The Good Father

by Maggie Kingsley

  ‘There’s nothing wrong,’ Maddie protested, and her cousin gave her a very hard stare.

  ‘Yeah, right, so how come you’re standing there, looking like you didn’t get a wink of sleep last night—’

  ‘Charlie was restless.’

  ‘Wearing what has to be your oldest and tattiest sweatshirt and jeans—’

  ‘I don’t see why I should dress up for a visit from Gabriel Dalgleish.’

  ‘Almost as though…’ Nell’s eyes narrowed. ‘Almost as though you’re deliberately trying to make yourself look as unattractive as possible. Why are you trying to make yourself look unattractive?’

  ‘Nell…’

  ‘He’s hitting on you, isn’t he?’ Nell said, her face suddenly dangerous with anger. ‘The arrogant bastard’s hitting on you, and you don’t want to knock him back in case you lose your job—’

  ‘He’s not hitting on me,’ Maddie interrupted, then flushed slightly as her cousin gave her an I-don’t-believe-you look. ‘Well, he is—sort of.’

  ‘What do you mean, sort of?’ her cousin demanded. ‘How can you sort of hit on somebody?

  ‘He keeps looking at me. I know that sounds really dumb and stupid,’ Maddie continued quickly, as Nell stared at her, ‘but you know how sometimes you can meet a man, and he looks at you, and somehow you can’t look away? Well, that’s how it is with Gabriel and me. He keeps looking at me, and when he does, my heart…it does this stupid little back flip and I get…I get these weird feelings and thoughts about him.’

  ‘Oh, Maddie, why can’t you just feel fear and loathing like the rest of us?’ Nell groaned.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Maddie retorted. ‘I don’t know why he makes me feel the way I do, but it’s OK. I can handle it. I am handling it.’

  ‘By wearing your oldest clothes?’ Nell’s voice was heavy with scorn. ‘Maddie, if you’re exchanging hot looks with Gabriel, he won’t notice if you’re wearing a bin bag.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘What is it with you and your attraction to men who are users and takers?’ her cousin demanded. ‘You’re smart, you’re sassy, and if anybody hurt or upset Charlie or Susie you’d tear them limb from limb, but when it comes to yourself you’re a complete pushover.’

  ‘I know—I know. Which is why this…this thing between Gabriel and me—whatever it is—is going to stop, and stop now,’ Maddie said firmly.

  ‘You mean it?’ Nell said, scanning her face. ‘I know you must think I’m awful—sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted—but I don’t want you to get hurt again. I…’ Her cousin shook her head, her eyes very bright. ‘I love you, you dope, and I remember what you were like after Andrew, and I couldn’t bear for you to go through that again.’

  I don’t want to go through it again either, Maddie thought as Nell reluctantly left for work. The minute Gabriel had made his apology she was going to show him the door, and then she’d take Charlie to the Botanic Gardens. Susie wouldn’t want to come, since she’d developed a teenager’s total aversion to sunlight and would spend the whole day holed up in her bedroom, listening to her CDs, but she’d take Charlie to the gardens and walk in the early June sunshine, and not think about Gabriel Dalgleish at all.

  ‘The dweeb’s arrived,’ Susie called, and Maddie chuckled as she heard the front doorbell ring.

  Her niece must have been watching out for Gabriel from her upstairs bedroom and it was just as well he wasn’t coming to apologise to her. If he had been, she would have been scraping bits of Gabriel off the wall for weeks.

  Got to be more like Susie, she thought as she walked down the hallway. Definitely got to be more like Susie, she told herself when she opened the door and saw Gabriel standing on the doorstep, looking sexier than she would have thought possible in a blue open-necked shirt and hip-hugging black cords, and more nervous than any man who looked as good as he did had any need to be.

  ‘Am I too early?’ he said, clearly misinterpreting her slack-jawed silence.

  ‘No—please—come in,’ she managed to reply. ‘You’re right on time.’

  Right on time and she wished she was wearing something pretty, something nice, instead of looking like a bag lady.

  No, she didn’t. Dressing down was sensible. Dressing down was good, and so was the briefcase he was carrying. It meant he must be going on to the hospital after speaking to Charlie so his visit was going to be a short one. It couldn’t be short enough as far as she was concerned.

