Daniel and Daughter Page 9

Ten-thirty! Eleven! No sign of Phoebe. Daniel caught Lee glancing at the clock-face.

  'It's much too soon for you to go home,' he said desperately. 'I'm just making some coffee.'

  'Don't worry,' she soothed him. 'I'll stay with you until she comes in.'

  'I don't know why you persist in thinking I'm wor-ried. Phoebe's an independent young woman now. Where the hell is she?

  'With Mark,' Lee reminded him. 'He wouldn't let any harm come to her.'

  There was a sound outside the front door. The two inside held their breath, trying to hear the softly murmuring voices. Then a key turned in the lock. Lee and Daniel went out into the hall to find Phoebe there with Mark. She looked at her father with an expression made up of defiance and appeal. Lee crossed her fingers, hoping Daniel wouldn't make a fatal mistake now.

  For a moment the tension in the air was palpable. Then Daniel crossed the floor in two quick strides and enfolded his daughter in his arms. She hugged him back in passionate relief.

  'I'm sorry about all those terrible things I said,' she whispered. 'I didn't mean them.'

  'I didn't mean what I said, either,' Daniel told her in a ragged voice. 'But I haven't changed my position, darling.'

  Phoebe raised her head from his shoulder and gave him a straight look. 'Nor have I, Daddy. It's my life and I'm going to do what I want to do with it.'

  'Let's talk about that later-' he began.

  'Yes, we'll have a nice long talk. I want you to understand why this is so important to me, and why I'm going to do it even if it means making you cross.'

  His lips tightened a fraction. Lee held her breath.

  'I thought you might have started to see sense-' he began.

  Phoebe stepped back abruptly until she was stand-ing beside Mark. Their fingers entwined. 'Daddy, if living here is just going to mean being hassled-'

  It was as if red warning signs had lit up all around, telling Daniel that he was on the edge of the abyss.

  'It isn't,' he said hastily. 'You've had your say and I've had mine.' Even at this moment a gleam of almost amused understanding passed between father and daughter, giving Lee a glimpse of the bitter quarrel they were now trying to bury. 'We'll just have to agree to differ. I want you safe at home. If I can't be happy about what you're doing, I can still promise no aggro.'

  When she still hesitated a note of desperation came into his voice. 'This is very hard for me, Phoebe, but I'm trying. Don't make it more painful by going away. I'll lose you soon enough as it is, but I couldn't face a sharp break now. You can do this last thing for your poor old dad, can't you?'

  A faint smile touched Phoebe's perfect mouth. As Lee had guessed, an appeal to the heart had swayed her where reasoning would have failed. She disentangled her fingers from Mark's and returned to Daniel, looking intently into his face. 'You promise not to nag and criticise me?'

  'When have I ever-? I promise, I promise.'

  'No sitting up to wait for me?'

  'I can't promise that, but I won't make a big deal of it.'

  'No interrogations?'

  'No interrogations. But am I allowed to ask questions about your new life, out of curiosity?'

  'Of course. But no pressure.'

  'No pressure. I know you'll be sensible and not accept bookings that are a bit-you know…'

  'A bit what?'

  'You know,' he floundered. 'Posing in skimpy clothes with men who aren't wearing much either…'

  'You mean underwear?' Phoebe asked, scandalised. 'I'm not going to model underwear. I'd die rather.'

  'That's fine, darling, I'm glad you've got a sense of modesty and-'

  'Brenda says that kind of work is a dead end,' Phoebe interrupted him earnestly. 'I'm going to the top, Dad, and you don't go to the top by modelling knickers and vests.'

  They were still poles apart, but Daniel was fast learning the lesson of resignation and said meekly, 'I'll keep my opinions to myself in future. Besides,' he added with a wry touch of humour, 'if you're going to make a fortune, I may need to touch you for a handout.'

  Phoebe's laughter pealed out and she hugged him fiercely. In her young, egotistical delight, she enjoyed her victory without conscience, unaware that her defeated opponent was hanging on the ropes. Only Lee saw the strain and sadness in Daniel's face before he bent to kiss his child.

