Chapter 4 #3
‘That was you and Liam stealing the jugs of ale though, so it doesn’t count. You okay for a drink, Mr Owen, while I’m here?’ He shouts the second sentence over my shoulder, and the man reading a book holds up his almost-empty pint glass. Sean nods and starts to pull a Guinness.
‘Did you actually want anything, Ellie?’ he asks as he leaves the Guinness to rest. Always important to leave a Guinness to rest before you add the creamy head, I remember my dad telling me when I was a little girl, perched on the bar, fascinated by everything that he did.
‘I’ll take a water, Sean, if you don’t mind?’
He pops open a bottle for me, and says he’ll ‘add it to my tab’.
‘Is Dad upstairs?’ I ask, after I take a refreshing drink. ‘I thought he might be working again. Not that he should be.’
‘I’ve no idea, to be honest, I only came on shift an hour ago.
And as for the working, of course he shouldn’t be – but try telling him that.
It’s just that we don’t open to general customers until later, these days, Ellie.
Mr Owen here is a staying guest, so he’s different.
Your dad has been in the bar every night since he got home from the hospital, including the very day he arrived.
Said he might as well get stuck in, because there was no point in him otherwise.
I think his exact words were “I’m neither use nor ornament if I can’t work my own bar”, at which juncture he looked at his reflection in the mirror, and said actually he was still fair ornamental for his age.
I told him he was just mental, and everything seemed to go back to normal… ’
‘That sounds like him,’ I reply, frowning. The joking, the mock-vanity, all detracting from what he must have actually been feeling. A small stroke it might have been, but still a significant event and a blunt reminder of his own mortality.
He should be resting, but I always knew he wouldn’t.
Saying that there is ‘no point in him’ isn’t good, it has an air of melancholy to it, and my father is prone to melancholy.
At least that’s what he always called it, because he thought it sounded more romantic than what it probably is – borderline depression.
I know he will have been surrounded by people from the village since I left, and that running the inn is by its nature a sociable job, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been lonely.
There has been no mention of other relationships, and his tone during our intermittent communications has always held that slight edge of regret and sadness.
I feel a rush of guilt that suddenly knocks me for six.
I was angry with him when I left, because I was sixteen and hurting.
Over the years that has settled, but maybe not completely disappeared.
I should have come home sooner. I should have made more effort.
I met up with him in London once I became an adult and capable of independent travel, but I have never come back here.
He never asked me to, and he also never came to visit me in the States – but still, especially as he aged, maybe I should have done it anyway.
I didn’t need to be invited – I should have just got over myself and come.
My dad is a complicated man, though, and nothing with him is ever simple.
He is charming and charismatic, and he has a style of presenting things that makes it simply impossible to disagree with him.
I always knew he loved me, but he also never applied even a hint of pressure for us to see each other more.
In fact, I always got the impression that he found it all easier if I stayed away – was that just a fake-out because he didn’t want to ask?
Didn’t want to feel like a burden? I should have tried harder.
He is no longer a young man, and in some ways I am glad I found out about what happened – without my mum making discreet inquiries, we probably never would have known.
I tell myself that I am here now, and there is nothing I can do to change the past. Relationships are complex, especially with a man like my father.
He appears so larger than life, so open, but in reality he is extremely private, even with his own family.
My mum has never bad-mouthed him to me, but she did once say that he was so expressive and outgoing on the surface because it shielded him from anyone getting to see his real feelings.
That makes sense to me – he could be this big, bold personality one minute in company, and then you’d catch him alone, staring out of the window with a look of deep introspection on his face.
He is my father, but I wonder how well I know him – how well anyone knows him.
There are two flights of stairs in the inn.
One is public and leads up to the rooms that are rented out, and one is private, taking you up to the part of the building we called home.
It isn’t huge, but it was always enough – especially when the whole of nature is your playground, and you are only indoors when you absolutely have to be.
While the public areas show signs of renewal, the steps up to the apartment are exactly the same.
Not even a new carpet here, and as my hands grip the wooden rail and I climb the steep stairs, it feels so strangely normal.
Like I climbed them only yesterday. The feel of the wood beneath my fingers is exactly the same, and my feet automatically avoid the middle of the fourth step up because I know it creaks.
Loud enough to alert a parent to a teenager sneaking back home after being out too late.
I suck in a breath when I reach the landing, and smile at the framed photos on the walls.
