A Passionate Proposition

by Susan Napier

  ‘Whereas to you…?’

  ‘Every lady is a tramp,’ he said with typical provocative-ness.

  ‘And you have the nerve to wonder that your daughter sets out to shock!’ she scoffed, beginning to gather up the books again. ‘I hope you weren’t including your mother in that crude remark.’

  Her pointed barb missed its mark. ‘My mother would have laughed if I’d called her a lady,’ he told her. ‘She was a barmaid—frank and full of beans, always seeing the bright side of life and the best of people. We lived in a pretty tough part of west Auckland and she worked long hours at the pub, but she always managed to find something to laugh about. She brought us up rough but right.’

  So that was where his strong sense of justice came from, and his preference for defending the underdog, for taking on cases that other lawyers considered to be lost causes.

  ‘Speaking of rough, are you going to tell me what you were smiling about, or do we get to have another torrid tussle on the grass?’ he said, scattering her empathetic thoughts.

  Anya sighed, hugging the books defensively to her breast. ‘It’s fake.’

  He looked bewildered. ‘What is?’

  ‘Petra’s nosering. It’s a clip-on.’

  ‘What? Are you sure?’

  She took advantage of his stunned reaction to rise to her feet, flexing her cramped legs. ‘Trust me. I worked at a school where unauthorised body piercings were an expelling offence, whereas jewellery-wearing only merited confiscation. I had a drawerful of the things.’

  ‘The little devil!’ He stood up beside her, eyes gleaming with wry admiration. ‘She knew I was biting my tongue not to criticise it—or her mother for letting her have it done.’

  ‘She’s testing you.’

  He bent to pick up her water bottle and fell into step beside her as she walked towards the house, intending to collect her handbag which was being looked after by the taciturn Mrs Lee.

  ‘I suppose I lose points for things like sending her to her room when she’s rude to Sean and making her take extra lessons.’

  ‘Actually, I think it makes her feel safe with you. She’s obviously used to discipline at home, because she has very good manners when she cares to display them, so when you demand a certain standard from her you’re indicating that you care about her future. She’s also secretly impressed that you’re making the effort to work from home so you can be with her.’ She slipped a sideways glance up at him and was startled and amused to see him blushing to the tips of his ears.

  ‘Yes, well…I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up,’ he gruffed in an attempt to hide his pleasure. ‘I can’t continue pushing cases off onto my partners, but I don’t want her to think that now the novelty of her arrival’s worn off I’m abandoning her.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that. She’ll be starting school in a few days, and if she’s bussing with Sean and Samantha she won’t be home herself until half-past four.’

  ‘And then she’ll have a couple of hours under your supervision…’ he murmured, busily constructing himself a mental timetable. He saw her step falter and gave her a frowning look. ‘You agreed to the bargain. Even if everything works out for you as smoothly as I planned, I still expect you to continue with the tutoring. You’ve seen for yourself how much Petra benefits from individual guidance and you’ve already established a close rapport. She needs you.’

  Petra wasn’t the only one. Over the next several days Scott continued to invite himself to join them, and although Anya took care not to be left alone with him again, she soon realised that she was being utilised by both father and daughter as a kind of emotional buffer, a neutral third party through whom they could filter their curiosity about each other without directly confronting their feelings.

  On Saturday evening Mark rang Anya just as she was putting the finishing touches to her essay on the cultural impact of taste and consumerism, to tell her that the head of the Information Technology department had tracked down the hacker who had posted the party invitation on the bulletin board. It had turned out to be a student who was already on probation for serious misuse of the school’s computer system. A suspension had been handed down and the trouble-making parent’s threatening rumbles had been considerably dampened by her son’s identification as the purchaser of several bottles of hard liquor for his under-age friends.

  Once back at college Anya found that she had to fend off intrusive remarks and irritating jokes from staff and suffer back-chat from more than the usual number of smart-mouthed kids, but by clinging to her usual good-humoured tolerance she rode out the initial flurry of interest and thereafter the fresh scandal of the hockey coach who was having a not-so-discreet affair with the wife of the caretaker took precedence in the collective imagination.

