Out!

by JL Merrow

  “No, but he still acts like there’s nothing wrong with it.”

  Mum looked at him, took a breath like she was about to say something, then closed her mouth.

  “What?” Patrick asked a bit sharply.

  “Nothing, love. Want a biccy with that tea?”

  Patrick shook his head. He sipped his mum’s lukewarm tea, stared at a comedy rerun he’d seen twice already, and tried not to think about anything at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Mark hadn’t stayed at the pub long after Patrick had left. For a start, he’d found it extremely difficult to form a polite answer to Si’s attempt to offload his duties as the Spartans treasurer. Or to any other conversational overtures, for that matter.

  He walked home alone, feeling humiliated, and betrayed, and very, very angry. How could Patrick have spoken to him like that? In front of everyone? Hadn’t Mark just done what he’d been trained to do, to the best of his ability? Okay, so maybe his job hadn’t been as directly socially valuable as raising money for disabled people, but damn it, it wasn’t just a matter of taking money out of the country’s coffers and giving it to corporate fat cats. Those companies had shareholders, and some of them were those very same little old ladies sitting at home waiting for a hip operation. They had employees, whose jobs depended on the company making enough money not to decide to take their business to a country with laxer tax laws. He’d done nothing wrong, damn it.

  And he really wished he’d thought of all these arguments back in the pub.

  What would have been the use, though? Patrick hadn’t been listening to him—at least, not after the first, disastrous bit of overhearing. Which, by the way, was a fine way to go on for someone so supposedly moral—listening to other people’s private conversations.

  Mark walked on, cursing the clean streets one always seemed to see in the village. Where the hell was a discarded Coke can when he desperately needed something to kick?

  All right, fine, maybe the middle of a pub after a Spartans meeting wasn’t exactly private, but surely the decent thing to do was to announce one’s presence in some way, before the people holding the conversation said things they might have phrased a little differently—or not at all—if they’d realised who was listening?

  He reached his front door and let himself in quietly, mindful that Fen might, for whatever bizarre reason, have decided that tonight was the one night of the year she actually wanted to go to bed early.

  No such luck.

  “Dad?” Fen’s face, oddly young when scrubbed of makeup, looked down the stairs at him from halfway up. “Is it just you?”

  Mark tried to smile. “Why, hoping I’d run into David and brought him home, were you?”

  “Daa-aad. I know you’re not going to be bringing David round now you’re going out with Patrick. He’d be well jell.”

  Mark gritted his teeth. She’d have to know sooner or later. “Well, actually, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

  Fen stared. “What do you mean?”

  “We had a, well, a difference of opinion.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Apparently we have some fundamental disagreements about what’s an acceptable way to talk to someone you’re in a relationship with.” Fen’s eyes went wide, and Mark tried to even out his tone so as not to frighten her. But damn it, it was hard. “Apparently, Patrick thinks it’s just fine to rip apart my career choice in front of all our friends. Oh, and that I’m single-handedly responsible for all of society’s evils, but I suppose that goes without saying.”

  Fen stared at him some more. “Are you still going out with him?” she asked finally, in a very small voice.

  That was when it hit him. It was over. Over for good. “No,” he said, his voice no louder than hers.

  Fen’s face crumpled. “Why do you have to ruin everything? I hate you!”

  Mark stared as she ran back up to her room, leaving him alone with an emptiness that seemed to ache as it spread.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, thank God. Patrick sent a mental cheers, mate to the bloke upstairs. Not that the run would have been cancelled for anything short of an actual apocalypse, but good weather made a lot of things much, much easier. And a lot more pleasant.

  By the start time, eleven o’clock, the runners were not so much lined up as sort of milling around, chatting, but they were nearly all more or less in the right place. It’d do. Patrick took a moment to be frankly amazed how many people had turned up for what had started out as an idea over a pint and had turned into the biggest fundraising event he’d ever organised. Half the runners here were from Bishops Langley. Most of the people in that place liked to act as if they hadn’t even heard of Shamwell, let alone ever wanted to go there.

