Chapter 25
William stood up, his mouth had suddenly gone dry. Hank wiped his mouth with his napkin and he also stood, Buffy jumped up and ran to hold William’s arm.
The officer looked at the list he was holding and said,
“You’re William and Buffy Summers, I take it?”
“I’m Campbell-Summers, I’m adopted, but yes, how can we help you?” William said as strongly as he could – he could feel Buffy shaking.
“We got your name from a party guest list we were given, were you at a party the night before last at 1719 Montague Rise, the home of Nathan Daniels?”
“Y-yes, ahem, yes we were” William confirmed, nodding too. Buffy felt sick, she could barely dare to breathe
“Could you tell me what time you got there, and what time you left?”
“Um…we got there for about nine o’clock, we - we didn’t stay l-long, we were home for ten past ten”
The second policeman wrote this down
“Is there anybody who could corroborate the time you left the party – or got home?”
Joyce spoke up,
“I can, it was just gone ten as they said, Hank had already gone to bed and I was just going up for a bath – I was surprised to see them home so early, I mean I know my son isn’t one for parties, but with Buffy’s accident at the party I could understand it” Joyce gesticulated towards her daughter
“I’m sorry ma’am, accident?” The cop looked from Joyce to Buffy
Buffy wanted to die, or at least the ground open up and swallow her
“I see. How did you get the black eye miss?”
“I um…dancing somebody elbowed me in the eye” Buffy mumbled
“It was pitch black in the dancing room, people going a bit wild with their arms, it was an accident, wasn’t it Buffy” William said
“Oh er yeah, course, accident”
“Do you know a girl called Coral McCready?” the second cop looked at Will and Buffy
William thought for a second, and then shook his head
“No…no I don’t know anyone called Coral”
“How about you miss?”
“Me – no, no I…um, I know a Jackie McCready, she was on our cheerleader’s team briefly, but I don’t know a Coral” Buffy said truthfully
“Jackie is this girls sister, did you see either of them at the party…………here, I have a photograph?” The second cop asked
Buffy looked at the picture and began to relax, this questioning seemed to have nothing to do with William beating up Angel and she felt miles better. She handed back the photo to the cop and shook her head
“No, I didn’t see either of them there, but as Will said, the dancing room was pitch black, it was hard to see who was who” Buffy said in a much more confident manner
“And you sir, did you see either of them?” the photo was passed to William, and he after looking for a few seconds he shook his head and handed it back. The cop put it in the back of his book.
“I don’t know either of them officer, I don’t even know Jackie, and I didn’t see them last night”
The officer nodded and closed his notebook
“Oh, em, just for your sake really, is there anybody else who can confirm what time you got home, other than your parents?”
William spoke up
“I waved to the man next door as I turned into the drive, he was taking Charlie for a walk, that’s his dog, I bibbed him, he waved”
“Which side would that be?”
“That way, with the pine tree in the garden, Mr Donaldson”
“Thankyou sir, you’ve been very helpful, we can eliminate you from our enquiries”
“Can you tell us what happened officer? Joyce asked looking concerned
The two cops looked at each other and said
“Well you’ll hear on the news soon enough anyway I suppose, this girl, Coral arrived with some friends at this party around 11-11.30pm, and by 1.20am, she was found at the bottom of the swimming pool, drowned”
“Oh my god!” Joyce looked horrified, as did Hank
Buffy’s hand flew to her mouth, William looked really shocked
“Oh! That poor girl!”
“We believe she’d taken something, drugs wise, we are trying to ascertain if it was at the party or before she arrived”
“I’m sorry we couldn’t help you more, officer” William said
“Going on holiday?” the cop nodded to the six suitcases stacked in the den
“No, my son’s moving to Mass, he’s going to Harvard” Hank said proudly
The cop raised his brows and smiled
“Harvard huh – well done, well thanks again, and sorry to have troubled you”
“Not at all, bye now”
Joyce closed the front door
“I am SO pleased you came away early!” Joyce said
“Yes, that black eye was a blessing in disguise!” Hank said
Buffy just turned to William and cuddled him up
“I thought-“
“Shh…I know, me too – I thought I was for it!” William gave her a squeeze
Buffy looked out of the window and saw the officers walking back down the neighbour’s path
“I go see Don, tell him what it’s all about” Joyce said and went to the neighbour’s door.
