‘Muppet.’ Bea smiled tenderly. ‘Yes, he is what you’d call a muppet, although that’s an insult to Kermit and the like. And he’s the sort of muppet who basically got a better offer, a trust fund baby who would support him.’
‘Sounds pathetic.’ Cal tensed, wondering if he should hold back on the judgements but knowing he couldn’t. This sort of behaviour riled him too much. ‘Sorry if you think that sounds sexist, but any guy who expects his girlfriend to support him, without a genuine, necessary reason, is a sorry excuse for a person as far as I’m concerned.’
‘But is it okay the other way round?’
Cal took a deep breath but said nothing for a moment. He needed to get his words right on this one and show Beathat to him this meant more than she could know. ‘One person taking advantage of any one person is not okay,’ he said. ‘But I know that’s not what’s happening here. You haven’t come with me expecting anything, I can see that. And, if anything, I blame myself for the confusion between us.’
Bea scrutinised him and Cal wondered if he had said too much. He didn’t want to talk about this, but something bigger was driving the compulsion. She’d opened up about a huge part of her life and he owed her an explanation.
‘Bea, my dad – my biological dad – he wasn’t the nicest of guys. The dad we are going to visit is my adoptive dad, my uncle actually. But to me, he’s my real dad. You can’t deny biology, but my birth father was a different man from me and from my adoptive dad. Different in so many ways.’
‘Oh, I see. Did you know him well, your biological father?’
‘Not really. He died when I was four. But well enough to get the measure of him. At the time, I looked up to him, wanted his approval for things, because what kid doesn’t want to be loved back by their dad. But I learned over time that he wasn’t all that. He was a liar and a drunk, to name but a few things. And I know my mum went through years of trauma counselling even after he died and she’d got together with my Uncle Jimmy. Over the years, he’s shown what a real dad should be like and I’ve been lucky to have that. He’s been like that mountain over there in terms of support to all of us. It takes some man to take on three children fathered by your awful brother, have another one and adopt three more.’
Bea’s eyebrows almost hit her hairline at Cal’s revelation. ‘Wow, Cal, I never knew this about your family. Imean, I knew about the triplets, but not about everything else.’
‘Of course you didn’t. And I’m not telling you because I need sympathy or anything. I just want you to know that I’ve always been a bit fearful of turning out like my biological father, so I sometimes overcompensate and end up being an arse anyway.’
‘Oh, Cal.’ Bea leaned into him. ‘You’re not an ass. Or how you say it. Arrrse.’ Bea tried to roll her ‘r’.
‘Well done. Well, I was putting my own agenda first and not considering how that might impact you. So for that I apologise.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ said Bea. ‘And I didn’t know about your family background. It sounds real complex and challenging.’
‘It was, but I’m a big boy now and I’m lucky to have a dad like the one I do. A man who taught me the meaning of hard work and right from wrong. And there’s probably something else you should know before we get to my folks’. Cal swallowed hard, the words he’d feared saying for what they might do to him, backing up in his throat. But he had to tell Bea; this was the time. ‘My dad has recently been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, or ALS as you might know it. This is the first time I’ve seen him since he got the news.’
‘Oh, Cal.’ Bea grasped his hand. ‘Oh my goodness! That’s huge. I am so sorry.’
‘Thanks.’ Cal took a breath to steady himself. He’d said the words and the world was still turning. ‘He’s always been this total presence of a man, a force to be reckoned with. To see that diminish is going to be so strange.’
‘I completely understand.’ Bea comfortingly stroked Cal’s strong fingers. ‘I remember when my ownfather died; it was so hard watching him become smaller and smaller, although the spark of him was always there. I guess it will be the same for yours.’
‘Aye,’ Cal agreed. His character will always be solid, steely Jimmy Butler with a heart as wide and as deep as this loch.’
‘That’s exactly it And that will be what you remember, too.’
For a moment or two, Cal stared out at that very loch, lost in his own thoughts.
‘Aye, I hope so,’ he said. ‘All I want is to be as good a man as he is and make him happy and proud of me before he goes.’
‘You are a good man,’ Bea assured him. ‘And I’m sure he is bursting with pride about you. How could he not be?’
Cal shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never felt I measured up. After all, what’s running a piddly wee bar compared to a distillery empire? He turned back to Bea, knowing he needed to stop now before his words dredged emotions from too deep within him. ‘Anyway, we weren’t meant to be talking about me. The original point was that I appreciate that I can’t undo five years of whatever your ex has made you think; that would take a lot longer than we have together, but I think that to solve the money thing, how about from now on we go Dutch?’
Bea nodded. ‘If that would be okay,’ she said.
‘But on one condition?
‘Okay, what?’
‘That tonight, you enjoy yourself with me.’ Cal swept his arm towards the pebbled shore where the loch lapped gently and then back to the hot tub. ‘Are we going to stand here and argue about money when we’ve all this to enjoy?’
‘Um… well,’ Bea conceded. ‘You do have a point.’
‘Yeah, I do.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘It’s a deal, about the going halves.’
