Seven Days Away

by Ruth Hay

  Beginner’s luck lasted for about three shots. After that he had a mild success on the putting greens where a good eye and a gentle hand could substitute for actual skill. The long drives were more miss than hit and finally their driver took pity on him and gave him some advice to help him loosen up and get into the right body position.

  The game moved along swiftly. They were ahead of the pack which was a relief to Terry as he was feeling bad enough without an audience to see his pathetic amateur attempts. By the time they finished nine holes, he was pleased to hear his father declare it was enough as he was seriously out of practise. Terry’s arms were aching and his hips seemed to be in a different position than before. He followed along gratefully to the clubhouse and sank into a chair overlooking the greens, longing for a real drink after the water he had consumed along the way.

  Aylward ordered a tall, cool, gin and tonic with a lime twist and calculated the time was right for the man-to-man talk he had been planning. The client was softened up sufficiently, in his estimation.

  “So, what do you think of the game of kings, son?”

  “Don’t think it’s for me, dad. I would need to have started a long time ago to compete with you.”

  “We never were in competition for anything, Terry. You always chose your own path and, may I say, it was a path far from mine. Do you regret your choices?”

  Terry sipped his drink to give him a chance to summon a reply. This conversation was taking an unexpectedly dangerous turn.

  “You know I’m serious about the restaurant business, father. I would never have borrowed money from you to set it up if I had any doubts.”

  “Has the business you chose met your expectations? You are a man with a family, after all.”

  This was hitting too close to home. Terry wondered what the old man was getting at. Was he going to demand a repayment of the loan? A bead of sweat broke out on his forehead and he tensed up.

  “Well, it can vary from week to week depending on the season and the economy, of course. There’s also the matter of obtaining the best ingredients to keep up high standards. It’s not an easy thing to predict. Profits are poured back into the restaurant to get the best wait staff and it all depends on the quality of the kitchen workers. The menu is always a gamble.”

  “I asked if your choice has been a satisfying career, Terrence, both professionally and as a family man.”

  Terry was beginning to feel like a teenager confronting his father in his office after handing over his school report.

  A for effort. C- for achievement. Easily distracted.

  “Ah, well, the girls are independent young women now. They have their own places and their own lives. It’s just Jillian and me. We have a small mortgage and when that’s paid off we’ll probable downsize to something smaller. I like the restaurant business and Jill’s busy with her job.”

  There was a long pause from the other side of the table where his father was stroking his forehead with a long-fingered hand.

  Terry remembered that gesture of old. It rarely boded well.

  “Haven’t you forgotten something?”

  Here it comes. It’s the budget question.

  “What about your son?”

  Terrence Beck shot back in his chair and let out a gasp. How had this happened? How had he left Devon out of the equation? Was this a momentary lapse or, worse still, was it a habitual error, so common he had not even noticed?

  “Good God, dad! I don’t know how that happened. I guess Devon is kind of self-contained. He looks after himself. I must admit yesterday was the first time we have done anything together for years now.

  I honestly didn’t notice what was happening.”

  Aylward watched his son’s face dissolve in shame. He took it as a good sign. The boy had a conscience after all. He gazed out of the window onto the manicured greens where sprinklers waved in rotation.

  Best to give his son a chance to recover.

  After a minute he spoke again.

  “Terrence, I am not meaning to harass you. If any father is guilty of neglect, it is the father who sits here before you. No, don’t try to contradict me. When you were a lad I was far too busy finishing my qualifications and establishing a reputation for publishing well-researched medical papers. You were left on your own during some critical years in your development. I knew better but I let it happen nevertheless. I owe you a profound apology for that. If I had been there to pay attention to your schooling, or lack thereof, I could perhaps have steered you in a different direction. Wait, now! I don’t mean to demean your choice of profession. I can see you love food and cooking but you have the brains to do something more remunerative. More importantly, it pains me to see you repeat my mistakes with your son. Devon has more to him than I think you know. He needs your time and interest and support.”

  “Look here, dad! I realize I have been a disappointment to you. That’s the reason we haven’t been close all these years. It has weighed on me that I had to borrow money and I haven’t been able to repay you. I just can’t promise to fix that any time soon. I am barely limping along financially as it is.”

  Terry had no intention of confessing all this to his father, quite the reverse, but he was so riled up from the implied criticism of his parenting and his lack of business acumen it all spilled out in a rush.

  As soon as he heard himself speaking the words, he wished he could retract them. His father was old and did not need to be reminded of his only son’s failures. It could bring on a seizure or a heart attack for all he knew. He looked up at his father’s face to see if there were signs of apoplexy. All he saw were the tears in those hooded eyes. He couldn’t be sure for whom the tears were brimming. From the old man’s facial expression they might well be for either of them, or both.

  “Terrence Beck, you should have come to me before this. I do not want you working under the pressure of insufficient backing. I will attend to that immediately and I want you and Jillian and Devon to sit down with your mother and me to work out a plan.”

  “Dad! I can’t ask you to do this. I am a grown man and these are my responsibilities. You have done enough for me.”

