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‘Your father made a mistake. You were eleven years old and you didn’t want to talk. He was the adult and he should have found some way to reach you, but I can see why he didn’t. He had his own grief to deal with.’
That was a very fair synopsis. Apart from one thing. ‘It’s not all his fault. I’m not eleven any more and I’ve never reached out to him.
‘And you had your reasons for that. Grief, trauma. The idea that a parent always knows best, however old we get.’
‘That lets me off the hook, then. Just for the record, I’m not entirely comfortable with that. I should carry more of the blame...’ He tried to make a joke of it.
‘He’s a good man, Gabriel, and he loves you.’
‘I know. I love him, too.’
‘If you love him then you have to talk to him. He’s lost one son already, don’t make him lose another by allowing the company to drive a wedge between you.’
Clara always made him feel as if he could do anything. As if the world contained no walls, no hidden underground chambers where he was afraid to go. Gabriel turned his face up to the sun, but it didn’t warm him as much as the woman standing by his side.
‘Will you do one thing for me?’
‘Depends what it is.’ She smiled up at him.
‘Take a walk along the beach first. Maybe we can watch the sunset.’ He smiled back at her. ‘In an entirely platonic fashion, of course. We could appreciate the scientific reasons for sunsets and red skies...’
She chuckled. ‘We could if I had any idea what they were.’
‘You don’t?’ Gabriel pulled a face of mock horror. ‘Well, there isn’t a jot of romance in any of it. Just hard science...’
* * *
His definition of hard science was to escort her to one of the flat rocks on the beach and bid her to stand quite still on it.
‘You—as the sun—are both brilliant and have an irresistible gravitational pull. Whereas I—as a minor third planet—can only revolve around you. Spinning helplessly...’
Right. And this had nothing to do with romance. In that case, hard science was unexpectedly thrilling.
‘When my back’s to you, it’s cold and dark. When I face you, I’m blinded...’ He shaded his eyes and Clara laughed.
‘Okay, I’m overawed with your demonstration, even though I already knew that bit. What’s it got to do with a red sunset?’
He grinned. ‘Because different parts of the spectrum are scattered in different ways by the earth’s atmosphere. When you’re straight in front of me I see more blues and yellows. Hence a blue sky.’
‘And when you turn away?’ Gabriel would turn away from her, and now that she was no longer working with him it would be happening sooner than she’d thought. They were two very different people, who could take some time together but not for ever.
‘When I turn away...’ he twisted sideways ‘...my last glimpse of you is full of the regret of knowing you’re almost gone...’
‘I’ll take it as read that you’re experiencing a world of regret. Why is the sky red?’
‘Because the angle means that the light’s taking a longer path through the earth’s atmosphere. More of the blue and yellow parts of the spectrum are removed, leaving the red.’
Clara removed her shoes, climbing down from the rock to stand with him in the gently rolling surf. These few days were never going to happen again. A short window of time when they were together and she wasn’t bound by the professional constraints of working with him.
Gabriel had his own set path, and Clara couldn’t deviate from hers. That would mean chaos, and she didn’t do chaos. A good job, a secure home and a heart that couldn’t be broken was what she did. But maybe they could emulate the glorious sunset that was beginning to fill the sky. A blaze of colour before the darkness.
‘Goodbye, sun...’ She curled her hand into a wave, and Gabriel chuckled.
‘We’ll miss you,’ he called across towards the horizon, and then turned suddenly towards Clara. ‘I’ll miss you...’
‘I’ll miss you too.’ She could admit it now.
‘But the sun’s not quite down yet.’ His lips twitched into a smile.
