Careless In Red (43 page)

Inside the door, he set Pooh on top of the till behind the counter. He said, “Do not dump, mate,” and he went inside the workshop. There, he found the one person he was looking for. Not his father, who would have undoubtedly greeted Cadan’s forthcoming tale with a lecture about his lifelong stupidity. Instead, he found Jago, who was engaged in the delicate final process of sanding the rough edges of fiberglass and resin from the rails of a swallowtail board.

Jago looked up as Cadan stumbled into the finishing room. He seemed to take a reading of Cadan’s state at once because there was music coming from the dusty radio that sat on an equally dusty shelf just beyond the sawhorses holding the board, and Jago went to this and turned it off. He removed his glasses and wiped them on the thigh of his white boiler suit to little effect.

He said, “What’s happened, Cade? Where’s your dad? He’s all right? Where’s Madlyn?” His left hand moved spasmodically.

Cadan said, “No. No. I don’t know.” What he meant was that he assumed everything was fine with his father and with his sister, but the truth was that he had no clue. He hadn’t seen Madlyn since that morning, and he hadn’t seen his father at all. He didn’t want to consider what that latter detail might mean because it would be one more piece of information to have to cope with, and his head was already bursting. He finally said, “Okay, I s’pose. I expect Madlyn went to work.”

“Good.” Jago gave a sharp nod. He went back to the surfboard. He picked up the sandpaper, but before he applied it, he ran his fingertips along the rails. He said, “You come in here like the devil’s chasing you.”

Cadan said, “Not far from the truth. You got a minute?”

Jago nodded. “Always. Hope you know that.”

Cadan felt as if someone had kindly withdrawn his thumb from the dyke, offering to take over the rescue of the lowlands in his stead. The story came forth. His father’s disgust, Cadan’s dreams of the X Games, Adventures Unlimited, Kerra Kerne, Ben Kerne, Alan Cheston, and Dellen. Last of all, Dellen. It was all a jumble to which Jago listened patiently. He sanded the surfboard’s rails slowly, nodding as Cadan went from point to point.

At the end he homed in on what they both knew was the salient detail: Cadan Angarrack caught in a delicto that was just about as flagrante as it could have been, short of the two of them—himself and Dellen Kerne—having been caught writhing and moaning on the kitchen floor. Jago said, “Sounds like mother, like son to me. Didn’t think of that when she played with you, Cade?”

“I didn’t expect…I didn’t know her, see. I thought something was a bit off with her when she came upon me yesterday, but I didn’t think…She’s like…Jago, she could be my mum.”

“Not bloody likely. For her faults, your mum stuck to her own kind, yes?”

“What d’ you mean?”

“Way Madlyn tells it—and, mind, she doesn’t think much of your mum—Wenna Angarrack with her list of surnames always sticks to her own age group. From what you say, this one”—and Cadan took from Jago’s tone of aversion that he was referring to Dellen Kerne—“doesn’t appear to mind what age she’s doing it with. ’Spect you had signs when you met her.”

“She asked me about it,” Cadan admitted.

“It?”

“Sex. She asked me what I did for sex.”

“And you didn’t think that was a bit off, Cade? Woman her age making enquiries like that? She was readying you.”

“I didn’t really…” Cadan shifted his uneasy gaze off Jago’s shrewd one. Above the radio hung a poster, a Hawaiian girl inexplicably wearing nothing but a lei round her neck and a wreath of palm leaves on her head as she surfed a good-size wave with casual skill. It came to Cadan as he looked upon her that some people were born with amazing confidence, and he was not one of those people.

“You knew what was going on,” Jago said. “S’pose you thought you got yourself a three-way girl with no asking, eh? Or, worst case, a bit of how’s yer father. Either way, you’re happy.” He shook his head. “Blokes your age never can think outside of the envelope, and we both know what that envelope is.”

“She offered me lunch,” Cadan said in his own defence.

Jago laughed. “Bet she did. And she was planning to be your pudding.” He set down his sandpaper and leaned against the board. “Girl like that’s trouble, Cade. You got to know how to read her from the start. She gets a boy by the short ones by giving him a taste, eh? A little bit now, and a little bit then till he’s got the whole. Then it’s on again, off again till he don’t know which part of her’s the part to believe in so he believes in it all. She makes him feel ways he’s never felt, and he thinks no one can make him feel the same. That’s how it works. Best learn from this and let it go.”

“But my job,” he said. “I need the job, Jago.”

