Chapter Sixteen
Lucas cornered Vern in his ‘outdoor office’, where Vern sometimes took his hated paperwork, a table with blistered white paintwork on a flat place on the rocks. Only one chair stood at the table. Vern didn’t encourage loiterers.
Although Lucas held the day’s student record files, he kept them behind his back. The only thing Vern hated more than paperwork was more paperwork.
Lucas had provided surface cover at Ghar Lapsi today while Lars and Brett led tourists down into the crystal depths to spy on octopus and swim with rainbow shoals of fish. He didn’t enjoy taking his turn to provide surface cover, but at least it had given him an opportunity to think. Now he was ready to share those thoughts with Vern.
‘How do you feel about helping local kids from a youth drop-in centre?’
Vern didn’t look up. ‘What kind of help?’
‘I was wondering whether we could give them a Bubblemaker Session.’
Turning PADI forms over with distaste, Vern sighed. ‘What kind of drop-in centre? Nothing to do with nasty habits?’
‘No. It’s just somewhere for kids to hang out. Play games, do activities, use the internet cafe.’ He sketched in a few more details about the Nicholas Centre and Joseph. ‘My brother’s girlfriend works with children and she got talking to someone I know who volunteers there, so we went up to visit. I sort of got involved.’ He pushed back his hair, damp because he’d been washing off the equipment used for today’s dive and had cooled himself in the spray. ‘So I was thinking we could go there and do the youth programme diving presentation and then get some of them up here in the pool. Obviously, I volunteer my services.’
Slowly, Vern sat back, squinting against the slanting sun. A big tawny man with a lot of body hair, he was a bit like a mangy bear and had a habit of growling to hide his soft heart. ‘We’d need some responsible adults here from their end, safeguarding and all that stuff.’
‘They have their own youth leaders. Maybe one or two of them? And, hopefully, Joseph.’
‘At least that many, yeah, depending on how many kids want to make bubbles.’ Vern tapped his pen against his cheek.
‘Might be a nice PR exercise, being nice to local kids,’ Lucas suggested, persuasively.
Vern grunted. ‘It’s only a good PR exercise if we get the press here and sound off about what wonderful people we are to give time and resources to provide some kids with fun. Otherwise, the only benefit for us that I see is a warm glow at having done a good deed. And there’s the cost of air and the damage to kit. Kids always break things.’
Lucas glanced over at the seawater pool, dancing with sunlight. He thought about Carmelo and imagined his big eyes alight with joy and wonder. ‘Some of those kids don’t even have properly fitting clothes. It’s unlikely that they’ll get to try the expensive adventure of scuba unless someone provides the chance for them.’
Slowly, Vern nodded. ‘OK, let me think about it. Maybe we could work something out at the end of a day when we’ve had only fairly shallow dives. By the time the instructors and divemasters get back here and sort the equipment out, some surface time will have elapsed, and you’ll go no deeper than two metres so it won’t add much to nitro levels.’
He turned his attention back to his paperwork. ‘Now give me whatever you’re hiding behind your back and sod off to see your youth centre guy.’
A couple of hours later, Lucas stepped aboard the Shady Lady and saw Elle’s top half moving around in the galley. ‘Let’s clear the air,’ he said, dropping his bag on the floor of the saloon and crossing to the steps so that he could see all of her. Her hair was wet and she was wearing one of those things that seemed a cross between a minidress and a pair of shorts. The outfit showed a lot of leg. He didn’t let her catch him looking. He could read enough wariness and mistrust in her eyes without that.
He reached around her to grab a bottle of beer from the fridge. ‘I acted like a prat: I’m genuinely sorry. I don’t really know what I was thinking of and I don’t suppose there’s any point trying to analyse it. It was childish and stupid.
‘But it’s important to me that you accept my apology partly because I mean it, partly because living together on the boat is going to be a pain in the arse if there’s a heavy atmosphere, and partly because I want your help with something.’ Then, aware from her stare and the way that her hands paused in their task of washing up that peremptory demands probably weren’t endearing him to her, added a belated ‘Please. I’ve talked to my boss about doing a Bubblemaker Session for the Nicholas Centre and you know a lot more about the place than I do.’
Elle frowned, turning back to washing up the coffee jug. ‘Go on.’
He took a seat on the galley steps and recounted his conversation with Vern, outlining how the presentation would normally go and the fun experience the kids could expect from fifty minutes in a pool wearing scuba gear.
She listened to him gravely. ‘Does the event have a price tag?’
‘It’s a freebie. The instructors and divemasters would give their time; Dive Meddi would provide the equipment and air. The kids would just need normal swim gear. And we’d have to work out a way of transporting them up to the dive centre in StJulian’s.’ His seat on the steps put her bare legs at his eye level. In the days when he and Elle had been together he would have considered bare legs an invitation to play. He could almost imagine the softness of her inner thigh under his mouth—
‘Would you be the one to run the session?’
