Chapter 9

“I want you to bring her home,” Aunt Mary said.

“What!” I exclaimed, incredulously, “but they’ll send her back to the hospital.”

“David, I’ve recently realised what I think you have, too, that my daughter is nothing but a childish selfish, bitch with a huge sense of entitlement,” she said, “I actually don’t like my own child any more. What she needs is a huge shock to her world view. Bring her home.”

“I think you’re wrong, and I’m sorry, I won’t bring her home yet,” I replied, “and before you say it, yes, I know you could tell the police that I don’t have your permission to take her away, and that would get me into trouble for kidnapping her. But I’m going to gamble that you won’t do that to me. Give me another week, and if I can’t get her to see sense, then I’ll bring her home.”

“I couldn’t send the police after you,” she said, “I don’t know where you are.”

“We’re in Los Angeles,” I replied, then named the hotel and our room numbers, “There you are, my entire future is in your hands, I trust you Aunt Mary. Please trust me with your daughter’s future.”

“I was rather hoping to do that anyway,” she said wistfully, “all right David, a week.”

We said our goodbyes and ended the call.

I stood and walked over to the door and reached for the handle. I stopped myself and knocked on it, then opened it half way.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

She was in the middle of the bed, legs drawn up, with her chin on her knees.

She looked at me and nodded.

I walked over and sat in the armchair by the window.

“Your Mum wants me to take you home,” I said.

She looked at me with horror written on her face.

“No,” she yelled, “David, no, please. I can’t go back there.”

“I told her no,” I said.

“Oh,” she sighed, “thank you.”

“I didn’t do it for you, Cal,” I replied, “I don’t particularly want to go to jail. I did it for me.”

“You don’t love me any more do you?” she asked.

I didn’t answer.

“Cal,” I said after a few moments of silence between us, “one day I’ll have a job, maybe I’ll be a computer programmer, maybe a big time actor, but it will be a job, I’ll go out to work, and then hopefully, I’ll come home to my wife and children. My family. Never, ever, whatever job I do will that be more important to me than that family. If ever the job starts interfering with that, I’ll change jobs. I’ll just walk away. I don’t see you having the same priorities as me. So, to answer your question, yes Cal, I still love you. I hate what you’re becoming, but I love you. But, I’m sorry, I don’t see any sort of future for you and me as a couple unless and until you have a complete change of attitude.”

“And you don’t have an attitude I suppose,” Cal spat, “you’re just Mr. Perfect?”

“No, Cal, I do have an attitude,” I replied, “but what I do is consider what effect my actions will have on others, and I take that into account when I make decisions.”

“I’m sorry David,” she said, “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

“Cal, you can snap at me anytime you feel that it’s appropriate,” I replied, “that’s part of being a couple. It’s part of human discourse, what you can’t continue to do is just steam roller over everybody to get to where you’re going.”

“I know what you do Cal, you have a goal and you just go for it, regardless of the cost, to you or to anyone else,” I said, “look, you said you had your two ambitions, Mrs Barker, and opera star. You said that of the two the most important to you is Mrs. Barker. So far you’ve acted as though the other one is far more important to you. Ask yourself what you need to do to be Mrs. Barker, and then put the same effort into that as you have to the other one. But just occasionally stop and ask yourself what this will do to other people before you do something towards it.”

“David,” she began, her voice small, “I don’t know how well I can change, but I know that not only do I have to, but I want to. I will try, I’ll try my hardest, but, will you give me chance to try? Will you give me time?”

“One last chance, Cal?” I asked.

“One last chance,” she repeated, “please.”

It was obviously a heartfelt plea. I believed, or perhaps I just wanted to believe, that she did love me, that she could cut out all the selfishness and start genuinely thinking of us as a couple. But I wasn’t confident that it would be any time soon.

“One last chance, Cal,” I agreed, “but Cal, as of now, if you make me a promise, if we come to an agreement, you stick to it. Absolutely, not just as long as it suits your purpose.”

“I’m sorry David,” she said softly, close to tears, “I know I’ve been selfish, but I really, truly do not want to lose you.”

“Then all you need to do is stop acting like you do,” I said, not as gently as I usually would.

“Will you at least help me?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied, “but it’s all down to you. I’ll do what I can, but you need to learn to engage your brain first.”

“I’ll try,” she sighed.

I decided that we both needed a change of subject.

“Do you want to eat out tonight?” I asked, “I’ve seen a place online, not far from here, the Orange Grove. They have a little band on and invite members of the audience up to sing. I thought you might like it.”

“I don’t want to get up and sing,” she objected.

“Nobody’s saying you have to, but it will be music, and I know you love music,” I replied, adding an unspoken, ‘even if that’s all you love.’

“OK,” she agreed, “but just to listen.”

“And eat,” I added.

“And eat,” she agreed, and I saw the first trace of a real Calista Warner smile that I’d seen for some time.

“What do you want to do between now and when it’s time to go?” I asked.

She smiled at me.

“I can think of something,” she said.

“So can I,” I replied, “but the question then is, what would that mean to you?”

“Honestly, David?” she asked.

I nodded.

“I don’t know,” she said, “on one level I’d want to think that we were back as we were before, on another I don’t think we ever really can be.”

“And what about Charlie?” I asked, “are you thinking you and I have sex, and then that’s it, I’m yours and I have to dump her?”

She looked genuinely horrified.

“No,” she said, “I was hoping that at least until you make a final decision, we would share you.”

“And what if Charlie thinks that she and I have an exclusive arrangement,” I asked.

“If what we talked about before she went to Dubai is true, I don’t think she will,” she replied.

“I think she’d be willing to share,” I said, “that’s not the question though.”

“Then what is?” she asked.

“Would you?”

The pause after I asked the question seemed to go on for a long time, but in fact was no more than a couple of seconds.