Benji turned without looking at him and went back to take hold of Jasmine’s hand. David threw open the gate and began sprinting as fast as he could along Shore Street. He was moving so fast that he had run twenty yards past the BMW before recognizing it as Jennifer’s car. He stopped and loped back slowly towards it, glancing in as he approached. Jennifer sat in the driver’s seat staring straight ahead and clutching the top of the steering wheel. He opened the door. “Listen, Jennifer, I just—”
“No,” she cut in, holding up her hand. She glanced up at him, a look of deep hurt in her eyes. “I don’t want to listen.” She fired up the engine and moved off, pulling the car round into the entrance of the marina. David ran after it and opened the door, squatting down on his haunches behind it so that she couldn’t reverse away.
“Please, Jennifer. Just give me a chance to explain.”
“No! Now would you get out of the way, please?” she said, fighting hard to control her voice.
David did not move from his position. “Not until you’ve given me a chance to explain.”
Realizing that he was not going to move, she took in a deep breath, and pulling the keys from the ignition, she jumped out of the car.
“Please! Just leave me alone!” she said, as she strode off towards the marina.
David stood up and shut the door, then, catching up with her, took hold of her arm. She turned and raised her hand at this unwelcome contact, and he backed off hurriedly.
“Don’t you ever touch me again, do you hear?” She shook her head in anger as she fought to find her next words. “I thought I could trust you! I thought you were—my friend!” She began walking away, then turned back. “I mean, everyone seemed to have known about all this except me! Even my own child! How do you think that makes me feel?” She spluttered out a gasping sob of anger.
“I was going to tell you on Thursday! I didn’t think you were coming back until then.”
She crossed her arms and nodded. “Oh, Thursday. That would have been just fine, wouldn’t it? Let’s keep it all a secret until after the party, then we won’t have to invite boring old Jennifer.”
“Oh, come on, that’s stupid!” David snapped at her, losing his patience. “It wasn’t like that at all!” He immediately held up his hands in apology at his tone. “Listen, I’m sorry about the party. It was just that Sophie’s birthday was last month, so I thought we’d just celebrate it as soon as possible. There was no subterfuge or malice ever intended by that!”
Jennifer shook her head at the pathos of his explanation and turned and walked past the entrance gate. The same surly-faced little man who had been in the box when David had come down there on that first morning stood up from watching his television and leaned out of the window.
“Hey, you! Is that your car parked up there? ’Cos if so, you can’t park it there. It’s blocking the entrance!”
David glared at him. “Look, why don’t you just—bugger off!”
The man was at first mystified by the retort, but then a thunderous expression came over his face. “Hey, who d’ya think you’re talkin’ to, you goddamned Brit? Stuck-up bastard. Don’t you—?”
“You heard him!” Jennifer interjected with force. “Just bugger off!”
She turned and strode off, and David watched as the man, obviously stunned by the fact that an American woman could talk to him in such tones, slumped slowly into his seat and turned back to watching his television.
As Jennifer walked out onto the narrow gangway that led to the boats, David pushed past and turned to face her, successfully impeding her from going any farther. She stopped and looked at him, anger blazing in her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! I wouldn’t have minded, David! I just feel so—left out! I don’t mind that you have a … wife and children, but why did you think you couldn’t tell me?”
“I don’t have a wife!”
“Oh, right!” she exclaimed, trying to push past him. “So how do you explain those three kids back there, or are you going to spin me some yarn about you gallivanting around Scotland fathering illegitimate children everywhere?”
“Oh, don’t be stupid! Of course not.”
“So where the hell is your wife?”
“SHE’S DEAD!”
The two words came out with such passion and anguish that they seemed to hang in the air, breaking immediately through Jennifer’s anger to dig themselves deep into her innermost self. It happened so fast, and was so discordant with the preconceived course of her argument, that she found herself swallowing back the angry retort she had intended.
At that point, two yachtsmen, who were walking along the narrow gangway, excused themselves in passing, and both she and David stood aside in silence to allow them through. Jennifer turned and followed them with her eyes, thankful for the interruption to retrain her thoughts. She turned back to David and flickered a half-smile at him, but then, seeing the look of desolation on his face, she lowered her head and closed her eyes, devastated by her own self-centredness in not having allowed him to explain earlier.
“When?” she eventually asked in a quiet, faltering voice.
David remained silent for a moment before answering. “April.”
“This April?”
David glanced out the side of his eye at her and nodded.
Jennifer let out a deep shuddering breath. “Oh, David! Why did you—”
“Listen!” David cut in, holding up his hand. “I wanted to explain to you properly. Believe me, I never wanted you to find out like this. It just happened that Jasmine found out, well, really by default, and I asked her not to say anything, because…” He stopped and turned to look out across the bay to Fire Island. “… because I wasn’t ready to tell anyone. That’s the reason I’m out here. So I could lose myself, and get away from constantly thinking and having people talk about it.”
As he stood, still gazing out across the bay, he suddenly felt a hand slip into his, and he turned to look into Jennifer’s upturned face.
“And do you think you could talk about it—with me—now?” she asked softly.
