Out on a Limb (18 page)

‘All go here, then,’ observes Gabriel Ash, glancing heavenward as he steps over the threshold to wait, while the boys twang and bang enthusiastically upstairs.

‘Oh, that’s my son and his friends. Practising.’

‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Practising. I see.’

I don’t know quite what they were doing in Monmouth, exactly, but he has the slightly reticent air of a man for whom one’s fiancé’s toilet stops are just one more inconvenience in a day that has already been overburdened by them. I wonder where they’ve been. I wonder when he manages to fit work in. When does she, come to that? Or perhaps, like me, they are having a day off as well. A day off
à deux
. Or perhaps he still has work to get to. Who knows? I’m just wondering whether to offer him a drink or something, when an unfamiliar mobile ring tone starts up and he delves into a jeans pocket, stepping back onto the doorstep and making a gesture which I presume means he’ll stay out there till he’s done.

Which is exactly what he does. Which means I either have to shut the front door in his face, or leave it open and risk Spike making a bid for the heady freedom of the street. I take Spike back out into the garden and shut him safely out there, and am just returning to the hall when Lucy Whittall emerges from the downstairs cloakroom, blowing her nose delicately on some loo roll. Which I hope isn’t indicative of anything too noisome and swampy, but rather fear probably is.

‘That’s better!’ she exclaims. ‘God, that was close. I really thought I was going to wet my pants! Hey, I couldn’t trouble you for a glass of water as well, could I?’

Gabriel joins us in the kitchen just as I’m pouring Lucy Whittall a glass of orange squash, and heaping rebukes on myself for not having anything more stylish on offer. Had they only come tomorrow, I’d have had Ribena as well. Oh, it’s life in the fast lane at my place.

I nod towards the table, where the carrier bag full of his father’s things sits. ‘That’s it, there,’ I tell him, and he approaches it. I pour him a squash too.

‘Who was on the phone, a ngel?’ Lucy Whittall asks him.

He frowns then. ‘Maria.’

‘And?’

‘And
manco morto
, in essence.’

Lucy Whittall pulls a face. ‘Come again, ange?’

‘Over my dead body,’ he says, frowning. ‘I’m telling you, she’s not going to budge on this one, Luce.’

She turns to me. ‘Tsk,’ she goes. ‘All this nonsense over a few scraps of fur. I mean, I ask you, Abbie. Is it really such a heinous crime? We’re only talking a bit of trim on the facings and hoods.’

As I don’t have the first clue what it is she’s asking me, let alone what he was telling her, I am at a loss to know how to respond.

‘Her bridesmaid’s dress,’ Gabriel Ash explains as I pass him a glass. ‘For the wedding. Lucy has her heart set on an ivory fur trimming. Maria – my daughter – is
not
happy about it –’

‘Which is ridiculous,’ Lucy interjects swiftly, though quite jovially. ‘When you consider Italy must be one of the leather goods capitals of the world! I mean, what’s the difference? It’s all
skin
, for God’s sake!’

‘Except fur is
farmed
,’ says Gabriel, evenly. And involves lots of dead bodies as well. I get the impression they’ve had this discussion several times before.

‘Oh, and like cattle
aren’t
? Like we don’t stuff down zillions of burgers each year?’ She wafts a hand towards him. ‘Anyway, she’ll come round. You know what teenagers are like. It’s all principles this and principles that, but once she sees it –’ She turns to me again. ‘Abbie, they’re to die for. To
die
for! – she’ll change her mind quick as you like.’

W hich unfortunate choice of words – conjuring, as it does, visions of butchered bunnies and blood-spattered wedding trains – is not lost on any of us. Least of all, Lucy, who throws back her head and laughs the sort of hearty laugh that you might normally associate with, well…a jolly mink farmer, I suppose.

It’s at this point that One Black Lung all shuffle into the kitchen. Jake looks me up and down a bit, obviously bewildered. ‘Blimey,’ he says, removing his baseball cap to scratch his head. ‘You going off to a party or something, Mum?’

As the kitchen is now playing host to enough sweat-soaked armpits to make breathing an extreme sport, I suggest we drink our squash in the garden. I had not planned on a garden party, obviously, but Lucy Whittall is showing absolutely no impetus as far as going anywhere is concerned, and every intention of sitting on my patio and entertaining her new quartet of fans.

Which is actually quite nice, I decide, once I’m over my sartorial blushes. I can’t remember the time I last had anyone out here. That is, if you don’t include Charlie. And my mother doing her downward facing dog on the lawn and terrifying Mr Davidson next door.

