Santo could not have failed to interpret this unspoken query as anything other than what it was, and any son of any father would have likely done the same and reacted out of the same sense of outrage that had taken Santo out to the cliffs. Ben himself had reacted to his own father in much the same manner at much the same age: You talk about man, I’ll give you man.
But the underlying reason for Ben’s interaction with Santo remained unexamined although the superficial why of it didn’t need to be addressed at all, because Santo knew exactly what it was. The historical reason for their interaction, on the other hand, was far too frightening to contemplate. Instead of doing so, Ben had eternally told himself only that Santo was?always and merely?who Santo was.
“It just happened,” Santo had confessed to Ben. “Look, I don’t want?”
“You?” Ben said, incredulous. “You stop right there, because what you want doesn’t interest me. What you’ve done, on the other hand, does. What you’ve accomplished. The sum total of your bloody self-interest?”
“Why the hell do you care so much? What is it to you? If there was something to be handled, I would have handled it, but there was nothing. There is nothing. Nothing, okay?”
“Human beings,” Ben said, “are not to be handled. They’re not pieces of meat. They’re not merchandise.”
“You’re twisting my words.”
“You’re twisting people’s lives.”
“That’s unfair. That’s so fucking unfair.”
As Santo would find most of life, Ben had thought. Except he hadn’t lived long enough to do so.
And whose fault was that, Benesek? he asked himself. Was the moment worth the price you’re paying?
That moment had been a single remark, said partly in anger but in larger part bleak fear: “Unfair is having a worthless piece of manure as a son.” Once said, the words hung there, like black paint tossed at a clean white wall. His punishment for having said them was going to be the memory of that wretched statement and what it had produced, which was Santo’s face gone white and the fact that a father had turned his back on his son. You want man, I’ll show you man. In spades if I must. But show you I will.
Ben didn’t want to think of what he’d said. If he had his preference, it would be that he might never think of anything again. His mind would go blank and thus it would remain, allowing him to go through the motions of living until his body gave out and eternal rest claimed him.
Ben closed the cupboard and looped the padlock back into place. He breathed slowly through his mouth till he’d mastered himself and his guts were easy again. Then he went to the lift and rang for it. It descended at a dignified, antique speed that matched its appearance of open iron fretwork. It creaked to a stop and he rode it to the top of the hotel where the family flat was and where Dellen waited.
He didn’t go to his wife at once. Instead, he went first to the kitchen. There, Kerra sat at the table with her partner. Alan Cheston was watching her, and Kerra herself was listening, her head tilted in the direction of the bedrooms. She was, Ben knew, waiting for a sign of how things would be.
Her gaze took in her father as he came through the doorway. Ben’s eyes questioned. She responded. “Still,” was her answer.
“All right,” he said.
He went to the cooktop. Kerra had boiled a kettle there, and the fire was still on beneath it, low so the steam escaped soundlessly and the water stayed just beneath a boil. She’d set up four mugs. Each held a teabag. He poured water in two of them and stood there, watching the tea brew. His daughter and her lover sat in silence. He could feel their eyes upon him, though, and he could sense the questions they wanted to ask. Not only of him but of each other. There were matters to discuss in every corner.