened to him
, Henry wondered?
Had he been pleased to sell out or did he feel forced to?
Adjusting his polka-dot bow-tie, Henry got out of the car and took a quick look around before going into Figs. No sign of Holly, but then he knew there wouldn't be: her car had been parked outside her house when he drove by.
I would have made a lousy spy, if I was as nervous as this,
he said to himself. And then he opened the restaurant door.