  Patrick nodded to his mum, who was waiting to start the race. She’d insisted on turning up in top-to-toe Lycra, even though she wasn’t actually running, but she looked pretty good in it, her figure just on the voluptuous side of slender that a lot of blokes seemed to go for. Patrick hoped it didn’t mean she was on the pull. With her usual luck, the bloke’d turn out to be a right waster, and they could do without both of them having disastrous love lives at the same time.

  Mum blew a piercing burst on the referee’s whistle she’d borrowed from the kiddies’ footie club chairman, and the first Shamwell Charity Fun Run was off.

  It wasn’t exactly the London Marathon, but it still took a fair bit of time for the last of the runners (Rob, shepherding all thirty-one of his class of seven-year-olds like a flock of brightly coloured, slightly more woolly-headed lambs, bless him) to make it over the starting line. Mum turned to Patrick with a big smile. “Well, the weather’s fine, there’s loads of people running, and the ice cream van turned up on time. It’s all going really—”

  Just as Patrick interrupted her with a hasty “Don’t jinx it!” there was a loud cry of Man down!

  Patrick groaned.

  Mum cringed. “Sorry, love. Still, look on the bright side, it’s probably not another broken leg.” She caught Patrick’s horrified look. “All right, shutting up now.”

  Patrick set off at a fast jog to where a small crowd, mostly consisting of children, was clustered around a figure on the ground barely three hundred yards from the start line. As he neared them, a girl of ten or so broke away from the group with a disgusted cry of “Come on, Charlie, it’s boring. There’s not even any blood.”

  That was a good sign. He hoped. At least he could see the man on the ground now.

  It was Mark. Patrick’s gut clenched up. “All right there?” he called.

  “Sorry,” Mark said, clutching his ankle. “Think I’ve sprained it. Great start, eh?”

  Patrick wasn’t prepared for the heady wash of relief that swept through him. For a moment there, he’d almost felt the horrible, twisting snap as his foot turned under him, and the searing agony of bone ripping through flesh. He couldn’t face Mark going through that… No. He was just relieved the bastard wasn’t seriously injured and likely to sue. All right, the event was insured anyway, but even so, that would have been the last sort of publicity SHARE needed. Yeah, that was it. He’d just been worried about SHARE.

  Patrick pasted on a sympathetic smile. “Nah, could have been worse. Trust me. Come on, let’s get you up.” It was weird, talking to the bloke again. Patrick hadn’t seen him since Friday night.

  He’d been busy. Preparations for the run, and all that. And okay, maybe it hadn’t all been strictly necessary, but you could never check stuff too many times, could you?

  He put out a hand, and after a moment, Mark grasped it. Together, they got him on his feet—well, foot, as he hissed in pain when he tried to put the other one down. “Think I’m going to need to sit this one out after all.”

  “No problem.” Patrick hesitated, then thought sod it and p
ut his arm around the man. “Come on, I’ll help you over to somewhere you can sit down.”

  It was like the three-legged pub crawl all over again. Only Mark was holding on to him even tighter, and instead of the buzz from flirting with a hot bloke he was pretty sure was into him, Patrick was queasy with the knowledge this was all he was ever likely to get.

  The safest place to go, at this end of the course, was back behind the start line. Patrick helped Mark back there, then glared at Barry until he shifted his arse off the folding chair he’d brought.

  After he’d eased Mark down onto the seat, he glared at Barry some more. “You’re not even supposed to be here, mate. You’re supposed to be marshalling on the turn into Carver Lane.”

  Barry’s brow furrowed. “You sure about that?”

  “Course I’m bloody sure. Why would we want a marshal right at the start?”

  “Uh… Oh, bloody hell. Not gonna get there now, though, am I? Shit, sorry about that.”