David paused for a moment, then slowly nodded.
“Well, come on then,” she said, pulling him by the hand back towards dry land. “Let’s find somewhere a little more private than this.”
Two hours later, it had all been told and, with nothing left to say, they sat together in silence on the little jetty in front of the saltbox, gently skimming their bare feet across the surface of the water and looking out across the bay as the warming darkness fell about them. Throughout his explanation, Jennifer had continually asked questions with such intuition and understanding that he realized at the end of it that her knowledge of Rachel and the children probably now outmatched that of anyone else but his own closest family. It was at that precise moment that he felt more at peace with himself than at any time since Rachel’s death.
The quiet was so enveloping that David caught the change in Jennifer’s breathing as she let out a silent laugh to herself. He turned and looked at her. “What?”
She shook her head and, leaning back on her hands, she straightened out her legs and watched the water drip from her feet. “Nothing. I was just remembering my sixteenth birthday.”
“God, I can’t remember mine! Yours must have been a pretty special occasion.”
“Oh, it was!” Jennifer put her head back and gazed up at the stars. “I was at a boarding-school in Richmond, Virginia, and my mother picked me up on the morning of my birthday and said she had a surprise for me. We flew up to New York, and we shopped…” She let out a short laugh. “.… and we shopped some more. And then, in the evening, we went to my first Broadway show.” She paused, pulling her knees up under her chin. “It was Jesus Christ Superstar. I have never forgotten it.”
David smiled and looked down into the dark waters. “Yeah. I can imagine.” He let out a long sigh. “I think that’s what I really fear most for my children. They’ll miss day
s like that. They’ll never have them.”
Jennifer reached across and laid her hand on top of his. “David?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you let me ask Sophie to come to New York with me?”
“What?”
“Can I take Sophie into New York this weekend? I’d love to take her shopping, and then maybe go to a Broadway show.”
“Would you really do that?”
Jennifer leaned over towards him, her face lightening up into that same smile she had given him when he had first complimented Benji on the day of the tennis party.
“I don’t have a daughter, and I’ve never regretted it for an instant—except for one thing. And that was that I could never give her a day like the one my mother gave me for my sixteenth birthday. You’ve been so wonderful with Benji, David, and I would love more than anything to take Sophie.”
“Well, I think it’s a wonderful idea. We’ll ask her. I’m sure she’ll be bowled over.”
“Good. We’ll go into the city on Saturday morning, and we’ll shop till we drop; then we can go back to the apartment in West Village, because we’ll have it to ourselves, seeing Alex will still be away. Then we’ll go to—now what would she enjoy?—I know! Crazy for You. That’s on at the Shubert!” Her face beamed once more with excitement.
David laughed. “Now that will be right up Sophie’s street!” He jumped up and, taking hold of Jennifer’s hand, pulled her to her feet and then both walked slowly back along the jetty and up the narrow steps into the garden. When she got to the top, she turned as he took the last two steps behind her.
“Oh, by the way, I was going to tell you. We got the contract.”
“You did! Well done! You deserved it in every way!” He put his hand out to give hers a congratulatory shake, but she crossed her arms and eyed him closely, as if trying to make out some follow-on to his initial reaction to the news.
He met her gaze. “What’s the matter?”
“David, can I ask you something, and would you give me an honest answer to my question?”
“Well, I don’t know what it is yet.”
“Okay! So here’s the question! You said that you gave up work to look after Rachel?”
“Yeah.”
“Right! So what I want to know is—what do you do? I mean, what is your normal job?”
“Why do you ask?”
Jennifer turned and began walking nonchalantly towards the house. “Oh, it’s just that one reason we got the contract with Tarvy’s was because some unbelievably kind person and obviously well-connected with the company put in a good word for us.” She turned and looked directly at him. “But neither Sam, Russ nor I have any idea who it could be.”
“Ah, right,” he said quietly, looking down at his feet to cover for the smile on his face.
“You don’t happen, by any chance, to be in the liquor business, do you?”
He looked up and nodded noncommittally. “Well, sort of.”
“What do you mean, ‘sort of’? You either are or you aren’t.”
“Yeah, okay, I’m in the whisky industry.”
Jennifer walked slowly back towards him. “And have you, by any chance, contacted anyone over the past week who might just happen to work for Gladwin Vintners?”
David stuck his hands in the back pockets of his trousers and looked everywhere except at Jennifer. “Well, sort of, yeah—but it was a social call as well.”
Jennifer stopped directly in front of him. “You’ve done it again, haven’t you? I only said it as a joke, but you managed to fix that too!” She gave out an incredulous laugh. “Your name is David Corstorphine, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, why?”
“It’s not anything like, well, Clark Kent or … something similar?”
“God no, you’re looking at a mere mortal here.”
Jennifer shrugged her shoulders. “Well, maybe.” She reached up and gave him a slow and gentle kiss on either cheek. “But a particularly special one.”
She turned and hurried over to the porch. “Come on, I haven’t celebrated yet! Let’s have a drink! God, I’m in need of one after this afternoon!”
