She stopped abruptly. Oh, God, what on earth was she saying? But it was too late—after a sharp look at her, Silas was already demanding evenly, ‘That Katie and I what, Hazel?’
She cast around desperately in her mind for something innocuous to say, but she could almost feel the seconds ticking by, and with them Silas’s patience. She could almost feel the silent pressure of his demand that she answer his question. There was no escape.
Even if she could think of a suitable fib, she knew she just did not have the self-confidence to utter it with any real conviction.
‘I assumed…that is I thought… Well, Katie didn’t…’
‘You thought that Katie and I were lovers,’ Silas supplied for her, cutting through her embarrassed attempts to admit how she had misjudged him.
‘Well, yes…yes I did, but only because… Well…’ She remembered just in time that she was supposed to have extended an invitation to him to stay with her while he was doing his research and realised that she could hardly tell him that when Katie had described him to her in such glowing terms she had quite naturally assumed that Katie was romantically involved with him, not realising that her daughter had simply been trying to prepare the way for her acceptance of him as a potential lodger.
‘Because what?’ Silas asked her evenly. ‘Because I immediately struck you as the type of man who would become involved with a girl as young as Katie? A girl young enough to be my daughter.’
‘I… Well…’
He was furious with her and no wonder, she acknowledged wretchedly.
‘I can understand why you might think that I might be tempted by a girl of Katie’s prettiness and vitality. Just… But what I can’t understand is how you could ever have imagined that Katie would be interested in me.’
‘Well, I thought… I thought you’d be younger,’ she told him defensively.
‘Younger.’ He was frowning at her. ‘I realise the photographs on the back of my dust jackets are somewhat out of date but—’
‘And although Katie is very sensible, I thought she might… Well, I worried. Some girls of her age do seem to feel the need for a father figure…’
‘Some do,’ Silas agreed. ‘But not Katie.’
‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you,’ Hazel apologised miserably. Why on earth had she been so stupid? The trouble was that she had been so bemused, so thrown off guard by his contempt for the other couple that she had forgotten to guard her tongue, and had spoken impulsively and from the heart.
‘I’m sorry too,’ Silas told her, pushing away his food half-eaten.
Hazel discovered that she too had lost her appetite. When the waiter came to remove their plates and serve their main course, he frowned unhappily at their far from empty plates, increasing Hazel’s feelings of guilt.
‘It never occurred to me that you’d imagine… Katie is a lovely girl, young, pretty, lively and intelligent; the kind of girl it’s always a joy to behold from a purely aesthetic point of view, but sexually… She is still a girl, but I am not a boy.’
He paused while the waiter served their main course.
Every word he uttered was increasing Hazel’s feelings of guilt and shame. If he had lost his temper with her, it would have been easier to bear, but he hadn’t done. Instead she could almost feel the distaste and disbelief radiating from him, making her feel guilty of the most gross kind of misjudgement.
Once the waiter had gone, he continued curtly, ‘As I was saying, sexually I don’t have the remotest interest in Katie… In fact…’
Hazel couldn’t look at him. To her horror she could feel tears gathering behind her eyes. Keeping her head lowered towards her plate, she tried frantically to blink them away.
The evening had been disastrous enough as it was, without her adding to its horrors by bursting into tears.
But nothing she could do could stop the tears from welling and rolling slowly down her face. A face which had become so hot from embarrassment and shame that she was only surprised her tears didn’t turn into steam from that heat.
She tried to dip her head even lower, but it was too late.
She heard Silas swear under his breath, and then the next thing she knew he was standing up and saying urgently to her, ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. This is something we need to discuss in private.’
She tried to tell him that there wasn’t anything to discuss, but somehow or other she was on her feet, and his arm was round her, guiding her, comforting her almost, certainly shielding her from the potentially curious stares of the other diners.
She heard him saying something to the owner about his wife not feeling well as he paid the bill.
All Hazel wanted was to get out of the restaurant as quickly as she could, and not just out of the restaurant but out of Silas’s company as well.
She had embarrassed herself and she had no doubt embarrassed him just as much. What she had said had been bad enough, but to break down in tears like that…