  ‘Charlie’s in the sitting room,’ she said, leading the way down the hall. ‘He seems OK about your visit, but…’ But not OK enough to have put away his construction toy as she’d asked, she noticed when she opened the sitting-room door to find Charlie sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by the bits and pieces of the bridge he was working on. ‘Charlie, Mr Dalgleish is here. I told you he was coming, if you remember,’ she added, when her nephew didn’t lift his head.

  ‘I remember,’ Charlie muttered, or at least Maddie thought that was what he’d muttered. With his head bent over the model of the Golden Gate bridge, it was hard to tell.

  ‘OK, I’ll leave the two of you to it, shall I?’ she said, and saw Gabriel’s mouth fall open.

  ‘But I thought—I expected—you’d stay,’ he said, and she shook her head.

  ‘I think it’s better if I leave the two of you alone together, don’t you? I’ll be right next door in the kitchen if you need anything.’

  She was gone before Gabriel could say anything. Gone before he could say, Please, don’t leave me. What if I screw up again? And I just know I’m going to screw up again.

  Oh, get a grip, Gabriel, he told himself as he stared at Charlie’s lowered head. You’re thirty-six years old, not twelve, so stop standing here like a big dummy. Get on with it.

  ‘Charlie, I’m very sorry for what I said about your story,’ he began. ‘It was a stupid thing to say—a really dumb thing to say—and I was wrong, completely and utterly wrong.’

  Silence was his only reply, and Gabriel felt a wave of panic wash over him. Why wouldn’t the boy look at him—say something to him? Even ‘Get stuffed’ would have been better than this awful silence. It was all going wrong—his carefully rehearsed apology was all going wrong—but how could you apologise to someone who wouldn’t even acknowledge your presence, make eye contact with you?

  In desperation he opened his briefcase and took out a wrapped package.

  ‘I…I bought this for you, Charlie,’ he said. ‘It’s for your Game Boy. Your aunt said you liked games and I—well, I figured you could never have too many games.’ Still Charlie didn’t look up and Gabriel pulled the wrapping paper off the game. ‘I don’t know if you have this one, but if you do I can get it exchanged.’

  For a long second he thought Charlie was going to continue to ignore him, then the boy lifted his head, stared at the game he was holding out to him, and said, ‘I don’t have that one.’

  ‘And you’ll accept it from me?’ Gabriel said.

  Charlie shrugged. ‘If you want,’ he said, but he didn’t take it.

  ‘I’ll put it down here on the coffee table, then, shall I?’ Gabriel said, feeling a trickle of sweat run down his back. Lord, but he was never going to dread fundraising meetings ever again. They were a walkover compared to this. ‘Charlie, I…I truly am sorry for what I said. My parents…they never praised me when I was young. I wanted them to, but they never did, and I should have remembered how hurtful that was.’

  ‘My parents are dead.’

  Oh, hell, he was making a complete pig’s ear of this.

  ‘You must miss them a lot,’ Gabriel said awkwardly, and when Charlie didn’t answer he hunkered down beside him. ‘Charlie, your mum and dad were very special people. So is your aunt.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Maybe…maybe your Aunt Maddie might let me take you to a…’ Damnation. What did boys of Charlie’s age like? ‘…football match as an extra apology for me being so stupid.’

  ‘I prefer
rugby.’

  ‘A rugby match, then,’ Gabriel said. ‘I could get tickets for one of the Six Nation Championship matches, and we could maybe go to a game next weekend—’

  ‘The matches are all played in the winter,’ Charlie interrupted, and Gabriel swore under his breath.

  Of course they were. Could he get nothing right?

  ‘Charlie—’

  ‘I need to get this bridge finished.’

  He’d been dismissed. Charlie might not have said ‘Go away’, but he might just as well have done.

  Well, what the hell did you expect? his mind whispered as he picked up his briefcase and backed out of the sitting room. That you and Charlie would end up having one of those big tearful hugs you see in the movies? This is real life, Gabriel, not the movies.

  ‘How did it go?’ Maddie said the minute he walked into the kitchen.

  He would have told her the truth—that he thought he’d screwed up again—but she wasn’t alone. Susie was with her, perched on the kitchen table, her brown eyes alert and watchful, and he managed a smile.

