An Ocean Apart (44 page)

“No, look, it was nothing,” David interjected with a wave of his hand. “I tell you, we were all pretty worried about you. I think Jasmine's probably right. You should just take things easy for a day or two.”

Jennifer nodded. “Yeah, I will.” She took a long drink of her tea, then held her hand up mid-mouthful and gulped it down. “I know what I wanted to talk to you about. Benji's song. Jasmine says it's wonderful.”

“How come you've heard about that so quickly?”

“Well, I sneaked along to Benji's bedroom on my way back from picking up the brief-case, and he wasn't there, so it was my first question to Jasmine this morning. She said that he was staying with Sean, and I said that I didn't think that they were friends any more, and then she told me the story of the song. How on earth did you pull it off?”

“God, I did nothing! Benji wrote and performed the whole thing himself, and Gerry added a bit of arrangement—with some help from this mad Irish bunch called Dublin Up. All I did was hang around in the studio looking spare!”

“Oh, come on, that's nonsense! It's just like the tennis. All this Scottish modesty infuriates me! I'll spell out exactly what you achieved, David, though I know I don't need to, because you know damned well yourself. Benji being accepted by his friends again, that's what. And you orchestrated the whole thing, didn't you?”

David rolled his eyes. “Now, listen, you've not been very well, and I don't think you should get quite so over-excited—”

“Oh to hell with you, you condescending brute!” With a cry of laughter, she whisked out a pillow from behind her and dealt him a blow on the side of the head. “Don't try to change the subject! Come on,
SAY IT
!” She whacked him again with the pillow.

“All right! All right!” David yelled out, covering his head with his hands in mock protection against the feeble blows that were now raining down on him in quick succession. “I give up! I admit it!”

“Good,” Jennifer said quietly. She leaned back, panting from the exertion, the pillow still held poised for the next blow. “That wasn't so hard, was it?” She suddenly gritted her teeth, building herself up for another blow. “But I think you deserve one more for good measure.”

As the pillow struck David on the side of the face, the bedroom door opened and Jasmine appeared.

“What's all the noise ab——? What on
earth
d'you two think you're doin'?”

Jennifer sprang back under the bedclothes as Jasmine approached the bed, giving David a reprimanding cuff on the side of the head as she passed.

“Honestly!” she scolded, fussing over Jennifer like a clucking hen, pulling the duvet cover up to Jennifer's neck and smoothing it down with her hand. “I can't leave you for a minute and you're revving yourself up. And as for you, David, you know how sick she's been. You should know better than to encourage her.” She straightened up and looked at the two smirking faces.

“Sorry, miss,” David said in a high-pitched voice.

It was enough to set Jennifer off. David looked up at Jasmine, trying desperately to offset the infection of Jennifer's reaction, and to his relief a huge grin spread across her face, and now they all burst out laughing.

“Okay, that's it! Enough's enough!” Jasmine said eventually, wiping a tear from her eye with the back of her hand. She walked to the end of the bed and put her hand on David's shoulder. “You—outta here!” She pushed him to his feet and guided him to the door and out into the corridor, then stopped just inside the room and looked back at Jennifer.

“Now, you get some rest, d'ya hear me? And no gettin' out of bed.”

David stuck his head back round the corner of the door and winked at the trussed-up figure in the bed.

“And no more scrabbling under the bed!”

Jennifer let out another snort, and Jasmine pushed him out of the door and closed it behind her. “What's that supposed to mean?” she said, a puzzled expression on her face.

“One day, Jasmine,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders and slowly walking with her along the landing, “all will be revealed.”

Jasmine pushed herself away and gave him a hard punch on the arm. “Oh, git on with you! I don't know if I like you any more! You're behavin' way too happy!”

