The Older Man

by Laurey Bright

  Her stockinged foot slid painfully from its perch, and she lost her balance, falling against a solid male chest. Her hair was blowing wildly, and she was breathless with shock. There was a bruising grip on her arm and an awful lot of noise. She heard someone say, “What’s going on?” And someone else shouting, “Look at my car! Didja have to stop like that? No signal or anything — “

  And then a familiar voice said loudly, “She was going to jump, you fool! There wasn’t time to signal.”

  She shook the hair out of her eyes and stared up in stupefaction at Grant Morrison’s white, scowling face. “No…” she said, but her voice was drowned by the aggrieved car owner, soon joined by a couple of others, one of them contending that he had been following too close anyway, and another taking his side.

  Grant cut them all short. “I’ll pay for the damage,” he said. “Here’s my card. Send me the bill.” He was still holding onto Rennie’s arm, and when she tried to ease away, he increased his grip until it hurt.

  “We’re holding up the traffic,” he said. “Get in my car.”

  “I can’t,” she protested.

  His teeth gritted, he said, “Get — in!”

  Rennie gaped at him. In all her life, no one had ever spoken to her in that tone. She had seldom seen anyone look so furious.

  She had a sudden, stupid desire to cry. “I can’t! My scarf is over there, and it might cause another accident if it blows down on the roadway, and I’ve only got one boot!”

  A few people had gathered about, some asking questions that Grant ignored and Rennie was too shocked to answer. He pushed her toward his car and opened the door. “Get in,” he repeated, and she did.

  He slammed the door behind her, giving her a look that conveyed starkly, “Stay there, or else!” Then he said something that made the small crowd that had gathered melt away, and strode over to the parapet, stooping across it easily and whisking the scarf up in his fingers. He picked up her boot and, when he had returned to the driver’s seat, handed it to her with elaborate courtesy.

  The other driver had backed his car off with a slight scraping of metal. Grant put his into gear and moved on carefully, his face set like a stone mask.

  Rennie found she was shaking as she replaced her boot. The scarf she folded and pushed into her jacket pocket. “How,” she asked, “did you come to be there?”

  “I sometimes come home this way. Luckily for you.”

  “Not really,” she said carefully. “It wasn’t what you — “

  “You may not think so right now,” he interrupted, “but you’ll live to thank me, believe me.”

  “For getting my scarf? Thank you.”

  He misinterpreted the irony in her voice. “We both know that isn’t what I meant.” Not even looking at her, he said, “Have you tried anything like that before?”

  “No, I haven’t! What I was — “

  “He’s not worth it,” Grant said. “No man is. For heaven’s sake,” he said tightly, “don’t you realise this is just a phase you’re going through? You’re an intelligent girl. And a beautiful one. Your family’s successful, and seems happy — you’ve had all the advantages. You have so much to look forward to, what you were about to do was not only spineless and pathetic, it was criminally wasteful.”

  She twisted in her seat to look at him. “I’m sorry if I gave you a fright. And about your car, and the other one. But you didn’t have to rescue me, you know. You do seem to have a Sir Galahad complex, Mr Morrison. If you’d just minded your own business — “

  He turned on her for an instant and said one word that made her mouth fall open. Then he swung the car into a corner and drove along a narrow, sloping side street lined with verandahed colonial houses and overhanging plane trees, before coming to a jarring stop.

  “Listen to me,” he said as he turned to face her, his eyes alight with temper. “You ungrateful little … idiot! You don’t have a monopoly on heartbreak, you know. Most of us have had our share. Celeste, for instance. Her first husband drove his car over a cliff.”

  Rennie gasped. “I didn’t know that! Poor Celeste!”

  “Yes, poor Celeste. I expect she still wonders if she could have prevented it, if it was her fault. Is that what you wanted to do to Ethan? Make him spend his life being sorry he didn’t fall in love with you?”