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“Oh baby………does that hurt?” Cordelia gave Angel a pained face look, as she tried to wipe encrusted blood from his nose, but Angel jerked his head out of the way
“What do you…yes, it does, dreadfully…………………NOW can I have some peace and sleep?”
“Oh we ARE Mr grumpy socks this morning, aren’t we! Okay, I’ll come back up and see you lunchtime, and if you feel up to it we can…Angel…Angel?
But Angel was already snoring.
“Later” she kissed him softly on the forehead and left.
When the door shut Angel opened his eyes and lay on his back, then quickly thought better of it, it had hundreds of tiny little cuts on it from the broken mirror. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t hurt, his stomach, his ribs…………he only wished he could remember what happened besides the mirror breaking.
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“I’ll go gas up the car, have we got everything now?” Hank asked
“I think so...if we haven’t then-“
“Then tough!” Hank said with a grin
“I was going to say we can Fed-Ex it to them” Joyce said
They got to the airport in plenty of time, and their flight was smooth.
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“Is it just me, or is it cold?” Joyce asked as they walked into the airport terminal. Hank went on ahead to pick up the hire car.
“You’re too used to the Californian sun, mom!” Buffy said
“How long will it take us to get there?”
“About…40-50 minutes, under an hour, anyway” William said.
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“Oh gods, they got here before us!” Hank, Joyce, Buffy and William got out of the hire car. Parked at the side of the shop, was a big FedEx truck. Two men were running up and down the two flights of stairs with their boxes of stuff that had been sent on ahead two days previous.
“We better go and see Carlo, come on” all four of them went into the shop.
“Will, Buffy! –Great to see you!” Buffy hugged him and William shook his hand.
“I hope you don’t mind, I told the FedEx men to carry on”
“That’s fine, they made good time, wasn’t expecting them until well after lunch!” William said.
“Anyway, this is my dad, Hank, Hank, this is Carlo, and this is my mom, Joyce”
Everyone said ‘pleased to meet you’.
“Well, we’ll carry on up, we’re shattered!” Buffy said
“Would you like some tea?” Carlo asked.
“You are a life-saver, young man!” Joyce said.
“Well, just you carry on up, I’ll bring it up for you”
And that’s what they did. Joyce loved the bathroom mural of the cave and shark and that.
“His sister painted that, she lives on a sheep farm in Australia now, though, married a farmer”
“Um, knock, knock!”
“Come in Carlo, oh, lovely!” Joyce took the tea tray off him.
“Oh, um, telecom said they would be here at four, I asked them to make it last call”
“Thanks Carlo!” William said. Buffy was explaining to her dad where they were going to put things. Somebody started to play the piano in the music shop, a classical piece.
“Oh, that’s the music shop…get them playing sax or rock guitar sometimes.” William said.
“You have a beautiful view of the park,” Joyce said.
“Oh yeah…look Will, the tree’s are thinning out a little, we couldn’t see that last month, could we?”
“Hello?”
“Through here?” Buffy called. Benny appeared.
“Benny!” Buffy ran and hugged him; he was beaming. Will grinned and shook his hand, giving him a hug too. Then they introduced Benny to their parents. Benny was quite charming to Joyce.
“I can see where Buffy gets her pretty face from” he said to Joyce.
“Oh Benny!” Joyce blushed.
“Anyway, I come to invite you all to dinner this evening, at the restaurant”
“Why, thankyou Benny, we’d love that!”
“Here, I put this in my hand luggage, so I knew where to find it, it’s that programme, the AI taster try it” William said, giving Benny a CD Rom.
“Wow, great! Thankyou! I um, better be going…eight o’clock tonight?”
“We’ll be there! Bye then Benny, and thanks!”
