Читать книгу Second Time Around - Erin Kaye - Страница 10

When Ben saw Alan Crawford in the doorway, gilt buttons on his overcoat glinting like ceremonial medals, his heart sank. Abruptly, he let go of the notebook and took a step away from Jennifer.

Outside the rain continued to fall, harder now, framing his father with a curtain of silver grey, like the scales on the underside of the mackerel Ben and Ricky used to catch off Bangor pier. He wasn’t a big man, only five eleven in his socks, yet his presence filled the room like the overpowering smell of forced spring hyacinths. And when he spoke it was as if he used up all the air, leaving none for Ben.

‘Bloody awful night out there,’ he boomed, running a hand over his bald head, glazed with rain. He glanced at Jennifer and flashed his showman’s white denture smile, his cheeks pulled tight on either side like the string of a bow. As a boy on the family’s dirt-poor hill farm near Cullybackey, he’d had only a rag and chimney soot with which to brush his teeth. This early neglect resulted in the loss of his teeth to gum disease at the age of forty-one, exactly twenty years ago. Determined his young sons wouldn’t suffer the same fate, he’d stood over them with a stopwatch every night while they brushed for the requisite two minutes.

But the smile, in spite of its dazzling brilliance, did not reach Alan’s grey eyes. They flicked over Jennifer like a duster, sizing her up as if she were an enemy. Ben felt his hackles rise. What the hell was he doing here? ‘Well, who’s this then?’ he asked, striding over to Ben. The scent of the expensive aftershave he ordered specially from London wafted before him, an arresting combination of citrusy vanilla and balsamic vinegar. He came to a halt, rolled back on the heels of his handmade English leather shoes and stared pointedly at Jennifer.

Ben made the introductions. Alan, hands clasped behind his back, said with a slightly menacing air, ‘Jennifer Murray Interior Design. A one-woman band, then?’

Jennifer looked uncertainly at Ben and then back to his father. Ben cringed with embarrassment. ‘Not exactly. I don’t have any permanent employees but I have forged very close relationships with local craftspeople who work for me on a contract basis. Curtain-makers, decorators and so on,’ she said without hesitation, unnerved, but not cowed it seemed, by Alan’s intimidating presence.

‘And have you done a restaurant before?’

‘Yes,’ she said firmly, without breaking eye contact. ‘Several. I can show you my portfolio.’ Ben loved her self-confidence. He wished some of it would rub off on him.

Alan looked at her doubtfully. ‘And you understand –’ he paused and looked around, ‘what we – what Ben wants? Because it is his project, after all.’

‘Perfectly. And I believe I can deliver.’

‘Hmm,’ said Alan rudely and, shifting his gaze slowly to Ben, he effectively dismissed her. ‘Let’s have a look at these plans then,’ he said, unbuttoning the coat to reveal a black silk shirt pulled tight across his barrel chest.

‘It sounds as if you two need to talk,’ said Jennifer helpfully. ‘Shall I come back and take these measurements another time?’

‘No,’ said Ben.

‘Yes,’ said Alan at exactly the same time and locked eyes with his son.

Ben, startled to find boldness in his heart, repeated what he’d said. Alan’s face remained immobile but his pupils contracted, betraying his anger. Softening his tone, Ben looked at Jennifer. ‘Please. The sooner you get the measuring done the sooner you can get on with the job. Isn’t that right?’

Jennifer smiled tightly without looking at Alan, went over to a window and noisily unfurled a retractable metal tape-measure. And to his father, Ben said quietly, ‘Jennifer’s doing us a favour picking up the pieces after Calico, Dad.’

He scowled grumpily. ‘Well, the proof’ll be in the pudding, won’t it?’

The tape-measure retracted with a loud snap and both men looked over at Jennifer. Ignoring them, she took a pencil out of her mouth and scribbled furiously on the clipboard in her left hand. She was insulted and rightly so. Giving offence was one of Alan’s many talents.

Ben took a deep breath and tried to make the peace. ‘So, Dad, what brings you here?’