  “That isn’t what I — “

  “Then what did you want? It’s a very stupid and final way to get attention, Rennie. A childish, immature ruse to make people sorry they weren’t nicer to you. The thing is, you won’t be around to see them being sorry. So it won’t do you much good, will it?”

  “Oh, do stop yelling at me!” Rennie said, although he hadn’t been yelling exactly. “If you’d just listen for a change — you’re not very good at that, are you?” Reminded of the last time they had met, she added indignantly, “I did ask if I could talk to you, remember, but you didn’t want to know, then! So why all the sudden concern now?” If she had been genuinely suicidal, she thought resentfully, his brush-off might have been just what sent her over the edge.

  To her surprise, his whole manner changed. He flushed, she saw his hand tighten on the wheel, and he looked away for a minute. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry, Rennie. I didn’t take you seriously enough. I guess I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be as young as you are.”

  He was back on that tack again, she thought, harping on her youth and inexperience. Still, after an apology like that he deserved to be let off the hook, she supposed. She had better explain, and from the beginning.

  But then he put a hand on her hair, pushing the tangled mane from her face, and smiled at her. And she felt his fingers brush her cheek, and totally forgot what she was about to say.

  How extraordinary! she thought, blinking at him. She saw something in his eyes that she was not too young to recognise, and felt a quick pleasure.

  Then he dropped his hand and moved back a little. “If you want to talk,” he said, “I’m available any time. But I haven’t done too well so far, have I? Perhaps you should see a counsellor … a professional of some sort.”

  Rennie swallowed an acute sense of disappointment. He was very carefully not looking her. He had felt that same flare of awareness that she had, but had decided not to do anything about it. She said huskily, “You’re passing the buck. If you don’t want to see me any more, why don’t you just say so? To my face.”

  He knew what she meant, but when he turned to her his eyes were quite cool, the flame of desire deliberately doused. “I’ve said I’m available,” he told her after a moment. “The offer stands, if you want to take it up.”

  She wanted him to touch her again, to see if that frisson of pure pleasure would return. Her heart was still thumping with the sheer surprise of it. But he wouldn’t, and she daren’t take the initiative herself. She moistened her bottom lip with her tongue. “I want to,” she said. “When?”

  He seemed to hesitate. “Tomorrow,” he said. “We could have dinner together. Somewhere quiet, where we can talk.”

  “I’ll pay my share,” she offered.

  “Don’t be silly. You’re a student and I’m a fairly successful solicitor. Do you think I’m going to take you out and let you pay for your own dinner?”

  “Are you taking me out?” she challenged him.

  Again he hesitated. “We’re going out. So that we can talk. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  She wanted to ask what he wanted. But he obviously wasn’t to be drawn. Don’t push it, she told herself. That was her besetting sin, her family had often told her. Rushing in where angels feared, and all that. Something told her that in spite of his propensity for jumping to unwarranted conclusions where she was concerned, Grant was not a man to be rushed. She smiled at him, all innocence. “Yes,” she said. “Thank you, Mr Morrison.” She couldn’t resist the small revenge.

  “Grant,” he said curtly. “You don’t have to call me mister.”

  She refused to let him pick her
up from home. He didn’t object very strenuously to meeting her in town. In fact he looked, she thought, slightly relieved. Rennie told her mother she had a late lecture and might stay in town for supper. If Marian assumed the addition ‘with friends’ Rennie absolved herself of any obligation to disillusion her.

  Rennie did have a late lecture that evening, but she skipped it. There really wasn’t any reason not to tell her parents she was having dinner with Grant Morrison, but she remembered her father’s unease when Ethan had commented on Grant’s age. And she could hardly tell them that she was supposedly using him as a shoulder to cry on over her non-existent unrequited love.

  He picked her up outside the friend’s flat where she had changed from her jeans and sweatshirt into a dark red silk velvet skirt and loose, heavy cream lace top, and replaced her boots with medium-heeled court shoes. She disliked really high heels because they restricted her free-swinging walk. She was watching for the car, and ran out to it with a black velvet jacket slung over her shoulder and a bag containing her daytime clothes in her hand.