  Brenda Mulroy did her best to ease Lee's plight, inviting Daniel to her office and talking to him in a down-to-earth way about his daughter's prospects. She painted a realistic portrait of Phoebe's future career, which included the fact that several well-known photographers had already seen her pictures and been impressed. She meant to reassure him, but Lee knew that every encouraging word twisted a knife in his heart.

  What reassured him more was Brenda herself, a plump, motherly woman in her fifties with a ready laugh. Even so, it took a while for his bristling defensiveness to subside, and that evening it all returned in a wave of black gloom.

  'What about this course Phoebe's started?' he demanded of Lee as they stood in his kitchen watching a pot simmer.

  'She needs to learn the tricks of the trade. The course will teach her what make-up to use and how to apply it for the camera. She'll learn things about her hair, her diet, her skin type, how to take care of herself-how to be a professional.'

  'It sounds expensive.'

  'A couple of thousand.'

  'I knew it!' he said, outraged. 'It's nothing but a con trick to delude innocent girls into parting with their money.'

  'Nonsense! Phoebe will pay it back out of her future earnings over the next year. I promise you, she'll earn a great deal more than two thousand. Please, Daniel, stop being paranoid.'

  'Paranoid?' he growled. 'Of course I'm paranoid. I'm the father of a sixteen-year-old girl. It goes with the territory.'

  Phoebe herself was blissfully happy, lost in graphs and colour charts, experimenting with a wide new range of products and techniques. She'd arrived home an hour earlier, greeted them cheerfully and hurried up to her room. When Daniel called that the meal was ready she descended with her face covered in green paste.

  'It's a face mask,' she explained to her stunned father. 'I have to keep it on for a couple of hours.'

  Daniel swallowed. 'Sit down at the table,' he said faintly.

  Something was troubling Lee. 'Phoebe, weren't you supposed to be-?' The ringing of the front doorbell interrupted her.

  Daniel answered it, and a moment later ushered Mark into the room. He was formally dressed and had started to say 'Is Phoebe ready yet-?' when he saw the green apparition and blenched. Phoebe's hands flew to her mouth.

  'Oh, Mark, I'm so sorry. I forgot.'

  'Forgot? After all the trouble I took to get the tickets-you forgot? Well, never mind. If you hurry we'll just make it.'

  'But I can't take this off,' Phoebe said with a little scream. 'I've only just put it on.'

  'Can't you put it on again when you come home?' Mark demanded in outrage.

  'No, I've only got this one pot. Tomorrow I have to tell my instructor how it affected me.'

  Mark tore his hair. 'The curtain goes up in an hour. Are you coming or not?'

  'How can I come like this?' Phoebe protested. 'Well, what did you put it on for, woman?' Daniel bristled at this form of address but Lee put a hand on his arm. 'I'm sure Phoebe can cope with Mark,' she murmured, 'Remember whose daughter she is.'

  'I'm sorry,' Phoebe wailed. 'It just slipped my mind that we were going out tonight.'

  'Oh, that's nice!' Mark exclaimed with heavy sarcasm. 'That's nice, isn't it? I may as well go, then.'

  'You're welcome to stay and eat with us,' Daniel said.

  'Thanks, but no thanks,' Mark said shortly. His handsome young face was marred by a petulant scowl. 'I won't stay where I'm not wanted.'

  'You are wanted,' Lee pointed out. 'You've just been invited.'

  'Some people don't want me,' Mark said with a black look at Phoebe 'Some people let me queue for tickets for the hottest show in town and then let it
slip their mind. Some people forget me as soon as they have other interests and will probably be glad to see the back of me. Goodnight, everybody.'

  'Stay for supper.' Lee repeated Daniel's invitation.

  He threw her a smouldering look. 'Please don't worry about me. I can have a cheese sandwich when I get home.'

  He departed with dignity. Lee struggled to control her face and even Daniel had to stop his lips twitching. Only Phoebe didn't find Mark's behaviour amusing. She gave a wail and flapped her hands.

  'Don't worry too much,' Lee told her. 'It'll do him a power of good to know that your world doesn't revolve around him.'

  'But I can't just let him go like that,' Phoebe wept, 'all hurt and miserable. Oh, how could I forget about tonight?'

  'Because you had more important things to consider,' Daniel said with elaborate casualness. 'The trouble is, men resent women who are more successful than they are. Ouch! That was my shin.'

