"Hi dad." "Are you particularly busy right now?" "I've been working at home on a case and I've got as far as I can. I've got time"
John had mixed feelings about his daughter's bright, relaxed tones, that warmed especially to him, but cooled fast whenever George came to be around. Charlie's dysfunctional attitude to her mother had always made him feel guilty. It wasn't normal for a daughter to be so glassily estranged from a mother. When he thought about it, he had made himself over to travel far away from his Birmingham roots, by his public school education, the accent that went with it, his successful career, his restless rebellious questioning mind but he would not and could not abandon his sense of what defined a family. He could not help but wonder if he and George had stayed together, Charlie would not be so chillingly dismissive of George. The cruel chain of logic could not help but condemn his serial philandering as the main reason why his marriage had broken down in the first place. His therapy sessions with Helen Wade had made that all too plain. He remembered that, as the events of his separation and divorce unreeled, it left emotional fallout of shock and trauma on both sides. It seemed that his and George's best achievement at this time, was that they had maintained the decencies and had came to an understanding on Charlie's upbringing. When John took over Charlie's upbringing, it had fallen smoothly into place and made sense. He had no conception of how a bright, lively uncomplicated seven-year-old little girl could develop, as she got older as those were innocent days.
He had done his best to bring up Charlie as best as he could. He was true to her as a father could be in his fashion and she had been the light in his life. It wasn't necessarily easy as he recalled her favourite expression "It's not fair" as she tried to break down his parental resolve with liberal guilt trip. Somehow, he had walked the uncertain tightrope wire that modern parents have to tread. The old formulas seemed like ancient history, and somehow repellently oppressive. He had greeted the modern enlightened age with pleasure, and had embraced the freedom to work out his own principles in a world that had no guidelines, no manuals and no precedents. He had done well that the worst that Charlie had done was to get into and out of a scrape in her animal rights activism even if it had subjected his liberal values to the most severe test imaginable.
"I wanted just to pop round and see you. I woke up this morning, and suddenly realized that I hadn't seen you for a bit"
"Dad, you know that I'm a single independent woman and I've left home. You know what that means. You live your life and I live my life and once in a while, we bump into each other when we have the time"
Charlie's laughing reply only made him feel more uncomfortable and contrived. It did not make him feel better that she never mentioned George.
"I'll be round in half an hour or so."
John slid his mobile into his pocket, and strode after Connie who ran one sharp glance over his face. She resolved to keep things light, as George's last words were ringing in John's ears. Stone faced, he walked to his car. It was a sleek grey bullet of power, a convertible which was covered up to face the bitter winter weather.
"I ought to have known, John." Connie laughed.
"I beg your pardon"
"Your choice of car. It is exactly what I would expect of you"
"Oh? I like to feel the fresh air round my head on a hot summer's day after a day spent in the stale atmosphere of court."
"That is not the reason for your choice of car. It would be hardly your style to drive a nice conventional, safe saloon car or a Rolls Royce to demonstrate your respectability. No, you choose to drive a convertible, the one car that symbolic of a mistress."
"Well, since you put it that way," began John with a wry smile." There may be something in that"
He relaxed back into his seat and turned the ignition on. He dabbed his foot down sharply on the accelerator, supposedly to clean out the engine's pipelines with a quick burst of power.
"There's nothing like the feeling of raw power, is there"
"Isn't there just?" John retorted as he put the car into gear and swung his car out onto the open road, promptly speeding past the first family saloon with its nodding dog in the rear window. As Connie chatted away to him, she flirted fairly discreetly. It came natural to her when she was in the presence of an attractive man but this time, she kept that side of her loosely but definitely reined in. She knew better than to let things get out of hand as she had done, the last time she was alone with him.Moreover, she could sense that tension in him under his suave exterior. All she sought, was to lift his spirits until he came to his eventual destination. As John swung into the car park of St Mary's hospital, Connie turned to him and fixed him with her violet eyes.