Chapter
  
TWENTY-SEVEN

It only took three days of cosseted convalescence before Jennifer was deemed fit enough by Jasmine to be allowed downstairs, despite having had a relapse during the afternoon of day one. Jasmine had at first blamed the shenanigans of the morning, but then later on that day, when Jennifer was having a bath, she had found the secreted brief-case whilst making the bed and, with many a moaning protest from Jennifer about being treated like a ten-year-old, she had removed it to the safekeeping of the kitchen.

David also came under fire from Jasmine's dictatorial leanings, something which he found quietly amusing. She had banned him from visiting Jennifer without her being in attendance, not so much that she felt that he would hinder her recovery, but rather because she had a sneaking suspicion that he had been in cahoots with Jennifer in smuggling the brief-case up to the bedroom in the first place.

Nevertheless, by Saturday the curfew had been lifted, and during a short handing-over ceremony in the kitchen, Jennifer was reunited with her brief-case, and given full permission by the “boss” to continue her work in the study. However, a combination of her illness, the break from work and the fact that Benji was at home made Jennifer feel lackadaisical about giving any immediate thought to Tarvy's, and she decided to postpone any further work on it until Monday, when she would return to the office.

Consequently, she was able to devote the entire weekend to Benji. Taking him out in the rowing-boat, watching from the shoreline at his ever-improving attempts at windsurfing on the bay, and of course listening to “the song” over and over again, during each rendition of which Benji gave her a running commentary of every sound that had been introduced into the final mix.

But above all, she enjoyed the moments when David was around. At first she couldn't even explain it to herself, but then, on the Saturday afternoon, while sitting high on the umpire's ladder, giving out loud and biased judgements in favour of her son and killing herself laughing when David approached her and complained in true McEnroe style about unfavorable line-calls, she realized that this was all she strove for with Alex. This was family. This was happiness. For a moment, she wished that Alex could be there to be part of it. Then, almost guiltily, she understood that his being there would more than likely be a dampener, for David would no doubt see his own presence as an intrusion, and if she insisted on his joining in, it could quite easily lead to resentment from Alex.

That evening, having successfully exercised a bit of arm-twisting on Jasmine, she arranged a lunch-time barbecue for the following day, primarily as a thank-you to Gerry Reilly for his part in helping to produce Benji's song. As it turned out, Dublin Up were still in the process of recording their album, so the invitation was extended to include them, much to the delight of Benji, who saw a way to add to his already burgeoning reputation at school by inviting half of his class to the party.

It turned out to be an afternoon of riotous fun, precipitated by the fact that at last Jennifer had found something at which David was quite useless. His attempts at barbecuing were a complete disaster, and Benji and his friends spent most of their lunch-time running down the lawn with armfuls of charcoaled hamburgers and chucking them Frisbee-style into the bay. However, such was David's obstinance in giving up his post—“I'll get it right next time” he kept saying—that Jennifer, armed to the teeth with skewer and spatula, finally had to drive him away from the barbecue. Thereafter the women of the household took over, Jasmine cooking everything to perfection, ably assisted by Jennifer, who used the water-squirter not only to keep the flames dampened down, but also to ward off David's sneaky efforts to return for another attempt.

The party stretched on through the afternoon into the early hours of the evening, with tense games of doubles on the tennis court, crazy antics in the swimming pool, and hotly disputed games of soccer, alternated with periods of indolent slouching both on the lawn and on the sun-beds around the pool. Age became immaterial as adult partnered child, and child conquered adult, with fierce rivalry developing between each team, for the most part engendered by the adult members.

There was only one occasion during the whole proceedings on which Jennifer had call to be momentarily concerned, this being brought about by a young female classmate of Benji's who had developed an obvious crush on the lead guitarist of Dublin Up. Having subsequently ensconced herself on his knee as he lay on the sun-bed next to Jennifer, the girl asked him quite pointedly why his cigarette was such a funny shape and why it smelt so strange. However, much to Jennifer's relief, and before there was need for her to exercise responsibility as the hostess, the young man snuffed out the suspect cigarette between thumb and forefinger and stuck it behind his ear. Then, in order to divert his young suitor from asking any more leading questions, he sprang to his feet, gathering her up in his arms, and lobbed her with calculated precision into the middle of the swimming pool.