  “Nah, you’ll be fine. Just cut across the field and you’ll make it there before most of ’em.” Patrick gave him an evil grin. “Might wanna run, though.”

  It shouldn’t really have been so satisfying to watch Barry scurry across the field in a half jog, which was probably quicker than he’d moved in years. But, bloody hell, Patrick enjoyed the sight.

  Then he turned back to Mark. “You need anything? I’ll get the St. John’s Ambulance people to come over and have a look at you, but do you need a drink? Want me to find Fen?”

  Mark huffed a rueful laugh. “She was running ahead of me. Probably miles away by now. I’ll just wait for her to get round to the finish. You should get off and do what you need to do.”

  Patrick shrugged. “Not a lot to do right this minute. But I’ll get the St. John’s Ambulance guy over.” His feet didn’t seem to wanna move, though. It felt weird, just leaving Mark like this.

  There was a long pause.

  They both spoke at once, then broke off, embarrassed.

  “Look, I wanted to—”

  “Patrick, can we—”

  Mum put a hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “Why don’t you let me take care of Mark? Only there’s this bloke at the desk complaining the start time was put wrong in the parish newsletter. Thought you might want to deal with him yourself.”

  “Uh, Mum…” Patrick had a pretty good idea Mark would probably rather crock the other ankle as well than spend time with Mum.

  “It’ll be fine,” she said brightly. “Won’t it, Mark?”

  “Yes, that’s fine,” he said.

  Huh. It’d sounded sincere enough. True, it’d come out sounding pained, but then, the bloke was, actually, in pain.

  “You sure?” Patrick would’ve had to been a total bastard not to give him one last chance to back out of it.

  “Absolutely. You get off—you must have a million and one things to do.”

  Patrick nodded and jogged off. There was a shitty little part of him that was relieved.

  He still didn’t know what he wanted to say to Mark.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  After coming an ignominious cropper on the fun run, right in front of the one man he’d wanted to impress, Mark was heartily glad to limp through his own front door. Patrick’s mum, who’d insisted he call her Jen, settled him on the sofa with his foot up and a pack of frozen peas wrapped in a tea towel on his ankle. Then she made him a mug of tea and sat down with her own mug, facing him.

  Mark’s stomach gave a queasy lurch. He had a feeling he knew what was coming.

  Jen took a slurp of tea, then put her mug down very deliberately on the table. “You know, you’re not at all what I was expecting,” she said. “I mean, I know we haven’t spent a lot of time together, but I like to think I’m a good judge of a bloke.”

  It was a close-run thing, but Mark just about managed to turn his incredulous snort into a plausible cough. He’d heard plenty from Patrick on the subject of his mum’s taste in men.

  At any rate, her eyes narrowed only marginally before she went on. “Everyone was impressed with you at the SAPS meeting too. And not just ’cos you were the best-looking one there. You seem like a decent sort of bloke, willing to give up his time and muck in and help, and you’re pretty good at not putting people’s backs up while you do it, which, believe you me, is rarer than you think. So I’m wondering, how’s it all fit in? How come you’ve managed to upset my little boy so badly?”

  Upset? Did that mean Patrick was sad, like… Like Mark was? Or did it just mean he was angry? Which, for that matter, Mark probably still should be as well, except the sadness seemed to have smothered the anger, somehow. Mark wished to God Jen would be a little more precise with her words. He swallowed. “We just had a disagreement. A matter of principle.”

  “Mm. Heard.” She took another slurp of tea. “See, what you gotta understand about my boy is, he’s been under a lot of stress this last week or so. And he can get a bit worked up about his principles.”

  Mark shrugged helplessly. “He thinks my choice of career is immoral.” And had said so. Loudly. In front of all their friends. In the space of an evening, Mark had gone from man of the hour to villain of the piece. Even now, it hurt Mark to think about it, no matter how much his conscience told him it was just his pride that was bruised.