  “Can I put this in the back?” she asked him. “I had to change.”

  He took it from her and put it on the rear seat. “You look very nice,” he said perfunctorily, as if talking to a child who had asked him to admire her pretty dress, and opened the door for her.

  “It wasn’t a hint,” Rennie muttered resentfully as he closed it after her. She watched him get into his seat, her eyes steady and considering.

  He gave her an enquiring smile, and said with a tinge of heartiness, “Well, do you have any preferences as to where you’d like to go? As it’s a week night, I didn’t bother booking.”

  Oh, so that’s the way of it, is it? Rennie thought. Well, if you’re going to humour the little girl, you can humour her good and proper. Tentatively, she mentioned what she knew perfectly well was one of the most expensive restaurants in Auckland. “I’ve never been there. I’ve heard it’s good,” she said, “but a bit dear. Perhaps we’d better go somewhere else?”

  “No, no.” He hadn’t noticeably blenched. “If that’s what you fancy, that’s where we’ll go.”

  She restrained an impulse to bounce on the seat, clap her hands and exclaim, “Oh, goody!” Even a man as obtuse as Grant appeared to be might smell a rat if she overdid things to that extent.

  The restaurant was on the top floor of a large hotel. Large windows gave a spectacular view of the Waitemata Harbour. A container ship was making its way slowly to the nearby wharves, smaller fishing boats and a few pleasure launches and sailboats dotted the water, and on the North Shore, across the green expanse, lights pricked on here and there at the approach of darkness. Rangitoto, the island volcano, raised its gentle slopes in the distance.

  Grant secured them a table in a quiet corner. It might have been because he imagined she would want to unburden herself in relative privacy, Rennie acknowledged fairly, but she couldn’t help wondering if he was embarrassed to be seen with her. He acted like an uncle treating a favourite niece to a night out. And to give him credit he didn’t flicker an eyelid when she ordered rock lobster with lemon butter, the most expensive dish on the menu. He just said, “The same for me,” and handed the menu back to the waiter.

  Rennie toyed with her wine glass, which the waiter had filled with champagne before bringing the menus. She had pretended to know nothing about wine, and Grant had ordered a Martinborough Chardonnay — a New Zealand white that was a gold medal winner.

  “You like seafood?” he asked her as they waited.

  “Love it,” Rennie answered. “You don’t mind that I ordered the rock lobster?” She injected a faint note of anxiety into the question.

  “I’m having it, too,” he reminded her. “I think our seafood must be the best in the world.”

  “Have you travelled much?”

  “A bit. England, America, Australia, of course. And a few side trips on the way to and from.”

  “Ethan said you’d been on one of his brother’s expeditions to New Guinea.”

  “Years ago, in the days of my youth.”

  “I’ve been to Sydney a couple of times, but that’s all. Tell me about your trips.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  He kept her entertained right through the main course, answering questions and, quickly identifying her areas of interest, expanding on his descriptions of different ways of life and the more out-of-the-way places he had visited.

  When the sweets arrived on a trolley she chose a mocha cake while he asked for a cheese board. Cutting into a creamy round of locally produced Brie, he said, “I’m talking too much. Your turn.”

  “I haven’t so much to talk about,” she said. “School, university. That’s all I’ve done.”

  “Your family,” he said. “I could see at the wedding that you’re a close-knit lot. You get on well with your brother, don’t you?”

  “Mostly, yes. We used to have the odd spat when we were younger. But Shane’s reasonably intelligent, and we talk quite a bit. He’s not a bad kid.”

  She caught the amusement in his expression, but he didn’t comment. She sighed. It wasn’t hard to read his thoughts.