  'Serves you right for saying something so prehistoric,' Lee hissed. 'You ought to be ashamed of trying to manipulate this situation.'

  'I'm not. I just want to be sure Phoebe understands what's happening. Let him go, Phoebe. Be strong. Remember whose daughter you are.'

  'I think you're hateful and heartless,' Phoebe cried. The next moment she was flying out into the street, calling, 'Mark, darling, wait-please.'

  Daniel groaned. 'There's a sight that'll give the neighbours something to talk about for a week.'

  Lee hardly heard him. For a moment the ghost of her young self was there, hurrying after Jimmy, begging him. 'Don't be angry, please, Jimmy… I didn't mean it… It was my fault…' To be eternally placating: the worst mistake you could make. Asking to be bullied.

  'Anything wrong?' Daniel asked her.

  'No,' she said hastily, and forced a smile to her face. 'Everything's fine.'

  The young couple returned a few minutes later, apparently reconciled, but the rest of the evening wasn't a success. Phoebe refused to remove her face mask and Mark endured the meal with an air of gloom suitable to a man whose beloved had turned into Frankenstein's monster. Even when she finally washed her face matters were little improved, as she almost immediately announced her intention of going to bed.

  'My instructor says I need early nights,' she said.

  As the phrase 'my instructor says' had peppered the conversation for the last two hours Lee felt that Mark could be forgiven for grinding his teeth. Daniel became notably more cheerful. Lee's brother had never been his favourite person, and his hostility had increased after the night Phoebe had taken his hand as a gesture of defiance. Mark had come to symbolise the malign fate that was distancing Phoebe from her father.

  'What are you smiling at?' Lee demanded as they did the washing up.

  'It's dawned on me that there may be an up side to this, after all. Think of the young men Phoebe will meet-young men with proper cars and not hoary old bangers. Men who know how to cherish a lovely girl and don't throw a fit of the sulks.'

  'I think Mark was entitled to feel a little peeved,' Lee said indignantly. 'It took him ages to get those tickets, just to please her, and she simply forgot.'

  'Nonetheless, it wasn't clever of him to descend into a self-pitying sulk.'

  'So what should he have done, according to you?'

  'Endured it with an air of noble suffering,' Daniel said with a wicked grin. 'Tossed the tickets away. What use are they if they don't please his lady? And if he could have contrived to suggest a broken heart bravely concealed beneath a casual air he'd have done himself a lot more good than he actually did.'

  'That's what you'd have done, I suppose? In fact you've probably done just that at some time.'

  'Well, the ladies I used to escort didn't usually forget,' Daniel admitted, with an air of false modesty that didn't fool her. 'But if they had, I'd have handled it better than that. I think I may just remind Phoebe how undignified he looked.'

  Lee chuckled. 'You're a devious so-and-so. You're doing it again-arranging the world and everyone in it.'

  'Don't you dare say I arrange things. I'm the helpless victim of events. But if Phoebe's career does bring this little romance to an end I shan't be sorry.' He glanced at the door, and finding that they were safely alone, sneaked a kiss. 'Do you have to go back early?' he murmured.

  'Sonya's staying the night with a friend.'

  'Thank heavens!'

  'But I'm going home, Daniel. I know Phoebe's a modern girl, but-'

  'I know,' he sighed. 'I feel the same. There's only one answer. You'll have to marry me.'

  'We've got a lot of things to. get out of the way first,' she prevaricated.

  He searched her face and read in it everything she dared not say. Their reconciliation was fragile. Beneath the jokes and the affection they had retreated a little from each other. Who knew when they would recover the lost ground? Or whether it would ever be recovered?

  She drove home and found Mark sitting in the kitchen, staring at a cup of cocoa. Lee patted his shoulder kindly. He really had been badly treated.

  'Fifty quid those tickets cost me,' he muttered. 'Fifty flaming quid. And I had to queue in the rain. But what does she care?'

  'Phoebe's very young, Mark,' Lee said sympathetically. 'At her age she doesn't want to get too serious.'

  "That's not what she- Oh, hell, never mind!'

  'You mean she made you think she was ready for a deep relationship?'

  Mark shrugged disconsolately.

  'But that was before her horizons broadened, wasn't it? Things are bound to change, my dear.'

