The Older Man (3 page)

“He was unhappy too,” Rennie bridled. “It wasn’t all his fault.” She didn’t really know that much about it, but she was fond of Ethan and criticism of her loved ones was apt to make her defensive.

“You’re biased,” Grant said, “aren’t you?” The light eyes had sharpened but there was a hint of sympathy in them too.

“Maybe I am,” Rennie admitted. “But Ethan wouldn’t deliberately hurt anyone he loved.”

“You’ve a lot to learn about love,” Grant told her. His mouth had a cynical twist.

“You seem to have a jaundiced view of it.”

Grant shrugged. “Maybe divorced people are not qualified to make pronouncements on true love.”

“You’re divorced?”

“Three years ago.”

“Then you’re biased too.”

“Haven’t I just admitted it? Come on, I’ll get you some more wine.”

Changing the subject, she thought. Maybe his marriage was still a sore point, or he was embarrassed at finding himself commenting on it to a virtual stranger. She guessed he was the kind of person who wouldn’t often discuss his private life.

When he had brought her the wine, she asked, “Is the other little girl yours, too?”

“No, my other child is a boy, but he declined to take part. He’s at the age where he thinks weddings are soppy. Ellen has a better sense of occasion.”

Rennie’s father joined them and soon had Grant talking shop. Rennie mostly listened, but now and then ventured an opinion of her own. Once or twice she thought Grant was slightly impressed.

At midnight, long after Ellen and the other little girl had been temporarily tucked up side by side in a huge bed, their hostess announced that it was time the bride and groom were leaving, and herded the guests out onto the footpath to wave goodbye. There were more kisses all round, and some confetti scattered, and cheers heartily led by Shane.

Ethan took with good grace the tin cans and toilet paper streamers which Shane had somehow managed to attach to his car. As it noisily turned the corner, Grant’s voice said quietly in Rennie’s ear, “It’s over. You did well. Now you can relax.”

She turned to look at him. Of course, she remembered, he thought she had a teenage crush on Ethan. About to disabuse him of that misconception, she took a breath, and then he bent his head closer and his hand touched her shoulder. “You’ll get over it,” he said. “I know it’s hard to believe at your age. But I promise you, the hurt won’t last forever.”

Rennie shut her teeth. Really, he was too much. Anyone would have thought she was thirteen instead of going on twenty.

In a small voice, she said, “Thank you, Grant. How do you know?”

“Experience.”

The others were trailing into the house, ready to collect belongings and take their leave.

“Come on,” he said, placing a hand on her waist to urge her inside. “It’ll all look better in the morning.”

Rennie sighed. “If you say so.”

“Believe me.”

Her parents were saying goodnight to Ethan’s aunt. Rennie stopped in the doorway, turning what she hoped was a soulful look on Grant. “You’re very comforting,” she breathed. “I’d … like to talk to you about it sometime.”

He looked faintly taken aback. “Maybe you should talk to your mother,” he suggested.

“Oh, no! She wouldn’t understand!” Rennie assured him untruthfully. “Or my father. But I do feel I need to talk to someone … older.”

She could have sworn that he winced inwardly, although not a quiver appeared on his face. As he hesitated, his eyes narrowing, she added hastily, lifting her chin, “But never mind. I know you must be very busy — ” she allowed a faint tremor to enter her voice, ” — only I’ve never felt like this before, you see,” she added, her bright head drooping. “I don’t know how I’m going to bear it.”

Grant was silent, but peeking at him briefly she thought he was at least a little uncomfortable.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right,” she said, with an air of forlorn bravery, stepping away from him.

Her mother turned from saying goodnight to Aunt Ellie, and called to her. He was still standing by the door when they left, and she directed a wavery smile at him, not quite meeting his eyes. He turned to watch them, and even at a distance he looked tense and undecided, as though wondering if there was something he ought to do.

Serve him right, she thought, as she climbed into the car alongside her brother. She hoped his conscience was pricking him badly. He was ready enough to jump to smugly arrogant conclusions about her and dispense lordly advice, but when she directly asked for his help he had backed down awfully smartly.