There’s still one from my wedding, even though my dad didn’t come to it, and the marriage is over.
There are photos of me as a child with both my parents, and some of his family and his time with my mum before I was born.
I notice, with an air of sadness, that there is only one picture of him that was taken after I left, and that one is of me and him when we met up in London eleven years ago.
I know his life didn’t end when Mum and I moved to the States, but he certainly didn’t seem to feel the need to celebrate it.
In the living room there is a new couch and TV.
The curtains are different, but everything else remains the same.
The big oak bookcases, the battered pine dining table, the big windows with their views down to the bay.
I run my fingers over the walls, feeling the familiar bumps of the plasterwork and paper.
I can’t believe I’m here, and I am fighting back the tears.
I planned this trip in such a hurry, I never stopped to consider how it would feel – I was so busy thinking about my dad and the logistics that the emotional aspect has taken me by surprise.
There are no decorations up in here and no tree, which I find a little sad.
Did we used to have a tree, I try and recall, or did we just focus on downstairs?
I frown as I think about it but then a vivid image of Liam and myself being allowed to decorate the upstairs comes to mind.
There was a tree, a small plastic one, and by the time we finished with it none of the branches were visible at all.
Now, though, there isn’t even that. Is it the same every year, or is it because he has been poorly?
The inn looks festive and charming but upstairs shows no signs of Christmas at all.
I go through into the kitchen and see that it has had a refurb.
New cupboards, different counter tops. I see the signs of a solitary lifestyle – the single mug left by the kettle, the solitary plate left to drain.
I open the door to the pantry – way too many tins of soup.
Nothing in the fridge apart from some expensive-looking Stilton cheese, which is about right for my dad.
I’ll make sure he eats better while I’m here; that’s one way I can definitely look after him.
I’ll make him soup from scratch and spoil him with desserts.
He loves old-fashioned puddings like jam roly-poly and steamed sponge with golden syrup and custard, which I know he won’t be able to resist.
I’m starting to wonder where he is, and if he’s even at home at all. He did always like an evening walk down on the beach, and watching the sun set was one of his favourite things to do. The steps down to the cove are steep and rough, and I really hope he’s not pushing himself too hard.
It’s just as possible, though, that he’s simply in his bedroom, having a sleep, or up in his study in the attic.
I notice a half-empty glass of water on the counter, next to small flurry of pill packets and sachets.
I pick them up but have no clue what the names mean.
Is it even okay for me to look? Do I have the right to walk back into his life and invade his privacy?
I google them anyway, deciding the moral quandary can wait. I discover that they are medications for high blood pressure, for cholesterol, and an anti-coagulant to prevent blood clots. All of them are freshly prescribed.
I carefully place them back down and wipe an unexpected tear from my eye.
I feel like I left my dad as a man in the prime of his life, and I have returned to find him old and sick, living off tinned soup.
He must hate this, I know. Feeling weak and frail, needing help, not having his usual energy and zest for life.
I walk out into the hallway, staying quiet in case he is napping – he needs his rest, after all.
I tiptoe along towards his bedroom, intending to take a sneaky peep inside and check if he is there.
I take a deep breath first, part of me afraid of what I will see.
How will I cope with seeing the new him?
With seeing this new and reduced version of my dad?
I need to be prepared for it, for the fact that he will not look like himself.
I need to not react badly and upset him even more.
I am here to help him, and judging by all those drugs it seems like I arrived at exactly at the right time.
I’m finally ready, and I gently turn the handle, about to carefully pop my head inside. As I do, I hear the unexpected sound of a woman giggling. Is he in there watching TV maybe? Having a rest but unable to sleep?
Suddenly, the door gets tugged open so quickly that I lose my balance and fall right into the woman who is giggling. A real-life woman. There is quite a lot of her, and it is all on display.
‘Shit!’ she yells, trying to hide her plentiful bosoms with her hands, but then realising her nether regions are on display and attempting to cross her legs.
This results in her wobbling over, grabbing hold of my shoulders to steady herself, and her boobs flying free once more.
I clasp my eyes firmly shut and hold my hands up in the air, desperate to avoid making unnecessary contact.
‘Shit!’ I also shout, both of us obviously shocked.
‘I’ll keep my eyes closed!’ I say. ‘Put some clothes on!’
I hear a frantic rustling, and my dad’s voice. ‘Ellie? Is that you? What the hell are you doing here?’