Free Cushing's Crusade by Tim Jeal Page B

shouted.
    ‘Later.’
    Heads all over the room had turned to look at them. For Giles’s sake it was just as well it was the end of term, reflected Derek. Observers might well imagine that he was a prostitute’s client who had just refused to pay. Diana turned on her heel and headed for the door. Derek followed at a distance.
    When she reached the main entrance to the building, Derek was relieved to see that Diana started walking towards the cricket field and not towards the drive. He caught her up on the far side of the ground in front of the sight-screen. The Scoreboard opposite showed that the fathers had bowled out the boys for 137 and were now 36 for 4 in reply. A boundary was greeted with a thin round of clapping from the small pavilion. She stared straight ahead of her, ignoring him.
    ‘If you cared a damn about my coming,’ he said quietly, ‘my father wouldn’t bother you at all. He’ll go for walks on his own, look at plants; he used to collect butterflies.’ He suddenly saw his father blundering along a cliff path brandishing a large net. He hoped that Diana had not had the same vision. A boy using a loud-hailer was exhorting fathers to enter for a tug of war against the school’s rugger fifteen. Her silence was unnerving Derek. She had to come; he had not even guessed at the possibility that she might pull out altogether.
    ‘I really will go with Giles if you refuse to come. I won’t be blackmailed.’
    She turned to him wearily and let her hands drop to her sides. Her anger had clearly burned out.
    ‘Not wanting your father to come may be selfish, but it isn’t blackmail. So stop being so melodramatic.’
    Derek studied the grass and tried to think of what to say. A ragged shout from the distant cricketers announced the fall of awicket. The fathers were in danger of collapse. Diana lit a cigarette and tossed away the spent match.
    ‘All right; I’ll come,’ she said suddenly. ‘Now let’s go home.’
    ‘We’d better check up on Giles on the way.’
    She nodded agreement. Derek’s relief was such that he slipped an arm round her waist. She didn’t disengage herself.
    A little later she said, ‘You’ve been incredibly thoughtless even for you; but it still wouldn’t be fair if I refused to come.’ She stopped and took both Derek’s hands in hers. ‘I was so delighted when you told me you were coming. Then you sprang your father on me. Surely you can see why I was so upset?’
    Derek’s confidence wavered for a moment but no longer. Her contrition was proof of her guilt. In any other circumstances an invitation to his father would not have been forgiven for several months. In silence they followed the boundary rope back towards the school.

Chapter 6
    During the two days remaining before their departure, Derek was fully occupied making arrangements, so he had little time to brood over the outcome of the next two weeks. The car had to be taken in for a service, its first in eight months; there were various items of clothing to be bought, including a new pair of swimming-trunks . He liked the idea of a striped pair in violently contrasting colours. There should be nothing drab on this particular holiday. Then Mr Cushing senior had to be accommodated. Derek spent the best part of a morning on the phone before finding his father a room in the Three Pilchards ,a village pub five miles from Charles’s house.
    Now that he was committed to going to Cornwall, Derek felt a sense of relief so great that, in spite of continuing fears for the future, he was still able to enjoy the immediate preparations and was even capable of relishing their hidden ironies. He had discovered from a book called Cornish Rivers and Estuaries that they would be staying barely two miles from a famous prawn breeding-ground. Prawning would be an excellent family activity , so he bought three large nets. In the same shop he also acquired some mackerel spinners. Since Diana had attacked him for failing to provide a real