Chapter Thirteen
The Beach House
THAT EVENING, ROY surprised them by turning up for dinner, and even Cara managed to set aside her laptop and eat some grilled chicken salad. ‘Well, this is like old times,’ said Lea, unable to resist a comment.
‘What’s all that junk in the spare room?’ asked Roy.
‘That is your wife’s new office,’ Lea replied proudly. ‘She has a job, sort of.’
‘You’re writing again?’
‘Well, I’m pitching pieces to Gulf Coast magazine, if you can call it writing.’
‘Will that leave you enough time for stuff around the house? With the mall being a drive away?’
‘We have a maid who has hardly anything to do,’ said Lea, taking his briefcase off the table. ‘I think I can manage to buy a few groceries. We both worked when Cara was a baby and we coped perfectly well.’
‘But I know how you get—you pour all your time and effort into this stuff. I just don’t want you getting upset if it doesn’t work out.’
‘You never minded before.’
Roy sipped iced water, considering. ‘I’m just not sure it’s a good idea for you to be working here, that’s all.’
‘What are you talking about? It’s not like I’m threatening your status. Perhaps you’d like me to start cookery classes.’
‘If you two are going to have a fight, I’m going to take my meal to my room,’ Cara warned.
Lea looked down at her plate. ‘I was over at Milo’s house today. He has locks on the insides of his lounge doors.’
‘Maybe he’s scared of burglars,’ said Roy.
‘There’s never been a single burglary in the compound. I checked with the guards.’
‘You checkedwith the guards?’
‘I was just talking to them while they were looking under the car. They’re not great conversationalists.’
‘Well, I heard ol’ Milo has been getting a little weird lately. He probably misses his old job. The guy has nothing to do now except sit around and complain. He hates what we’re trying to achieve.’
‘Really?’ Lea set down her fork. ‘That’s not the impression I got at all. He seems incredibly proud of Dream World. He kept telling me how well they looked after their people when he was in charge.’
‘That’s not what I’ve been hearing.’ Roy helped himself to salad. ‘He’s been badmouthing the directors. They’re going to take him out of the compound as soon as his contract expires.’
‘Can they do that?’
‘Sure. They own his house.’
‘That’s a shame. He’s a nice old stick.’
‘He’s a disruptive influence.’ Roy shook his head. ‘It’s probably better if you stayed away from him. You don’t want to be tainted by association.’
Lea could hardly believe her ears. She chewed slowly, thinking it over, then turned to her daughter. ‘Cara, do you think Milo’s crazy?’
‘All old people are crazy,’ said Cara unhelpfully.
‘What will he do?’
‘Go home, I guess. Hey Cara, I was thinking. With me working such long hours, maybe you’d like to come over some evenings and visit the site. There’s an empty beach house just past the East tower, at the end of the beach promenade. It belongs to the resort but they haven’t worked out what to do with it yet. It’s got power and it has a cellar, so you can put your equipment down there. It’d be perfect for your computer club.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cara, ‘How fast is the broadband?’
‘It’s the same as the resort, really fast.’
‘We have Wi-Fi here, Cara,’ said Lea. ‘You know that.’
‘But she’d have room for her friends,’ said Roy. ‘They’re working on a website.’
‘You didn’t tell me that.’
‘Yes, I did,’ said Cara petulantly. ‘You just didn’t listen.’
‘Well, go on.’ She held out her hand. ‘Expound.’
‘You wouldn’t be interested.’
‘Don’t be silly, of course I would.’
‘It’s kind of about this place. It’s going to be called Bubble Life. You know, like the boy in the bubble? It was this old movie about a kid who couldn’t go outside without catching germs.’
‘Is that how you see Dream Ranches?’ She caught herself. ‘I still have trouble calling it that. It sounds like an American TV show.’
‘Of course that’s how I see it. We’re cut off from the real world. The internet is censored, for Christ’s sake.’
‘You can use Facebook and Twitter. If stuff is being censored, it’s because you shouldn’t be looking at it,’ said Roy.
‘Great new world order, Dad, I hope you’re really proud to be a part of it.’