  She and Petra adjusted their schedules and for two hours in the early evening, while Sean sweated on his uncle’s fitness machine in the pool-room to compensate for his lost rugby training and Samantha breezed through her own homework between phone calls, Anya went over any problems with that day’s lessons and helped Petra with her homework. The only thing that stumped Anya was the maths, but fortunately Samantha had an aptitude for the subject and proved willing to revisit some of her previous years’ work with her younger cousin. Just before the two hours were up there would be the throaty purr of the Jag in the driveway and Anya would shortly find herself sitting in the living room sipping dry sherry or a frosty lime-and-tonic while Scott nursed a vodka and Petra plied him for the lurid details of his latest case in between swigs of Coke.

  Late Friday afternoon, as she was leaving school, Anya received an unexpected dinner invitation from Mark. Caught off guard, she instinctively demurred but he was flatteringly persistent and, remembering that Petra had said that her father was going out for the evening, Anya suddenly decided to set aside her recent disenchantment with Mark and defiantly enjoy their delayed date.

  Deciding to get the day’s tutoring over early, so she had plenty of time to get ready, she called in at The Pines on the way home from school instead of popping home first, as she usually did.

  Sean answered the door, no longer flinching at the sight of her, and saw her glance at the line of suitcases against the wall. She had forgotten that he and Samantha were due to return home today.

  ‘Mum and Dad flew back from LA last night,’ he confirmed. ‘Mum’s on her way over now, to pick us up.’ He wasn’t looking overly enthusiastic, probably anticipating his parents’ reaction to the reason for his not yet being back at rugby training.

  She murmured an appropriate response and he jerked his head in the direction of the closed door along the hall in response to her enquiry about Petra.

  ‘She’s in there…banging away at the piano or listening to CDs, I guess. She spends ages shut in there by herself. Screams blue murder if you try to sneak in and listen to her playing,’ he groused.

  Perhaps Anya’s knock was a little soft accidentally on purpose. The sound-proofing of the room was so good she could hear the music only by putting her head close to the panelled wood but when she quietly opened the door the sound of a Bach ‘Partita’ spilled into her ears in all its exquisite clarity. She stilled when she realised that the superb technical skill and luminous delicacy of emotion wasn’t flowing from any stereo speakers but from the young girl seated at the piano, her face intent on her flying fingers.

  Anya stood by the partly open door, not moving until the vibrant humour of the final gigue faded into silence. She didn’t applaud; she was too full of admiration and anger. ‘You’re good.’

  Petra quietly put down the lid of the piano. ‘I know.’

  Anya moved to sit beside her on the edge of piano stool. ‘No, I’m mean you’re good.’ Her voice carried a gravity that extended beyond mere words. ‘I may not be able to carry a tune myself but I’ve lived amongst musicians; I’ve listened to greatness and I know pure, raw genius when I hear it.’ She took the girl’s restless hands in hers and looked down ste
rnly into the piquant face. ‘Both of us know what it takes to play the way that you do. The dedication it takes, especially in one so young. So what are you doing here, Petra? And I don’t mean that stuff you gave your dad about wanting to know the other half of your heritage. What is it that you really want from him?’

  Petra’s grip tightened to the point of pain, her blue eyes dangerously overbright. ‘Mum and Dad can’t afford for me to go overseas to study. They just haven’t got the money—not with Brian and David to provide for, too. Even if I win a scholarship, I’d still need extra money. I could work and save up, but I can’t wait that long. I need to go soon, Miss Adams. I don’t just want to be good, I want to be great. But I’m already fourteen; if I’m going to reach my full potential my teachers say I need to start intensive full-time study now.’

  Petra’s face was pale but determined. ‘When I found out about my dad—my real dad—I thought he could help me. You know, if he got to know me first, and like me and everything…’

  ‘And then you’d spring a guilt trip on him that he owes you the money because he didn’t stick around when you were born,’ said Anya, aware that the child had been hoist by her own petard. She might have come looking for a financial backer for her talent, but she had found so much more. And now she was feeling thoroughly torn by her conflicting feelings.

