‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about my father.’
She paused for some long moments as if wrestling with something inside and then said, diplomatically, ‘You don’t have to apologise for your father. Ever.’ Clever, because it could mean two different things, if you thought about it. Then she opened the driver’s door, and regarded him thoughtfully, her eyes the colour of the chocolate velvet on the mood board. ‘I’ll be in touch early next week,’ she said brightly. ‘Have a good weekend, Ben.’
He went back inside where Alan, never one to quit until he knew he’d well and truly won, picked up the conversation where they’d left off. ‘The estate agent happened to mention the flat to me when I was down looking at this place,’ he explained. ‘It’s a high-quality new build and a good location within walking distance of here – and I got a good price. Nobody can resist a cash buyer in this climate.’ He grinned, delighted with himself.
Ben folded his arms. ‘It’s one thing overruling me on the bar area in the restaurant. I accept that you’re right about that. But the flat will be my home, not yours. I am capable of finding somewhere to live by myself.’
Alan shrugged, utterly indifferent to Ben’s objections.
‘Don’t you see my point, Dad? I’m a grown man and you bought my home without consulting me.’
‘Ach, stop moaning, Ben. I don’t see what I’ve done wrong. I didn’t buy it, the business did. And it’s not your permanent home – just somewhere to kip for a year or so,’ shrugged Alan. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about the flat if I was you, son. You’re hardly going to see the inside of the place. If you’re going to make a success of this restaurant, you’ll be working day and night down here.’ He paused, picked something off the sleeve of his jacket and fixed his eyes on Ben. ‘You’ll not have time for much else.’
Ben swallowed and said nothing, his heart filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. He looked around the dilapidated room and tried to dredge up some enthusiasm. But the prospect of running this place left his heart cold. He could not spend the rest of his life working for his father. But how could he tell that to him? He’d given him hope, a reason to go on, after all their hopes were lost that night.
Something bleeped in Alan’s coat pocket and he pulled out his mobile. ‘Ach, shite, that’ll be Cassie,’ he said referring to his new wife who, at forty-one, was twenty years his junior. He read the text message, and diamond cufflinks sparkled as he consulted the flashy Rolex on his wrist. ‘Bloody woman doesn’t give me a moment’s peace.’ Ben smiled and Alan said, grimly, ‘Wait till you’re married. You’ll know all about it.’
‘That’s not likely to happen any day soon,’ said Ben cheerfully, who’d come to see his break-up with Rebecca as a lucky escape.
‘Pity,’ said Alan.
Ben laughed outright at this. From what he could see, matrimonial bliss had eluded Alan. He was on to his third beautiful wife and, from where he was standing, none of his marriages had delivered up their promise of happiness.
‘What’re you laughing at?’ growled Alan.
‘Dad, come on. You’re hardly one to be dishing out advice about marriage.’
Alan speared him with his gaze, his eyes like lasers. ‘Maybe not. But you don’t want to leave it too late. Your mother tells me that you and Rebecca have split up.’
‘That’s right.’
He shook his head, sadly. ‘You need your head examined, Ben. You’ll not find a better looking girl anywhere. And what was wrong with the one before that? Emma, wasn’t it? She was a stunner too.’
Ben looked at his father in astonishment. If appearance was his criterion for a happy marriage, no wonder he’d gone so far wrong in its pursuit. ‘We weren’t suited, Dad.’
‘Well, they both seemed like very nice girls to me,’ he insisted obstinately. ‘By the time I was your age, you know, I was married. And by the time I was thirty, I had a kid on the way.’ At this, they both looked at the dust on the floor. The kid, safe then in his mother’s womb, was Ricky. The child that had broken all their hearts.
‘Steady on, Dad,’ said Ben, forcing a hollow laugh. He held up the palm of his hand to his father. ‘Marriage. Babies. What’s brought all this on?’
Hell bent on his own agenda, it seemed Alan didn’t even hear the question. ‘You’ve got to find the girl and get married before you even think about having children. You don’t want one of these high-flying career women. And don’t be getting some wee girl up the spout.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Ben.
‘No, listen, son,’ said Alan, and there was no mistaking the earnestness in his voice now, as he finally honed in on the crux of the matter. ‘You should be thinking about your future. Your children will be heirs to the entire Crawford fortune. And you want them to be legitimate.’
Ben took a step back, reeling from this burst of insight as if it were a physical blow or a mighty explosion in his face. It had never occurred to him until this moment that, as Alan’s only surviving child, his children would be absolutely crucial to Alan’s dreams. He wasn’t running a business – he was building a dynasty. Without grandchildren, there was no future.
‘What if I don’t want kids?’ Ben blurted out.
‘Don’t be stupid. When you get to a certain age, everyone wants kids,’ he said in a voice that brooked no opposition. ‘And everyone wants grandchildren.’
I don’t, he wanted to scream. But he simply stared, struck momentarily mute by this awful understanding.
‘So, this Jennifer Murray,’ said Alan lightly, and he glanced slyly at Ben with those beady eyes that missed nothing. ‘What made you hire her?’
‘Jennifer?’ said Ben stupidly. What had Jennifer got to do with a discussion about grandchildren and heirs? ‘Because I think she can do a good job.’ Unintentionally, his inflexion rose at the end of the sentence, making it sound more like a question than a statement.
‘I see. So how did you find out about her?’
‘I hired her son, Matt, first and he introduced us. When I heard Calico were going under, I asked her if she was interested.’
‘Sounds like you did them both a big favour, Ben,’ he observed quietly, talking in the measured way he reserved for occasions when he was particularly irked by something. ‘I hope I’m wrong. I hope that your motives were purely professional.’
He opened his mouth to tell his father otherwise but Alan, with words as precise as the swift, ruthless cut of a chef’s knife, silenced him.
‘She’s a pretty woman, Ben, I’ll grant you that. And I can see the attraction,’ he said, as if piling Jennifer’s positive attributes, like recipe ingredients, on one side of a pair of old-fashioned scales. ‘But she has grown-up children, son.’ He fixed Ben with a hard stare, lowered his voice. And then he tipped the scales against Jennifer, in his mind anyway, with the heavy weight of the truth.
‘Her child-bearing years are over.’
Chapter 7
David drove Lucy back to Belfast on Sunday night despite her protestations that a bit of rain wouldn’t hurt. It was mid-September now and the weather had taken a sudden autumnal turn. The temperature had plummeted and the rain battered the car in wind-buffeted sheets.
‘So how did things go between you and your mother this weekend?’ asked Dad, both hands coiled lightly around the steering wheel as if taking his driving test for the first time.
‘Good,’