  Aylward sat up as straight as his back would allow and spoke with the fire and determination of a much younger man. His son could not have known all the hidden purposes of this holiday. In fact, he was pleased to get this amount of information from him so soon.

  “Stuff and nonsense! I’ll do what I want with my possessions. Say nothing to anyone other than Jillian. We won’t discuss this matter again until we meet together later in the week.

  Now, my boy, let’s get back to the apartment. I am badly in need of a hot bath before my muscles freeze up like a statue.”

  To prove the truth of his words, Aylward leaned heavily on his son’s shoulder as they exited the clubhouse and summoned a cart for the ride back.

  * * *

  The apartment was ominously quiet when they returned, considering the number of people now residing there. Aylward went straight to the bath in Terry and Jillian’s suite after making sure there was no one occupying it.

  Terry was ravenous after all the morning’s exercise and went to the kitchen where he found a plate of sliced fruit and a stack of croissants still warm from the microwave beside a carafe of what proved to be iced tea. He was into his third croissant when he saw the note propped against the juice carton.

  Jill at Al Fresco pool.

  Portia on balcony with Marian.

  Devon off somewhere.

  Megan gone to shop for clothes at the Plaza.

  Girls all gone to the beach for the afternoon.

  Maurice waiting upstairs to talk to Aylward.

  He recognized his wife’s writing style and prepared a plate for his father to eat after his bath and before he ventured upstairs to find out what his son-in-law wanted. Terry chose to relax in the lounge on the leather sofa and see what trivia was on television. The day had already provided enough serious material for him to think about. In a
while he might go and join his wife at the pool and bring her up to date with events.

  That discussion could, hopefully, take the focus away from the unsatisfactory night in their king-sized bed following what had been a distinctly romantic evening in the Sanctuary.

  * * *

  Marian Beck had heard the apartment door close and the voices of her husband and son. Neither appeared out on the balcony, for which she was glad. Her conversation with her granddaughter had been such hard going initially. Now the girl had actually begun to speak, she was reluctant to be interrupted.

  “I would think a young woman like you would have been delighted to go clothes shopping with her mother.” Marian had glanced over the remarkably dull and voluminous garments Portia was wearing.

  If anyone needed a new holiday wardrobe, it was she.

  “I’m not into clothes like other women. They just draw unwanted attention.”

  “I take it you work in an office with few other women, my dear?”

  “I am the only female. All the other designers are men.”

  The acrid tone seeping into this comment, indicated to Marian there was something very wrong in the work environment of her granddaughter. She was not sure how far she could push this point. Portia was likely to rush away as soon as she felt in any way threatened.

  It was becoming evident to Marian Beck that this girl, the only child of her own daughter Megan, was entirely different from her two cousins. Those young women had rushed off happily in swimsuits and cover-ups to spend the day at the beach, leaving a heady scent of sunscreen behind them. Portia had dismissed their invitation to join them immediately, and firmly, and the sisters had not even attempted to change her mind.

  Marian had to try again. She could feel waves of discontent and worry emanating from the girl. She was hunched up on her lounge chair and had not yet met her grandmother’s eyes.

  “So, dear, do you like your work? Your mother says your designs are remarkably creative. She says she had a set of cushion covers made from one called Floral Fantasy that has been greatly admired.”

  “It was Florentine Fantasy and incorporated a series of interwoven scenes from buildings in the Italian city.”

  Ah, success at last! She actually turned and looked at me for a second. She looks pale and drawn. Is the girl ill?

  “Now that sounds just wonderful, Portia. Do you have any interest in travelling to places abroad to work? Is there anyone you would want to travel with? Your grandfather and I had many lovely holidays in Europe. I would recommend it for someone as artistic as you are.” She reached forward and patted Portia’s arm in a reassuring way as she spoke, but just when Marian thought she had made a breakthrough, the conversation was brought to a crashing halt.

  “No! Not at the moment. Excuse me.”

  Portia gathered her droopy clothes around her and made a quick exit. Before Marian could react, she heard the door to the extra washroom close firmly behind her granddaughter.

  Marian sighed. Fortunately, there were days left to find answers. Something was seriously wrong here. She would check up on her husband and they could confer together. She wanted to know how the golfing expedition had gone with Terrence, and Aylward definitely needed to hear about her session with Portia.

  She found her husband struggling to step safely out of the deep bath. She gave him her shoulder to lean on, then wrapped him in the capacious folds of a towelling robe. Helping her husband was an area in which she had much practise.

  “Right! That’s enough activity for you, my dear man. I’ll help you upstairs. Maurice is waiting for you. We need to talk later on our own but I don’t want you to move from our apartment for the rest of this day.”

  * * *

  Maurice Anderson had not been idle while waiting for his father-in-law to appear. He had been quietly looking around the bedroom for signs of cash lying about but found nothing in drawers or pockets.

  The old man was too smart to be careless with cash. Doubtless it was stowed securely inside the small safe in the closet. Each safe had a number code particular to each guest room so he knew it was useless to attempt to open it.