“He seems like a very nice young man!” Joyce said. In just under two hours, they had unpacked, and Buffy and Joyce went out just as the telecom men came to fix up the line box for the computer.
“Like it mom?”
“It’s lovely- spacious, but cosy at the same time!” They bought bed linen, and some more crockery and cutlery. They also bought tea, coffee, milk and sugar. They got back home. When they got in, William and his dad had set up the computer and was ‘surfing the net’.
“Come on then Hank, we ought to be going and checking into the hotel, I want a rest before we go out tonight…is it far from here?”
“No, the hotel is five minutes away, and the restaurant is a few minutes away from the hotel. We’ll come to you about quarter to, ok?”
“Fine” William showed his dad how to get to the hotel. They came back upstairs, and they shut the door.
“I can’t believe it, we’re here at last!” Buffy cuddled William.
“I knew that unit would look good there!”
“Hey, look”
“What?”
“Well, as we are ‘new customers’, I’ve taken advantage of a deal by the cable company, we’ve got cable! – Films package, including the Premiere and the Box Office, for half price, for three months, I said I wasn’t bothered about the sports package…the guy thought I was gay or something, not bothering about sport!”
“Bloody Cheek! Anyway, that’s great”
“We can always cancel after three months if we don’t watch it or think it’s too much”
“How much is it?”
“Special Offer at the moment, half price, $25 a month”
“I can pay for that out of my wages, my treat!” Buffy said, then added,
“Will, what’s that round thing on top of the computer?”
“A Web Cam, we’ll be able to see mom and dad, dad’s fixed one to the computer back home too!” William explained.
“Come and help me make the beds?” Buffy said. They took all the new bedding out of the wrappers. Buffy had chosen shades of blue for William, and green for herself.
“Dad was a bit worried we wouldn’t have any privacy, but I showed him, the way the top of the both beds lie back in a recess, and if we open my wardrobe door, and yours, that means we can’t see each other then, see privacy!” (Buffy thought, ‘Just for now’………)
“Well, I’m not bothered, are you?”
“No, not at all”
“I can’t begin to explain how great this is!” Buffy said, excitedly.
“What’s the time?”
“Um…twenty past five?”
“We should have gone to see Franz really…although we haven’t had a minute since we got here…oh god, I’m knackered!” She flopped on her bed.
“We can have a good hour before we’ve got to start getting ready”
“Hmm…”Buffy closed her eyes.
“Wake up, sleepy head!” Buffy opened her eyes to William putting mug of tea on the nightstand.
“Ooh, ta…golly, I went out like a light!”
“I know, we’ve had a complaint already, about your snoring!” William teased.
“Yeah, right!” Buffy yawned and stretched. She saw that William had had a shower or a bath, because his hair was wet still.
“You’ll have to have a shower, we didn’t put the immersion on for a bath”
“Dad says it’s expensive, mom said if we have it on for an hour a day, it’ll be enough for washes and washing up and that” William nodded. Buffy drank her tea; it was just coming up to seven o’clock, time for her to get ready.
“There, how do I look?”
“Beautiful, come on, I said we’d be there for a quarter to”
They got outside, and Buffy immediately felt for William’s hand, and held it as they walked along.
Benny grinned at them, pulled out a seat for Joyce, another waiter did for Buffy.
“Now, do you want to order yourselves, or like last time, I bring you lots of things?”
“An assortment sounds just the ticket!” Hank said.
“Yeah, ooohh, make sure you put us some of those yummy pork and ginger dumpling things, please!” Buffy said.
“I will”
“What’s that then?”
“Dim Sum, they’re lovely, really tasty little steamed dumplings filled with minced pork, shrimp, ginger and green onions” William said.
“Do you want tea? – Or soft drink?” The waiter that had held the chair out for Buffy asked.
“Um, tea for four, and two diet minerals…7up or Coke, anything like that” Buffy said. The waiter bowed and went off.
“It’s very reasonable here…popular with the student’s, I bet” Hank said, looking at the menu.
