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deliberately off-hand.
Donna didn't want to be too eager. She smiled back. 'Great!' Having put the
idea into his head she would let him work it out without further interference.
What Gavin really needed was to start running his own life without dictation
from their father or Brodie. It might actually help him to realise that their
father wasn't as perfect as Gavin had always believed.
'But I'm not seeing any doctors,' Gavin said flatly.
She didn't argue. She had to feel her way towards trying to persuade him
into thinking about it. Gavin had the obstinacy of the weak she suddenly
wondered if he had the weakness of the strong, too. Was that why he had
always let their father order him around? Gavin obviously wanted another
sort of life than the one he had always had. His admission that he had always
had a secret ambition to be a craftsman, blow glass of a very different sort,
showed that. Did he gamble to fill an emptiness in his life? Their father had
a drive towards success which he had channelled into his business. If Gavin
had the same drive but was drawn to other fields he must have been angry
and frustrated ever since he began to grow up, but however much he
resented his father's tyranny he hadn't actually walked out as she had. He
had stayed there, pleasing neither their father nor himself. Why?
She looked at him thoughtfully. Could it be that Gavin loved their father too
much to break with him openly as she had done?
'I'm hungry,' she said. 'Have you eaten? Did you sleep, by the way?'
'For a couple of hours,' he admitted. 'I don't find it easy to get to sleep in
daylight. I had a sandwich and some coffee when I got up, but I wouldn't say
no to another snack if you're having one.'
'Let's go into the kitchen and see what we can find,' she said, 'Mrs Eyre
won't mind if I borrow her domain for a little while. She used to let me learn
to cook with her, do you remember?'
'I remember eating some rock-hard fairy cakes you made,' Gavin teased.
'What a lie! They were delicious!'
Gavin laughed at her. 'Well, I survived the experiment, but to be on the safe
side why don't we have something simple, like beans on toast, today?'
The kitchen was empty. Donna hunted through the rows of tins in the pantry
until she found some baked beans, then she handed the tin to Gavin to open
while she cut some bread and popped it into the toaster. Gavin put the
saucepan of beans on the hob and they found themselves some plates and
knives and forks. It was a long time since they had relaxed together like this.
As children they had been very close. Growing up had meant growing away,
too, keeping secrets from each other, no longer sharing everything.
They ate in the kitchen and had just finished their snack when Mrs Eyre
came bustling into the kitchen with a basket of freshly picked soft fruit from
the orchard at the bottom of the garden. She stopped in surprise, seeing
them.
'We just had some beans on toast,' Donna told her, feeling she had to
apologise for being in the housekeeper's kitchen.
'If I'd known you were hungry, I'd have got you something,' said Mrs Eyre.
'You only had to ask, I'd have been happy to do it.'
'It was fun doing it ourselves,' Gavin murmured, and the housekeeper
softened, giving him a fond look. She had always had a weak spot for Gavin.
'Well, is there anything else I can get you?' She took their plates and put
them in the sink. Donna and Gavin shook their heads, getting up, feeling
they were being politely but firmly turned out of the room.
'I'm going to make a summer pudding for your dinner,' Mrs Eyre told her,
seeing Donna glance at the basket of fruit.
'Would you like some help with preparing the currants?'
'No, thank you, Donna, I can manage. That's my job.' Mrs Eyre had never
liked having her in the kitchen. Donna had got under her feet too much.
Occasionally, Mrs Eyre would let her spend an hour there, learning to cook
something, but more often she would say she was too busy and push her out
of the room. Donna had had to learn all her housewifery when she began
living in an apartment in Paris. That was the first time she had ever been
given the chance to find out what domestic skills she could acquire.
In the hall, Gavin looked at his watch. 'What time does the library shut? I
thought I might drive over there and see if they have any books on
glass-blowing.' He was self-conscious, a little sheepish, his ears pink.
'What a good idea! You might try the bookshop if the library haven't got any
books. Oh, I just thought why don't you ask the library if they've got a list
of the classes the technical school are giving: I remember when Mrs Eyre
did pottery at evening class one year she asked me to get her a leaflet from
the library they usually have the syllabus handouts on the counter at this
time of year, because the classes start in the middle of September.'
Gavin went off, nodding, and Donna heard his car start up a few moments
later. She wandered idly around the house, looking at familiar objects with a
strange sense of deja vu nothing had been moved let alone changed. While
she was in Paris her father's life had gone on just the same, although she
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