Though initially looking reluctant, Gabriel Ash, who has perched himself on one of my B and Q special offer of last year garden set chairs, starts to make a cursory inspection of the contents of the carrier bag, while Lucy fires questions at the boys about their band.

‘Wow,’ she says, at length. ‘Can you play something for me? I
so
love Metallica. I went to see them when I was your age, you know.’

This intelligence fills them with almost as much joy and awe as if Lars Ulrich himself had fetched up in the garden and asked them if they’d like to come round and try out his drums. Questions are fired at her. Mouths hang open in quiet reverence. Suddenly her all-right-for-an-oldish-bird status has morphed into the sort of cool to which, in teen land at least, very few can aspire. She’s seen them. She’s been there. She
was
there. Which is
all
. Before you can say
hold my breath as I wish for death
, they’ve scooted her off for a quick blast upstairs.

Uncertain what to do while the impromptu concert takes place, and mindful that Gabriel Ash is now delving deep into his carrier bag, I collect up their tumblers and head back inside.

But clearly not delving that deep, for he follows me in soon after.

‘Thanks for that,’ he says, placing the carrier back on the table, and heading purposefully towards the sink with his own glass.

‘Oh, no. Give me that,’ I tell him. ‘You are not washing up in
my
kitchen. No way.’

He doesn’t seem to find this funny, but he does hand it over.

‘You get used to this, do you?’ he comments, indicating towards the ceiling with an eyebrow, and pushing his now redundant hands into his jeans pockets.

I nod. ‘I barely hear it. Well, I do
hear
it, obviously. But not in the sense that it bothers me to hear it. I enjoy it.’

‘They certainly sound accomplished.’

‘I have great hopes.’

He stops and listens. ‘You’re absolutely right to. They’re good. And speaking of great hopes, did your mother tell you about the offer on the house?’

‘No, she most certainly didn’t,’ I answer. ‘When was that?’

‘Only this week. So perhaps she doesn’t know yet. I only found out this morning myself. I think Corinne was going to speak to your brother-in-law about it. Perhaps she hasn’t called him yet.’

Yeah, I think. Whatever. It’s all academic anyway. Till such time as mother can be cranked out of her persistent meditative state and back into flat-hunting gear.

He takes his hands out of his pockets and folds his arms across his chest. ‘Anyway, assuming everything goes through okay, I think we’ve settled on twelve thousand for the conservatory.’

He seems self-conscious standing in my kitchen, which is odd. Perhaps he should whip his leg out and I could pummel it for a bit. Perhaps then he’d look a little less stiff. ‘Well,’ I say, because I don’t doubt he’s had a hand in it. ‘That’s very generous of you. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

W hich conversational avenue putters to a halt, on account of his unexpected lack of seeming to have anything further he can think of to say. Most curious. Perhaps I should have let him fill the sink up after all. Perhaps he feels more comfortable with his hands in some suds.

‘Well,’ I say brightly, because I’m a well brought-up girl and know my manners. ‘You were certainly right about the weather.’

He nods. ‘We do our best,’ he says. ‘That’s what they pay us for, after all. Though we certainly don’t always get it right.’

‘Mainly you do,’ I say, because he looks like he’s brooding heavily on this failing. ‘I mean, I know everyone likes to moan on about weather forecasters getting it wrong all the time and everything. But you actually don’t much these days, not when you sit and analyse it, do you?’

‘Even so, it’s still an inexact science. You can predict all you like, but weather systems are essentially pretty unpredictable things. No, you’re right. We do pretty well. Better than we’re given credit for, that’s for sure. But blaming weather forecasters is a national sport. Be a shame to spoil the fun, wouldn’t it?’ He looks like he’s having absolutely no fun whatsoever at this moment, and I wish I knew why. ‘Anyway, it would get pretty boring if you knew exactly what the weather was going to do every single day, wouldn’t it?’

‘I suppose. But it must be a very satisfying sort of a job, though,’ I say. ‘You know, being in a position to predict the future.’

He seems to want to ponder that concept. I wait. ‘Except you’re not actually doing that,’ he says eventually. ‘Not really. What we mostly do is just collect and analyse all the data we get from all the observation points and the satellites. Plus we do have a very, very big computer. Can make billions of calculations per second. It’s really all about maths and not at all about checking if the cows are sitting down.’