Rennie walked briskly, the wind whipping at her nylon jacket as she dug her hands into the pockets, and tugging at the green silk scarf wound into her hair. She was beginning to wish she had taken the bus home instead of deciding to walk. The wind hadn’t been this strong or this cold when she left the university, and she’d wanted to blow away the cobwebs after a full day of lectures and tutorials.

As she stepped onto the bridge over the motorway, her boots ringing on the concrete slabs, a group of youngsters pushed by her, and she moved to the side of the narrow walkway, next to the parapet. Cars streamed along the carriageway beside her, their engines growling. When a thundering truck roared past, shaking the bridge, she turned her head and felt something tug at her hair before the long strands were blowing into her face and she realised the scarf had come off.

A metal standard fixed to the parapet held a defaced and broken board that had once said something about fines for throwing or dropping objects from the bridge. The scarf had blown against the board and become snagged on the jagged timber. As she reached for it, the silk square was plucked away by the wind and floated down, not falling onto the motorway where the cars rushed along unheeding below, but catching on a rusty protruding bolt on the outside of the parapet, about level with the path she stood on.

It was a nice scarf and she didn’t want to lose it. Hopefully, Rennie leaned over the parapet. She reached down, found the scarf just out of range of her groping fingers, and straightened, contemplating the problem.

The green scrap fluttered, and she held her breath, wondering how long it would stay in that precarious position. If it floated down to the roadway, it could be a danger to the rush-hour traffic. Something appearing like that from nowhere, perhaps flattening itself against a windscreen — supposing it caused an accident? She’d better do her best to retrieve it, short of climbing over. The concrete parapet wasn’t solid, there were interstices large enough to slide her hand into sideways…

She got a hand through as far as her forearm, but the space was too narrow and too high. She couldn’t grasp the fabric. She straightened again, looking over. Still there, undulating in the wind. Impatiently she brushed the unruly hair from her eyes. She glanced at the cars flowing along the bridge behind her. If she stopped someone, asked for a coat-hanger, a piece of wire or something? But that would create a bottleneck on the bridge, also a hazard to traffic.

She looked about for something to stand on. No such luck. If she could slip her foot into the interstice, it might give her the extra few inches she needed. But her leather boot wouldn’t fit. She pulled it off, and managed to get a toehold. Good, it was about six inches up. She held the top of the parapet with one hand, and levered herself upward, grabbing at the battered noticeboard to steady herself, and began to lean forward, her fingers outstretched.

And then all hell broke loose. There was a screech of brakes behind her followed by a loud crumping sound, a chorus of hornblowing, and several people yelling. One of them was yelling her name, but she had hardly registered that when she was suddenly yanked backwards.

Her stockinged foot slid painfully from its perch, and she lost her balance, falling against a solid male chest. Her hair was blowing wildly, and she was breathless with shock. There was a bruising grip on her arm and an awful lot of noise. She heard someone say, “What’s going on?” And someone else shouting, “Look at my car! Didja have to stop like that? No signal or anything — “

And then a familiar voice said loudly, “She was going to jump, you fool! There wasn’t time to signal.”

She shook the hair out of her eyes and stared up in stupefaction at Grant Morrison’s white, scowling face. “No…” she said, but her voice was drowned by the aggrieved car owner, soon joined by a couple of others, one of them contending that he had been following too close anyway, and another taking his side.

Grant cut them all short. “I’ll pay for the damage,” he said. “Here’s my card. Send me the bill.” He was still holding onto Rennie’s arm, and when she tried to ease away, he increased his grip until it hurt.

“We’re holding up the traffic,” he said. “Get in my car.”

“I can’t,” she protested.

His teeth gritted, he said, “Get — in!”

Rennie gaped at him. In all her life, no one had ever spoken to her in that tone. She had seldom seen anyone look so furious.

She had a sudden, stupid desire to cry. “I can’t! My scarf is over there, and it might cause another accident if it blows down on the roadway, and I’ve only got one boot!”

A few people had gathered about, some asking questions that Grant ignored and Rennie was too shocked to answer. He pushed her toward his car and opened the door. “Get in,” he repeated, and she did.