David thumped his hand against his forehead as he followed her towards the house. “I’m afraid that could be a problem! I know for a fact that I don’t have anything. I didn’t have much at home, and I think Gerry ended up nicking the last beer. But look, I’ll go straight up to the liquor store and get a bottle of wine.”
“No, don’t worry,” she said, disappointed, as she entered the living-room.
“Honestly, it’s no problem!” he said, picking up the keys of the Volkswagen off the table. “Give me five minutes, and I’ll be back. Just make yourself at home. The place is so small that you’ll probably find everything from where you’re standing at the minute!”
As it happened, it was a good fifteen minutes before he returned. Having taken a bottle of champagne out of the cooler in the liquor store, he became embroiled in a lengthy conversation with Victor, the old man who ran the place, about the differing qualities of champagne that were now coming out of France. Eventually, he managed to get away, leaving Victor to continue his droning appraisal with some guy who had only come in for a six-pack of beer.
The moment he arrived back at the house, David moved quickly, fearing that Jennifer might have decided to go home. He ran across the garden, and entering through the porch, he found her sitting in one of the armchairs with Dodie on her knees.
“Sorry about that!” he said, beginning immediately to take the foil off the top of the bottle. “I was held up!”
“Don’t worry!” Jennifer replied. “Dodie appeared from somewhere and has been keeping me company. Listen, David, I didn’t know how long you were going to be, and I was a little worried about the children, so I rang Jasmine. Just as well, as it happens, because she was in somewhat of a state about this afternoon. Anyway, I put her mind at rest, and then got her to ask the children if they minded sleeping at the house tonight. They seem to be okay about it. Do you have any objections?”
“No, that’s great—as long as it’s all right by you.”
“Yeah, sure it is! And anyway, I’d love to have them to stay whenever or for as long as they want! Please treat it as an open—”
She stopped talking, realizing that David was suddenly frozen in mid-action as he prised the cork off the bottle. He seemed to have become aware of the music that Jennifer had put on the record player, and was standing staring at the pile of records that she had taken from the top shelf and had left sitting on the table. She looked across at them.
“Oh, I’m sorry! I hope you don’t mind. I just thought that I’d put on a record, but they all seemed, well, either doleful, or…” She laughed. “… a little too seductive, and I didn’t think that I should give you the wrong idea! So I thought that there was no harm in a bit of Martha Reeves and the Vandell——”
Her voice petered out, as she noticed that David’s face had drained of all colour.
“David, what’s wrong?”
“Could you change the record, please?” he said quietly.
“Why?”
“Could you just please change the—”
It was too late. The song faded out, and the needle crackled unerringly on the spacer towards the next track. Jennifer watched as David shut his eyes, his whole face tightening as if he expected someone to deal him a final, mortal blow.
The quiet guitar introduction of “The Tracks of My Tears” sounded out around the room. David turned away and lowered his head, the bottle held limply at his side as he leaned his free hand on the back of the armchair. Jennifer looked up at the speakers, realizing now that it was the song. She walked over to him and took the bottle from his grasp and placed her hand on his shoulder.
“Is it the song?”
David slowly nodded.
“Was it yours? Yours and Rachel’s?”
He nodded again.
Taking a grip on his arm, she slowly turned him towards h
er and looked into his lowered face, seeing the tears in his eyes.
“Oh, David!” she said quietly, “I didn’t know! Come here!”
She pulled him against her, and as he rested his head on her shoulder, she suddenly felt a shudder run through his body and into her own as he broke down, the tears beginning to flow uncontrollably as she held him close to her.
“So take a good look at my face, can’t you see the smi-ile, it’s out of place.”
She pushed him away, and, placing her hand gently on the side of his cheek, she tilted his face up so that he looked at her directly.
“You know, you must be the bravest man I know. You’ve come out here and you’ve managed to exorcize all these ghosts by yourself. And on top of that, you’ve fixed it for Benji, Jasmine and myself over and over again. It’s my turn now. It’s my turn to fix it for you. This is the last ghost, David, and I’m going to be with you every step of the way.”
As the track came to an end, Jennifer left him and reached up and placed the needle haphazardly somewhere near the beginning. She turned round and took him again in her arms, and gradually, as the song continued, she felt him begin to move against her in rhythm with the music.
“Since you left me, you see me with another girl, seemin’ like I’m havin’ fun.”
David held himself tight against her, feeling the warmth of her body, pulled close against him, loving the smell emanating from the softness of her neck. He closed his eyes as he felt her lips reach up and caress him below the ear. They moved in sequence across his cheek, eventually kissing at the side of his mouth. Then he felt it, the gentle pressure against his own lips, and he let them part, allowing himself to taste for the first time in what seemed an eternity the essence of all that he had longed for, and all that he had missed since losing Rachel.
Her name. Rachel. It was Rachel he missed.
He pushed himself away from Jennifer and stood, his gaze lowered to the ground.
“I—I’m sorry, Jennifer, I can’t! I can’t do this so soon after…”
Jennifer moved quickly over to the record player, using the opportunity to replace the needle on the record, this time hitting the introduction perfectly. She turned back to him, and gently took hold of both his hands.
An Ocean Apart Page 40