  “Your mother seems a pretty accessible lady,” he said. “But you haven’t confided in her?”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him she could confide anything in her mother. “Oh,” she mumbled, taking refuge in another bite of her cake, “she’s pretty busy you know.” She picked up her wine glass and swallowed a mouthful. “She’s a legal executive in Dad’s law practice, and president of Volunteer Drivers for the Disabled, and she’s on lots of committees. And the house is usually full of people. She and Dad are always inviting someone — well, so do Shane and I. They’ve always encouraged us to bring our friends home. But it’s hard to get a chance to talk in private, if you know what I mean. Do you think we could have coffee now? This cake is delicious, but I’d love some coffee with it.”

  That last hasty sip had made her realise that she had drunk quite a lot of wine, including the champagne. Coffee seemed a good idea, not only to distract Grant while she tried to decide what to tell him when the inevitable time for confidences arrived, but also to steady her surroundings.

  When the coffee was put in front of them, Grant said, “Well, you wanted to talk.”

  Panic set in. Rennie looked down, her chin resting on one hand while the other fiddled with a spoon. “Er, it’s not that easy,” she floundered. “In cold blood, so to speak.” Hastily she picked up her coffee.

  “It’s what we’re here for.”

  She ought to tell him he was barking up the wrong tree. Here he was, waiting for her to speak, the perfect opportunity. He had just given her a superb dinner that was going to make a considerable hole in his pocket. It was ridiculous to feel disappointed that he was doing it from avuncular kindheartedness and a sense of conscience. Her own conscience told her that she ought to confess her deception now, before she got herself in any deeper. It was unfair to take advantage of the man because he was sorry for her.

  She gazed about the room for inspiration, and saw nearby a couple holding hands across the table, smiling at each other. Unexpectedly, she felt sadness take hold of her, and she looked at Grant, who was studying her, his eyes filled with compassion.

  She blinked, shaking her head.

  His hand swiftly covered hers on the table, and he said, “Rennie — “

  The waiter appeared at his elbow. “Everything all right, sir?”

  Grant withdrew his hand immediately, and sat back. “Fine, thank you. Would you bring the bill, please. Unless you want anything else, Rennie?”

  Rennie declined. She was chagrined and angry at the way he had released her hand. It was nothing for him to be ashamed of, for heaven’s sake! And she had liked the feel of his warm palm against her skin, his fingers beginning to curl about hers. His hands were long and strong, and looked sensitive…

  She shook her head again. Too much wine, for sure. She said, “You wa
nt to go?”

  “Only if you do,” he answered. “It strikes me this isn’t the best place to talk, after all. Particularly if it’s going to upset you.”

  He didn’t want to be seen sitting at a table with a weeping young woman. Rennie almost laughed then. That would make him feel uncomfortable. Discomfort, she diagnosed, didn’t sit easily with Grant Morrison. He liked to be in control.

  When they left the restaurant she was still vaguely simmering. On impulse she said, “Let’s walk.” The night air and some exercise might dispel her admittedly unreasonable sense of anger and frustration, and give her the courage to tell him the truth, a task that seemed more impossible by the minute.

  They were not very far from the waterfront, and by tacit consent they headed in that direction, past the railway station and along Tamaki Drive, where the dark waters of the Waitemata lapped at the stones along the foreshore and reflected the lights of the city. The night was cool but clear and dry, and what wind there had been during the day had died now.

  “Am I going too fast?” Grant asked her once.

  “No.” Rennie shook her head. “I like a decent pace.”

  He smiled down at her and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. “Good. So do I.”

  Eventually they stopped and leaned over a railing, listening to the water chuckling and slapping amongst the stones, and watching the coloured ripples made by the lights. Rennie raised a hand to push back her hair, and Grant shifted his arm to put it round her, his hand cupping her shoulder.

  She turned her head to him, found him gazing out at the water, and waited until he looked down at her, waited for the flare of awareness in his eyes. And it came. She held her breath. His hand tightened, and then he dropped it, leaning back on the railing apparently casually. “Ready now?” he said.

  Rennie was experiencing a sharp sense of disappointment. “Ready?” she repeated blankly. “For what?”

  “To talk about Ethan,” he said levelly. “Tell me about it.”