Chapter 26

It was my own fault. If I hadn’t given in to my sister the night before, I wouldn’t have found myself in the middle row of the family’s people carrier, sandwiched between Aunt Mary and my Mum. It was about the least comfortable seat in the car, since it was only half as wide as a standard seat, meaning three of us were crushed into two and a half spaces. But I was too tall for the two back seats, which didn’t really have any leg room, so there I was stuck.

As usual Dad had Frank Sinatra on the CD player, and one or two of my fellow passengers were singing along, including Cal. She stopped when the fourth song started. It was Something Stupid, a duet with his daughter Nancy.

“What’s wrong Cal?” her mother asked her.

“I don’t like this song,” she said, tartly.

“But it’s always been one of your favourites,” her Mum replied.

“Well it’s not now,” she said firmly this time, then lapsed into silence.

It was another four songs before Cal started singing again, Girl from Ipanema this time.

A couple of minutes after that we were on the M62 approaching Birch Services when Cal spoke for the first time on the journey.

“Uncle James, could you pull into the services please?”

Dad did as she asked, and as soon as he stopped she was urging me and Mum to get out. Once we did, she dashed from the back seat, ran to the bushes and deposited her breakfast on the soil at their base.

I walked over and put my arm round her shoulders to support her while she heaved, and, when she finished she turned her head to face me.

“Thank you,” she whispered, “I’d kiss you for that, but I probably taste really icky at the moment.”

“Yes,” I laughed, “you probably do. What brought that on?”

“Oh I don’t know,” she replied, “morning sickness, when does that happen?”

“Sorry,” I said, “stupid question. Are you all right?”

“No, David, I am not all right,” she replied, “I am in fact all wrong. And I don’t blame you, it’s all my own fault, I brought it on myself. If you mean can I carry on and have our day out, yes. I need a minute or two to go inside and clean myself up, but we’ll get there. And David.”

“Yes,” I responded.

“Thank you,” she said softly, “for still caring.”

“I’ll always care, Cal,” I told her, “I just have a hard time trusting.”

“Will you walk with me to the services building?” she asked.

I nodded my head in agreement.

“From the look of you, I’m not sure you’d make it on your own.”

We set off to walk slowly towards the central building, my arm lightly round her shoulders, ready to catch her if she stumbled. We made it to the main building, then I went to the shop to get her a bottle of water while she went into the Ladies toilet to clean herself up. As well as a bottle of water I bought her a packet of mints, thinking that the mint would mask the sicky smell. Just as I was paying a text came in, from my sister, telling me that they were in the coffee shop having a drink.

Cal came out and took the water and mints, and thanked me, both verbally and with a light peck on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she said, “you’re lovely for doing that for me.”

“It was nothing,” I said.

“After what I did to you?” she asked, “I don’t think I’d have reacted the same if the shoe had been on the other foot.”

“Cal,” I interrupted, “let’s not spoil today by talking about that OK?”

“All right then,” she agreed.

“The rest are in the coffee shop, shall we join them?”

“Can we sit outside in the sunshine?” she asked.

“Of course,” I replied and we walked outside with our drinks. As soon as we were seated at a picnic table outside, I texted Mum to let her know where we were.

“I take it that you want to talk,” I said as she took a sip of her water and popped a mint into her mouth.

She nodded yes.

“David, if I ask you a question, will you give me an absolutely honest answer?” she asked.

“Have I ever given you anything else?” I answered.

“No,” she sighed, “you haven’t.”

I thought I detected a slight emphasis on the you.

“So, what’s the question Cal?”

She drew in a deep breath and reached out her hand towards me. I took the hint and took a gently hold on it.

“Am I wasting my time. Do I really have no chance of you ever taking me back?”

I looked at her, trying to see past the façade of her beautiful face to the person underneath. I noticed that she was close to tears.

“Cal,” I began, “I won’t say never, that’s a long, long time, but I have a great feeling of betrayal, and I’m finding it hard to get past that.”

“I understand that, David,” she said her voice almost a whisper, “but can’t you see, the shock of losing you has made me realise what I really want in life and that’s you. I really honestly wouldn’t do anything so stupid again. Please won’t you give me a chance to prove it?”

