An Ocean Apart

by Robin Pilcher

  Scotland. His mind turned to the distillery, and he wondered for the hundredth time if he shouldn’t have asked Archie to fax him back regardless, the lack of response having left a niggling doubt in his mind that something untoward might be taking place. But then again, Archie would surely have contacted him.

  As he finished off the last remaining drops of the can he started, turning his head quickly towards the house, positive that he had just heard the sound of a door banging.

  “Hullo?”

  He waited for five seconds, listening for a reply, then jumped to his feet and ran back up the steps. The side door stood ajar.

  “Hullo?” he called out again as he walked across the lawn to the porch. He heard a scuttling noise from inside the house, and Dodie came bouncing out of the screen door, followed immediately by Sophie.

  For a moment, David just stood looking at her, her presence there being so unexpected.

  “Sophie?” he said, a confused tone to his voice. “What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t due back until tonight.”

  Sophie said nothing, but ran over to him and put her arms around his chest, holding herself tight against him.

  “Has something happened, darling?”

  Sophie looked up at him, a worried expression on her face, and nodded her head.

  “What? Tell me.”

  Sophie took a couple of deep breaths, as if steeling herself to speak, before she finally blurted out her explanation.

  “It was so awful, Dad! We’d been to the theatre and then we went back to Jennifer’s place and we were watching a video and waiting for the pizza to arrive, and then I opened the front door and there was this man and woman there, and they were snogging each other in the corridor.” She pulled herself even tighter against her father. “It was Jennifer’s husband, Dad!”

  David stood with his eyes tightly shut, not wishing to hear the final sentence, knowing already what she was going to say. For a moment, he held his daughter in silence.

  “When did you get back to Leesport?” he asked quietly.

  “Last night—no, this morning, I suppose, at about three o’clock. We just packed our things and came back. Poor Jennifer, Dad. She was so upset all the way home.”

  David bent forward and kissed the top of her head. “Did you see Jasmine when you got home?”

  “No, we were pretty quiet. I don’t think Jennifer wanted to see anyone. Then, when I got up about an hour ago and went downstairs, there was no one in the house, but I found a note on the kitchen table from Jasmine saying that she had seen the car and explaining where everyone had gone today. That’s why I knew you were here. Then I went into the conservatory and found Jennifer. She’s just sitting there by herself on the sofa.” She looked up at her father again. “I asked her if she wanted me to get you, and she just nodded without speaking. I was going to ring, but I thought it would be better if I came and saw you, so I borrowed Benji’s bike.”

  David put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and began walking towards the house. “Listen, we’ll just leave the bike here for now and go straight up there in the Volkswagen, okay?”

  Sophie stopped and looked up at him. “Actually, Dad, I think it would be better if you went alone. To be quite honest, I don’t want to go up there now.”

  “Right. In that case, will you stay here and look after Dodie?”

  Sophie nodded.

  David gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Look, I’ll be back as soon as I can. And don’t worry. I’ll speak to Jennifer and see if I can help her to get something sorted out.”

  “She’s such a lovely person, Dad, and it’s just so horrible seeing her look so sad.”

  “I know. Well, let’s see what I can do, okay?”

  As soon as he arrived at the house, David caught sight of Jennifer through the conservatory window, sitting motionless on the sofa. He got out of the car and walked round the side to the French doors, watching her at all times through the glass. Yet her eyes never followed him, even though, at one point, he moved directly through her line of sight. He entered the room and quietly sat on the low coffee-table in front of her. Her legs were tucked up under her chin, her vacant eyes puffy with too little sleep and too much crying, her cheeks streaked with tear-stains. David reached forward and stroked the back of his hand up and down her bare arm.

  “Jennifer? Are you all right?”

  She didn’t look at him, but took in a deep sniff. “That’s a pretty stupid question for Superman. Does it look as if I’m all right?”

  David glanced down at his hands and began flicking at one thumb-nail with the other. She was right. It was pretty stupid.

  “Alex has been having an affair with his bloody business associate for three months, David,” she said, her voice choking.

  “Yeah.”

  Jennifer turned to him. “What do you mean, ‘Yeah’? Did you know about it?”

  David rubbed at his forehead with his fingers. “Well, in a way. Jasmine had an idea that something was going on. She overheard Alex talking on the telephone the day of the tennis party. But she didn’t know for certain, Jennifer, and once she’d told me, I didn’t really think it was for us to say anything.”

  Jennifer nodded and looked away. “No, I don’t suppose it was. I should have realized it myself.”

  As she said this, she leaned her face forward on her knees and burst into tears once more. David got up from the table, and squeezing himself down between the arm of the sofa and her back, he pulled her against him and began rocking her gently, as if comforting a distraught child.

  “What did I do wrong, David? Was it my fault? What did I do wrong?”

  “Nothing. You did nothing wrong. You mustn’t blame yourself for this. It’s totally Alex’s fault that this happened.”