“Yes. Oh, what room number are you in at the hotel?”
“326…it’s very nice”
“We were in 224…do you want to go for a walk after, I can show you the University if you like” William said.
“Ooohh yes please…here’s the food…wow, this looks gorgeous!” Joyce said, as an army of waiters began to decant things off the trolley and onto the table.
A good ten minutes of solid eating, of ‘ooh, try this’ and ‘those are gorgeous’ ‘that’s scrummy’ and ‘I wish our local Chinese did this’ they finished. That was cleared away, and lots more small containers were bought.
“If you want anymore of something, just ask” Benny said.
“I am stuffed!” Buffy sat back.
“Me too!” William said, hand on his stomach.
“Full as a Bull!” Hank said, patting his belly.
Benny came and sat with them on his break.
“What do you think?”
“If you ever want a job Benny, you can come and cook for me!” Joyce said.
“Hey William, I try that CD, is great!”
“Good, I’ll do you a complete copy for you to download, we got Telecom today, my computer is all up and running”
“That’s good, you do that for me, I do the Book 2 for you”
“Great, this is great dad, It’s going to work out cheaper for us, I buy one book, Benny buys another, then we swap, plus we can buy the books second hand, then sell them back downstairs from us!” Joyce noticed the young waiter looking at Buffy. She smiled. Benny noticed too.
“Chang…come” He beckoned the waiter. Shyly the young man came over.
“This is William, whom I’ll be at University with, this is his dad, his mom, and his sister, Buffy”
“I think Chang likes Buffy!” he whispered to William.
“Yes, well…I don’t think I’ve met anyone who doesn’t” William said. The evening wore on, and it began to get busy. Benny wouldn’t let them pay, said his uncle insisted, as William had helped him with the disc’s and that, he’d studied William from afar, trusted him, knew he’d be good for his nephew.
“Will I see you before you go?”
“Oh yes! We will make sure you do!” Joyce said, and then they left.
“So, what do you reckon?”
“Hmm, that food was SO delicious”
“See what I mean? – I’m gonna get fat!”
“Ah, now, there’s a gym round here somewhere…” William said.
“Er…I’ll stick to what mom bought me, to begin with!” Buffy said, grinning.
“Ok, look, tomorrow, I’m going to register at the college, then I thought we could take you to see Franz at the coffee shop, I’ll check in the morning, then, we could go to the park…show you one of the shoe boxes we were shown!”
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“Is dad ok?” Buffy asked concerned.
“Indigestion. Don’t have any sympathy for him; it’s totally self-inflicted! Joyce said, grinning.
“Big cooked breakfast?” William asked, smiling, his eyebrows raised.
“Couldn’t resist!” Hank grinned ruefully.
“I saw it all in front of me, freshly cooked just waiting for me to help myself!”
“Oh, tell me about it, bacon, sausages, eggs three different ways, mushrooms, tomatoes, Boston baked beans, potato cakes, waffles, muffins…fresh juice, tea…Danish, muffins, yoghurt, fruit salad…” Buffy grinned.
“So, were you good mom, have healthy stuff?”
“Um…reasonably! – Juice, cereal, bacon egg and tomato, then toast and honey…although tomorrow I’ve promised myself the works!”
“Just wait until you see the cakes and pastries Franz makes…” Buffy said.
They walked around, went to the university where William registered, and they had a tour. At twelve o’clock they left, and went to see Franz. William had popped along that morning to see if it was ok.
“Oh my lord, smell that!” A wonderful aroma of baking bread, sweet fruit and sort of chocolaty/cinnamon smell that made your mouth water.
“He does the most delicious hot chocolate, with whipped cream and mocha shavings…and his Apfel Strudel is to die for!” Buffy said.
“My goodness, I see what you mean about getting fat!” Joyce smiled as she surveyed the gateaux and fancies, pastries and savouries in the window. They went in. Besides the delicious aroma of bread and cakes, strong fresh coffee could be smelt too. Franz came over and shook their hands. Everyone had coffee, Joyce and Buffy shared a piece of Apfel strudel between them; giving Hank a taste. As they didn’t have anything else, Franz made them up a box of various slices of gateaux to have with their afternoon tea.