“I don’t know how,” I admitted, my voice low, “I want to trust you, but I don’t know how.”

“Do you remember Bernie’s office?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied, “of course I do.”

“Do you remember the conversation with your mother before that?”

“Without taking risks nobody would ever do anything,” I said, “yes, but I took that risk, and look how it ended. So I’m a bit, I think they call it risk-averse, now.”

“I know, and I know it’s entirely my fault,” she said resignedly.

“No it’s not, Cal”, I said, “not entirely. I didn’t make enough effort to speak to you every day, which I could have.”

“And I did the same,” she objected.

“Yes, so we both bear the blame.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“Well I go to Manchester for ten weeks starting Wednesday evening, so I won’t be home much,” I said, as gently as I could.

“Maybe we could use that to start again,” she suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe this time we could stay in touch like we should have. Talk regularly, and not just for a couple of minutes.”

“I’m not going to cheat on Kathy,” I told her.

“I’m not going to ask you to. You tell her that’s what we’re doing, if she is all right with it then we’ll do it. And all it will be is two friends talking.”

For a moment I was tempted to ask what if she didn’t, but decided that this was one of those times when it was better to stay quiet.

“All right,” I agreed “we’ll do that. If Kathy agrees. What else are you up to?”

“I’m seeing a counsellor,” she said, “and I think we’re getting to the root of my problems. Aside from that, I’ve got my first professional job coming up.”

“Really, what?” I asked, genuinely interested.

“Opera North are doing Tannhauser, and they want a young girl to sing the part of the shepherd boy. He appears twice during the opera, and I’d get paid.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“I think so,” she said, “it sounds like it will be fun, and I’d get to see what an opera company does from the inside.”

“Sounds great, do I say break a leg?” I asked.

“No, silly, that’s for you actors, we opera stars say ‘Toi, toi, toi.’”

“Why?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” she replied.

“Oh and some of the kids at school are putting together a band, and have asked me to sing with them.”

“That’ll be good,” I said, “have they got any gigs yet?”

“Not yet, they only just decided to set up this week. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in playing guitar with us?”

“Sorry, I can’t,” I replied, “Not until well into next year anyway. I might drop in and Jam with you when I’m home though.”

“That would be nice,” she said, “did you realise in all the years we’ve known each other, you’ve never played for me to sing.”

“Haven’t I, I thought I had,” I replied, “I’m surprised.”

“No,” she replied, “we talked about it a lot, but usually at the end of the evening just as I was going home. We always said tomorrow.”

“Then we’ll do it, tonight, when we get back,” I said.

“Promise?”

“Promise,” I agreed, “now I think the rest of this circus will be ready to carry on, are you feeling better?”

“Much,” she said, and she smiled, a deep radiant smile, that I hadn’t seen since Munich.

“Let’s go find the rest,” I said, standing up and holding out my hand to help her up.

“David,” she said softly, “thank you.”

“For what?” I asked.

“For being David James Barker,” she replied, “and the best friend anyone could hope for.”

“I’m nothing special Cal,” I insisted.

“Yes, you are David. After what I did in Munich you came looking for me when I went missing from school,” she began.

“Which I would have done for anyone if I had an idea where they might be.”

“Yes, and that’s why you’re special, you care about people. You paid for me to see a counsellor privately when the NHS wait was long, you offered to pay for singing lessons when Mum said she wouldn’t, you were the one who looked after me when I was sick in the car, when I had another boy’s baby inside me making me sick. Name one other person who wouldn’t have just walked away from me after Munich.”

When we arrived back at the coffee shop, I realised we were still holding hands.

“Everything all right?” Cal’s Mumasked as we walked in, just as they were clearing their cups away.

“Yes,” Cal replied, “I think we’re friends again.”

She looked up at me and smiled as she said it, and I nodded in agreement.

“OK,” Dad said, “are we all ready?”

Everybody nodded their agreement.

“Cal,” he said, “are you going to be all right in the back?”

“I’ll swap places with her,” Aunt Mary said, “then at least she can get out quicker.”

“I didn’t do anything in the car did I?” Cal asked.