Jago pointed at him with his trembling hand. “What you don’t need is that family,” he said. “Look what hooking into the Kernes did to Madlyn. She better off for spreading her legs for that boy of theirs?”

“But you let them use your—”

“’Course I did. When I saw I couldn’t talk her out of letting Santo in her knickers, least I could do was my best to make certain they were safe about it, so I said for them to go to Sea Dreams. But did that help matters? Made them worse. Santo used her up and spat her out. Only good was that at least the girl had someone to talk to who didn’t shout the I-told-you-so’s at her.”

“Reckon you wanted to, though.”

“Bloody right I wanted to. But what was done was done, so what was the point? Question is, Cade, are you going to go the way of Madlyn?”

“There’re obvious differences. And anyway, the job—”

“Sod the job! Make peace with your dad. Come back here. We got the work. We got too much work, with the season nearly here. You can do it well enough if you’ve a mind to.” Jago returned to his own employment, but before he began, he made a final comment. “One of you two’s going to have to swallow pride, Cade. He took your car keys and your driving licence ’cos he had a reason. To keep you alive. Not every father makes that kind of effort. Not every father makes it and succeeds. Best you start thinking of that, my boy.”

“YOU’RE DISGUSTING,” KERRA SAID to her mother. Her voice was trembling. This somehow made things seem even worse to her. Trembling might suggest to Dellen that her daughter was feeling fear, embarrassment, or—what was truly pathetic—a form of dismay when all the time what Kerra was feeling was rage. Seething, white hot, utterly pure and all of it directed towards the woman before her. She was feeling far more of it than she’d felt towards Dellen in years, and she wouldn’t have believed that possible. “You’re disgusting,” she repeated. “Do you hear me, Mum?”

Dellen said in turn, “And what the hell do you think you are, coming upon me like a little spy? Are you proud of yourself?”

Kerra said, “You can turn this on me?”

“Yes, I can. You sneak round here like a copper’s nark and don’t think I don’t know it. You’ve been watching me for years and reporting back to your father and anyone else who’d listen.”

“You absolute bitch,” Kerra said, more in wonder than in anger. “You absolute, unbelievable bitch.”

“Hurts a bit to hear the truth, doesn’t it? So hear some more. You caught your mum off guard and now you’ve got the chance you’ve waited for to do her in. You see what you want to see, Kerra, instead of what’s right in front of your nose.”

“Which is?”

“The truth. He got carried away by the music. You saw for yourself I was pushing him away. He’s a randy little worm and he saw an opportunity. And that’s what happened. So get out of here with your nasty speculation and find something useful to do with your time.” Dellen moved her head in a way that tossed her hair at the same time as it dismissed whatever conclusions her daughter may have drawn. Then, despite her previous words, she apparently decided she’d not said enough, for she went on with, “I offered him lunch. There can’t be a problem with that, can there? Surely that can’t possibly meet with your disapproval. I turned on the radio. Well, what else was I supposed to do? It was easier than making conversation with a boy I barely know. He took the music as some sort of sign. It was sexy, the way Latin music always is, and he got caught up in—”

“Shut up,” Kerra said. “We both know what you had in mind, so don’t make it worse by pretending poor little Cadan tried to seduce you.”

“Is that his name? Cadan?”

“Stop it!” Kerra entered the kitchen. She advanced on her mother. Dellen, she saw, had taken care with her makeup in that way she had: her lips looking fuller, her violet eyes large, everything highlighted like a catwalk model, which was idiotic because the last thing Dellen Kerne had was a catwalk body. But even that she’d manage to make look seductive because what she knew and had always known was that men of every age respond to the voluptuous. Today she was red of scarf, red of shoes, and red of belt, which was little enough colour from which to make a judgement, but her jersey was unseasonably thin and its neck plunged downward, displaying inches of cleavage, and her trousers hugged her hips tightly. And from all of that, Kerra could judge and conclude, which she did with an alacrity born of years of experience. “I saw everything, Mum. And you’re a pig. You’re a cow. You’re a fucking minge bag. You’re even worse. Santo’s dead and even that doesn’t stop you. It gives you an excuse. Poor little me…I’m suffering so…But a nice fuck’ll take my mind off it all. Is that what you’re telling yourself, Mum?”

