Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(7)

He said, “Best get that bird out of the rain.”

Cadan said, “It won’t hurt him. It rains where he comes from. You didn’t get any waves, did you? Tide’s just now coming in. Where’d you go?”

“Didn’t need waves.” His father scooped the wet suit from the lawn and hung it where he always hung it: over an aluminium lawn chair whose webbed seat caved in with the ghost weight of a thousand bums. “I wanted to think. Don’t need waves for thinking, do I?”

Then why go to the trouble of getting the kit ready and hauling it down to the sea? Cadan wanted to ask. But he didn’t because if he asked the question, he’d get an answer and the answer would be what his father had been thinking of. There were three possibilities, but since one of them was Cadan himself and his list of transgressions, he decided to forego further conversation in this area. Instead, he followed his father into the house, where Lew dried his hair off with a limp towel left hanging for this purpose on the back of the door. Then he went to the kettle and switched it on. He’d have instant coffee, one sugar, no milk. He’d drink it in a mug that said “Newquay Invitational” on it. He’d stand at the window and look at the back garden and when he’d finished the coffee, he’d wash the mug. Mr. Spontaneity himself.

Cadan waited till Lew had the coffee in hand and was at the window as usual. He used the time to establish Pooh in the sitting room at his regular perch. He returned to the kitchen himself to say, “Got a job, then, Dad.”

His father drank. He made no sound. No slurp of hot liquid and no grunt of acknowledgement. When he finally spoke, it was to say, “Where’s your sister, Cade?”

Cadan refused to allow the question to deflate him. He said, “Did you hear what I told you? I’ve got a job. A decent one.”

“And did you hear what I asked you? Where’s Madlyn?”

“As it’s a workday for her, I expect she’s at work.”

“I stopped there. She’s not.”

“Then I don’t know where she is. Moping into her soup somewhere. Crying into her porridge. Whatever she might be doing instead of pulling herself together like anyone else would. You’d think the bloody world has ended.”

“Is she in her room?”

“I told you?”

“Where?” Lew still hadn’t turned from the window, which was maddening to Cadan. It made him want to down six pints of lager right in front of the man, just to get his attention.

“I said I didn’t know where?”

“Where’s the job?” Lew pivoted, not just a turn of his head but of his whole body. He leaned against the windowsill. He watched his son, and Cadan knew he was being read, evaluated, and found wanting. It was an expression on his father’s face he’d been looking at since he was six years old.

“Adventures Unlimited,” he said. “I’m to do maintenance on the hotel till the season starts.”

“What happens then?”

“If things work out, I’ll do instruction.” This last bit was a stretch, but anything was possible, and they were in the process of interviewing instructors for the summer, weren’t they? Abseiling, cliff climbing, sea kayaking, swimming, sailing…He could do all of that, and even if they didn’t want him in those activities, there was always freestyle BMX and his plans for altering the crazy golf course. He didn’t mention this to his father, though. One word about the freestyle bicycle and Lew would read Ulterior Motives as if the words were tattooed on Cadan’s forehead.

“‘If things work out.’” Lew blew a short breath through his nose, his version of a derisive snort, which said more than a dramatic monologue would have and all of it based upon the same subject. “How’re you intending to get there, then? On that thing outside?” By which he meant the bike. “Because you won’t be getting your car keys back from me, nor your driving licence. So don’t start thinking a job’ll make a difference.”

“I’m not asking for my keys back, am I?” Cadan said. “I’m not asking for my licence. I’ll walk. Or I’ll ride the bike if I have to. I don’t care what I look like. I rode it there today, didn’t I?”

That breath again. Cadan wished his father would just say what he was thinking instead of always telegraphing it through facial expressions and not-so-subtle sounds. If Lew Angarrack just came out and declared, You’re a loser, lad, Cadan would at least have something to row with him about: failures as son set against a different sort of failures as father. But Lew always took the indirect route, and this was one that generally used the vehicle of silence, heavy breathing, and?in a pinch?outright comparisons of Cadan and his sister. She was the sainted Madlyn, of course, a world-class surfer, headed for the top. Until recently, that is.

Cadan felt bad for his sister and what had happened to her, but a small, nasty part of him crowed in joy. For such a small girl, she’d been casting a large shadow for far too many years. He said, “So that’s it, then? No, ‘Good job of it, Cade,’ or ‘Congratulations,’ or even ‘Well, you’ve surprised me for once.’ I find a job?and it’s going to pay good money, by the way?but that’s sod all to you because…what? It’s not good enough? It’s got nothing to do with surfing? It’s?”