"I really don't know anything about children apart from being one a very long time ago. I just hope you find the right words for Charlie, John. Anyway, thanks for the lift"
Her well-modulated voice temporarily lost that tone of cool control and betrayed a flicker of anxiety for him before her more nonchalant ending. She smiled briefly at him, stepped neatly from the car, waved briefly at him and was gone.
As John drove on, he felt that he had lost that feeling of protection. Connie was an independent woman, fully formed, with her own destiny. Charlie was different as she had not got that far, and he could not for the life of him work out what he was going to say. On automatic pilot, he drove that short distance to Charlie's Paddington flat and pulled up outside. What was he going to say, he asked himself once again? As no answer was forthcoming, very nervously and very gingerly, he eased himself out of his car and paced his way to Charlie's front door and knocked lightly on the door.
"Dad, it's good to see you, whatever the reason you called"
Charlie's simple expression of pleasure in his company touched John. This was as it had ever been.
"I'm glad you didn't drive over too quickly. It gave me a chance to give the flat a quick tidy up"
John grinned at that delicious understatement. He could imagine Charlie had stuffed discarded clothing into the convenient laundry basket, and washed a few days of accumulated plates and saucepans, leaving them to dry as a precarious structure on the rack.
"Do you want a cup of tea or something stronger?" Charlie offered.
"I'll stick with tea, please, Charlie"
"Of course, dad, your one concession to caution and prudence"
John sat back in the comparatively neat living room while Charlie disappeared into the kitchen, and shortly appeared with a tray, complete with what John judged to be the best and only cups and saucers. Charlie took pride of place as hostess with evident pleasure , and poured out two cups of tea. John sank back into the armchair, and sipped his cup of tea as his only prop with which he could protect himself.
"I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry we had that argument the other day. When I eventually calmed down, I did that research like you told me to and found out you were right"
John dismissed that with a gesture. He had had his periodic blowups with Charlie and they both dismissed it the next day. This was the way that their relationship had always been between them. There was a sudden storm cloud, which soon blew itself out, leaving blue skies over both of them.
"So how are you getting on, these days?"
"Not so bad, these days." John temporized. It was strictly true that whatever was going on in his life wasn't going to the bad due to his own actions.
"No woman trouble then"
"If you mean, am I occupied in seeking perfection in women, except from the one whom I'm supposed to be involved with"
"You normally are"
"Not this time, Charlie. I am trying to get some kind of sense of identity, and I think I may be getting better at it"
As he spoke, his memory of sleeping with Connie Beauchamp belonged in the past. It was curious these days, John mused. At one time this sort of questioning would have run in the opposite direction when, after all, Charlie was his daughter. Nowadays, it was he that was going through some 'born again' identity search, that was supposed to have come and gone in the late teens and early twenties at most. In contrast Charlie appeared as the stable one.
"And granddad"
"I run across him from time to time and he has been considerably invigorated ever since the performance of 'The Creation.' Between you and me, I suspect that he would love to be involved in another such enterprise." John found himself speaking with warmth and affection for him.
"I'm so glad that you and granddad are getting on better than you used to"
"Well, Charlie, no matter how much the two of us are getting older, he still thinks of me as that young upstart liberal barrister who unaccountably won his daughter's hand in marriage despite the competition of all the Hooray Henrys. The irony is that he is becoming something of an old upstart now that we are starting to see eye to eye about the establishment"
Charlie laughed at John's droll description.
"So what are you doing with your life, these days?"
"Well, I haven't much news for you, dad. I'm still forever balancing the demands of my job with the demands of my flat mate to go out on the town, clubbing. Sometimes, I get out to see some real life but I end up regretting it the next morning. There's nothing you need worry about that I can't handle"
The conversation ground to a halt while Charlie's eyes focused on John's face. Though he liked to pretend to himself that he was inscrutable when he wanted to, it never worked with Charlie. She knew that there was something on his mind that he wanted to say but was struggling to come out with it. It perturbed her.
