Reluctant Date

by Sheila Claydon

  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 a
t 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.”

  “And when you got here you introduced him to Beth,” the words were out before Claire could stop herself. She winced and hoped he wouldn’t realize that she already knew about his own relationship with Beth.

  “No, not right away. To start with he wouldn’t meet anyone. He begged me not to tell anyone he was back in Dolphin Key, especially our parents. He just sort of huddled in a chair on my porch and stared out into the bay. And he couldn’t get warm. I used to pile covers on him and leave hot soup and coffee in a couple of flasks when I went to work. Then, when I returned home, I would try to feed him something nourishing. Really he needed Mum but he was adamant about not telling anyone he was home. In the end I insisted I tell Beth because she was my girlfriend then, and she was getting fed up with the fact that I kept going home early every evening without inviting her along.”

  His reference to Beth was so casual that for a moment Claire could almost believe that losing her to Carl meant nothing to him. He soon disabused her of the thought, however.

  “In the end she insisted on visiting of course. She was all set to give him a piece of her mind for being so difficult. She said I had done enough for him and it was about time he took some responsibility for himself. That was before she met him though. When she actually saw him…well even I could see I was going to be fighting a lost cause if I tried to come between them. As far as Beth was concerned, I no longer existed!”

  Claire heard the wry humor in his voice and identified with the pain he was trying to hide. She had been like that when she had been thrown over for someone else all those years ago. She had joked about it and pretended it didn’t matter in the daytime, and then had cried herself to sleep at night.

  “Meeting her was his turning point though,” Daniel continued. “She gave him back his love of life, and soon he was strong enough to walk into town. Then Beth told him it was time he visited our parents.”

  “They must have been pleased to have him back in one piece, surely.”

  “My mother was. I’ll never forget the expression on her face the day I told her he had come home.”

  “But your father wouldn’t forgive him?”

  “You’ve got it in one! If he wouldn’t forgive him when he first left, then he certainly wasn’t about to forgive a son who he regarded a drunken, dope-addled hippy, a son who had come home with his tail between his legs. That was his interpretation, of course, and it was very far from the truth.

  “I tried to explain it wasn’t like that at all. That Carl had been ill not drunk, and that he was recovering fast. Then I suggested we offer him a job in the family business to help him get back on his feet.”

  “And it didn’t go down well!”

  “It certainly did not. For a moment I thought he was going to throw me out of the house too.”

  He turned and looked at her. “So now you have it, the entire unedifying Marchant family saga. Nowadays there are a few upsides of course, such as Carl and Beth getting married and starting a family, and the fact that Carl now runs his own successful print business, but Dad still won’t talk to him.”

  “And your poor mother is in the middle of it all,” Claire’s heart went out to Mrs Marchant. No wonder the poor woman looked so strained and sad when she had a son she wasn’t allowed to mention, let alone see, and a husband who demanded she look after him every hour of the day and night.

  “Mmm. Well she’s sort of found a way around that. She calls into the print shop for coffee whenever she manages to get into town. And occasionally I shut myself into the study with Dad for what he thinks is a business meeting, and try hard to make it last long enough for her to have lunch with Carl and Beth as well.”

  * * *

  Suddenly Daniel was bored with his family history. It was something he didn’t like to dwell on, and he had only told Claire because she needed to know. If she hadn’t taken to visiting his parents and reading to his father then it would have been a very long time before she found out the truth about the Marchant family. He stood up.

  “I’ll make some more coffee and then we’ll talk about something far more interesting, your week for example.”

  He didn’t wait for her answer and Claire frowned as she watched him retreat into the house carrying their empty mugs. Life in Dolphin Key wasn’t as uncomplicated and serene as it appeared to be after all. Underneath its smiling face were the dark undercurrents of family feuds and broken relationships. She thought of her own parents with a sudden surge of affection because she knew it would never ever occur to either of them to stop her doing something she loved. Nor would they ever disown her, or refuse to speak to her, whatever she did.

  For the first time in her life she stopped dwelling on the difficulties of her unorthodox childhood and began to appreciate what they had given her instead. Their loving but hands-off parenting had given her the freedom to develop her own interests without any pressure. Unlike Carl, who had
had his music taken away, she had been able to pursue her own obsession with photography with their blessing. Nor had they ever tried to make her into someone that she wasn’t. Instead they had merely insisted she stay with them and learn to adjust when their lives changed, rather than shut herself away in the boarding school she had once hankered for. And despite her hang ups, and however difficult she had found it at the time, she had to admit that all the travelling and the new experiences had left her with an inner confidence in her own abilities and a knowledge that she was totally her own person.

  She accepted a second mug of coffee with a murmur of thanks, wondering, as she did so, how badly the story Daniel had told her had affected him. She wanted to ask him but she didn’t dare. He had already opened a small portion of his heart, and from the troubled expression on his face that was more than enough for one night.

  “My week was good,” she told him. She was rewarded by a broad smile, and soon they were talking about some of the ideas she and Scott had come up with during the past few days. As they talked Daniel’s face gradually relaxed, and he laughed aloud as she recounted her latest success.

  “You mean you have actually persuaded Scott to pose for our leaflets as some sort of poster boy!”

  “There was no persuasion! She and Beth blackmailed me into it!” Scott’s voice, coming out of the surrounding darkness, made them both jump. He joined them on the dock.

  “I was driving past when I noticed the lights were on in the house so I knew you were back Dan. I guess it’s kind of late for a work update but knowing how you don’t sleep when you’ve been travelling, I thought I’d stop by anyway. Tell me if I’m intruding.”