Alan rubbed his hands together, the way people do when they’re itching to get started on something. ‘I happened to be passing,’ he said and Ben smiled at the lie. Alan had been in Portrush and Portstewart earlier that day and Ballyfergus wasn’t on the way home – not unless you took the scenic Antrim coast road and more or less doubled the length of your journey time. ‘I wanted to hear what you thought of the place. And see how the plans were shaping up.’

So much for Alan letting go of the reins. Without waiting for an invitation he strode over to the wallpaper table and rested his knuckles on the flat surface, like a sprinter at the starting blocks. ‘So,’ he said, narrowing his eyes to focus more clearly – he was too proudly virile to don glasses in the presence of a stranger – ‘do you agree this place is a dump?’

Ben frowned. Alan had bought the place – snapped it up, he’d said – without consulting Ben. ‘It is now but it won’t be by the time we’re finished with it. Haven’t you always said –’

Without taking his eyes off the plans, Alan cut him short mid-sentence. ‘I’ve learned you something then.’ This peculiar verb misuse, widespread across the province, marked Alan out as an uneducated man. And, whilst he knew this, and was certainly clever enough to eliminate this verbal idiosyncrasy from his speech if he chose to, he never did.

Ben, angry, folded his arms across his chest. Why was nothing ever straightforward with his father? The question had been another one of his stupid tests.

‘Location,’ went on Alan, raising his eyes now, and one instructive finger, ‘is the most important thing, absolutely, always. Everything else can be changed. You have to look beyond the muck and filth and see what others can’t.’ Ben, who had heard it all before, made a swirling pattern in the dust with the toe of his old trainers. Jennifer, he noticed, glancing up, had disappeared into one of the loos.

‘Tell me,’ went on Alan, walking over to a window and squinting up at the sky like he was on the lookout for an aeroplane. ‘What do you see when you look out this window?’

‘An ugly car park?’ replied Ben, stubbornly looking the other way, refusing to play the game.

Alan roared with humourless laughter. ‘Depends how you look at it. That’s what you see,’ he said, and paused to let Ben know he didn’t think much of his vision. ‘Whereas I see an asset.’

He stopped, waiting, Ben presumed, for him to offer up what that asset might be. But he said nothing.

Irritation crept into Alan’s voice. ‘I see convenient parking for customers. An asset that will deliver customers right to this front door of ours.’

‘Right,’ said Ben insolently.

Alan, who must’ve forgotten about Jennifer, slapped a closed fist into the palm of the other hand. ‘You have to have vision, son!’ he cried, his tanned face suddenly taking on a reddish hue, though it was hard to tell if he was angry or excited, both emotions producing in Alan similar physical manifestations. ‘You can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’

Suddenly, apparently oblivious to Ben’s ill temper, he chuckled heartily at his cleverness. Then he opened his arms wide and turned in a small slow circle like a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, the soles of his shoes tap-tapping lightly on the floor. With his eyes closed, he might have been in a trance. ‘I can see it now. Carnegie’s! That’s what we’ll call it and it’ll be the talk of the town.

‘People will come from far and wide. Ballymena, Ballymoney, Whitehead and Carrickfergus,’ went on Alan, reciting the local names like a prayer, the vowels hard, tight fists, so that ‘Bally’ became ‘Balla’ and ‘head’ came out as ‘heed’. ‘And from all the towns and villages up the coast as well. It’ll be great, Ricky.’ And he stopped spinning right in front of Ben and, smiling, opened his eyes.

Ben stared at him in horror. Every once in a while this happened. Ricky’s name would slip unawares from his father’s lips – the name of the child he wished was standing in front of him, not the one who was. Ben swallowed and tried to arrange some other expression on his face, something that would cloak the searing shock like a stage curtain. He pressed the palm of his right hand on his heart and felt its fierce, too-fast beat.

‘What’s wrong with you, boy?’ said Alan crossly, the smile fading to be replaced with a frown. ‘Can’t you visualise it?’