Dellen had backed away as Kerra advanced. She stood butted up against the work top. Then, on a hair, her mood altered. Tears rushed to her eyes. “Please,” she said. “Kerra. You can see…Obviously, I’m not myself. You know there’re times…You know, Kerra…And it doesn’t mean—”

“Don’t you bloody say it!” Kerra cried. “You’ve made excuses for years, and I’m finished with hearing ‘Your mum’s got problems’ because you know what, Mum? We all have problems. And mine is standing here in this kitchen, looking at me like a lamb that’s heading to get the axe. All innocence and pain and ‘Look at what I’ve had to suffer’ when all she’s done is make us suffer. Dad, me, Santo. All of us. And now Santo’s dead, which is probably down to you as well. You make me sick.”

“How can you say…? He was my son.” Dellen began to weep. No crocodile tears, these, but the real thing. “Santo,” she cried. “My precious.”

“Your precious? Don’t even start. Alive, he was nothing to you and neither was I. We got in your way. But dead, Santo has real value. Because now you can point to his death and say exactly what you’ve just been saying. ‘It’s because of Santo. It’s because of this tragedy that’s befallen our family.’ But it’s not the reason and it never will be although it’s perfect for an excuse.”

“Don’t talk to me like that! You don’t know what I—”

“What? I don’t know what you suffer? I don’t know what you’ve suffered for years? Is that it? Because all of this has been about your suffering? Is that what Stuart Mahler was about? About your terrible horrible agonising suffering that no one can ever understand but you?”

“Stop this, Kerra. Please. You must stop.”

“I saw it. You didn’t know that, did you? My first boyfriend and I was thirteen years old and there you were, standing in front of him, with your top lowered and your bra removed and—”

“No! No! That never happened!”

“In the garden, Mum. Faded from your memory, has it, with all the current tragedy you’re living through?” Kerra felt on fire. So much energy was rushing through her limbs that she didn’t know if she could contain it all. She wanted to scream and kick holes in the walls. “Let me bloody refresh you, all right?”

“I don’t want to hear!”

“Stuart Mahler, Mum. He was fourteen. He came round. It was summer and we listened to music in the gazebo. We kissed a bit. We didn’t even use our tongues because we were so bleeding innocent we didn’t know what we were doing. I went into the house for drinks and jam tarts because the day was hot and we were sweaty and…That was all the time you needed. Does this sound at all familiar to you?”

“Please. Kerra.”

“No. Please Dellen. That was the game. Dellen did as she pleased, and she still does. And the rest of us walk on cat’s feet all round her because we’re so afraid we’ll set her off again.”

“I’m not responsible. You know that. I’ve never been able…There are things I can’t…”

Dellen turned away, sobbing. She bent across the work top, her arms extended. Her posture suggested submission and penitence. Her daughter could do what she would with her. Buckle of belt, cat-o’-nine-tails, scourge, whip. What did it matter? Punish me, punish me, make me suffer for my sins.

But Kerra knew better than to believe at this point. Too much water had flowed beneath the arc of this endless bridge they walked upon, and all of it went and had always gone in the same direction.

“Don’t even try that,” she told her mother.

“I am who I am,” Dellen said, weeping.

“So try being someone else.”

DAIDRE TRIED TO PICK up the bill for dinner, but this was something Lynley wouldn’t allow. It was not only that a gentleman never let a lady pay for a meal that they had enjoyed together, he told her. It was also that he’d dined at her home on the previous night and if they wanted to keep matters on an even keel between them, then it was his turn to provide a meal for her. And even if she felt otherwise about the situation, he could hardly ask her to pay for what she’d barely consumed at the Curlew Inn.

“I am sorry about the meal,” he told her.

“You can hardly be blamed for my choice, Thomas. I should have known better than to order something referred to as ‘the vegetarian surprise.’”

She’d wrinkled her nose and then chuckled when she’d seen it, and he could hardly blame her. What had arrived for her consumption was something green baked into a loaf, with a side dish of rice and vegetables boiled so thoroughly that they were nearly drained of colour. She’d gamely washed down the rice and the medley of veg with the Curlew Inn’s best wine—an indifferent French Chablis insufficiently cooled—but she’d given up after a few bites of the loaf. She’d cheerfully pronounced herself “Quite full. It’s amazingly rich, a bit like cheesecake,” and she’d looked astonished that he hadn’t believed her. When he’d declared he intended to take her out for a proper dinner, she told him it would probably have to be in Bristol because there wasn’t likely to be a place in Cornwall that would meet her gastronomic standards. “I’m a troublesome wretch when it comes to food. I should broaden my horizons to fish, but somehow I can’t get my mind round to it.”