  “But why did he do it? Why did he think he needed to do it?”

  “I don’t know. I have no idea. It’s just that maybe, well, sometimes people lose sight of what they’ve got, and as far as Alex is concerned, I think he’s probably gone fucking blind.”

  “I thought we were good together, David. Maybe not perfect, what with the jobs and everything, but I thought we were good! And Benji as well. I really did think that we had everything going for us…” Her voice grew higher as she fought back the tears once more. “… and now I’m talking about it all in the past tense!”

  David pushed himself off the sofa and sat down again on the coffee-table, taking both her hands in his and looking straight into her face.

  “That’s just it, Jennifer! You mustn’t speak about it in the past tense! You do have it all—still! Listen … oh, hell!… I can’t really explain this properly, but … you see, I don’t … I don’t have it all any more, Jennifer. I can’t help but speak in the past tense, and I can tell you, I would give anything for it to be different. You know, when Rachel died, I became, well, self-absorbed and bitter, and I suppose completely selfish, but I realize now that, even though the hurt is still profound, I not only have the obligation of the children, but also the sheer joy of them as well. You still have both Benji and Alex. And what’s more, Benji has Alex—and he really needs him, Jennifer. He loves him. He’s his father! You can never lose sight of that. Please don’t ever lose sight of that. Okay, I realize that Alex has behaved like a complete moron, but it’s worth everything, your happiness and Benji’s happiness, to try and get it all back together. You’ve got to work it out, Jennifer. Please try—even for me, try, because I tell you, I couldn’t bear it if I went home knowing that this family, your family, which has become so—so important to me, should have suffered the same fate as mine—without it needing to happen.”

  She turned away from him, sadness expressed in every inch of her face, and slowly shook her head. “But how? Where would I begin, David? I didn’t know anything was wrong! So how would I have any idea where to begin?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know. God, we men can be such complete idiots in this way. But we’ve got to think about doing s
omething.” He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. “I mean, did you say anything to him last night?”

  Jennifer continued to shake her head. “No, nothing. I was too angry.” She sniffed out a brief laugh. “I actually slammed the door in his face, which was really idiotic, since he had his own keys. Anyway, by the time that he let himself back in again, he’d got a taxi for his … his woman, and Sophie and I were about ready to leave.”

  “Why did he come back then?”

  Jennifer let out a deep sigh. “Because he said he wanted to talk.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “No, of course not! He’d just cheated on me, and I … I…”

  Her bottom lip started to quiver.

  “Keep going! And what?”

  She blurted out her response. “And I was frightened he was going to ask me for a divorce.”

  David squeezed her hands to try to keep her attention. “And—did he?”

  “No, he just kept saying that he was sorry and that he wanted to talk.”

  “So—then what happened?”

  “Sophie and I left.”

  “And that was it?”

  “No.” She paused. “As I was getting into the car, he ran up to me and said that he was going to come out here this afternoon so that we could talk.”

  “And will you do it, Jennifer? Will you please speak to him? You’ve got to try! Just talk about what’s important—in both your lives—and make him understand it as well.”

  “But why the hell do you think that I should ever want to?”

  “Because in everything that I’ve asked so far, you’ve never said no!”

  In the silence that followed, Jennifer just stared at him, biting her lip. Then she smiled faintly at him and nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I haven’t, have I?”

  He reached up to give the side of her face a brush with his hand. As he did so, she caught it and held it against her cheek, and he watched as a tear fell from her eye and ran off down the side of his finger.

  “Why are you such a special man, David?”

  “God, I’m not. I can tell you that straight.”

  “Oh yes, you are.” She paused and looked deep into his eyes. “I wonder why it couldn’t have been me that you met all those years ago in Oxford.” She smiled and took his hand round to her mouth and kissed it before returning it to her cheek. “Just the wrong time, the wrong place, an ocean apart.”

  She reached over and kissed him gently on the cheek, then, putting her arms around his shoulders, she pulled her face close into his neck.

  “But we found a bridge, didn’t we, my greatest friend?” she whispered quietly into his ear. “All these years later, we found a bridge.”

  David pushed her away from him and held her face in his hands, smoothing away the tears from her eyes with his thumbs. “Yeah, we did. And I’ll never, ever forget you for it.”

  They sat together in silence, their total concentration in each other only being broken by the shrill sound of the telephone ringing. Jennifer slowly let go of David’s neck and, with a smile, got up and walked through to the study and picked up the telephone. David listened to her as she answered it.

  “Hello?… yes, hello, darling … yes, I’m fine … where are you?… right … yes, he’s here, do you want to speak to him?… Okay, just hang on a minute.” She cupped her hand over the receiver. “David, that’s Sophie on the telephone. I think there may be something wrong. Her voice sounds a little shaky.”

  David hurried to the study and took the receiver from Jennifer. “Sophie?”

  “Dad, I heard the telephone ring when I was outside in the garden with Dodie, and it just cut off, so I didn’t bother coming in, but it was a fax coming through.”