  ‘OK, I think.’

  ‘And you apologised?’ Maddie asked. ‘You said you were the one at fault?’

  He nodded, saw her relax slightly, then her eyes fell on his briefcase.

  ‘I thought you had today off?’ she said, and he felt a tide of uncomfortable colour creep up the back of his neck.

  He never used to think twice about dumping work on Fiona at the weekend, but now he knew he should have.

  ‘Do you remember Duncan Lindsay?’

  ‘The man who was interested in publishing an article you’ve written on retinopathy in preemies?’ She nodded.

  ‘I had an email from him last night, and he needs my article by two o’clock today so I was wondering…I know it’s a lot to ask on your day off, but could you type it out for me?’

  He saw the momentary dismay in her eyes, then she straightened her shoulders.

  ‘Of course I can. How long is it?’

  ‘About five thousand words. I know my handwriting’s not the easiest in the world to read—’ actually his handwriting was atrocious ‘—but do you think you can do it in time?’

  ‘I could probably get it done in an hour and a half if nobody interrupted me, but…’

  ‘But?’ he prompted.

  ‘What my aunt doesn’t want to say is Charlie and I always fight if we’re cooped up in the house together,’ Susie declared, ‘so a one-and-a-half-hour job is more likely to take three hours.’

  Gabriel glanced across at Maddie. ‘Is she right?’

  ‘She’s exaggerating,’ Maddie said, shooting her niece a fulminating glance. ‘I’m sure I can finish—’

  ‘You know, I’ve just had an absolutely brilliant idea,’ Susie said, making her eyes so big and innocent that all of Gabriel’s mental warning lights ignited. ‘If Mr Dalgleish took Charlie to the park, you’d be able to get his article typed up in no time.’

  ‘Me take Charlie to the park?’ Gabriel said, trying not to look appalled.

  ‘Could you?’ Maddie asked, her face hopeful. ‘It would be such a help, and you wouldn’t have to do anything. Just kick a ball about with him as you used to do when you were a kid.’

  Which was fine in theory, Gabriel thought, but not if you’d never kicked a ball about in your life. When he’d been a child there’d been school during the day, homework in the evening, and at the weekend his childminder had ferried him to the library or a museum. Never once had he simply kicked a ball about.

  ‘I don’t know where the nearest park is,’ he lied, and Susie smiled, a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth smile.

  ‘The Botanic Gardens are just round the corner, and I could come with you, make sure you don’t get lost.’

  ‘You want to go, Susie?’ Maddie said with a look that told Gabriel that Susie wouldn’t normally put one foot in front of the other if she could avoid it. ‘But won’t you be bored?’

  ‘Of course I won’t,’ Susie said, beaming at Gabriel. ‘In fact, I’m sure I’ll find it very interesting.’

  ‘Well, in that case…’ Maddie said, and Gabriel pasted a smile to his lips as she reached for Charlie’s jacket.

  How the hell had he got himself into this? Gabriel wondered as he strode through the gates leading into the Botanic Gardens. When he’d got up that morning all he’d had to worry about had been apologising to Charlie and asking Maddie to type out his article. He’d pictured himself making the apology—successfully, of course—then he’d imagined himself spending the rest of the morning ferrying Maddie cups of coffee, perhaps laughing with her over his appalling handwriting, and hopefully, if he found the right moment, he’d planned to ask her out. Now he had a football under his arm, a small boy trailing disconsolately beside him, and a teenager watching his every move like a mini FBI agent.

  ‘Why don’t we go into the Kibble Palace?’ he suggested as the great glass house loomed into view. ‘I understand it has a most interesting display of exotic plants.’

  ‘We know.’ Susie sniffed. ‘Aunt Maddie used to take us there when we were kids.’

  And now you’re fourteen, going on forty-five, Gabriel thought grimly.

  ‘How about feeding the squirrels, then?’ he said. ‘There’s a man over there selling nuts—’

  ‘We know,’ Susie said. ‘Aunt Maddie used—’

  ‘To do that with you when you were kids,’ Gabriel finished for her. ‘Look, it’s a beautiful day. Why don’t we just walk about the gardens, look at the flowers and trees?’

