Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(150)
He didn’t seem to realise what he had just said. Bea eyed him carefully. She could tell that Havers was doing the same. Bea said, “Irregular is the term that’s been used for what Santo was up to on the side while he was seeing Madlyn, and Santo himself was the one to use it. He was advised to be honest about it, about the irregular bit. He may have been, but he apparently wasn’t with Madlyn. Was he honest with you, Mr. Reeth? You appear to have something of a touch with young people.”
“I only knew what our Madlyn knew,” Jago Reeth said. “Irregular, you say? That was the word was used?”
“Irregular, yes. Irregular enough for him to ask advice about it.”
“Having it on with an older woman might’ve been irregular enough,” Lew noted.
“But enough to seek advice about it?” Bea asked, more to herself than to them.
“S’pose,” Jago said, “it depends on who the woman was, eh? It always comes down to that in the end.”
Chapter Twenty-one
DESPITE JAGO’S WARNING, CADAN COULDN’T HELP HIMSELF. It was complete insanity and he damn well knew it, but he engaged in it anyway: the soft silken feel of her thighs tightening round him; the sound of her moaning and then the heightened growing rapturous yes of her response, and this set against a backdrop of waves crashing against the nearby shore; the mixed scents of the sea, of her female smells, and of wood rot from the tiny beach hut; the eternal female salt of her where he licked as she shrieked and yes yes as her fingers dug into his hair; the dim light from the cracks round the door casting a nearly ethereal glow on skin that was slick but lithe and firm and willing God so eager and ever so willing…
It could have been like that, Cadan thought, and despite the growing lateness of the day he wasn’t all that far from establishing Pooh in the sitting room, hauling his bicycle out of the garage, and pedaling frantically to Adventures Unlimited to take Dellen Kerne up on her offer to meet at the beach huts. He’d seen just enough films in the cinema to know that the older woman–younger man bit was never perfect?let alone permanent?which was a plus as far as he was concerned. The very idea of having it on with Dellen Kerne was all so right in Cadan’s mind that it had moved quite beyond rightness into another realm altogether: into the sublime, the mystical, the metaphysical. The only metaphorical monkey in the barrel was, alas, Dellen herself.
The woman was a nutter, no question about it. Despite his longing to press his lips to various parts of her body, Cadan knew barm when he saw barm, providing barm was actually a word, which he seriously doubted. But if it wasn’t a word, it needed to be one, and she was barm in spades. She was the walking, talking, breathing, eating, sleeping personification of barm, and the one thing Cadan Angarrack was besides randy enough to take on a herd of sheep was clever enough to give barm a wide berth.
He hadn’t gone to work that day, but he hadn’t been able to face any questions from his father about why he was hanging about the house. So to keep Lew from venturing into that conversational territory, Cadan had risen as usual, had dressed as usual?going so far as to don his paint-spattered jeans, which he considered a very nice touch indeed?and had shown up as usual at the breakfast table where Madlyn was eating a virtuous half grapefruit, and Lew was sliding a decent fry-up from the pan onto his plate.
Seeing Cadan, Lew had gestured towards the food in a surprisingly affable fashion. Cadan took this as a peace offering and as acknowledgement of his efforts at self-rehabilitation through gainful employment, so he accepted the food with a “Fantastic, Dad. Ta,” and tucked right in, asking his sister how she was coping.
Madlyn cast him a baleful glance that recommended a change in conversational direction, so Cadan gave his father a moment’s study and realised Lew had about him the ease of movement that had in the past signified recent sexual release. He decided that his father was unlikely to be wanking in the midst of his morning shower, and he said to him, “Get back with Ione, Dad?” in a man-to-man tone whose implication could not be misconstrued.
And Lew definitely did not misconstrue. Cadan could tell that much. For his father’s swarthy skin darkened ever so slightly before he went back to the cooker to prepare a second fry-up. This he did in silence.
So much for the warm, familial colloquy. But, no worries. Since there was to be no additional sound among them beyond that which was made by mastication and swallowing, the entire issue of Cadan’s employment did not come up. On the other hand, Cadan was burning to ask what the big deal actually was if they exchanged a few bawdy words about Lew successfully talking Ione out of her pique long enough to pin her manfully to the mattress. All right, Madlyn was there and perhaps one ought to show deference to her femininity?not to mention everything that had gone wrong for her recently?by not bringing up the coarser aspects of male-female relationships. On the other hand, a wink between men wouldn’t have gone amiss, and in finer days Lew had not been averse to allowing his son a wee bit of knowledge in the area of triumphant conquests.
Which made Cadan wonder what was going on.
Had Lew moved on to another woman? It was definitely in his nature. A succession of women had come into the lives of the small Angarrack clan, women who had generally ended up weeping, ranting, or trying to be reasonable with conversation at the kitchen table or the front door or in the garden or wherever because Lew Angarrack would not commit to them. But when another woman was being worked into the picture, Lew generally brought her home to meet the kids prior to sex because bringing her home to meet the kids always gave the impression that something was actually possible between them…like a future. So what did it mean that here Lew was in the kitchen loose of limb and looking like a man who’s properly oiled a woman’s hinges, when no one had been brought by at all? The kids were older, true enough, but some things were written in concrete round here and one of them had long been Lew’s behaviour.