He forced his gaze to remain fixed on her face. ‘I’d organise everything but I’m not an instructor. A divemaster assists, not instructs. The instructors at the centre are Vern, Polly and Lars, and they’d run the session. There are children-to-adult ratios we have to observe, and the instructors will want divemasters in the water. We’ll need some adults from the centre, too.’
‘In the water?’ Her eyes suddenly brightened.
‘In the water and out. We need to work out how many kids are interested and how many we can accommodate. Joseph’s obviously the guy I need to talk to but it would be great if you could get involved — talk to Joseph with me, maybe.’
‘Could I be one of the adults in the water?’
She looked so intrigued by the idea that he laughed, half-sorry that he hadn’t talked to her about something like this before she put him on her shit list. He could have invited her to the dive centre and showed off. ‘Definitely. If Carmelo’s one of the kids involved I expect he’ll demand it.’ Then, as a shadow crossed over her face, ‘How is he today?’
‘I haven’t seen him.’ She sighed. ‘Joseph’s talked to the mum and seems fairly upbeat, thinks Carmelo running away was a bit of a wake-up call for her.’ She managed a hesitant smile. ‘Thanks, by the way, for helping with him last night. I knew I’d be able to rely on you.’
‘It wasn’t much.’ But he was aware of a dart of pleasure that she’d put aside the tension and come to him.
‘I can imagine what — I mean, s-s-some people might have reacted differently if I’d brought home a child I’d found lurking in the dark.’ She turned away from him, busying herself with fitting the jug back on the coffee maker.
It meant that he could let his gaze drop to her legs but that didn’t distract him completely from that tiny telltale stutter over ‘some people’. So far as he knew, she hadn’t lived with many people. Her parents, her uni flatmates and—
‘Ricky?’ he asked, making it sound like an idle enquiry.
She went on fussing with the coffee maker, taking the jug off and on again as if unhappy with the fit. Just when he thought she was going to ignore his question, she answered. ‘He didn’t have much compassion.’ She changed the subject brightly. ‘I’m going over to Valletta on the ferry with Charlie and Kayleigh. Want to come? Joseph told me about a good pizzeria in Republic Street. We can get the last ferry there and return by bus.’
‘Great.’ He rose easily and turned sideways so that he could pass without brushing against her. ‘I’ll shower.’ He felt as if he’d scored some kind of victory. She’d answered a question about Ricky, and one that gave real insight, at that. And the invitation for pizza must constitute forgiveness for his behaviour over Kayleigh.
As he showered, he wondered if she’d keep the dress/shorts thing on. That much leg on display definitely came under the heading of ‘A good thing’. Especially bare leg. The great thing about hot climates was that women rarely bothered with tights or stockings.
Not that he was against stockings . . .
He felt himself stirring. Maybe he should be against stockings — on Elle Jamieson, anyway. And bare legs. And cute hats. In fact, his life would be a lot less complicated if Elle Jamieson would wear a sack with just her head sticking out. Preferably with that blond hair cut off instead of in its current glorious mane form. He might have a lot fewer frustrating thoughts and mixed emotions.
* * *
Elle didn’t make extensive preparations for the evening. After she’d let her hair dry in the warm breeze up on the flybridge, she brushed it and then made up simply with mascara, eyeliner and lip gloss.
Her heart was light. Carmelo’s situation looked to have improved, she was still buzzing from drawing a line in the sand that Oscar must not creep over, and a good night out was in prospect. Maltese pizza was good, she liked Kayleigh, she’d missed Charlie, and Lucas and Charlie were fun together. Now Lucas had made the effort to clear the air, she could enjoy everybody’s company.
She checked that she had enough euros for the evening and emerged from her cabin at the same moment as Lucas strolled out of his, almost colliding with him in the tiny area in front of the galley. Their arms brushed and Elle sucked in her breath at the hot liquid sensation of his skin sliding over hers.
Lucas stepped back and Elle thanked him politely as she trod lightly up the steps and through the saloon. But the heat of his touch clung to her skin like ink.
They locked up the boat and walked along the seafront. Elle kept her gaze on the twinkling water of the creek as she tried to parcel up her reaction to Lucas’s touch and return it safely to that folder in her memory marked ‘past’. By the time they saw Charlie and Kayleigh, waving as they dodged the traffic, she’d recovered enough for conversation.
Charlie talked enough for four, anyway, joking around on the water taxi, complaining about the slippery pavement leading into the citadel of Valletta, which glowed like rose gold in the early evening sun. Huffing and puffing, they climbed the steep roads to Republic Street, the thoroughfare of limestone buildings that ran like a spine down the length of Valletta.