As she heard Benji loudly bid farewell to the last of his friends at the front of the house and the sound of a car taking off up the drive, Jennifer walked slowly down to the bottom of the garden to retrieve an article of clothing left abandoned on the lawn. After picking it up she continued on down to the shore of the bay and stepped out onto the wooden jetty. She stood there hugging the shirt to her chest and listening to the cacophony of crickets that broke the quiet of the evening air, and watching the final rays of the setting sun as it shimmered pink across the gently undulating waters.

The perfect end to a perfect day, she thought to herself. No, it hadn't been just the day. The whole weekend had turned out to be the most relaxed, happy and—she consciously stopped her train of thought there, wondering if she dared admit it even to herself—yes, why the hell not—
intimate
time that she had experienced in years. She suddenly shuddered, despite the warmth of the evening air and, closing her eyes, she drew in the heady aroma of the pine-trees mingled with the tangy freshness of the salt water. Then, disregarding the mosquitos biting ferociously at her ankles, she walked slowly back up onto the lawn and meandered her way to the house, kicking out her bare feet in time with the chorus of a Lou Reed song that had begun to play over and over in her mind.

Oh it's a perfect day

I'm glad I spent it with you

Just a perfect day

By the time that David arrived at the house the next morning, Jennifer had already left for work, and Jasmine remarked with a delighted gleam in her eye that, for almost the first time in living memory, she had done so reluctantly. Nevertheless, whereas she had been morose about starting the new week, it was immediately heralded with a new buzz of excitement by the others in the Newman household, as David and Jasmine began to make plans for the children's arrival.

Benji was naturally irritated by their clandestine chats, so David decided to bring him in early on the plan, and sitting around the kitchen table after school that afternoon, he told him from the beginning about Rachel and the children, and about their imminent visit.

At first the young boy had mixed feelings about the whole affair. He couldn't believe that David had children of his own and hadn't told anyone, and at the same time there was a funny low feeling of resentment in his stomach when he thought about their coming out to the States and David spending all his time with them, and not with him any more. He also found it difficult to understand why David didn't want to tell his mother straight away, because he
knew
that she would be both amazed and excited that David had children.

David explained to him as concisely as possible that of course he would tell his mother, but that he wanted first to get the chance to explain things in full, as he had done with him. At first, Benji appeared despondent at not being allowed to break the news himself, but when Jasmine happened to mention Charlie's age, the boy's face suddenly lit up with intrigue.

“He's twelve?”

“Yup.”

“About the same age as me?”

“Just a bit older, I'd guess.”

“Do you think we might be friends, David?”

“I'm relying on it!”

“Wow! When's he coming?”

“Thursday of next week.”

“Fan-tas-tic!!”

Thereafter, Benji was won over, and he joined in with as much enthusiasm as David and Jasmine in searching out the loft for the sleeping-bags and rummaging around in the rafters above the garage for the foldable beds and tent, the latter thrown in by Jasmine for good measure, just in case the walls of David's house couldn't cope with the sudden expansion in numbers of its inhabitants.

David realized quite early on in his organization of events that he was not going to be able to rely totally on Jasmine as a back-up, especially when Jennifer and Alex were around. Also he wanted his children to have a free run in Leesport, to come and go as they pleased, and if he were to take a few of his friends into his confidence, they would always act as a focal point for a visit from the children, or as a refuge if something went wrong. Consequently, he telephoned both Gerry Reilly, even though he lived a bit out of Leesport, and Billy, the joke-cracking young man in the deli, and after work that afternoon, he went up to the main street to see Clive and Dotti. Although he had thought it only necessary to disclose the more general facts to Gerry and Billy, he felt comfortable in telling the whole story to Clive, who appeared suitably moved with emotion throughout, every so often dabbing at his eyes with a large paisley-patterned silk handkerchief.