‘So what’s it going to feature, this site?’ asked Lea hastily.
‘All kinds of online community stuff you can add to and comment on. But for people of my age.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you by leaving comments,’ said Lea. She thought about her conversation with Milo. ‘I don’t know about spending evenings out at the resort. How would you get about?’
‘She’ll be nearby, and I can give her a lift back when I’m ready to leave,’ said Roy.
‘A beach house.’ Cara glazed a little, clearly enticed by the idea.
‘There you are,’ said Lea with a sigh, ‘If it doesn’t offend your delicate sensibilities to be in such a horribly commercial place, I guess you can go with your father.’
That settled the matter. The rest of the meal passed in the smallest of talk and the most awkward of silences.At ten, Lea went into the garden to smoke, and saw Rachel through the branches of hedge that separated them from the Larvins’ house. ‘I’m sorry,’ she called, ‘is my smoke going over there?’
‘Hey, I came out for a cigarette too,’ said Rachel. ‘Besides, you’re in the great outdoors. People make such a fuss these days. I can’t breathe in there. My daughter-in-law keeps the windows shut and the air-con permanently set at eighteen degrees. She’s in one of her rearranging moods tonight. She gets very tense some days and there’s no talking to her.’
‘I’m starting to write again,’ Lea said, keen to tell someone.
‘Really? Good for you. What are you writing about?’
‘I’m not really sure yet.’
‘I took a pottery course last year.’
‘How did that go?’
‘My first pot looked like a camel took a shit. My problem is I don’t take direction well. I do my yoga most mornings, and I’m learning how to make sushi. I got caught using salmon I’d dropped on the floor. You should come with me. We could get thrown out together.’
Lea laughed. ‘I’m not sure I’m cut out for group activities.’
‘I know what you mean. But we can’t hang out with the captains of industry. We’re not allowed in that club. Besides, the private conversations of company men would totally horrify you. So we get stuck with the ladies who lunch. Mrs Busabi tried to enrol us all in belly-dancing classes. I warned her it was a little late in the day to start shaking my junk in public, but I went a couple of times just to gross out my grandchildren.’
‘How are they doing?’
‘They were so cute when they were small, but now Abbi’s turning into her mother and Norah has become some kind of alien creature. Nothing she says or does makes any sense to me whatsoever.’
‘That used to worry me about Cara.’
A coil of smoke drifted around the branches. ‘God, no, that’s how it’s supposed to be. I was beginning to worry that they’d never do anything to upset me. I was in my thirties when punk broke out, and I was so shocked—but you know, nothing has really surprised me since? I feel sorry for kids. How can they rebel if they only know conformity? Colette thinks it’s a good thing, of course. She loves it here.’ Rachel’s cigarette flared orange in the hazy evening air. ‘She couldn’t even bear Morocco, everybody carrying mattresses and window-frames around on bicycles, all baksheesh and hashish, chaos and dirt.’ Another cloud of blue smoke wafted through the leaves. ‘You know the funny thing? There’s a lot to like about the Arabic culture. The propriety, the formality, the sense of grace. Dream World isn’t Arabic, of course—it’s not anything.’
‘Rachel, do you think Milo is crazy?’
‘No, of course not, why?’
‘He has locks on the insides of his doors. And he thinks—’ She waved the thought aside. ‘No, skip it.’ Saying it aloud might really make him sound crazy, she thought.
‘Listen, I’d better get back inside before my daughter-in-law decides to start cleaning out the refrigerator again. She has these fits where she throws away everything that’s a minute past its sell-by date.’ Rachel blasted a final jet of smoke into the hedge. ‘Has Mrs Busabi warned you about the need to refrigerate your perishables?’
‘Yes, I had that lecture.’
‘Hey, we should meet out here regularly. We can be the Anglo-American alliance, and bitch about everyone behind their backs.’
‘It’s a deal,’ Lea agreed. ‘Same place tomorrow night.’
‘I’ll be here. Keep the flame.’
Lea tried to fan away the last of her smoke but it hung in the still air like a guilty secret. She slipped back inside, wondering why she felt the need for an ally.