Chapter 5
5
Rick spun his way through the revolving door entrance of the hotel a few minutes later to find the reception empty. The door to the little office behind the wide wooden desk was open, so he headed towards it. The jar of lollies was in its usual place on the reception desk, just as he’d told Anya it would be. With a grin, he helped himself to his favourite strawberries and cream flavour, unwrapped it and popped it into his mouth. The sweet stickiness brought dozens of memories flooding back, mostly of him fighting with his brothers over penny sweets and cheap plastic toys. He might be the second born, but he’d always been the tallest and had won more than his fair share of those silly scraps. On a whim, he reached back into the jar and pulled out three more lollies. He stared down at his palm for a moment before dropping one of them back in the jar. Even after all these years of Liam living away, he’d never got used to it. He slipped the other two treats into his pocket and called out his uncle’s name as he circled around the desk towards the office.
Davy was in the office as expected. What he hadn’t expected was the blood all over the front of his uncle’s shirt, or the equally stained towel Davy was pressing to his head. ‘My God, what happened?’ Rick rushed around the desk.
‘Don’t start fussing,’ Uncle Davy growled, fending him off with his free hand as Rick tried to lift the towel and take a look at the source of the blood. ‘It’s just a scratch.’
‘Just a scratch? You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.’ Rick dodged his uncle’s flailing hand and reached for the towel again. ‘Stop it! Let me look, for goodness’ sake, Davy.’
His uncle grumbled again, but this time he let Rick lift the edge of the towel. He winced at the sight of the ugly gash and quickly pressed the towel back down as fresh blood oozed from the wound. He placed his other hand on the back of Davy’s head so he could apply proper pressure without pushing his uncle off balance. ‘That looks really nasty. I think you’re going to need a couple of stitches.’
‘It’ll be fine in a minute. You know what head wounds are like.’
Rick couldn’t say that he did. ‘I haven’t got my car with me as I walked to the Hub this morning, but let me give Ed a call and see if he’s around to give us a lift up to the doctor’s.’
‘No!’ Davy jerked his head back so hard, Rick lost grip of the towel and it fell to the floor. He bent to pick it up, refolding it to find a clean spot before reaching for his uncle again. Davy snatched the towel from his hands and pressed it back against his forehead. ‘I told you I was fine. Stop fussing.’
Although notoriously stubborn, it wasn’t like Davy to be so belligerent. Wondering if he’d knocked his head when he cut it, Rick crouched down beside him and spoke to him in a soft voice. ‘How did it happen?’
‘I went to make myself a cup of tea and dropped the spoon on the floor. When I stood up I walloped my head on the edge of an open cupboard door. ’
‘How’s your head apart from the cut? Do you have a headache? Is your vision okay?’
Davy rolled his eyes, then winced. ‘Of course I’ve got a bloody headache; did you miss the bit where I whacked my head on the cupboard? And my vision is rubbish, but that’s because I’m still waiting for my cataract to be sorted out. Any other questions, smart arse?’
Blowing out a breath, Rick sat on the floor and curled his arms loosely around his bent knees. ‘Come on, Uncle D, stop giving me a hard time. I only want to help you.’
His great-uncle glared down at him. ‘You can help by leaving me alone.’
‘The quickest way to get me to go away is to let me help you.’
Davy snorted, then winced again. ‘Persistent as well as a smart arse.’
Rick made no effort to hide his grin. ‘Yeah, I wonder where I get it from, you stubborn old coot. Come on now, let’s get you up to the doctor’s and get you sorted out.’
‘No! Not the doctor’s. There’s a first aid kit on the wall in the kitchen, just find me a plaster or something in there.’
Rick’s amusement faded fast. It wasn’t like Davy to make a big deal over something as trivial as this. A cold chill rippled down his spine. ‘Why don’t you want to go to the doctor?’