Elle couldn’t remember when she’d last laughed so freely as she did that evening, gathered around the table at the pizzeria. Kayleigh’s humour was dry, Charlie’s was impish, and Lucas slid in enough acerbic jibes to keep his younger brother in his place. Having munched her way through most of a monster crusty pizza and drunk her fair share of wine, it was nearing midnight when Elle began to think that she ought to slow down on the alcohol. And then her phone rang.
She frowned. Her phone didn’t ring that often when she was in Malta. She sometimes thought she only carried it around out of habit. It took her a moment to fumble it from the tiny bag she’d slung over her chair back, hoping it wasn’t Joseph with bad news about Carmelo.
She hesitated when she saw the name on the screen. Then accepted the call. ‘Hello?’
‘This is Yvonne, duty night manager at The Briars. Am I speaking to Elle Jamieson?’
Elle’s throat went dry. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m calling about your mother. I’m afraid she’s quite poorly. It was just after dinner—’ Elle’s head began to spin as phrases like ‘doctor’, ‘ambulance’ and ‘hospital’ flew out of the phone with no real meaning.
She tried to lift her voice over the babble in the restaurant as she pushed herself to her feet, pressing the phone hard against her ear. ‘Just hang on. I’m moving outside where it’s quieter.’
Then Lucas was beside her, clearing a path so that she could stumble out of the warmth and noise into the street, where she could say to Yvonne, ‘Can you repeat that?’ so that she could force herself to understand what had been happening in Bettsbrough, far away, in another country, another time zone, another climate.
Her alcohol haze evaporated as she discussed the severity of Joanna Jamieson’s situation, running scenarios and discussing likely outcomes clinically and pragmatically. She ended by arranging to contact the day shift in the morning for her mother’s health bulletin.
Elle ended the call feeling calm and in control. She turned to Lucas, who’d waited, lounging against a wall nearby. ‘My mum—’ she began. And burst into tears.
Somehow she found herself in Lucas’s arms, face pressed against the warm fabric of his T-shirt as sobs shook through her, shocked that she was bawling in the street like a child but somehow unable to stop. Vaguely, she was aware of Charlie and Kayleigh arriving, Kayleigh shoving reams of tissues into her hands and Charlie getting them all to a taxi. The car’s interior was hot though all its windows were open, and, still unable to control the sobs, Elle let herself be driven back to Ta’ Xbiex.
All the time, Lucas’s arms remained around her, comforting and strong.
By the time the car dropped them on the road beside the gardens, she’d more or less cried herself out, but her chest ached and her eyes felt as if someone had been at them with a laser.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she sniffed. ‘I don’t know where that came from. It’s ages since I cried like that.’
‘Let’s get you on board,’ was Lucas’s only reply. Nobody asked any questions until she was seated in the saloon with a bottle of cold water and a cup of milky coffee.
Elle sucked the water down, grateful for its chill to soothe her rasping throat. ‘My mum’s had another stroke. She’d just eaten dinner when it hit.’ She swallowed a mouthful of the coffee. ‘She’s in Bettsbrough General Hospital. She’s not in immediate danger but,’ her voice wobbled, ‘the night manager said that it was too early to tell much. Mum’s pretty confused anyway, so if it turns out to be a slight stroke it might not make too much difference.’
She tried to laugh but it emerged as a croak. ‘Somehow, that’s what seemed almost too sad to bear. S-stupid, really, to be upset because she’s in such a poor way already that another stroke, more or less, doesn’t make a difference.’
‘So what’s going to happen? What do you need to do?’ asked Lucas, gently.
Elle sighed. Her head was pounding and she rubbed it with her fingertips. ‘I suppose I’ll have to ring Dad. When Mum had her first stroke I was only an hour and a half away so I did everything but this time Dad’s closer than I am. I don’t really know what the etiquette is between divorced people when something bad happens to one of them, though.’ She picked up her phone and toyed with it. ‘If you guys want to get off, I don’t mind. I know it’s late.’
Charlie hesitated, but Kayleigh took his arm. ‘Come on, Charlie, she doesn’t need us eavesdropping while she talks to her dad.’
They both kissed and hugged Elle and then only Lucas remained in the quiet of the saloon, the Shady Lady barely moving at her mooring, the road noise rising and falling outside against the constant whrrrrrrrr of the cicadas in the gardens.
His eyes were fixed on her. ‘Do you want me to disappear?’
‘Not unless you want to.’ His presence was comforting. Familiar. And, at that moment, almost essential.
‘I’ll stay.’
* * *
He watched her pick up her phone, checking the time. ‘It’ll be nearly midnight at home.’ She scrolled through her contacts, made her selection and held the handset to her ear.
Her eyes were pink, her skin blotchy, her nose and lips faintly swollen. Like many fair women, she didn’t cry prettily. Her shoulders had convulsed as he’d cradled her against him in the night-time busyness of Republic Street. He didn’t really remember seeing her cry before. Maybe a few tears at a weepy movie, laughed off in embarrassment, but not heaving, hurting, helpless sobs.