‘I … I can. But why “Carnegie’s”?’ said Ben, throwing the question to Alan like a bone to a dog, anything to deflect his beady-eyed scrutiny.

Alan exhaled loudly, his enthusiasm waning, it seemed, in the face of Ben’s lack of it. ‘Didn’t you notice the old Carnegie library across the street?’ he said irritably.

‘Ah yes. “Let there be light”,’ said Ben, quoting the motto at the entrance to the first library Andrew Carnegie ever built – in his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland, in 1883.

‘Huh?’ said Alan. The quote was most likely meaningless to him, yet Alan, who’d left school at fifteen, would not seek clarification. Whilst he made a big show of being true to his humble ‘school of life’ roots, he did not like his ignorance exposed. ‘Yes, well,’ he went on, ‘as I was saying, it’s not a library now – some sort of Arts centre or museum. Remind me on Monday to look into giving them a donation. Anyway, Carnegie’s has just the right overtones for our restaurant. Classy, elegant. It has an old-school ring to it.’

Ben couldn’t disagree with any of this and yet the fact that his father had proposed the name irked. ‘But don’t you think I should have some say in naming the restaurant? Especially if I’m supposed to be running the business.’

‘You are, Ben, you are,’ said Alan and he came over and placed a heavy arm across Ben’s shoulders. ‘Now, I know you’re nervous but don’t worry. I know you won’t let me down,’ he said, his words striking fear in Ben’s heart. He removed his arm. ‘Now, if you’ve got a better name for the restaurant, I’d like to hear it.’

Ben ventured, ‘Crawfords.’

Alan’s mouth puckered up like he’d just, unsuspectingly, bitten into a lemon. ‘God no, not our own name. It lacks class. And you’re forgetting the chain of bakery shops in East Belfast that go by the same name. Have you got any other ideas?’

Ben deliberated for a moment, then shook his head. ‘Carnegie’s is a good choice,’ he conceded, wishing he’d thought of it.

‘Good.’ Satisfied, Alan darted over to the table once more and pointed at the plan. ‘Now tell me about this. What’s that hatched area at the front of the restaurant?’

Ben stood beside his father and saw immediately what he meant. ‘That’s the waiting area.’

‘Waiting area?’ said Alan, wrinkling up his nose the way he did when he smelled something gone off.

Jennifer slipped back into the room from the kitchen and, ignoring them both, proceeded to measure the boarded-up front window. Ben said quickly, ‘Well, more of a bar area. Not that there’d be a bar as such, but a relaxing area where people could come in and order a drink while they look at the menu and wait for their table.’

Alan squinted before speaking, as if he was trying very hard to see merit where there was none. ‘It’d look pretty, son. But you do know what’s wrong with it, don’t you?’

Ben shook his head. If he knew, would it be on the bloody plan?

‘You don’t have room for it in a restaurant this size. You’d lose too many covers giving up this much footage. There’s room for another two tables at least here,’ he said, sketching out his vision with the tip of his finger. ‘And if people want a pre-dinner drink they can have it here, at their table.’ He tapped the paper hard three times with the tip of his index finger as if he was giving it and not Ben a good talking to. Ben, acutely aware of Jennifer’s silent presence as she went about her business, felt the colour rise to his cheeks.

His father was right of course, as he was in every damn thing. When was he going to give up this charade? Acting like he knew what he was doing when he didn’t; pretending that he loved this job that he loathed.

‘Now, you’ll be needing somewhere to live down here,’ went on Alan, who always talked as though he was ticking items off an agenda.

‘Yes, I was thinking about that,’ began Ben.

Alan, impatient as always, interrupted. ‘Well, you don’t need to. It’s all taken care of. I picked up a flat last time I was down here,’ he said, the way someone might comment that they’d picked up a loaf of bread on the way home. Looking very pleased with himself he added, ‘You’ll need to get it furnished but I’m assuming you can organise that yourself.’

When he saw the look on Ben’s face he added, ‘You’ve enough on your plate just now with splitting your time between The Lemon Tree and this place. I knew you wouldn’t have time to go house-hunting. This way, it’s one less thing for you to worry about.’