Davy pulled a face. ‘You know what it’ll be like up there: kids screaming, people coughing and spluttering all over the place. If you’re not sick when you go in, you will be by the time you get out. I’ll end up waiting for hours and then he’ll make me do a load of tests that have nothing to do with a cut on my head and poke and prod me like a heifer at the market.’
That didn’t sound like Doc Ferguson; then again, Rick couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to go to the surgery. He supposed once you reached Davy’s age there would be a lot more visits, but even so, it seemed like he was blowing things out of proportion. ‘I know it’s a pain in the bum, Davy, but you can’t expect me to sit here and watch you slowly bleed to death. Come on, be reasonable.’
‘Well it looks like you’re going to have to, because I’m not going.’ Davy’s mouth closed in a tight, determined line. Oh yes, stubbornness ran in the Penrose family all right.
Rick closed his eyes for a second and willed himself to be patient. Something was very wrong for Davy to behave so unreasonably. Losing his temper would only cause the old man to put up even more barriers. He pulled out his phone and began fiddling with it.
‘What are you doing? Who are you calling?’ Davy snapped.
Rick turned the phone around so his uncle could see the screen full of cartoon fruits and vegetables. ‘Seems like we’re going to be here a while, so I thought I’d keep myself occupied.’
Davy scowled at him. ‘Don’t play games with me, boy.’
Rick turned the phone back to himself and began to swipe through the moves on the match-three game. ‘It’s single player only.’
‘Smart arse.’
‘Stubborn old coot.’
Rick carried on playing the game, his finger moving on autopilot, his eyes on the screen. He had no thought about actually trying to win the level because his focus was all on his uncle, who continued to sit in the chair, one elbow propped on the desk so he could keep the cloth pressed to his forehead. The handful of lives didn’t last long and Rick closed the app and opened another one with different graphics, but the principle of the game was the same.
‘You really going to sit there all day?’ Davy’s voice had lost some of its earlier anger .
Rick didn’t look up. ‘If I have to.’
His uncle grunted. ‘Don’t you have better things to do?’
Like get back to the shop and relieve his mum who’d been stuck on her own all morning. Or start tackling the list of calls and emails he needed to make and send to follow up on drop-ins at the Hub earlier. Or think about who might have a job that would suit Anya’s limited skills and experience. ‘Nope. Nothing that springs to mind.’ He ran out of moves and pressed the replay button. ‘We really going to sit here until you bleed to death?’ he asked, keeping his voice light and casual.
‘Good a way as any to go,’ Davy muttered.
Rick’s head shot up, the stupid game in his hands forgotten. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
His uncle’s eyes flicked towards him then away. ‘Just a joke.’
‘Not the sort of thing you usually joke about.’
Davy sighed, the sound deep and low like it had been dragged from his boots. ‘No, it isn’t, is it.’
Setting aside his phone, Rick shifted onto his knees and placed a hand on the arm of his uncle’s chair. ‘What’s going on, Davy? Why don’t you want me to take you to the surgery?’
Davy turned to face him and, this close, Rick could see beyond the pattern of age lines and the general fatigue a man of his great-uncle’s age was bound to experience. His eyes were red-rimmed, the skin at his neck looser, his cheekbones stark against skin that looked almost translucent. He looked… sick. Rick had to swallow twice before he could get his next words out. ‘What is it?’
His uncle’s mouth quirked up at the corner. ‘You always were too smart for your own good, boy. Cancer.’
The news hit Rick like a punch to the gut. ‘Where?’
‘What does it matter? I’ve got it and that’s all there is to it. ’
‘When—’ Rick had to clear his throat. ‘When did you find out?’
‘A few weeks ago. I had to get one of my prescriptions renewed and the doc insisted on putting me through an MOT : blood tests, weight, a million questions.’ Davy snorted. ‘I told him it was a waste of money worrying about a clapped-out old banger like me. Wish he’d left me alone.’
