For The Sake Of His Child

rear. It was a large, beautiful place, with magnificent lawns and flowerbeds. But Joey had no time for their beauties. He almost dragged Gina to a large pond where fat fish idled around. He pointed each out in turn, and chatted about them with his fingers.

‘He’s very interested in fish,’ Carson said, catching up with them. There was an undertone of desperation in his voice, as though he was making conscientious efforts, but wasn’t sure what came next.

Gina noted the effort, but still blamed him. Joey had been his son for several years, and he ought to be able to cope better than this.

Joey left them for a moment to go around to the far side of the pool and study the water. He was frowning and his concentration was so intense that he looked like a little professor.

‘Why doesn’t Philip Hale like you?’ Carson asked suddenly. ‘It’s more than you told me yesterday, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. He considers me “disabled” and he can’t handle that. Some people can’t cope with anyone out of the ordinary.’ She regarded him levelly.

‘Was that meant for me?’ he demanded.

‘Would it be true?’

‘You evidently think so. You don’t like people who make snap judgements, do you? But today you judged me and found me wanting very quickly. No mitigating circumstances, no “let’s learn all the facts”. Just “off with his head”.’

There was just enough truth in that to make her uncomfortable.

‘Carson, please don’t think I’m not grateful to you for saving my job. It was decent of you, after the things I said to you.’

‘A simple matter of justice,’ he said coolly. ‘Besides, you can be useful to me.’

‘Yes, I thought it might be something like that.’

‘You don’t take any prisoners, do you?’ he said wryly.

‘Well, if there’s a battle, I’m on Joey’s side. I fought it years ago. Don’t be fooled by my appearance. I may look like a little brown mouse, but I’m really very tough.’

‘Little brown mouse?’ he echoed. ‘With that blazing auburn hair?’

She was taken aback. She was used to thinking of her hair as sandy, or at most ‘reddish’; certainly at the dull end of the red spectrum. Nobody had ever suggested before that it was at the glamorous end.

All the way back to the house Joey watched the two of them closely, aware of their tension. Once inside he began to pull on Gina’s hand, urging her to the stairs.

‘Please, go with him,’ Carson said.

She wasn’t sure what to expect from Joey’s room, but the reality made her stop and stare. It wasn’t that the walls were covered with posters-it was the content of the posters that astonished her. Not a footballer in sight.

Everywhere she looked there were whales, penguins, sharks, sea lions, fish, coral, shells. The bookshelves took up the same theme, and beyond them were more shelves of videos.

‘You must know a great deal,’ Gina told Joey.

He nodded.

‘Have you always been interested in marine life?’

She had to spell marine, but then he understood and nodded again.

He showed her around, and she found that he had all that money could buy, including a computer through which he could pursue his interest on the Internet. His father had even provided a credit card with which he could purchase whatever he pleased from an on-line bookshop.

In fact, the room had everything except some sign of warm, adult interest. This child lived in a vacuum, Gina thought with a shiver. On the evidence of his books he was highly intelligent, but he had nobody to share it with.

And then she found something that struck a curious note. A large framed photograph stood by Joey’s bed. It showed a young woman in her early twenties. Her face was heavily made up, but even without that she would have been beautiful. Her rich blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders and her mouth was curved provocatively at the camera.

Gina recognised the woman. She was a young actress called Angelica Duvaine who was fast making a name for herself in films. Gina had seen her playing second lead in a recent blockbuster. She had a limited talent but her beauty and glamour were stunning. It was a strange picture to find in the room of such a young child.

Joey saw her looking and beamed with pride.

‘My mother,’ he spelled.

‘But-’ Gina realised she was entering a minefield. A child, cruelly deprived of his own mother, had set up this fantasy to comfort himself. How could she snatch it from him?

‘She’s very pretty,’ Gina agreed.

Joey nodded and pointed to the picture. ‘Eeee-aye-eeee,’ he said.

Gina understood this as She gave me. A fan picture, sent through the post, and the child thought he’d been selected for special favour.

‘She gave it to you?’ she echoed. ‘That was nice of her.’

Joey fought for speech. The result was garbled but Gina understood. She loves me.

‘Yes,’ she said heavily. ‘Of course she does.’

Carson looked in. ‘There’s something to eat downstairs.’

Supper was laid in the elegant dining room, full of polished rosewood, with expensive pictures on the wall. Gina reflected that she would have hated to be a child in such a room, and Joey seemed to feel the same, because he was subdued.

The meal was excellent, and she complimented Carson on it.

‘I can’t take the credit,’ he admitted. ‘Mrs Saunders left everything ready and I just microwaved it.’ He regarded his son, staring unenthusiastically at his plate. ‘What?’ He touched Joey’s shoulder to get his attention. ‘What’s the matter with it?’ he asked, raising his voice.

‘Does Joey have any hearing at all?’ Gina asked.

‘No, none.’

‘Then why do you shout? Speaking clearly is what he needs, so that he can follow your lips. Anyway, there’s nothing the matter with the food. But if Joey’s like me at that age he’d prefer a burger.’

‘Junk food,’ Carson said disparagingly. ‘This is better for him.’

She saw Joey looking from one to the other with the bewildered look of the excluded, and took his hand in hers for a moment. At once the look of strain vanished from his face.

‘But who wants to have what’s better for them all the time?’ she persisted. ‘Junk is more fun. Have you ever asked him what he prefers?’

‘That isn’t easy.’

‘Yes, it is,’ she insisted. ‘You look into his face so that he can see your lips.’

‘Do you think I don’t try that? He doesn’t understand me. Or he chooses not to, for reasons of his own.’

Gina was about to dispute this but a memory of her childhood got in the way.

‘That depends how you talk to him,’ she mused. ‘If you let him see you’re impatient, he’s bound to get upset.’

‘I do not-well, I try not to-are you saying he is doing it deliberately?’

‘I don’t know, but it’s what I used to do. When you’re faced with a really unsympathetic adult who’s obviously just doing his duty, and would rather be anywhere but with you-you don’t tend to make it easy for him.’

‘And I am the unsympathetic adult, I take it?’

‘Are you?’

He let out a long, slow breath. ‘I’m doing my best.’

‘How good a best is it?’

‘It’s damnable,’ he flashed. ‘All right? That’s what you think, isn’t it? And it’s the truth. I’m a lousy father, I don’t know what I’m doing and he’s suffering for it.’

‘At least you’re honest.’

‘But where does honesty get us?’ he asked bleakly. ‘Do you have the answer any more than I do?’