A Bewitching Compulsion

Clare had expected her to throw herself at her father then, since after all the object of the exercise had been to get his full attention, but Tamara had taken one look at his weary face, full of shock, sadness and disappointment, and launched herself instead at a startled Clare. When her father had touched her she had actually flinched, and Clare had instinctively cradled her protectively closer. David went white under his olive skin and his eyes revealed a chilling pain that was swiftly superseded by a resentful resignation that Clare had no difficulty in interpreting. Ironically, with this last gesture of futility, Tamara had achieved her aim. She had rendered her father powerless. He was jealous. Whatever the difficulties between them, he was her father, and it should have been to David that she turned in time of greatest woe.

It took Clare an hour to calm Tamara down, while David reluctantly made himself scarce. Tamara couldn't stop talking. It all poured out, how ashamed David was of her, how he must despise and hate her for screwing up his life. Her wild, thoughtless scheme to bring him rushing to her side had backfired horribly. She destroyed everything she touched. Her father would never love her the way he used to. He couldn't. She had humiliated him once too often, failed him too many times.

'Funny, that's just what he said—that he had failed you,' Clare told the sobbing girl as she guided her into a hot bath. 'He's not perfect, you know, just because he's an adult. He feels the same kind of hurt and confusion that you do. And you're both wrong, anyway. You can't talk about love in terms of success or failure. It's not an examination subject. You just do the best you can as you go along. And you certainly don't try to use it to control those you love. The only person you can really control is yourself, and you did pretty well out there, Tamara. You'd done something stupid but you faced up to it; you didn't try to run away. People respect that. Maybe you've learnt that running away only presents you with a new set of problems to face. And maybe you'll soon realise that your father isn't some superhuman being who can solve all those problems for you. He's as much a victim of circumstance as you are. Think about it.'

She left Tamara to soak and brood, meeting David coming into the newly redecorated suite that they had moved into a few days before Miles's return.

'She's in the bath,' said Clare huskily. 'I've ordered her some soup and a hot drink—'

'So have I. I am capable of looking after her physical needs, at least,' he said curtly. He hadn't even stopped to shave that morning, and the dark growth added aggression to his tense features. Clare forgave him his touchiness, for she had been with him during those long, grey hours of nail-biting anxiety and heard him lash himself with guilt: for leaving Tamara when he knew she was upset, for his impatience in brushing aside her needs, for not making enough concessions to her youth and vulnerability. Clare hadn't dared to offer any easy platitudes, silently accepting his raging self-contempt as a way to keep his worst fears at bay. Like a wounded bear in a trap, he would blindly lash out at any attempt to help. Now anger at the needlessness of his suffering was probably compounding his guilt. He needed to vent it before he faced his daughter.

'Of course you are,' said Clare carefully. She wanted to ease the burden, to tell him it was instinctive to seek sympathy from one's own sex. 'But—'

'But you don't trust me any more than Tamara does to understand. I can imagine what's going through your mind. That I had it coming to me. So much for my theories on juvenile independence. I bet you're congratulating yourself that you didn't let me seduce you into parting you and Tim. Tamara almost died because she felt that I had abandoned her,' he said jerkily.

'David, about Tim…' Amid the tense excitement of the day, she had found time to take Tim aside and gently break the news. Although he was still dubious about living with stranger

s, his mind had been eased when Clare explained that, naturally, she would be moving to Auckland, too, if the school accepted Tim. She didn't want to hint how close until she had investigated the possibility further. The if had been a clincher. Tim's stubbornness reared its head. It became a matter of Malcolm pride that he not suffer the mortification of rejection.

'Forget it, Clare. Forget everything I ever said. Now, if you'll excuse me, my daughter and I need some time alone together. I want her to relate to me, not hide behind a stranger's sympathy. And you can tell your boss that we'll be leaving tomorrow.'