‘Surely it’s better to know, because at least now you can do something about it.’ A terrible doubt flooded through him. ‘You are doing something about it?’
‘I’m making the best use of my time by getting on with what’s important.’
What could be more important that getting the treatment he needed? ‘If you’re worried about the hotel, we can help you with that.’
Davy barked a laugh. ‘How? Who? You’ve all got your own lives to live and that’s the way it should be. You’ve got better things to do than fuss around after an old fart like me, anyway.’
Rick reached for his uncle’s hand. ‘None of us are too busy to help you, Davy. We’re family, we look after each other, that’s just the way it is.’
Davy shook him off. ‘And what if I don’t want your help, eh? What if I want to be left in peace to live out whatever time I’ve got left?’
Rick’s sense of disbelief grew. Things couldn’t be as dire as his great-uncle was making out, could they? ‘What can I do to help, Davy? Tell me what you need and I’ll do it.’
Davy placed a hand on his cheek, a gentle smile spreading across his face. ‘I don’t want you to do anything other than promise you won’t tell anyone else about this.’
Rick rocked backed on his heels. ‘You can’t be serious?’
‘Oh, but I am.’ The smile his uncle gave him held none of the anger and pain he’d been showing since Rick had shown up in his office. ‘I’ve lived a good life, my boy, and I want to end things on my terms.’ When Rick opened his mouth to protest, Davy held up a hand. ‘I don’t want whatever time I have left to be spent in a hospital bed, or feeling too sick to do anything while the doctors pump one type of poison into my veins in the faint hope they can kill the other that’s already inside me. I feel okay right now and I want my last summer to be as normal and as enjoyable as it can be. I’m so sorry you found out. If I’d have had my way none of you would be any the wiser until the end.’
Rick closed his eyes. ‘You can’t expect me to lie to everyone.’
He felt his uncle’s fingers stroking his hair the way they had when he was a little boy. ‘It’s not a lie, it’s an omission. You’re a good man, Frederick Penrose, the very best there is. I am so glad I got to see you and your brothers grow into fine young men, and I couldn’t love you all more if you were my own grandchildren.’
Rick opened his eyes, unashamed of the tears washing down his cheeks. ‘Uncle Davy, please…’
With a shaky thumb, his uncle did his best to brush the tears away. ‘It’ll be all right, lad. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.’
Rick scrubbed the back of his hand across his face as he sucked in a deep breath and swallowed the rest of his tears. It was clear that his uncle had made up his mind, but if he thought Rick was going to just go along with things, then he was about to find out who was the most stubborn of the Penrose clan. He needed time to work on a plan, a way to persuade his uncle that it wasn’t too late. The doctor might have made a mistake, and if not, then there were always new treatments being developed. What he really needed was someone to keep an eye on Davy while he worked out the best way to talk him round. Someone who wouldn’t rouse the family’s suspicions, someone he trusted. When the solution hit him, it was so perfect he would’ve grinned if things weren’t so serious. ‘You won’t be able to keep this a secret, not without help.’
‘I don’t need a babysitter!’
It would be easy to argue the point given Davy’s current state, but Rick opted for a different tactic. ‘What if I told you I know someone who can assist you with running this place without making it look like you’re the one who needs help. It’ll be the opposite, in fact. If you offer this person a job, no one will think twice about your motivation; they’ll just assume you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart. It’ll give you time to rest and make the most of the summer. Isn’t that what you said you wanted?’
Davy narrowed his eyes at him. ‘Do I have a choice in the matter?’
Rick rose to his feet. ‘Sure you do. You can say yes and I’ll go and fetch the first aid box and do my best to patch you up, or you can say no and I’ll call Mum and she’ll call Ma and Aunty Helen and you’ll be sitting in Doc Ferguson’s office faster than you can blink.’
His uncle sighed and nodded his head, because they both knew there was only one person more stubborn than a Penrose man and that was the remarkable women they married. ‘Who do you have in mind?’