  Petra’s short nails dug into the backs of Anya’s hands. ‘I know he was just a kid back then, but he’s not any more. In spite of what Mum said, he wants to be my dad. He can afford to help me, and I know he would want me to be the best that ever I can be. I know he would!’

  ‘Yes, he would,’ sighed Anya. ‘But, please, for his sake, try and put it to him diplomatically.’

  ‘As soon as I found out that Kate Carlyle was your cousin I knew you’d understand!’ Petra burst out, bouncing to her feet. ‘You think he should give me the money, too, don’t you?’

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t tell your father that!’

  ‘Don’t tell me what?’

  Scott, tall and intimidating in a dark pinstriped suit, had slipped in the door. The man had the most incredibly awful timing. He was always turning up when and where Anya least expected him.

  Petra grinned, unable to hide her hyped-up state, and Anya knew she was going to blow the whole thing wide open.

  ‘That I came over here to ask you to cough up for me to study at the best music school that I can get to accept me as a student!’

  Scott’s head whipped around to Anya, still sitting on the piano stool. ‘Is this your idea?’

  Petra shook her head emphatically, intercepting his steely look. ‘Nah, she only listened to me play and realised how good I am.’ It was said completely without boastfulness or irony. ‘She didn’t want me to hurt your feelings—like, make you feel all twisted up that the only reason I wanted to meet you is so that I could screw money out of you.’

  ‘And was it?’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ she admitted, lifting her pointed chin. ‘But that was before I met you…’

  ‘God knows why, but I find myself understanding that incredible piece of contorted reasoning,’ he murmured. ‘Ambitious, aren’t you?’

  Even though he wasn’t showing the glimmer of a smile, Petra heard the rueful pride in his voice and her cocky smile returned. ‘It’s in the genes.’

  ‘Like being cunning and conniving.’ He grinned back, and something inside Anya relaxed with a slithery sigh.

  He was tough, both inside and out, and, most fortunate of all for Petra, he was a realist and a consummate game-player himself. Conniving and lying he could understand—even respect—if it had an honourable purpose; it was hypocrisy which he despised. And Petra had never pretended to be anything other than what she was—his bold, wilful and outrageously different daughter.

  ‘I only learned to play the piano as an adult, so it’s impossible to compare any genetic similarity there. Exactly how much of a prodigy are you?’ he quizzed. ‘Whenever I suggested you play for me you acted like you weren’t in the mood or were too shy…’ And he would have been too wary of alienating her to insist, thought Anya, and secretly hurt that his daughter didn’t appear to want to share with him the one area in which she was an achiever at school.

  ‘Because that would have given the game away,’ Anya told him. ‘You would have instantly realised that she was holding out on you. Her sort of talent would turn “Chopsticks” into a bravura performance.’

  Petra immediately sat down and flipped up the keyboard, producing a sizzling set of variations on the simple, plunking rhythm that made them all laugh. She then segued into some Mozart, and her whole attitude changed, her head drooping, her face becoming tense and absorbed as she concentrated on the moving intensity of the difficult passage.

  When she at last folded her hands in her lap, Scott turned to Anya with a dazed look that reflected her own feelings when she had first heard Petra play.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked thickly.

  He already knew. The room was lined with rows of bookcases filled with books, but also an eclectic collection of records, tapes and CDs from country and western to a large block of classical recordings. So either Kate had lied about Scott saying he didn’t like classical music…or he had lied to Kate.

  ‘I think you should be proud of her. You have an extremely gifted child.’ His blue eyes were glittering as he struggled against an upsurge of emotion, moved not only by the music but by an overflowing sense of paternal pride. ‘And I think you and your daughter should talk about what she intends to do with her gift. Alone.’