  ‘Do you know any of their names?’ Susie demanded, and Gabriel coloured slightly.

  ‘Well, no, but—’

  ‘I thought we were going to kick a ball about,’ Charlie interrupted, and Gabriel groaned inwardly.

  If he’d been asked to organise a game of football between a bunch of kids, he could have managed that. He would simply have picked two teams, set up some goals, then supervised to make sure nobody injured themselves, but how could you spend an hour and a half kicking a ball about? Nobody could.

  Awkwardly he backed up a few metres, put the football he was carrying on the ground, then kicked it to where Charlie was standing. Swiftly Charlie kicked it back, and Gabriel returned it, but this time his aim went wide and it rolled past Charlie and came to rest at the foot of one of the beech trees.

  ‘You’re not very good at this, are you?’ Susie said, her face contemptuous.

  A hot flush of angry colour darkened Gabriel’s cheeks. She was right, damn it, but why was he failing—and failing so spectacularly—to deal with this stroppy teenager and her brother? He was a highly educated man, a neonatologist who had written three books on the care and management of premature babies, and yet when faced with Charlie and Susie he was as much at sea as a first-year medical student.

  It was all Maddie’s fault, he decided, striding stiff-backed to retrieve the ball. She’d given these kids far much too much freedom, far too much licence, but as shrieks of laughter suddenly split the air, and he glanced round to see a father pretending to be a gorilla for the benefit of his two children, he knew it wasn’t Maddie’s fault. Charlie and Susie were just two ordinary kids and yet he hadn’t a clue how to deal with them.

  Maybe it was something you were born with, he thought as he positioned the ball on the ground, something you knew instinctively. Maybe it was something you learned from watching your own parents. Whatever it was, he’d been judged, and found wanting, and it wasn’t an experience he was used to. It wasn’t an experience he liked, and because of that he kicked the ball back to Charlie with far greater force than he’d intended, only to watch in horror as it sailed wide, ricocheted off the oak tree to Charlie’s right, banged into the beech tree a few yards in front, then bounced back, sending Maddie’s nephew flying.

  ‘Oh, my God, Charlie, are you OK?’ he said, running up to him in panic.

  ‘You did that deliberately,’ Susie shrieked, fury plain in her large brown eyes as she knelt down besi
de her brother. ‘I saw you. You deliberately knocked him down.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Gabriel protested, all too aware that people were beginning to stare. ‘Charlie—Charlie, are you OK?’

  ‘Of course I am,’ the boy said breathlessly, shrugging off his sister’s hands and getting to his feet. ‘I’m not hurt—just winded.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Gabriel said, staring into Charlie’s eyes. His pupils were both the same size, and he was breathing a lot easier now, but even so…‘Look the Belfield’s A and E department is just up the road—’

  ‘I am fine,’ Charlie insisted, ‘but, boy, have you got a mean right foot.’

  ‘I’ve got a mean right…?’ Gabriel echoed. ‘Charlie—’

  ‘Can you show me how you did that? Managed to get the ball to bounce off those two trees?’

  He wasn’t joking, and Gabriel didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He could have maimed the boy and yet there was real admiration in Charlie’s blue eyes, real enthusiasm.

  ‘It was just a fluke, Charlie,’ he said, but Charlie shook his head.

  ‘No, it wasn’t—I’m sure it wasn’t. Can you try to do it again? I don’t want you to hit me this time, of course,’ he added quickly, ‘but I want to see how you did that, then see if I can do it, too.’

  ‘Well, I can try,’ Gabriel said, reaching out to retrieve the ball. As he walked back to where he’d been standing, he saw Susie roll her eyes in an I-don’t believe-this look.

  ‘Oh, Aunt Maddie, I wish you’d been there,’ Charlie said, his blue eyes gleaming, his small face alight with achievement. At first I couldn’t do it—not the way Gabe did—’

  ‘Gabe?’ she interrupted, glancing across at Gabriel, her eyes dancing, and Gabriel shrugged and wanted to tell her he didn’ t give a damn what Charlie called him, but Charlie was still talking.

  ‘The ball kept hitting just the one tree. It took me ages to get the ball at the right angle—’

  ‘I know,’ Susie groaned.

  ‘But eventually I did, and on my last kick I hit the trash can, too.’