‘Do you want to tell me?’
‘I hardly know what to say.’
‘Say the first thing that comes into your head, and we’ll take it from there.’
‘She’s angry with me.’
‘Augi is angry with you?’ said Kate, surprised. ‘In all the years she’s been living down the road from me, working in the library, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her angry. Not with anyone.’
‘Yes, well. She was angry with me.’
Kate looked at him suddenly. ‘Maybe you’ve got it wrong. Maybe she’s angry with herself.’
Dan frowned at the beer bottle he dangled in his hands. Could she be? He looked up at Kate. ‘I don’t know, Mum. I really don’t know.’
‘If you want to, tell me what the argument was about.’
‘She made a point of telling me that she had secrets, as if she knew that it would put me off her. Well, she was right. I’ve always hated secrets, especially after Washington. Work-wise and personally, I’ve got taken for a ride too many times by trusting people I shouldn’t have.’
‘You were always like that growing up. Naive, trusting.’
‘Yeah, well, I’ve learned my lesson now. So well that I can’t seem to trust anyone.’
She leaned forward. ‘Tell me, Daniel, what would it take to make you trust in someone?’
‘Easy. No secrets.’
‘But even if someone didn’t have any secrets, it still doesn’t mean to say you can trust them.’
He looked at her blankly.
‘I mean, say you’re with a woman, it’s going well, you know each other’s lives well, and so you trust her. There’s nothing in her past or present to say she’ll betray you in any way, and yet she could. Because it’s not the transparency which enables you to trust her, it should be her, herself. Her personality, her integrity.’
‘That’s what Augustini said.’
‘Ah, and how did you respond?’
‘That I can’t trust someone who keeps secrets from me.’
‘Maybe she feels as if she doesn’t have any choice. Maybe you need to simply know her better, not her secrets, but get to know her better. Then the trust will come. Because I’ll lay everything I own — not that it’s much — on the fact you can trust Augi Markos one hundred percent.’
‘Even with her secrets?’
‘Especially with her secrets. As I say, she’s probably angry with herself that she’s still keeping them. I assume they’re connected with her background. They’re not connected with her life here, or with you. My advice, Daniel, is slow things down, get to know her, and don’t dismiss her simply because she’s holding onto some secrets. I kind of think that it’s her who has the trust issues that she’s struggling with. Just go easy on her. I suspect she’s been through a lot.’
Dan took another sip of his beer. It tasted just a little less bitter.
Chapter Thirteen
Dan lay on his bed, looking up at the ceiling rose, waiting for divine inspiration. It didn’t come. Over the past week he’d tried so many times to write a note to Augi that it had become ridiculous. Because he deeply regretted the last words he’d spoken to her.
His mother’s words about trust kept coming back to haunt him.
It’s people you trust, not words. Trust your gut instinct.
He hadn’t the last time he’d been with Augustini. His pride had got in the way. But now? Every time he passed the library or caught sight of her walking along the street — back straight, head high, eyes straight ahead — his gut screamed at him like a house alarm. She never acknowledged she’d seen him.
Once, he thought he’d caught her ducking down a side street, as if she’d seen him. That hurt. But he couldn’t figure out a way of retrieving their friendship, still so new — except this. Do as his mother had suggested.