  He and his daughter looked at each other and Anya held her breath. She wasn’t sure who moved first, but suddenly Scott and his daughter were hugging each other, and he was pressing a kiss on the top of her ruffled head, his eyes squeezed closed as his arms contracted around her skinny frame, burying her snuffling nose in his jacket. Anya swallowed a lump in her throat as she backed out of the door. This was no time for anything as mundane as schoolwork. It was the first time she had seen the pair of them spontaneously touch each other and knew that another important barrier had been breached—in the politically correct world it had become practically taboo for an older man to show physical affection towards an unrelated female child, and that was how they had both been acting. But now Scott and Petra were truly father and daughter, bonded in trust as well as in blood.

  She was wiping the moisture away from the corner of her eyes as she reached the front door and almost cannoned into a big, chestnut-haired woman coming up the front steps.

  She knew Joanna Monroe by sight from her volunteer work in the school’s tuck shop, but had got the impression she was a little stand-offish for all her air of bustling congeniality so she was taken aback when the woman lifted the sunglasses from her nose to reveal pale blue eyes and beamed her a wide, friendly smile.

  ‘Hello, Miss Adams. Or I suppose I should call you Anya now. Scott told me when I rang last week that you were helping him sort out his daughter’s problems. I must say, I was as mad as a wet hen when Gary insisted I go and play corporate wife on his conference trip just when Scott needed me! Of course, I knew he had a daughter, but none of us ever expected her to drop in unannounced like this, least of all Scott! I hope he’s not too shell-shocked, poor lamb, what with my two to look after as well. Not that they’re likely to give him much problem, and he does have Mrs Lee here six days a week—’ She had said it all with barely a pause for breath and as she hesitated to draw her second wind she noticed Anya’s repressed smile.

  ‘What? What did I say? Am I running on like an idiot?—sorry—I tend to do that. I’m sorry I never said hello to you before but I didn’t realise you and Scott were on such friendly terms.’ She gave Anya a disconcerting wink. ‘He did try and act close-mouthed on me but I can always winkle these things out of him, even though he got rather tangled up in his own tongue when he talked about you. He said you were infuriating but you made him laugh and I thought Oh, good, at last because it’s ages since
he’s had any real fun in his life. In his job everything is so depressing and serious, and Scott has such a highly developed sense of humour—well, you’d know that, wouldn’t you? It’s just a pity you’re related to that wretched woman—sorry, she’s your cousin and I know I shouldn’t say that—’

  ‘You mean Kate Carlyle?’ interrupted Anya, in fear that Joanna Monroe was never going to run down.

  ‘Yes, and I know I shouldn’t say any more because Scott will kill me but—well, one minute she’s cuddling up to him all lovey-dovey, and rabbiting on about giving up her career for him and the next—bang! She’s gone without a single word. Not even a Dear John letter to tell him why she went, just a note from her agent about a concert booking. She dumped poor Scott two weeks later by e-mail—e-mail, can you believe it!’

  Anya could, and she couldn’t.

  There was a pain in her chest so intense she could hardly breathe. Scott and Kate had had an affair?

  ‘Are you saying that Scott was in love with Kate?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about in love. Scott always plays his cards pretty close to his chest. But he must have been fairly deeply involved to be so devastated by her leaving. He virtually stopped dating for a whole year afterwards, and since then he’s never even come close to finding a suitable woman to marry. Sometimes I think he never will…’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘WHAT a coincidence, look who’s sitting over by the window—it’s Tyler with Heather Morgan. They must have arrived while I was ordering drinks. Why don’t I go over and say hello and see if they’d like to come and join us…?’

  Anya almost dropped the menu she had been studying, her body stiffening with horror, her eyes rigidly fixed on the man across the table. ‘No, Mark, please, I’d rather it was just us—I hardly know Miss Morgan—’

  But Mark was already getting to his feet, smiling and nodding in the direction she refused to look. ‘It’s too late now, they’ve seen me. Besides, you should see it as a chance to get to know her better. It’s good politics to be friendly with people like the Morgans…’