Chapter 17 #2
He shows me what kept him busy. Dad takes me on a boatyard tour, although not to brag about his business. We end up back at the speedboat I found him painting where he repeats what Calum guessed in a gallery containing a silver trophy with my name on.
“I couldn’t risk you ending up with no one at all.
” He eyes me, and I wish I had a camera to catch this empathy.
“Can’t say I ever wanted to resurrect my family business, but you and I lost your mother just when the last big recession happened.
The banking crisis.” He sighs. “It reminded me of what my father told me when he was still alive. He always said that the one group of people who do well in hard times are the wealthy, so I rebuilt Juno Speedboats to chase their money.”
For me.
He scrubs at the back of his neck like I’ve seen Calum do so often. Dad does it while telling me about being between a rock and a hard place.
“This whole year has given me flashbacks of those first few years. Of not being able to pay the team and letting their families down at Christmas. Of letting you down, Valentin, when you were so young. Felt that all over again when you lost your grandmother. If I’d spoken better French, I could have reassured you.
I tried to do that, but . . .” His face creases, words dying.
I fill his silence, and you better believe I speak up so he hears me.
“You made sure I was safe.” I’ve filmed parents trying to do the same between sand dunes and the sea where there are no safe options for their children.
“You can stop now.” I make eye contact and cup my hands around my mouth.
“But you do need to start wearing ear defenders in the workshop. And I’m booking you a hearing test for Christmas. ”
He laughs beside a boat where gold paint glistens. So do his eyes, and they shine even brighter when I spot a new addition written in much bigger letters than all the other names on this lifeboat.
Le Valentin.
Dad is still too loud, but I like this bellow.
“Seemed only right when your own boat was named for your mother. Nearly killed me when you sailed off in her that first time. Getting to watch what you did aboard her all on your own?” He makes a thick-sounding confession.
“It was like having your mother back.” Again, he scrubs the back of his neck.
“Scared the crap out of me when you almost sank. I did everything I could after that to keep you landlocked. Don’t know what I was thinking. ”
Hearing that makes all the difference. We head back to his office where he makes hot drinks, and we face each other across a desk where I get busy doing some of my own sharing.
“The contest Maman won. I entered it.”
“You did?” He leans forward.
Usually, I’d lean back.
Now we meet in the middle.
“I got shortlisted.”
He beams, and I keep going.
“Today is the final deadline, but I don’t feel it’s done yet.” I wish I’d brought my laptop so I could show him. Even my phone would help to replay where I keep stumbling. Both are where I left them beside my bunk to run after Calum this morning. “I’ve gone off-track. I can’t figure out where.”
“Want to know what I do when a design doesn’t work out?”
I nod and take a sip of a drink that sends me straight back to early childhood.
I could be sitting with a puzzle between us, both of us sipping on mugs full of chocolat chaud.
Today, Dad turns his laptop to face me, a cross section of a speedboat filling the screen.
“Missing something at this stage of a design throws out the whole build. Go back to the start, Valentin. Turn over all your pieces and take a second look at where they fit together. If something is missing, that’s where you’ll find it. Right at the beginning.”
The boatyard phone rings. He doesn’t pick it up to answer.
“Dad? The phone—”
“I can bloody hear it,” he booms. “I’m more interested in hearing you.”
I can’t hold in a grin as he snatches up the handset. “Juno Speedb—” His gaze lands on me. “Yes, he’s here. Hold on.” He passes the phone across the desk, and this is the softest I’ve ever heard him. “It’s Trelawney. He sounds . . .”
Upset.
That’s how Calum sounds, and for a moment, I think it’s actually his brother Patrick who says, “Babe?” like I’m the narrow-eyed elf he married. “Babe, can you hear me?”
“Oui.”
“I’m at City Airport. Got the last two seats on a flight to Newquay. Can you get here in the next twenty minutes?” Before I can tell him that I’m too far away to make it, he speaks again, even faster. “The club has photos of us.”
“Of us?”
For a heart-sinking second, I picture the inside of my cabin and the bed Calum unfolded for us where I held up imaginary score cards I’d never want anyone but him to laugh at. “It wasn’t—”
I don’t get to say, “Me.”
I don’t need to.
Calum already has the name of who must have got busy with his camera under party fireworks.
“They have shots of us kissing against the hatch on your boat. The club has paid off that fucker Dixon, but they want me back in the States pronto. Are insisting on it.”
His laugh is horrible.
Hollow.
I hate it.
“I can’t even argue. It was me who insisted on them planning ahead. Now looks like I might be giving the fans a great big bi-reveal for Christmas.” Background noise almost drowns out his unhappy promise. “I don’t care about that. I do care about the timing.”
Because he won’t get to see his mother unwrap her present.
Or get to celebrate with his whole family.
All I have left of my own sits across the desk. Dad watches my reaction to Calum topping his wish list with me.
“Because I thought we’d have all of next week together.
Plus Cornwall. At least two more weeks, Valentin.
They’ll only give me the rest of today. I can go home but I’ll have to leave again by midnight.
Twelve fucking hours.” An announcement echoes loudly, calling a last-chance flight to Cornwall. “Shit, I have to go.”
“Do it. Catch that flight.”
“Really don’t want to leave the country without seeing you.”
I’ve done more than my share of sinking. It means I can hear him do the same now, so I blurt a promise. “You won’t.”
My face must soon tell a less confident story after our call ends and I borrow my father’s laptop—every train I find is booked solid. I’m still searching when the laptop lid snaps closed.
“Hey! Why—?”
Dad holds the lid down while saying, “I can’t make you want to sell speedboats with me, but I had a second job once, didn’t I? That role might suit you better.”
I don’t need career advice right now. What I need is to find the quickest way to Cornwall from the far side of the country.
Dad’s hand on the laptop lid won’t let me.
He holds out his free hand to me. Something shiny dangles from a finger, spinning like a bauble once did, and my heart soars like the streetlight angels outside the shop where Calum found it.
This is no egg-shaped tree decoration.
“Valentin, the best work I ever did was delivering your Christmas presents.”
Dad offers me the keys to his boat transporter.
“How about you follow in those footsteps?”