‘But you must need to be pretty clever, though. To take all that information and work out what it means for the future.’

I open the dishwasher door and start putting the glasses in, while h e looks out of the kitchen window. ‘Oh, I’m definitely not that,’ he says, almost to himself. ‘Much as I wish I was, I’m no better at predicting the future than anyone else is, believe me.’ I notice that ‘we’ has changed to ‘I’, and that his tone of voice has altered as he says this. And I realise, glancing up from the dishwasher, that he’s no longer looking out of the kitchen window either. He’s turned around and is looking at
me
now. And in a way that I can only describe as pretty damned earnest. So much so that I almost feel I’m going to have to look away. How odd. ‘Actually,’ he says, and he lowers his voice now. ‘In some departments, let me tell you, Abbie, I am
woefully
inept.’

He’s still looking at me oddly, and I think he’s about to say something else. But he doesn’t. Instead he splays his fingers and pushes both his hands ever so slowly through his thicketty gold hair, and then he tips his head back and sighs.

Sighs heavily. And watching him, suddenly, I twig. Suddenly I realise what this is all about.

D’oh. I’m so
dense
. ‘Your father,’ I say, nodding towards the carrier bag on the kitchen table. Of
course
. Why didn’t I
think
? No wonder he’s so agitated. This is evidence that changes everything, isn’t it? It’s one thing to harbour hatred for a father you think abandoned you, quite another to square it with the demands of your conscience when faced with the fact that you got it all wrong. That he actually loved you very much. And that perhaps, after all, you should try to forgive him. Or, rather,
should
have. And now can’t. The poor man. I hold his gaze, and he flops his hands down to his sides again then considers me silently for several moments. Then, just as I think he’s about to speak, he shakes his head.

It’s actually a sort of head shake-come-sigh combination. God, there was me thinking he’d be so pleased with what I found, but of course it’s just so much more complicated than that. It has shocked him. It doesn’t fit with how he feels about his father. Has, in fact, blown all that away. ‘I know,’ I say, closing the dishwasher door and straightening. He’s looking at the bag now himself. ‘But there’s no point in beating yourself up about it, is there?’ I tell him briskly. ‘No point in regrets. No one could have predicted that he’d die so suddenly, could they?’ He’s looking at me again now, but I’m not sure he’s listening. He seems lost in thought. Somewhere else altogether. ‘But I do understand how seeing all this must make you feel,’ I go on anyway. ‘I
do
know what you mean.’

The music has stopped, and there are voices closing in now. Lucy’s voice. Jake and his pals. Laughter. Feet on the stairs. They’re coming back down. Gabriel Ash scoops up the carrier from the table, then he lifts one hand and places it lightly on my shoulder.

‘Hmm,’ he says, and now there’s a ghost of a smile forming at the corners of his mouth. ‘You want to know something, Abbie McFadden?’

‘What?’

‘I wish I thought you did.’

It takes me a moment to digest what he’s saying. Except I fail to because I don’t understand what he means. ‘But –’

‘Hey, no worries, ’ he says quickly. ‘Maybe I don’t, as it happens. Forget I even said that, okay?’ He lowers his hand and then glances at the wall clock. ‘In fact, I think it’s time we left you in peace.’

* * *

It’s really far too hot for the boys to continue their practice without the windows open, but as Mr Davidson is now back from his round and pottering in his own garden, they have no choice but to either abandon it, or to slope back off upstairs and be fried. And I don’t doubt they will be because they’re half fried already, on account of the Lucy Loves Metallica effect.

They choose the latter regardless. Thumping up the stair treads two at a time, still joshing each other about who said what and when. At a loose end now until I have to pick Mum up at five, I go back out into the garden, intending to read the paper (and do my fiendish Friday puzzle before she gets her hands on it) but am unable to concentrate on it, as I’m still too preoccupied by what Gabriel Ash said to me just before he left. Brooding on it, in fact. What did he mean by suggesting I forget he even said that? Is there more to the situation with Hugo than I first supposed? Some dark and terrible secret that I’ve missed? There’s certainly something he’s not letting on, and I try to think if there was anything I saw in Hugo’s collection of bits and pieces that might give me a clue as to what. I can’t think of a single thing, but there’s obviously something on his mind. Something bothering him. First he’s wishing I knew what he was saying and then he’s telling me to forget it. I have a hunch that had we had a few more moments to ourselves he might have been about to impart a little more. A confession? It certainly had all the hallmarks of one. But a confession about what? About whom?