“Bloody right I wanted to. But what was done was done, so what was the point? Question is, Cade, are you going to go the way of Madlyn?”
“There’re obvious differences. And anyway, the job?”
“Sod the job! Make peace with your dad. Come back here. We got the work. We got too much work, with the season nearly here. You can do it well enough if you’ve a mind to.” Jago returned to his own employment, but before he began, he made a final comment. “One of you two’s going to have to swallow pride, Cade. He took your car keys and your driving licence ’cos he had a reason. To keep you alive. Not every father makes that kind of effort. Not every father makes it and succeeds. Best you start thinking of that, my boy.”
“YOU’RE DISGUSTING,” KERRA SAID to her mother. Her voice was trembling. This somehow made things seem even worse to her. Trembling might suggest to Dellen that her daughter was feeling fear, embarrassment, or?what was truly pathetic?a form of dismay when all the time what Kerra was feeling was rage. Seething, white hot, utterly pure and all of it directed towards the woman before her. She was feeling far more of it than she’d felt towards Dellen in years, and she wouldn’t have believed that possible. “You’re disgusting,” she repeated. “Do you hear me, Mum?”
Dellen said in turn, “And what the hell do you think you are, coming upon me like a little spy? Are you proud of yourself?”
Kerra said, “You can turn this on me?”
“Yes, I can. You sneak round here like a copper’s nark and don’t think I don’t know it. You’ve been watching me for years and reporting back to your father and anyone else who’d listen.”
“You absolute bitch,” Kerra said, more in wonder than in anger. “You absolute, unbelievable bitch.”
“Hurts a bit to hear the truth, doesn’t it? So hear some more. You caught your mum off guard and now you’ve got the chance you’ve waited for to do her in. You see what you want to see, Kerra, instead of what’s right in front of your nose.”
“Which is?”
“The truth. He got carried away by the music. You saw for yourself I was pushing him away. He’s a randy little worm and he saw an opportunity. And that’s what happened. So get out of here with your nasty speculation and find something useful to do with your time.” Dellen moved her head in a way that tossed her hair at the same time as it dismissed whatever conclusions her daughter may have drawn. Then, despite her previous words, she apparently decided she’d not said enough, for she went on with, “I offered him lunch. There can’t be a problem with that, can there? Surely that can’t possibly meet with your disapproval. I turned on the radio. Well, what else was I supposed to do? It was easier than making conversation with a boy I barely know. He took the music as some sort of sign. It was sexy, the way Latin music always is, and he got caught up in?”
“Shut up,” Kerra said. “We both know what you had in mind, so don’t make it worse by pretending poor little Cadan tried to seduce you.”