  'Yes, I'm just going to be a student to her, aren't I?'

  'I don't think it's fair to ask any sort of commitment from her. Phoebe needs time to find her feet.'

  'But I think about her all the time. You can't understand, Lee.'

  'Can't I?' she asked, smiling a little at the age-old accusation.

  'I don't suppose you even remember what it was like to be my age.'

  Eighteen, she thought. When she'd been eighteen she'd already thought of her life as effectively over.

  'Yes, I remember,' she said. 'Too well.'

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  At the end of the month-long course the modelling school gave a reception at which the students had the chance to put themselves on display. There was a small fashion show, with clothes provided by aspiring designers from a nearby fashion college. The audience was made up mostly of proud parents and friends, but there was also a smattering of fashion editors and photographers, seeking new talent.

  'There are more professionals here than I've ever seen before,' Lee commented.

  'I bet it's because of Phoebe,' Sonya said. She lowered her voice dramatically. 'A ripple has gone round the fashion world, and no one wants to miss the debut of this new star.'

  "That would be lovely, darling, but it's the wrong time of year for Santa Claus,' Lee said with a smile.

  But it seemed that Sonya was right. A fellow photographer accosted Lee with the words, 'They say the big discovery is all down to you'.

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'Phoebe Raife. Everyone's talking about her. Mind you, Brenda's playing it cool. She's turned down a couple of jobs already because they "weren't quite right for Phoebe". So now the pack's out in force to see if the reality lives up to the expectation.'

  The show began. As soon as Phoebe appeared Lee knew that she'd made good use of the course. This was a subtly different creature from the eager girl she'd photographed only a couple of months ago. She was still young and fresh, but she'd acquired poise. Lee could hear again the clear, arrogant young voice saying 'I'm going to the top' and she wondered how they'd ever imagined that this young woman could be told what to do.

  Perhaps Daniel thought the same, for his eyes were fixed on his daughter with a kind of awe mixed with sadness.

  Sonya was simply thrilled.

  'Wasn't she wonderful?' she demanded afterwards. 'Like Phoebe and yet-not like Phoebe at all.'

  'No,' Da
niel said with a sigh. 'Not like Phoebe at all.'

  Sonya looked at him with sympathy and slipped a comforting hand into his. Recently it had become common for her and Lee to dine with him, and for Sonya to retire to his study afterwards to do her homework. One evening Daniel took her in a cup of tea and remained away for nearly half an hour. Going to find him, Lee had discovered them earnestly discussing her history essay. Sonya's eyes had been bright with interest, and Daniel had seemed equally absorbed. After that they became firm friends, and she called him Daniel.

  When the fashion show was over they drank champagne and waited for the models to reappear. Phoebe bounded over, an eager youngster again, and Daniel fixed an enthusiastic smile on his face by sheer effort of will.

  'You were wonderful, darling,' he said.

  'Did you really think so? You're not just-?'

  'Wonderful,' he repeated firmly, determined to do the thing properly.

  'Lee?' Phoebe turned to her in appeal.

  'You made a sensation,' Lee told her truthfully. 'There's already a lot of interest in you.'

  Phoebe gave a little delighted scream, then looked around the crowded room. 'Where's Mark?'

  'He really wanted to come,' Lee said awkwardly. 'But now that term has started again… He's working on an essay that has to be in on Monday. He sent you his best wishes.'

  Phoebe's face fell. 'Yes, of course,' she said bravely.

  In fact Mark had sulkily refused to attend. He'd pleaded pressure of work, but he'd always been able to get out of that before when he wanted to, and of course Phoebe knew this. Mark was jealous, and it made him unkind.

  There were a dozen people eager to claim Phoebe's attention. Sonya slipped away into a corner where she could take a sip of champagne in defiance of her mother's prohibition. Lee was left alone with Daniel, who was scowling.

  'How dare he snub my daughter?' he said angrily.

  'You should be glad. Phoebe can see for herself that he's being very immature, which is surely what you want.'

  'Of course it's what I want. The sooner she gets over her infatuation with that high-handed young puppy the better.'

  'Well, then-'

  'But he's still got no right to snub my daughter and make her unhappy,' Daniel said stubbornly.