Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-eight
June
Living at Kilmory Cottage: Carly, Frank, Kenny
Carly
‘I won’t be here long,’ Dad announces as Frank clears the table after dinner.
‘Kenny, you can be here as long as you like,’ Frank says. ‘Honestly. Just treat it like your home.’
‘Yes, Dad,’ I add. ‘Don’t worry about anything at all.’ I glance back at the supermarket order I’m doing on my laptop.
‘Don’t get anything special in for me,’ Dad says, looming over me now, peering at the screen. ‘I’ll be gone by the weekend.’
‘There’s no rush, Dad. You don’t have to make any decisions yet—’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Okay,’ I murmur wearily. ‘I’m getting the normal shop.’
‘Just don’t go mad.’ He hovers there, breathing in my ear and observing me ‘going mad’ by ordering wildly extravagant potatoes, bread and butter. Would he prefer margarine? Or lard? Still, it’s fine Dad being here. Right now, it feels like the right thing to do because, when we went to collect him from hospital, a young nurse who looked a little like Eddie quickly pulled Frank and me aside.
‘We’re relieved he’s going to stay with you,’ he said. ‘He lives in a second-floor flat, doesn’t he? With no lift?’
That’s true, I told him, adding that we were happier too, considering the trauma he’d been through. And if Frank wasn’t exactly delighted, then to his credit, it didn’t show.
‘Thanks for all this,’ I murmur now in the kitchen. Since his arrival Dad has commandeered the TV to binge-watch Cash or Crash . Old episodes, featuring spectacularly dumb-brained (his term) contestants are rewatched to his immense enjoyment. But at least they keep him occupied, and for now, with The Empty-Nester’s Handbook stuffed away on a shelf, we seem to have settled into this strange new routine.
‘Thanks for what?’ Frank asks lightly.
I turn and look at him. ‘For being there for us, all that time Dad was in hospital. All the visits you did and keeping things going at home.’
‘God, Carly,’ he exclaims, ‘what else was I going to do? Of course I’m here for you. Honestly.’
But I wasn’t sure you were anymore, I want to say. And now I know you are. It took a can of rotten pilchards to show that you still love me, and that when all this is over, and Dad’s ready to go home, we’ll be okay.
Frank wipes his dishwater hands on a towel and hugs me. ‘We’ll get through this,’ he adds, and I nod.
‘At least he doesn’t steal chargers or leave takeaway boxes under the bed,’ I remark. And as I’ve told Suki – who very sweetly has been texting to see how he’s doing – Dad seems to have not only settled into Kilmory Cottage, but is actively enjoying ruling the roost. We’ve given him the biggest and brightest bedroom, with a sea view. The girls always shared it, then when Bella moved out it was Ana’s, and when Ana left home Eddie commandeered it before Frank and I even had a chance.
‘I’ve waited all my life for this room!’ he announced, a little unreasonably, considering the fact that Eddie never had to share a bedroom. But in he went, fouling it up within days, thinking we didn’t know about him smoking out of the window. For weeks on end it felt as if the curtains were barely opened. So much for the sea view! Then when Eddie moved to Edinburgh, our plan was to make it our room. But the baby announcement knocked the stuffing out of us, so the move was never made.
Anyway, now it’s my father’s domain. And so, it would appear, is our sole bathroom. ‘Can I please get in there!’ he calls out, with a sharp rap on the door if Frank or I dare to occupy it for longer than five minutes.
Meals are different too. My father, refuser of fresh food, favours the plainest of fare: fried fish, oven chips, pies. With the TV blaring, because isn’t that what you want as you eat your dinner after a day’s work?
Quizmaster: ‘What’s the capital of Finland?’
Tense-looking woman, visibly sweating: ‘Er … Stockholm?’
Dad: ‘Oh-for-God’s-sake-fools!’
We tolerate all of this because his body is healing after being racked by botulism. Being so utterly poisoned at eighty-four could have killed him. So I cook the meals he enjoys, and we bring him endless coffees, made with Nescafé (Dad regards real ground coffee as a crazy extravagance, and it simply isn’t worth the fuss). We speak in whispers when we don’t especially want him chipping in because, although Dad’s hearing isn’t great, when it’s a personal matter it’s suddenly as sharp as a whippet’s. And of course I do his laundry and buy his daily newspaper and pick up his prescriptions, steeling myself when the Citrolax keeps on coming.