They thanked him and he wouldn’t accept any payment.
“Well, we will never have to worry about you starving!” Joyce said.
“You’re very lucky, working only two minutes from where you live!” Hank said to his daughter.
“I know…let’s get home, put these in the fridge…” Buffy indicated to the cakes.
“Is your friend Benny working tonight?” Hank asked.
“Yes, well, I don’t know for sure, but Saturday and Sunday are their busiest nights, so I imagine so, why?”
“He didn’t have the meal at the hotel with you, did he?”
“No, but we went to a club with him, bit like the Bronze, called Stoodybakers, we treated him…but he only drinks Coke. He told me not to worry, he say’s he’d like to come round and study at our place for a little peace and quiet, we told him anytime, so don’t worry, it’ll work itself out, I’m sure” William said.
“I’m pleased we’ve met some of your friends…they are very nice, and I shan’t worry about you now – well, not too much anyway” Joyce said. They showed their mom and dad where they’d looked at a few flats, went and fed the ducks, passed on the ice-cream as they had cake for the afternoon, and then went to the main shopping area, Joyce buying a few things that turn a place into home. A potted plant, some tea towels, and they did some food shopping too. They bought some paint for the hallway, and some pretty white lace curtains for the lounge to give them a little privacy.
“So…what are we going to do tonight – did you want dinner in the hotel?” Hank asked.
“No, we don’t need it”
“The café bar then?”
“That place, is a RIGHT rip-off, $25 for lasagne and salad! – We didn’t stay, that’s how we came to find the Golden Temple Restaurant, we had to shelter from the rain, and we got talking to Benny”
“Ok, what shall we do?”
“Well, there’s loads to do…there’s a free Shakespeare play on in the park, and a concert, lots of places open, there’s even a place to get fish and chips, we can walk around” William suggested.
“Great, ok then, we’ll come to yours now, have cake and coffee, then see you about, 7.30pm, how’s that?” Hank said.
“Great!”
“So come on, what have we got?”
“Um…lemon lush…coffee and walnut, chocolate caramel slice, and a strawberry Pavlova fresh cream meringue”
“Oh gods, the calories!” Joyce closed her eyes and savoured every bite!
“Poor old Julius Caesar!” Joyce said, as they stood and clapped the actors in the park. They dropped a contribution into the hat for them, then as the wind was getting up a little, and they walked for a while, passed the duck pond.
“Hey Will, look, it’s that little old lady and the ice-cream thief dog!”
“Oh yeah!”
“What’s this then?” Hank asked, bemused. Buffy told them.
“Honestly, what are you two like!”
“Anyone hungry?”
“I could go something, not too much though”
“How about we get a bucket of KFC or something, and go back to ours ?” William suggested. Everyone agreed. In the end, they found a Greek style café, that did take out kebabs, Skewered lamb, beef or Chicken, seasoned and roasted over an open fire, served in a flat bread with salad. They bought four, two beef one lamb and one chicken, they were delicious!
“Ooh, yummy, we’ll have to go there again!” Buffy said.
The weekend flew by, and Sunday afternoon came round very quickly.
“Look, I know how you feel, and I just want you to know, if for ANY reason, you just don’t like it here, you can ALWAYS come home, ok, no recriminations, we are proud of you both, and you’ll always have a home waiting for you, all you have to do, is say, we’ve tried and hate it, we’ll come and fetch you, ok?”
“Thanks mom, dad” William hugged his dad, then his mom.
“We only want you to be happy, that’s more important to us than any qualifications, or swanky university places” Joyce stroked her son’s head.
“Now, don’t you worry about the rent, I’ve sorted it with Carlo, I’ve set up a banker’s draft, the rent will go into an account on the first of every month, he wouldn’t let me pay for the next couple of weeks, he says the place needs painting and that, and as we bought the paint, he’ll let us off the rent, which I thought was pretty decent of him.”
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