"Have you seen your mother recently, Charlie?" he eventually asked far too casually to be convincing.
To John's distress, Charlie's face fell and all the light went out of her expression.
"I went round to see her a month ago to see her briefly. I guess she was OK. She had some American pathologist staying with her, a glamorous professional type"
"That would have been Kay Scarpetta. She appeared before me in court and George was kindly putting her up at her house. She's a very impressive, formidable woman, who earned a lot of respect from all of us. Still, I'm glad you went to keep in touch with your mother"
"Not quite, dad. I went to borrow money off her"
"Ah"
"I got the usual lecture from the Ice Maiden about being careful about my career as if you ever were." Charlie said with understated disgust.
Normally, Charlie's cruel expression for her mother would have hurt John, but he saw that opening into what he had to say. He had to seize that chance or it would be gone forever.
"You ought to be very careful how you talk about your mother"
"Don't you start your misplaced loyalty routine." Charlie started to snap before John interrupted her in grim, very precisely articulated tones.
"…….because that expression assumes a certain indestructibility about her. She normally gives that impression, but appearances can be deceptive as I have learned to my cost"
"What on earth are you saying, dad? You're speaking in riddles"
John took a deep breath and the words he was seeking came out of his unconsciousness, untypically neither preprepared nor polished.
"Because I have to tell you that your mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer"
Charlie's mouth hung open and her face turned white with shock and disbelief.
"This can't be real, dad"
"I only wish it weren't, Charlie"
"So what's been going on? I don't understand"
"Charlie, if I tell you the simple unvarnished truth, then I am going to take you up on your many protestations that you're over eighteen and you are free to lead your own life. Well, this is what freedom means to deal with matters like this." John said in grim tones as his way to somehow protect the two of them, but it came over to Charlie as intolerably accusing. All her father's past reproaches about her treatment of her mother came echoing their way out of her memory.
"You're not being fair, dad"
"Neither is cancer."
Charlie got out of her chair and started to walk round the living room in a fevered, uncoordinated way. Instinct told John to give her as much time as she needed. It seemed hours later on, that Charlie dropped herself back in her chair and asked the first question that she could come up with.
"All right, dad, I promise to behave….so how long has this been going on and what's happening now"
"I have to tell you that the hospital says that your mother's condition goes back to last Christmas. She had kept this quiet from everyone until recently. When it finally came to light, she was rushed into a private hospital and they had to operate. They did their very best but it was too late to save her breast."
It cut John to the quick to talk about George in such clinical terms but it was the only way he could get over the sense of what had happened.
"How long have you known about this, dad"
"Two days ago. Jo phoned me while I was lecturing at Warwick University. By then, she was already in hospital"
"So where does Jo come into the picture"
"George told Jo about it, and Jo ran her to the hospital and stayed with her."
This was a facer for Charlie. Her mother's worst enemy, or so she had been led to believe, had acted like Florence Nightingale.
"Why didn't I know about this earlier"
"How would you have reacted if I had told you, Charlie"
This was getting worse and worse for Charlie. She fell silent at that incisive question. She could not pretend to herself that she would definitely come over all sympathy. There was yet another painful pause until John reluctantly took the initiative.
"You have to see your mother to give her your support. She'll need it."
"I need time to think this one through." Exclaimed Charlie, putting her hands to her head.
"Take your time, but never assume that time is infinite"
"What do you mean?"
"Because I wasted too much time locked in bitter enmity with your mother until times changed so that we could become friends again. Your mother knows it too. We have grown to realize how much we see in each other, how precious human life is and that all human life is shorter than we think it is, especially where parents are concerned."
"Well, thanks for the fatherly advice. I may listen to it." Charlie said at last with a shaky laugh and her attempt at cool.
"This is not your father talking, it's only John"
Charlie looked wide eyed at the middle aged handsome man sitting across the way from her, his words so controlled yet naked for all to see and his pent up emotions of intense grief, only bottled up so that he could persuade Charlie to do what she had to do without breaking down in tears.