Forget everything! Clare was still choking on that the next morning as she jogged towards the lodge along the lake edge. Did he mean Tim, or literally everything! And to call her a stranger, in that casual, dismissive voice. That was a lethal blow. Twice she had offered him her body and twice he had made excuses not to take it— good excuses at the time, but maybe they were just a way to avoid the embarrassment of turning her down flat!

'Clare?' She shied. David was hovering on the steps to the lodge. His wary expression changed to shock as he saw the damp patches on her track-suit, her wet hair, and the towel in her hand. 'Did you fall in the lake?'

As if he cared if she drowned! 'I've been swimming.'

'In the lake? In the middle of winter? You must be crazy!'

'No, just fit. Are you all packed?' she forced herself to ask.

'All the commercial flights are full, so we're staying another day.' So he had meant it, every word! Clare fought to appear calm. 'Aren't you scared of hypothermia and cramp?' David continued.

'I don't go out of my depth and I don't stay in for long. But I wouldn't recommend it for someone like you.' Her anger at her stupidity for falling in love with him came out like scorn.

'Why not? I'm a very good swimmer.' His response to the challenge was reflexive, and it encouraged her to goad further.

'Sure. In a nice, antiseptic pool heated to blood temperature. Out in the open you have to be a bit tough. You're out of your element here, David.' In more ways than one.

She swept past him, ignoring his 'We'll see about that!' and an hour later was savouring the sweet taste of revenge when she was drawn out of her office by a commotion in the foyer.

'You must be crazy, man!' Miles was booming at a rigid and distinctly blue-tinted David. 'That lake's pretty cold in summer, let alone in winter! Nobody's that masochistic!'

David unlocked his teeth as he saw Clare, and stuttered with icy triumph, 'Clare is… she told me… next bay.'

'Clare?' Miles did a double-take at her guilty blush.

David saw it, too. 'S… she was there, this morning.' He shuddered. His jeans and sweater offered no warmth to his bloodless skin.

'But not in the lake, old man! Didn't she tell you about the pool?' Miles's voice shivered at the joke. 'At the far end, in that rocky section of bank, there's a thermal spring that feeds into the lake. There's a hot pool and a warm patch of lake shallows. Hey, Davey, you've got some guts!' Miles slapped him gleefully on the back. 'Come into the bar and sit by the fire. I'll get you a couple of dozen whiskies to warm up. Did I tell you that I once spent a few weeks down in Antarctica? They said it was summer, but…' His voice faded as he towed a tottering David towards the reviving heat. The murderous expression frozen on to the violinist's blue-lipped face made Clare giggle nervously. He heard, his stiff-legged gait faltering momentarily, and Clare suddenly felt a heady excitement at the knowledge that this time she had made a fool of him.

Her excitement fizzled when he made no attempt to confront her. David in a rage was at least preferable to no David at all. But for the rest of the day he stayed in his room. Making international phone calls and arguing about something with Efrem, a very subdued Tamara said, when she insisted on accompanying Clare to her 'jazzercise' class, after convincing her that she was suffering no ill-effects from her self-inflicted adventure.

Tamara didn't say anything else about her father, and Clare tactfully avoiding any probing, but when David didn't join them for dinner she couldn't resist asking whether they had talked.

Tamara nodded, tearing herself away from the charm of Tim's sneaking admiration for her daring. Tim had lived near the bush long enough to have an immense respect for its dangers and, disregarding the foolish way she had got lost, he now looked at Tamara with a certain envy. She might be a bit silly, but she was brave, too.

'For ages. All night, really. I guess we haven't done that for a long time, not without getting mad at each other and ending up shouting. We're too alike in temperament, Dad says, that's why we tend to fight. We're natural fighters, it helps burn up our excess energy. It's when we hold things in that everything gets twisted and distorted and misunderstood. We're going to talk lots more from now on. Dad says he can see his phone bills going through the roof, but we've gotta keep the lines of communication open, wherever we are.'