He slammed the door behind her, giving her a look that conveyed starkly, “Stay there, or else!” Then he said something that made the small crowd that had gathered melt away, and strode over to the parapet, stooping across it easily and whisking the scarf up in his fingers. He picked up her boot and, when he had returned to the driver’s seat, handed it to her with elaborate courtesy.

The other driver had backed his car off with a slight scraping of metal. Grant put his into gear and moved on carefully, his face set like a stone mask.

Rennie found she was shaking as she replaced her boot. The scarf she folded and pushed into her jacket pocket. “How,” she asked, “did you come to be there?”

“I sometimes come home this way. Luckily for you.”

“Not really,” she said carefully. “It wasn’t what you — “

“You may not think so right now,” he interrupted, “but you’ll live to thank me, believe me.”

“For getting my scarf? Thank you.”

He misinterpreted the irony in her voice. “We both know that isn’t what I meant.” Not even looking at her, he said, “Have you tried anything like that before?”

“No, I haven’t! What I was — “

“He’s not worth it,” Grant said. “No man is. For heaven’s sake,” he said tightly, “don’t you realise this is just a phase you’re going through? You’re an intelligent girl. And a beautiful one. Your family’s successful, and seems happy — you’ve had all the advantages. You have so much to look forward to, what you were about to do was not only spineless and pathetic, it was criminally wasteful.”

She twisted in her seat to look at him. “I’m sorry if I gave you a fright. And about your car, and the other one. But you didn’t have to rescue me, you know. You do seem to have a Sir Galahad complex, Mr Morrison. If you’d just minded your own business — “

He turned on her for an instant and said one word that made her mouth fall open. Then he swung the car into a corner and drove along a narrow, sloping side street lined with verandahed colonial houses and overhanging plane trees, before coming to a jarring stop.

“Listen to me,” he said as he turned to face her, his eyes alight with temper. “You ungrateful little … idiot! You don’t have a monopoly on heartbreak, you know. Most of us have had our share. Celeste, for instance. Her first husband drove his car over a cliff.”

Rennie gasped. “I didn’t know that! Poor Celeste!”

“Yes, poor Celeste. I expect she still wonders if she could have prevented it, if it was her fault. Is that what you wanted to do to Ethan? Make him spend his life being sorry he didn’t fall in love with you?”

“That isn’t what I — “

“Then what did you want? It’s a very stupid and final way to get attention, Rennie. A childish, immature ruse to make people sorry they weren’t nicer to you. The thing is, you won’t be around to see them being sorry. So it won’t do you much good, will it?”

“Oh, do stop yelling at me!” Rennie said, although he hadn’t been yelling exactly. “If you’d just listen for a change — you’re not very good at that, are you?” Reminded of the last time they had met, she added indignantly, “I did ask if I could talk to you, remember, but you didn’t want to know, then! So why all the sudden concern now?” If she had been genuinely suicidal, she thought resentfully, his brush-off might have been just what sent her over the edge.

To her surprise, his whole manner changed. He flushed, she saw his hand tighten on the wheel, and he looked away for a minute. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry, Rennie. I didn’t take you seriously enough. I guess I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be as young as you are.”

He was back on that tack again, she thought, harping on her youth and inexperience. Still, after an apology like that he deserved to be let off the hook, she supposed. She had better explain, and from the beginning.

But then he put a hand on her hair, pushing the tangled mane from her face, and smiled at her. And she felt his fingers brush her cheek, and totally forgot what she was about to say.

How extraordinary! she thought, blinking at him. She saw something in his eyes that she was not too young to recognise, and felt a quick pleasure.

Then he dropped his hand and moved back a little. “If you want to talk,” he said, “I’m available any time. But I haven’t done too well so far, have I? Perhaps you should see a counsellor … a professional of some sort.”

Rennie swallowed an acute sense of disappointment. He was very carefully not looking her. He had felt that same flare of awareness that she had, but had decided not to do anything about it. She said huskily, “You’re passing the buck. If you don’t want to see me any more, why don’t you just say so? To my face.”

He knew what she meant, but when he turned to her his eyes were quite cool, the flame of desire deliberately doused. “I’ve said I’m available,” he told her after a moment. “The offer stands, if you want to take it up.”