Occasionally, Dad insists on going to the shops, which is good for him, I suppose – a bit of exercise. He returns with a carrier bag of reduced food: pineapple slices turning brown, and a pack of cooked chicken that I can hear screaming ‘Danger! Danger!’ before it’s even come out of the shopping bag.
And then the days turn warmer, and our garden bursts into full bloom in the bright June sunshine. Bella visits again from London, fussing over her granddad and telling me that she can’t get her head around being an auntie yet. ‘How d’you think Eddie will be?’ she asks. ‘As a dad, I mean?’
‘Honestly, I have no idea,’ I say.
‘They’re so young. It seems such a lot to handle, doesn’t it? I can’t believe I haven’t even met her yet.’ We’re sitting in the back garden together, making the most of the late afternoon sun.
‘I know, love. And who knows how they’ll manage? We’ll just have to wait and see.’ It seems trite but it’s the best I can come up with. I’ve given up trying to discuss the situation with Frank, because what is there to say, really?
‘So, um …’ Bella hesitates. ‘How long d’you think Granddad’ll be staying here?’ She loves him, but over the past few days she’s been party to the hefty dinners, the mocking of quiz show contestants and the banging on the bathroom door. On her first night home, she had the audacity to have a bath. Four minutes, she managed, before Dad was rapping loudly, needing the loo.
‘I’m not sure,’ I tell her. ‘We’re just sort of seeing how it goes. It’s fine, Bel. Honestly.’
‘But he seems all better now, Mum.’
‘He does, yes.’ She’s right, I think – but I’m no doctor. It’s only when she’s about to leave that I sense that things aren’t one hundred per cent rosy in Bella’s world. We’ve taken the local train to Glasgow together, as we usually do, with a plan to have lunch in the city before I see her off onto her London train. It’s not that Frank doesn’t want to see her off too. But he understands that we need a little time together.
However this time, towards the end of our lunch, she goes quiet. ‘Is everything okay, love?’ I ask.
She nods, fiddling with her spoon that’s resting in the residue of melted ice cream.
‘Bella, are you sure?’
She looks up at me, my daughter who seems to breeze her way through life. ‘It’s just a few little things with the house,’ she says quickly.
‘What kind of things?’ I ask, alarmed. I’ve been to her terraced house in Bethnal Green. It’s a bit battered around the edges but homely enough, with a tiny garden. But it transpires that one of her housemates has moved her boyfriend in, ‘and he’s playing his guitar on the stairs at all hours because he says it has the best acoustics and I can’t sleep, Mum. I can’t sleep!’ And on top of that a new girl has moved in, a colossally messy party girl who leaves the sink piled with dishes and uses Bella’s crockery that she bought herself, leaving food-encrusted plates in her bedroom. ‘Honestly, Mum. She’s worse than Eddie!’ And if that wasn’t enough – and this is what’s really bothering her – Bella didn’t get the promotion she was hoping for. She has always set incredibly high standards for herself.
‘Oh, love, you’ve not been there long,’ I say, resting my hand over hers. ‘And you’re only twenty-one.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
I swallow. ‘Just that you’ve achieved so much already, building a life in London, all by yourself without any help from us—’
‘It just feels like such hard work sometimes,’ she blurts out, eyes filling with tears. She fiddles with her long dark hair, tucking it behind her ears.
It is, I want to tell her. Just living can feel like carrying a boulder sometimes. But of course I don’t say this. ‘You know, you don’t have to go back to London today,’ I say, squeezing her hand. ‘You could stay a bit longer, have a bit of a break—’
‘But I’ve got my train ticket and work tomorrow—’
‘Yes, I know.’
She sniffs and rubs at an eye. ‘Sorry, Mum.’
‘Bel, you’ve nothing to apologise for, sweetheart. But I wish you’d said something. There’s so little time now. Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?’