“No,” my dad told her, “you got out in time, but it wouldn’t matter if you did, whether you’re all right is what’s important.”

“Yes, I think I’ll be fine now,” she said.

“I’m going to swap places with her, I’ll go in the back with Alison and let her sit with David and Pat,” her mother said.

We set off again, and had a pleasant journey up the M61 and M6 to the Kendal turn off, then along the local roads until we pulled into the Haverthwaite railway station car park at just gone eleven o’clock. Since we had nearly an hour to wait for the train and that would only have given us three hours in Bowness, we decided to drive up to Lakeside and get the boat up from there. Twenty minutes later we were in the Lakeside car park, dad was at the machine paying the parking fee and we were all at the ticket desk getting tickets for the steamer.

After a twenty minute wait the steamer, M.V. Teal, pulled into the dockside, the passengers from up the lake got off and we took their place. We four ‘kids’ sat at the front of the boat, keen to see the sights of the lake, and play a game we’d played together since we were little. A game that we called ‘Mine’. The object was to see something, a house, a boat, a car on the road that ran along the side of the lake or anything really, and shout ‘mine’ before the others did. It was a silly game but we all usually ended up in fits of giggles.

The game sort of petered out half way up the lake. It was my sister’s fault. I’d just spotted a very nice cruiser on the water pointed and shouted mine.

“You know,” Alison said, “all these things we keep calling out MINE over, David could actually buy now.”

“Not all of them Pip, I’d need a lot more money for all of them,” I countered.

“How much more?” Pip asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, “to know how much more, I’d need to know how much they all cost, and how much I had.”

“You don’t know how much you’ve got?” Cal asked.

“No,” I replied, “Dad takes care of the money for me. I know I got a two million advance from the studio, and some money for personal appearances to publicise the film, and I got some money back from the airline when I changed my ticket.”

Cal blanched a little at the mention of that.

“And of course,” I continued, “I spent some while I was in California.”

“SO you have something in the region of two million pounds in the bank?” Andy asked.

“Like I said, I don’t know, and in any case, I don’t have any money, my company has.”

“How is that?” Cal asked.

“My Dad set me a company up, to employ me as an actor and sell on my services to studios. The company gets paid by the studios, and then I get paid by the company. It let’s us charge more things against tax, Plus, the rate of corporation tax is lower than that of income tax.”

“So, you’re not rich then?” Alison asked.

“No, I still get the same pocket money I did before,” I replied, “I might be rich in the future, but not now.”

“How does that work?” Andy asked.

“Well, first, if we invest the money I’ve already earned wisely, it will grow over time. Second, if this film is a hit, then with the deal I have, say it was as popular as Star Wars, I’d end up being paid something like twenty four million dollars, third, if I get other offers on the back of this I have a long and successful career as an actor.”

“What about University?” Cal asked.

“That stays,” I said, “as a fall-back if nothing else, I still want to go to University. It would take something really humungous to stop that.”

“Do you still want to go to Manchester?” Cal asked.

“Yes, it’s the best University around for Computers.” I replied.

“What about you Andy?” she asked.

“LSE for Accountancy and Law,” he replied.

“And you Cal, are you still planning on Royal Northern?” I asked.

“I don’t know that I can make any plans anymore,” she said, her voice sad, and her eyes brimming.

“Of course you can,” Alison assured her, “they may have to be postponed for a while, but you’ll still be able to have your dream.”

“How?” she asked, “who’ll take me on with a baby? How will I get through Music school? How will I live? I know, it’s all my own fault, I did it to myself, and I can’t complain at the consequences.”

She stood up and sprinted off down the length of the boat. I looked at my two siblings, shrugged and headed off after her. I caught up with her at the back of the boat, the stern if you want to be nautical about it, leaning on the rail staring at the water.

I walked up behind her and put my hands gently on her shoulders. She jumped slightly and turned her head to look at me.

“Oh, David,” she said, “it’s you.”

“You were expecting someone else?” I asked.

“No, I wasn’t really expecting anyone,” she replied. “I’m sorry, I just got all emotional.”

“It’s all right, Cal,” I said, softly, “I can understand that. You’ve definitely decided to keep the baby?”

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