Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(185)

Chapter Twenty-six


WHEN KERRA AND HER FATHER WALKED INTO TOES ON THE Nose, the café was virtually empty. In part, this was due to the time of day, which was in between one meal and the next. In part, this was due to the conditions on the water. When the swells were good, no surfer in his right mind would be hanging about a café.

She’d invited Ben out for a cuppa. They could have more easily had one in the hotel, but she’d wanted to be away from Adventures Unlimited for their conversation. The hotel was redolent of Santo’s death and the recent row she’d had with her mother. For this chat with her father, she wanted to be in neutral territory, in a place that was fresh.

Not that Toes on the Nose was fresh in the true sense. It was instead an inadequate refashioning of what had once been the Green Table Café, a perfect example of if-you-can’t-beat-them-join-them, long ago taken over by surfers because of its proximity to St. Mevan Beach. The café had recent new owners who’d seen commercial possibilities in putting up posters of old surfing films and playing music by the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. Their menu, however, remained what it had been when they’d bought the place: cheesy chips, lasagna with chips and garlic bread, jacket potatoes with a variety of fillings, chip butties…One’s arteries could clog just reading the menu.

Kerra ordered a Coke at the counter. Her father ordered coffee. Then they took a table as far from the music speakers as possible, beneath a poster for Endless Summer.

Ben looked at the Riding Giants poster across the room. His gaze went from it to Gidget, and he seemed to compare them. He smiled, perhaps nostalgically. Kerra saw this and said, “Why’d you give it up?”

He returned his gaze to her. She thought for a moment that he wouldn’t reply to so direct a question but he surprised her. “I left Pengelly Cove,” he said frankly. “There’s not much surf in Truro.”

“You could have gone back. How far is Truro from the sea, after all?”

“Not far,” he admitted. “I could have gone back once I had a car. That’s true enough.”

“But you didn’t. Why?”

He looked momentarily pensive and presently he said, “I was finished with it. I’d faced the fact that it had done me no good.”

“Ah.” She thought she knew the reason, which at the end of the day was the reason for everything Ben Kerne did. “Mum,” she said. “That’s how you met her.” And yet her reply was based solely on assumption, she realized, for they’d never once discussed how Ben and Dellen Kerne had actually met. It was the sort of question children asked their parents all the time once they became aware that their parents were people separate from themselves: How did you and Mummy meet? But she had never asked and she doubted whether Santo had either.

Ben was accepting his cup of coffee with thanks to the café’s owner. He didn’t reply until Kerra had her Coke. Then he said, “Not because of your mum, Kerra. There were other reasons. Surfing led me to a place I’d have been better off not going to.”

“Truro, you mean?”

He smiled. “I’m speaking metaphorically. A boy died in Pengelly Cove, and everything changed. That was down to surfing, more or less.”

“That’s what you meant: No good came of it.”

“That’s why I didn’t much like Santo surfing. I didn’t want him to fall into a situation that might cause him the sort of trouble I’d seen. So I did what I could to discourage him. It wasn’t right of me, but there you have it.” He blew across the top of his coffee and sipped. He said wryly, “Damn, though. It was daft to try. Santo didn’t need me interceding in his life, at least not about that. He took care of himself, didn’t he?”

“Not at the end of the day,” Kerra noted quietly.

“No. Not at the end of the day.” Ben turned his coffee cup in its saucer, his gaze on his hands. They were silent as the Beach Boys crooned “Surfer Girl.” After a verse, Ben said, “Is that why you’ve brought me here? To talk about Santo? We haven’t mentioned him yet, have we? I’m sorry for that. I haven’t wanted to talk about him and you’ve paid the price.”

“We all have things we’re sorry about when it comes to Santo,” Kerra said. “But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.” She felt suddenly shy about her subject. Any discussion of Santo made her look upon herself and her motives and deem them selfish. On the other hand, what she had to say was likely going to lift her father’s spirits, and the look of him told her his spirits needed lifting.

“What is it, then?” he asked. “Not bad news, I hope. You’re not leaving us, are you?”

“No. I mean, yes. After a fashion. Alan and I are marrying.”

He took this in, a slow smile beginning to brighten his face. “Are you, now? That’s excellent news. He’s a fine man. When?”

They hadn’t set a date, she told him. Sometime this year. There was no ring yet, but that was to come. “Alan insists,” she said. “He wants to have what he calls ‘a proper engagement.’ You know Alan. And?” She put her hands round her glass. “He wants to ask your permission, Dad.”

“Does he indeed?”

“He said he wants to do things right, from beginning to end. I know it’s silly. No one asks for permission to marry any longer. But it’s what he wants to do. Anyway, I hope you’ll give it. Your permission, I mean.”