The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox

Author:Elizabeth Knox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Victoria University Press
Published: 2019-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

22

Basil Cornick’s Screen Test

While Taryn was waiting for Jacob to come out of surgery, her father arrived. He minutely examined the sling on her arm, her bandaged cuts and salved bruises. He tried to get her to come with him to a hotel. ‘Somewhere nearby. It might be hours yet.’ Finally he convinced her at least to come down to the café for something to eat.

He escorted her from the ward, leaving a wake of electrified excitement as he went. Even the ambulant convalescents pushing their IVs along the corridors straightened their spines and turned to follow the progress of the famous actor. Taryn spotted DS Hemms, in a cast and on crutches, lurking near the main lifts with a group of constables from Norwich.

She grabbed her father’s arm. ‘Let’s take another route.’

Her father was quick to catch on, and they glided back the way they’d come and took the stairs.

The café’s location was a little too visible for Taryn’s liking, but she and her father found a table in a group of four separated from the others by a living wall. There was only one other person there, an elderly woman with her head down over an empty teapot and nest of wet tissues.

It been nearly twenty-four hours since Taryn had had anything to eat so, for a time, her attention was totally devoted to the filled roll in front of her. While she ate her father began a desultory lament. He began by saying how well she’d looked in New Zealand. ‘You seemed better than you have in years. Since Beatrice died, really. You have no idea how frightened I’ve been for you on and off over the years. I’ve never wanted to hover or press you. It’s been hard to know what to do.’

Taryn took his hand and squeezed it and, for a few minutes they both quietly shed some tears.

Finally Basil went on. ‘It seemed to me that you collapsed after you parted ways with Alan. In slow motion and in two stages. I think you postponed falling apart while your mother was dying. And then you did. And I did at the same time and wasn’t much use to you. Then you got yourself hitched to Alan and spent the next few years pampered, and dashing around the planet. I relaxed for a bit. But that came to an end, and once Alan wasn’t propping you up you subsided again. I know you have the doctorate and the book, and they’re good things. But—darling—my Taryn wasn’t a sober, hard-working soul who lived for her work. She was shrewd and tart and sparky. You both were. My girls.’ Basil teared up again, and wiped his eyes on the back of his hands, then sat swivelling his teacup in its saucer, his tea poured but not yet tasted.

‘Dad,’ she said, with love.

He got out his handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘So what about this McFadden fellow? Is there any truth in what the detective with the moon

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