Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(68)

She said in a small voice, “Don’t be stupid,” and she cried a little harder.

He was reminded of Nan, his daughter. A ride in the car and Nan in this same position, turned away from him. “It’s just Exeter,” she’d said. “It’s just a club, Dad.” And his reply, “We’ll be having none of that nonsense while you’re under my roof. So dry your eyes or feel my palm, and it won’t be drying them for you.”

Had he really been so hard with the girl when all she’d wanted to do was go clubbing with her mates? But he had, he had. For clubbing with mates was how things started, and where they ended was in disgrace.

All of that seemed so innocent now. What had he been thinking in denying Nan a few hours of pleasure because he’d had none when he was her age?

The day passed slowly, with Selevan’s internal skies quite clouded. He was more than ready for the Salthouse Inn by the time the appointed hour rumbled round for his embrace of the sixteen men of Tain. He was also ready for some conversation, and this would be provided by his regular companion of the spirits, who was waiting for him in the smoky inglenook of the Salthouse Inn’s public bar when he arrived late in the afternoon.

This was Jago Reeth, and he sat with his regular pint of Guinness cupped in his hands, his ankles hooked round the legs of his stool, and his back hunched over so that his spectacles?repaired at the temple with a twist of wire?slid to the end of his bony nose. He was wearing his usual getup of crusty jeans and sweatshirt, and his boots were, as always, grey with the dust of carved polystyrene from the surfboard maker’s workshop where he was employed. He was beyond the age of a pensioner, but as he was fond of putting it when asked: Old surfers did not die or fade away; they merely looked for regular jobs when their days of riding waves were finished.

Jago’s had concluded because of Parkinson’s, and Selevan always felt a gruff sympathy for his contemporary when he saw how the shakes had come into his hands. But any expression of concern was always brushed aside by Jago. “I had my day,” he was fond of saying. “Time to let the youngsters have theirs.”

Thus he was the perfect confessor for Selevan’s current situation, and once Selevan had his Glenmorangie in hand, he told his friend about his morning skirmish with Tammy in answer to the question, “How’s tricks?” which Jago asked as he raised his own glass to his mouth. He used two hands to do it, Selevan noted.

“She’s going over to the lezzies,” Selevan told him as a conclusion to his tale.

Jago shrugged. “Well, kids’re meant to do what they want to do, mate. Anything else and you’re buying trouble. Don’t see any point to that, do I.”

“But her parents?”

“What do parents know? What did you know if it comes down to it? And you had, what? Five yourself? Did you know your arse from a pickle when you dealt with them?”

He hadn’t known his arse from a pickle when he’d dealt with anything, Selevan had to admit, even when he’d dealt with his wife. He’d been too caught up in being cheesed off at having to cope with the bloody dairy instead of doing what he’d wanted to do, which had been the navy, seeing the world, and getting the hell away from Cornwall. He’d made a dog’s dinner of his role as father and husband, and he hadn’t done much better with his role as dairyman.

He said, but not in an unfriendly fashion, “Easy for you to say, mate.” For Jago had no children, had never had a wife, and had spent his youth and his middle age following waves.

Jago smiled, showing teeth that had seen hard use and little maintenance. “Too right,” he admitted. “I ought to keep it plugged.”

“And how’s a duffer like me supposed to understand a lass anyway?” Selevan asked.

“Just keep’m from getting stuffed too soon, ’n my opinion.” Jago downed the rest of his Guinness and pushed away from the table. He was tall, and it took a moment for him to untangle his long legs from the stool. While Jago went to the bar for another drink, Selevan considered what his friend had said.

It was good advice, except it didn’t apply to Tammy. Getting stuffed was not her interest. What hung between men’s legs had not so far beguiled her in the least. Should the girl ever come up pregnant, there’d be cause for celebration, not the general outcry one might assume would normally rise from outraged parents and relations.

“Never been a lezzie in my house,” he said when Jago returned.

“Why’n’t you ask her about it, then?”

“Now how the hell am I s’posed to put it?”

“‘Like the bush better’n the prong, my sweet? Why would that be?’” Jago offered, and then he grinned. “Look, mate, you’re meant to keep the doors open between you by pretending what’s in front of your face i’n’t in front of your face. Kids’re different to what they were like when we were young. Get started early and don’t know what they’re about, do they. You’re there to guide them, not to direct them.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Selevan said.

“It’s the how of it, man.”

Selevan couldn’t argue with this. He’d mucked up the how of it with his own children and now he was doing the same with Tammy. In contrast?he had to admit?Jago Reeth did have a way with the youngsters. Selevan had seen both of the Angarrack young people come and go from Jago’s hired caravan at Sea Dreams and when the dead boy?Santo Kerne?had dropped by to ask Selevan’s permission for beach access from his property, he’d ended up spending more time with the ancient surfer than in the water when that permission was given: waxing Santo’s board together, setting its fins, examining it for dings and imperfections, sitting in deck chairs on the patch of scrub grass next to the caravan and talking. About what? Selevan wondered. How did one talk to another generation?