Careless in Red

“Oh, I expect you’d know well enough. As you’re her brother.”

“Not as things turn out,” Cadan told him. “She was talking about you this morning at breakfast, as it happens. I heard that and I realised…Listen, man, I was dead wrong and I want you to know it.” He was lying, of course, but he reckoned he could be forgiven for that. A greater good was involved here: He didn’t actually know his sister’s mind on the subject of romantic entanglements, did he?-aside from how she felt about Santo Kerne at the moment and he wasn’t altogether sure of that, either-and, besides that, he needed Will Mendick just now. So if a small prevarication was going to get Will to open a bottle with him, that certainly could be forgiven. “What I’m saying’s that you shouldn’t write her off. She’s been in a bad way for a bit, and I reckon she needs you, even if she doesn’t know that yet.”

Will went to the far end of the greenhouse where supplies were kept and fetched down a box of fertiliser from a shelf. Cadan followed him.

“So I reckoned we could hoist a brew”-Cadan cringed internally at the bizarre expression; he sounded like someone on American telly-“and let bygones be bygones. What d’you say?”

“Can’t,” Will said. “I can’t leave at the moment.”

“That’s where you’re lucky. I wasn’t actually talking about leaving,” Cadan told him frankly. “I reckoned we could booze up here.”

Will shook his head. He returned to his vines and his pitchfork. Cadan had the distinct impression that something was eating at his friend’s peace of mind.

“Can’t. Sorry.” Will picked up the pace of his work and clarified his situation by adding tersely, “Cops were at the grocery, Cade. They gave me a grilling.”

“What about?”

“What the hell d’you think it was about?”

“Santo Kerne?”

“Yeah, Santo Kerne. Is there another subject?”

“Why you, for God’s sake?”

“The hell I know. They’ve been talking to everyone. How’d you escape?” Will dug furiously once again.

Cadan said nothing. He felt ill at ease all at once. Speculatively, he looked at Will. The fact that the cops had sought him out suggested things Cadan didn’t want to begin to consider.

“Well,” he said in the expansive tone that always indicates an end to a conversation.

“Yeah,” Will said grimly. “Well.”

Cadan made his farewell soon after this and was thus at a loose end once again. Will and Will’s troubles aside, fate seemed to be telling him that action was called for. And action meant the single deed-aside from drinking-that Cadan had not been able to get out of his brain.

Christ, but his mind seemed fixed on her. She might as well have been a deadly infection eating away at his brain. Cadan knew that his choices were simple: He had to get rid of her or he had to have her. Yet having her was not unlike committing ritual suicide, and he knew that if nothing else, so he rode from Bi

As luck had it, his father’s car wasn’t there. But Jago’s was, which seemed a godsend. If anyone could act the part of confidant, it was Jago Reeth.

Unfortunately, someone else had the same idea. Cadan walked in to find the two daughters of Ione Soutar in the reception area and the door to the i

“Mum’s inside, Cadan?” Leigh told him with that perpetual, maddening interrogatory inflection of hers, which always suggested she was speaking to a fool. “She’s said it’s personal, so you’re not to go in?”

“I expect she’s talking to Jago ’bout your dad,” Je

“She needs to give him the permanent heave-ho?” Leigh said. “I mean, no offense, Cadan, but your father’s a dickhead? Women need to stand up for themselves and they need to stand firm and they especially need to kick arse when they’re not being treated the way they deserve to be treated. I mean, like, what sort of example is she setting for the two of us?”

“What the hell’re you doing to your face?” Cadan asked.

“Mummy wouldn’t let her get her nose pierced, so she’s gluing a stone on,” Je

“God, don’t ask him,” Leigh said to her sister. “He didn’t even pass one GSCE? You know that, Je

Cadan ignored her. “You want a calculator?” he asked Je

“She’s supposed to show her work?” Leigh told him. She inspected her nose stud and said to the mirror, “I’m not stupid. I’m not going to rubbish up my face. Like I’d ackshully do that?” She rolled her eyes. “What d’you think, Je

Je

Cadan couldn’t disagree. Leigh looked like someone with a large spot of blood on the side of her nose. She should have chosen a different-coloured stone.

“Mum’s going to make her take it off,” Je

“Shut up?” Leigh said.

“I only said-”

“Shut up? Put a sock in it? Cram your fist down your throat? Gag yourself with a shovel?”

“You aren’t s’posed to talk to me like-”

The i

He wanted to tell her to let his dad go and to get on with her life. Lew Angarrack wasn’t available, and he probably wouldn’t ever be. He’d been dumped by the Bounder-his one, true, eternal childhood love-and he’d not got past it. None of them had. That was their curse.

But how could one explain it to a woman who’d managed to carry on with her life when her marriage had ended? There was no way.

It looked, however, as if Jago had made a heroic effort in that direction. He stood behind Ione with a handkerchief in his hand. He was folding this and returning it to the pocket of his boiler suit.

Leigh took one look at her mother and rolled her eyes. She said, “I suppose this means we won’t be surfing any longer?”

Je

“Let’s go, girls,” Ione said. She cast a look round the workshop. “Nothing more to be said. Matters are quite finished here.”

Cadan she ignored altogether, as if he were a carrier of the family disease. He stepped out of the way as she herded her offspring out of the shop. She was setting off in the direction of her own shop in the air station as the door swung closed behind her.

“Poor lass,” was Jago’s comment on the matter.

“What’d you tell her?”

Jago went back into the glassing room. “The truth.”

“Which is?”

“No one changes a leopard’s spots.”

“What about the leopard?”

Jago was carefully peeling some blue tape from the rail of a pintail short board. Cadan noticed how bad his shakes were today. “Eh?” Jago said.