  David could hear the anxious tone in her voice. “That’s all right, darling, don’t worry about it. It’s probably only from Archie at work.”

  “No, Dad, it’s not!” She paused. “Dad, is a stroke serious?”

  “A stroke? Yes, it can be. Why do you ask?”

  Sophie’s voice faltered at the other end of the line. “’Cos Grandpa’s just had one.”

  Chapter THIRTY-THREE

  David sat by himself on the jetty below the saltbox, staring out across the bay, the crumpled page held tight in his hand. He took a deep breath and, unfolding it, began reading for the third time the scrawly handwriting of his mother.

  Darling David,

  I find this terribly difficult to write, but I’m afraid that there is no easy way to break this devastating news to you. Just before lunch-time today, your father suffered a stroke, and I am at this very moment sitting beside his bed in Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. The doctor has just left the room, and he said that he was in reasonably stable condition, but I can see for myself that there is very little colour in his dear old face and he has tubes sticking out of him in all directions. Nevertheless, he is sleeping quite peacefully at the minute, so I am taking the opportunity of this quiet time to write you what I am sure will turn out to be a long epistle, because I think it most important that you understand every detail of what led up to this.

  There had been no warning of it happening. He really seemed to have been so well. However, late in the afternoon yesterday, Duncan Caple came to see him. I thought that he was only just keeping your father up-to-date on what was happening at the distillery, but after he had left, I went into the drawing-room to find your father in a complete state of agitation.

  It appears that Duncan has not been as straight as we thought, David. Your father explained it to me, but I’m afraid that I was so concerned about him that I didn’t manage to take it all in.

  Nevertheless, it seems that a company called Kirkpatrick has put in an offer for Glendurnich. I don’t know how long Duncan has been planning this, but it must have been for some time. He had already spoken to the workers at the distillery on Friday about it, because it seems that they hold 31 per cent of the shares, and then he tried to put extreme pressure on your father to begin the transfer of his own shares as soon as possible, saying that it was for the best for both the company and the family.

  I did say to your father that he should get in touch with you straight away, but he wanted to leave it until today, so that he could go into the distillery to learn the full story—not from Duncan, but from one of the workers—and thereafter, he was going to fax you.

  Anyway, as far as the events of today are concerned, I can tell you word for word what happened, because he telephoned me mid-morning from his office in the most frightful tizzy. He had left at nine o’clock (he was actually meant to be reading the lesson in church, but managed to get Roger Spiers to stand in for him), and went into the distillery and spoke to your ex-sergeant, Dougie Masson. Dougie didn’t know very much about the ins and outs of Kirkpatrick’s plan, but he thought that it must have been brewing up for some time. He also said that, having spoken to the other workers on Friday evening, after Duncan had announced the proposal, they seemed quite excited about the idea, as they realized that they would be making some money out of the deal. However, as you can imagine, Dougie was fiercely loyal, and said that he wanted no part of it.

  What really hurt your father the most (and I also think what made him realize that Duncan had been totally dishonest) was that Dougie told him that two people had left the company under what he termed suspicious circumstances. One of them was Margaret, and the other was Archie McLachlan, the young man whom your father said he’d asked to act as a contact for you in the distillery. At that point in our conversation, he said that he was going to come straight home and fax you—and that was the last time I spoke to him.

  The rest of the story I was given by the police sergeant who came to the door to tell me the news. Apparently, your father had stopped somewhere on the Grantown Road to allow a young shepherd to get his flock across the road. As the boy closed the gate behind his sheep, he waved to thank him for stopping, but the car never moved forward. He went over to the car and found your father slumped over
the steering wheel. Thankfully, the boy then used his wits, and seeing that there was a car phone, called both the police and an ambulance. The sergeant did say that it was very lucky that the phone actually worked in such a remote area.

  So here I am at his bedside. Jane Spiers kindly gave me a lift up here, and here I shall stay. But I’m afraid the doctors have told me that the prognosis is not good, David, so you must really try to get back here as soon as possible—not only to see your father, but also to stop this appalling thing that’s going on at the distillery. I pray you’ll be able to rally the troops behind you and get rid of that dreadful man Duncan Caple and all his henchmen.

  I have just read this through again, and realize that you could be feeling guilty about all this taking place. You must not. Your father was right in allowing you the time to heal. If you had been here, you would still be mouldering around in the garden, none the wiser for what was going on in the distillery, and none the wiser in yourself. This was going to happen regardless. It has been planned for ages. But now I know that you are better, and I know that you will come back fighting—for your father.

  I must go down to the front desk now, and ask them to fax this for me.

  All my love, darling, to you and to the children,

  Ma.

  David scrumpled the piece of paper back up into his fist and hit it three times hard against his forehead.

  Yeah, but what you didn’t know, Ma, was that I did have a bloody clue that something like this might be going on. Dammit, it was over a week ago that I sent the fax to Archie!