It’s ages since I cried like that. He’d actually had to quell the impulse to demand, ‘Did you ever cry like that over our break-up? Is it one more thing you never showed?’ Then felt ashamed. Tonight was not about him.
He could hear the ringtone chirruping from her phone. Then, ‘Dad, it’s me, I—’ Her voice caught.
Lucas handed her the coffee cup and she took a swift gulp.
‘Dad, Mum’s had another stroke. Someone from The Briars rang me.’ Elle took a breath and began to recount as much as she knew and, apart from a couple of wobbly moments, she coped, twisting her hair, sniffing, finding a tissue to blow her nose between sentences.
It was curious to hear her and her father conduct a polite and courteous discussion. He compared their conversation to those he had with his own parents, always bursting with enquiries about how he was and what he was doing, and he silently vowed never to be irritated by them again. Those demands symbolised the love and warmth that had surrounded him as he’d grown up. Even if his parents had given Elle a bit of a rough ride, he’d never doubted that their love for him was deep and unconditional.
In contrast, judging from Elle’s side of the conversation, Will Jamieson hadn’t even asked his daughter how she was, though her husky voice was a pretty fucking great clue that she’d been crying.
Elle’s parents had always been chilly, which she would explain away with a shrug and ‘That’s what comes of marrying the wrong man at the wrong time and in secret.’
As she talked into the phone, he wondered about that secret wedding all over again. Elle wasn’t generally an inconsiderate person. She was self-possessed and didn’t ask much of anyone, but she didn’t disregard people’s feelings.
So why had she ignored her parents’ feelings over marrying Ricky? Had she been that crazily in love with him that nothing else seemed to matter? His stomach clenched at how much he still hated that idea.
Finally, she put down the phone and sank her forehead on her hand. ‘He’s going to liaise with the hospital and The Briars tomorrow morning and try and get an idea of the situation. Then we’ll talk again.’
Her hand lay on the table and he covered it lightly with his. ‘How are you doing?’
She covered her eyes.
‘Sorry. Stupid question. You’ve had a shock and you’re worried about your mum.’ He slid his arm around her once more, catching his breath at how right it felt to have her pressed against him. The top of her head was just below his face. He could have turned his head and laid his cheek upon it.
She let out a groan. ‘It’s stupid, though, isn’t it? We’re not even close.’
‘It’s not stupid.’ He hesitated. ‘Maybe it’s grief because you’re not close.’
She paused and swallowed. ‘And the chance to be has gone? That could be insightful.’ A longer pause. ‘I phoned the home this morning and asked to speak to her so that I could tell her that I love her. She hardly knows her own name but I wanted to tell her anyway, just in case something of what I said got through. It’s as if I knew this was coming.’
‘Maybe. Some instinct.’
‘It was Carmelo who set me thinking. Poor kid. I feel as if he’s looking for someone to love him and his mother’s the obvious one. I kind of recognised—’ She stopped and started in a different place. ‘I just thought: my mum’s always been reserved, but I’m a grown-up. I don’t have to wait all my life for her to tell me that she loves me. I can say it to her. So I did.’
Shock shimmered through Lucas. ‘Hasn’t your mum ever said that she loves you?’
‘I don’t remember that she did. She was quite friendly but I used to watch other children get swooped up into huge bear hugs and wonder what it was like.’
‘“Quite friendly”,’ he repeated. He’d been one of the kids swooped up in bear hugs. Hugs, he was afraid, from which he’d often fought free.
Elle had never opened up to him like this before. Not in all the time they were together, not all the times they lay in bed talking, or chatting across the dinner table.
Had he actually known this woman at all? He’d loved her, made love to her, shared his life with her. He’d been aware that there was a lot going on under the top layer but not how to unwrap it. He remembered demanding information from her, as if it were his right, and being frustrated when she’d widen her eyes and look away with a shrug.
His conscience sank its fangs into him. Demands hadn’t been what she needed. She’d needed the opportunity to expose herself, and then the choice as to whether to take that opportunity. She’d needed someone who would make her feel safe. Someone who wouldn’t judge her.
It had never crossed his mind that he should or could provide that kind of security. He’d formed an opinion of how things should be and waited for her to fulfil his expectations.
He must be able to do better. To open his mind to ways of doing and being other than his own.
‘I know your dad wasn’t cuddly,’ he said, experimentally.
She gave a short laugh. ‘Neither of my parents were cuddly. Not even with each other. They wanted a child to be proud of; that was their minimum requirement. So long as I did well, they’d smile on me. If I disappointed them, they withdrew. They could give me the silent treatment for weeks at a time.’
‘Man,’ he said. ‘I’m not surprised that you craved affection enough to marry Ricky.’