‘You rented a flat without consulting me?’ said Ben, infuriated but not taken by surprise. Was there anything his father trusted him to do?

‘Of course it’s not rented,’ he snorted. ‘Rent is a waste of money. When you’re done with it, we’ll lease it out. Ballyfergus has a strong rental market.’

‘I’ll just be off then,’ said Jennifer’s voice and Ben swung round to find her standing by the door with her things in her arms. ‘Can I take the mood board?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Ben went to get it and Jennifer said evenly, and without moving from her position at the door, ‘Goodbye, Mr Crawford. It was interesting meeting you.’

‘Yes, goodbye, Mrs Murray. It is missus, isn’t it?’

‘Actually no. It’s Ms. Murray’s my maiden name. I’m divorced.’

Ben, reaching down to grasp the mood board, felt his heart leap. He had to remind himself that, divorced or not, she might yet have a partner.

By contrast, Alan received this news impassively with a vacant nod, his face utterly still. When it mattered, he knew how to keep his thoughts to himself.

Jennifer walked out the door Ben held open for her, the mood board wedged under his left arm. Outside, the rain had stopped, leaving great puddles on the tarmac. Wordlessly they walked past Alan’s bright red Porsche, carelessly abandoned across two parking spaces, to her car. She opened the boot and he flung the board in on top of a jumble of wallpaper books, fabric samples and a pair of muddy green wellies.

‘Any chance I could get copies of those Calico plans?’ she said.

‘Sure. I’ll send them over.’

‘Oh. I haven’t given you my card. You’ll need the address.’ She put a hand inside her jacket, pulled out a small sheaf of business cards and handed one to him.

‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about my father.’

She paused for some long moments as if wrestling with something inside and then said, diplomatically, ‘You don’t have to apologise for your father. Ever.’ Clever, because it could mean two different things, if you thought about it. Then she opened the driver’s door, and regarded him thoughtfully, her eyes the colour of the chocolate velvet on the mood board. ‘I’ll be in touch early next week,’ she said brightly. ‘Have a good weekend, Ben.’

He went back inside where Alan, never one to quit until he knew he’d well and truly won, picked up the conversation where they’d left off. ‘The estate agent happened to mention the flat to me when I was down looking at this place,’ he explained. ‘It’s a high-quality new build and a good location within walking distance of here – and I got a good price. Nobody can resist a cash buyer in this climate.’ He grinned, delighted with himself.

Ben folded his arms. ‘It’s one thing overruling me on the bar area in the restaurant. I accept that you’re right about that. But the flat will be my home, not yours. I am capable of finding somewhere to live by myself.’

Alan shrugged, utterly indifferent to Ben’s objections.

‘Don’t you see my point, Dad? I’m a grown man and you bought my home without consulting me.’

‘Ach, stop moaning, Ben. I don’t see what I’ve done wrong. I didn’t buy it, the business did. And it’s not your permanent home – just somewhere to kip for a year or so,’ shrugged Alan. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about the flat if I was you, son. You’re hardly going to see the inside of the place. If you’re going to make a success of this restaurant, you’ll be working day and night down here.’ He paused, picked something off the sleeve of his jacket and fixed his eyes on Ben. ‘You’ll not have time for much else.’

Ben swallowed and said nothing, his heart filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. He looked around the dilapidated room and tried to dredge up some enthusiasm. But the prospect of running this place left his heart cold. He could not spend the rest of his life working for his father. But how could he tell that to him? He’d given him hope, a reason to go on, after all their hopes were lost that night.

Something bleeped in Alan’s coat pocket and he pulled out his mobile. ‘Ach, shite, that’ll be Cassie,’ he said referring to his new wife who, at forty-one, was twenty years his junior. He read the text message, and diamond cufflinks sparkled as he consulted the flashy Rolex on his wrist. ‘Bloody woman doesn’t give me a moment’s peace.’ Ben smiled and Alan said, grimly, ‘Wait till you’re married. You’ll know all about it.’