  “Well, maybe he has got one or two problems with what you used to do for a living. But I’ll tell you this, most of what he said to you, he regretted by the time he got home. His dad was like that,” she said unexpectedly. “’Cept he’d lash out with fists, not words. He may have been dealt a rough hand, my Patrick, and in more than one way, but he does a bloody good job with what he’s got, and he never takes the easy way out.”

  She stood up. “Now, anything else you need, or can I get back to make sure my little boy’s not having another crisis?”

  “I’ll be fine, thank you.” Mark was suddenly desperate to be left alone. He needed to think. Was it possible she was right? That his choice of career wasn’t the absolute deal-breaker for Patrick it’d seemed? The depression that had settled on him through the Patrick-less weekend was pierced by a tiny shoot of hope.

  “You know, I could probably borrow you a walking stick,” Jen said, picking up her mug. “Help you get around a bit easier.

  Mark winced. What would she suggest next? Carpet slippers and a place in a bloody retirement home?

  Jen sighed. “But I can tell you’re gonna do the typical man thing and insist on managing without. If you change your mind, call me.”

  Mark decided not to remind her that he didn’t have her number. “Thank you.”

  “Or you could always call Patrick.” Smiling, she left.

  * * * * *

  Fen didn’t turn up for hours. And although he knew there was a barbecue after the run, and hadn’t expected her back for lunch, he had expected her back rather earlier than their normal teatime.

  “Darling, you’re back.” Mark didn’t manage to keep the relief out of his voice, but then, he wasn’t trying all that hard.

  She frowned at him. “What’s wrong with your leg?”

  The peas had thawed hours ago, so he’d made do by keeping his foot elevated with the damp tea towel draped over his ankle. “I twisted my ankle.”

  “Oh, Daa-aad. How far did you get?”

  “About a hundred yards. I take it your race went a bit better?”

  “Yeah, I got a really good time. I was nearly under an hour, and we got held up going over the stile. One of Lex’s mates fell off it and landed in a cowpat, it was dead funny. I mean, they weren’t hurt or nothing. Just really smelly.”

  “Anything,” Mark corrected absently. “You were with Lex? I don’t remember seeing Lex there.”

  “No, they were on the finish.” That’d been the other end of the field in which they’d started the race. “But Kai was running.”r />
  “Kai? Is that a girl or a boy?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Daa-aad. What’s for tea?”

  Mark gave up. “Whatever you’re cooking, with me laid up like this.”

  Her face lit up. “Yay! Pizza!”

  What with her now apparently no longer hating him, Mark had been hoping for a cosy evening together in front of the telly. He’d even suggested a DVD, when she gave him a shifty look and said she “had” to go out.

  “Go where?”

  “To see Lex,” she said, not meeting his eye. “I’ll only be an hour.”

  Mark looked at his watch. It was only seven o’clock now, so he supposed that wasn’t unreasonable. “See that you are.”

  “Whatev’s,” Fen said airily. She jammed on her Doc Martens and slammed out of the house.

  Mark was left to think dark thoughts about who this Kai might be, and how on earth he could find out without actually stalking his daughter.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Patrick was all kinds of knackered when he finally got home after the medal presentations, the barbecue and the unavoidable clear-up. He’d been buzzing all through it, though, lifted by all the smiles he saw and the congratulations people kept chucking his way.

  Walking through his front door, the crash hit. He barely had the energy to trudge to the sofa and collapse on it.

  Mum gave him a smile and a hug. She’d helped for a while with the clear-up, but he’d sent her home after a bit ’cos it was his job, not hers. “Hungry?”

  About to say no, Patrick was surprised to realise he was absolutely bloody ravenous. Come to think of it, he never had managed to get to the barbecue to get some lunch. “Starving. Any chance of a sarnie?”

  “Course, love. You did a really good job today,” she added, heading out to the kitchen. The smell of bacon cooking drifted in soon afterwards, making Patrick’s stomach practically turn itself inside out, it was rumbling so hard.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” he groaned when she came back in with a large plate of bacon butties.