Daniel and Daughter

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?'