‘That’s not likely to happen any day soon,’ said Ben cheerfully, who’d come to see his break-up with Rebecca as a lucky escape.

‘Pity,’ said Alan.

Ben laughed outright at this. From what he could see, matrimonial bliss had eluded Alan. He was on to his third beautiful wife and, from where he was standing, none of his marriages had delivered up their promise of happiness.

‘What’re you laughing at?’ growled Alan.

‘Dad, come on. You’re hardly one to be dishing out advice about marriage.’

Alan speared him with his gaze, his eyes like lasers. ‘Maybe not. But you don’t want to leave it too late. Your mother tells me that you and Rebecca have split up.’

‘That’s right.’

He shook his head, sadly. ‘You need your head examined, Ben. You’ll not find a better looking girl anywhere. And what was wrong with the one before that? Emma, wasn’t it? She was a stunner too.’

Ben looked at his father in astonishment. If appearance was his criterion for a happy marriage, no wonder he’d gone so far wrong in its pursuit. ‘We weren’t suited, Dad.’

‘Well, they both seemed like very nice girls to me,’ he insisted obstinately. ‘By the time I was your age, you know, I was married. And by the time I was thirty, I had a kid on the way.’ At this, they both looked at the dust on the floor. The kid, safe then in his mother’s womb, was Ricky. The child that had broken all their hearts.

‘Steady on, Dad,’ said Ben, forcing a hollow laugh. He held up the palm of his hand to his father. ‘Marriage. Babies. What’s brought all this on?’

Hell bent on his own agenda, it seemed Alan didn’t even hear the question. ‘You’ve got to find the girl and get married before you even think about having children. You don’t want one of these high-flying career women. And don’t be getting some wee girl up the spout.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Ben.

‘No, listen, son,’ said Alan, and there was no mistaking the earnestness in his voice now, as he finally honed in on the crux of the matter. ‘You should be thinking about your future. Your children will be heirs to the entire Crawford fortune. And you want them to be legitimate.’

Ben took a step back, reeling from this burst of insight as if it were a physical blow or a mighty explosion in his face. It had never occurred to him until this moment that, as Alan’s only surviving child, his children would be absolutely crucial to Alan’s dreams. He wasn’t running a business – he was building a dynasty. Without grandchildren, there was no future.

‘What if I don’t want kids?’ Ben blurted out.

‘Don’t be stupid. When you get to a certain age, everyone wants kids,’ he said in a voice that brooked no opposition. ‘And everyone wants grandchildren.’

I don’t, he wanted to scream. But he simply stared, struck momentarily mute by this awful understanding.

‘So, this Jennifer Murray,’ said Alan lightly, and he glanced slyly at Ben with those beady eyes that missed nothing. ‘What made you hire her?’

‘Jennifer?’ said Ben stupidly. What had Jennifer got to do with a discussion about grandchildren and heirs? ‘Because I think she can do a good job.’ Unintentionally, his inflexion rose at the end of the sentence, making it sound more like a question than a statement.

‘I see. So how did you find out about her?’

‘I hired her son, Matt, first and he introduced us. When I heard Calico were going under, I asked her if she was interested.’

‘Sounds like you did them both a big favour, Ben,’ he observed quietly, talking in the measured way he reserved for occasions when he was particularly irked by something. ‘I hope I’m wrong. I hope that your motives were purely professional.’

He opened his mouth to tell his father otherwise but Alan, with words as precise as the swift, ruthless cut of a chef’s knife, silenced him.

‘She’s a pretty woman, Ben, I’ll grant you that. And I can see the attraction,’ he said, as if piling Jennifer’s positive attributes, like recipe ingredients, on one side of a pair of old-fashioned scales. ‘But she has grown-up children, son.’ He fixed Ben with a hard stare, lowered his voice. And then he tipped the scales against Jennifer, in his mind anyway, with the heavy weight of the truth.

‘Her child-bearing years are over.’