  He wandered out onto the small balcony and stood looking at the views.

  A glorious day. It was a spectacular place to spend a week. If only he had no worries to cloud his enjoyment. He fetched his iPad from the kitchen where he had placed it on entry and began to sign into one of his favourite sites. When others were around he would be working on student papers or research but while alone he would pursue his real mission in life; to recover some of the thousands he had lost while gambling online.

  So far, he had had no success. He was deeper in debt than he had ever thought possible. The situation was rapidly reaching critical status.

  He was just about to complete a transaction on a screen with four separate poker games underway when he heard voices approaching on the stairs. Rapidly clicking off and closing his iPad he returned to the much more compact lounge to welcome his wife’s parents.

  “There you are, Maurice! I am just delivering Aylward. I’ll be downstairs if you need me. Don’t keep him too long please. He has to eat what I brought up on this plate and he should rest very soon.”

  His father-in-law was puffing slightly from the climb but smiled at his wife and took the plate of food from her.

  “Don’t you worry about me, Maurice. It will be good to catch up with you. We haven’t seen you and Megan for several months.”

  They settled in two chairs indoors. Aylward was wearing a towelling robe but Maurice chose not to speculate about that. The old guy seemed in good health. Perhaps too good? There was always a hope at the back of his mind that Aylward Beck would expire, leaving a fortune to his only daughter, and eliminating the possibility of his daughter’s husband having to endure the shame of public bankruptcy.

  Megan had insisted in their prenup agreement that their finances were to be kept completely separate. It was a requirement of the partners in her law firm. He was not sure if his father-in-law knew about this arrangement. He hoped not. It could be interpreted as mistrust and that was the last thing Maurice Anderson needed to convey.

  “So, Aylward, this is some incredible holiday spot you have chosen. I haven’t thanked you for your generosity for inviting us here. It was quite a task coordinating everyone’s schedule but I am really glad we were able to come.”

  “I hope it will do all of us a lot of good, Maurice. How are things at the university? I haven’t heard your new book is out yet. How is that coming? I would like to review your latest chapters if that would be helpful.”

  This was not going well. A discussion at the professional level was not going to advance his case. He tried to divert the old guy from this topic but he was too smart for that.

  “I imagine you will soon need a trip to Europe to consolidate your research. There’s only so much you can do online.”

  If he only knew!

  “It’s a very expensive proposition, I’m afraid. As you know, I would require a substantial grant for the kind of trip I would need. Is there any chance we could discuss this further, Aylward? I was hoping we might have a round of golf. Jillian mentioned this morning that you and Terry were playing earlier today.

  I do play a little and I think I would enjoy the course here. Golf in the sunshine in winter is a treat.”

  “I’d be happy to set that up, my boy. It won’t be tomorrow, however. I’ve been warned not to overdo it. Let’s try for an early start on Tuesday. Does that suit you?”

  “Of course! I’ll let you eat in peace and get your rest now. I think I’ll go out and explore. Later I have some papers to review. Thanks again for this opportunity.”

  Aylward watched the hasty departure of his son-in-law as he fled down the stairs with computer in hand. The elder man had never really understood what his elegant Megan saw in the long-haired, hippy professor. They had met in university while Megan was taking her first degree. Possibly he was a charismatic lecturer. Aylward had enc
ountered a few of those in his career and they often had a coterie of avid young women following them. He could not manage to fit Maurice Anderson into that model, however. He did not possess the physical characteristics to attract women. Maybe he had not aged well along the way. There must be something Aylward Beck was missing. It might emerge on the golf course. It was a known bonding place for men, equivalent to the tea party occasions for women.

  Time would tell.

  Maurice wanted to get out of the apartment. He felt it was closing in on him. He galloped down the stairs from the mezzanine and was about to tell someone where he was going when he saw Terry fast asleep in the lounge with TV blaring. His mother-in-law was in the shady part of the lower balcony with her feet in the mini pool and a book in her hand. No one else seemed to be around.

  He slipped out into the hallway with his iPad and figured he could find a quiet spot to work on his game sites in the guise of seeking out his wife. He had heard the electric carts could take you anywhere so he went to the building’s exit and asked to go to The Plaza.

  It was quite a complex journey in the heat of the afternoon sun and Maurice was glad he had not tried to walk. The Plaza was busy but he found a corner on the upper floor where there were tables and chairs, now empty as lunch time was over. He did not fear being discovered by his wife. When Megan was shopping she had no sense of time passing. He was comforted by the thought of her expenditures on fripperies like fancy clothes. Surely, his losses were no worse?

  No one was paying any attention to him so he returned to the four poker games he had left in progress. All were completed and he breathed a sigh of relief that he had not had time to place a bet. If he had, he would have lost again. When was his luck going to turn? He had won a few months back but since then, Lady Luck had turned her back on him.

  It was approaching four o’clock U.S. time. The evening games started now and the big players would be assembled. Some of the best-known international gamblers would play for many hours with other players from around the world. The excitement was palpable and he felt his heart begin to race.