They smacked straight into a wall of freezing air the second they stepped outside the tent.
‘Woah.’ Dan’s breath was visible in the air. ‘That’s fresh.’
‘Yeah, great for clearing your head.’
‘How come you need to clear your head?’
‘Well, I don’t really.’ Max led the way towards the path that wound round the house. ‘I just thought it would be nice to have a chat.’
‘Okay.’ Little bit weird.
‘So I was chatting to Dad earlier.’ Max stopped in the shelter of the porch next to the kitchen door. Oh, right.
‘Great.’ Dan could feel his shoulders growing tense.
‘And I just wanted to say that I know that you can’t bring yourself to speak to him really. And I totally get that. He treated Mum appallingly, for years, and obviously we aren’t party to their conversations, but it doesn’t seem like he’s ever apologised properly. But he’s our father and it feels like if we don’t speak to him, we might suffer more than he does. And in fact do we actually want him to suffer? You know, the whole two wrongs don’t make a right thing. He’s our dad. And in some ways he was a good dad while we were growing up. And I’m feeling a lot better about things now that I’ve spoken to him. I’m going to meet him for lunch soon. Re-establish proper contact.’
Dan didn’t want to re-establish contact and he didn’t want to think about their father possibly having been a good dad at times. But as Evie had said about his parents, things weren’t always black and white, were they? An image flashed through his mind of their dad bowling patiently to him and Max in the village cricket net for hours on end so that they could perfect their batting. And one of him joining in village carol-singing with great, good-humoured enthusiasm. And, further back, of him reading bedtime stories to Dan. There were so many memories. Some not brilliant – his father was definitely quite abrasive at times – but also a lot of good ones.
He shook his head and kicked his shoe against the wall of the house. What was it with this evening? Evie trying to get him to talk to Max and now Max trying to get him to talk to his father? Did everyone he knew think he had stuff he needed to talk about?
Nope. He wasn’t talking.
‘I can’t,’ he said.
‘Okay. Fair enough. Just putting it out there,’ Max said. ‘So how are things with Evie?’
‘There are no things with Evie,’ Dan said, trying not to snap. Had Max and Greggy ambushed him and Evie on purpose to orchestrate this chat?
‘Just, you know, every time I’ve ever seen you together, you seem to work so well together.’
Dan shook his head. ‘She has a boyfriend. There’s nothing between us.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Max, mildly.
Dan suddenly wondered what would happen if – in a parallel universe; he wasn’t actually going to do it – he did talk to Max about the accident.
‘What?’ asked Max.
‘Nothing,’ Dan said.
When they got back inside, Dan saw that Evie was dancing with a smarmy-looking, boringly handsome man who he didn’t recognise. All he wanted to do was dance with her himself, but obviously he couldn’t just walk onto the dance floor and pull her away.
Maybe he’d get himself a drink. Yeah, he was a little bit thirsty. As he skirted the dance floor, he kept an eye on Evie. Just in case she looked like she wanted to stop dancing, that was all.
She must have felt his eyes on her, because she looked over and smiled right at him.
Dan stopped walking and smiled back at her.
She stood on tiptoes and said something to the man she’d been dancing with – Danreallydidn’t like the look of him, if he was honest – and wove her way across the dance floor towards Dan.
‘Hey,’ he said, still smiling, when she got to him. ‘Drink?’
‘That would be lovely. Dancing’s hot work.’
They turned and started to make their way over to the bar, their steps falling in together.
‘Max just told me that he’s been talking to our father and he thinks I should too.’