‘There’s been no chance!’ Her sharpness startles me, and immediately she seems to check herself. ‘Sorry. I don’t mean to be horrible, and this is going to sound awful. But it’s so hard to talk properly at home with Granddad there …’
Now I’m starting to understand. Kilmory Cottage wasn’t the same for her this time – and isn’t that what we want from home, even when we’re all grown up? For it remain the same forever? It wasn’t just her granddad jeering at the blaring TV, and somehow making our house feel rather small again. I suspect it’s been more the way her dad and I are together, and she’s picked up on that.
‘Well, I’m glad you’ve told me,’ I say gently. ‘So, can we help at all? You have to tell me if we can. D’you want to move? If it’s money you need, you only have to say—’
‘I’d never ask you and Dad for rent money,’ she says firmly. We fall silent for a moment.
‘Honey,’ I say eventually, ‘you do know, if London’s not for you—’
‘I’ll be all right, Mum.’ The waitress comes over and I pay the bill and we wander towards Central Station. The thought of saying goodbye to her is crushing my heart.
We stop on the concourse and check the departures. ‘I just want to say you can come back home any time,’ I start. ‘To live, I mean, if you’d like that. To have some home comforts for a while.’
She nods mutely, lips pressed tightly together. We hug then, and she seems to brighten. ‘Oh, Mum. Of course I can’t come back to Sandybanks. That would be like going backwards, wouldn’t it? I’m just feeling a bit emotional, that’s all.’ Then we see that her train has arrived at the platform, and I’m rushing to buy her a bottle of water and a sandwich for later, even though water and sandwiches are readily available on the train. And we’re hugging again tightly before she leaves, promising me that everything will work out, of course it will.
It’s a little blip, that’s all.
*
The fact that home didn’t feel right to Bella sets me thinking that maybe Frank feels that way too. And perhaps, now we’re sort of empty-nesters, it’s time for a big change? So one Sunday evening, as I’m starting to cook dinner, I say, ‘D’you like it here, Frank?’
He looks at me in surprise. ‘What d’you mean? In this town or this house or—’
‘In this house,’ I clarify.
‘Why d’you ask?’
‘Well, we’ve been here an awfully long time, haven’t we? Twenty-two years. And we chose it because we had a baby. It was to be our family home. But now everyone’s gone and—’
‘I still like our house.’ He looks puzzled. ‘Of course I do.’ Dad is napping on the sofa but we’re keeping our voices low, just in case.
‘But are you truly happy here, Frank?’ I go on, unable to let it drop now because something is wrong – I can sense it. And I need to know what it is. ‘I mean, d’you like being here in Scotland? Or d’you ever, I don’t know … wish you were back in Portugal?’
‘Of course I like Scotland.’ He eyes the groceries on the worktop that haven’t yet been put away. Tinned soup, peaches, baked beans and pork sausage, all bought at Dad’s request. ‘I’m just not sure about living in Scotland in 1952,’ he adds.
I smile, grateful that he still has it in him to make a joke. ‘It won’t be for much longer,’ I murmur.
‘No, it’s fine,’ he says with a shrug. However, we both know what we really want to say, but can’t quite say it.
My father keeps saying he ‘won’t be here long’. However, it’s been over a month now, and he seems fine, health-wise – yet there’s been no mention of when he might actually want to go home. Prish keeps saying I should broach it with him: ‘Maybe his confidence has taken a knock? And all he needs is a gentle nudge?’ But how to do that without implying that we want him to leave?
Naturally, Frank and I have done nothing more thrilling than drink cups of tea in bed since Dad’s arrival. Not that I mind , of course – sleeping at opposite sides of the bed with the Gulf of Mexico between us. But really, it’s no easier than when Eddie was here. The only difference is, I’m not perpetually worried about my father finding a job.
‘I think,’ I murmur, ‘he might not want to go back to his own place, Frank. And we might need to accept that.’
I study his expression as the realisation settles. ‘Right. Okay.’ He blows out air.
‘I’m sorry. I mean, he was always so fiercely independent. So I can’t understand it …’
‘He must like it here,’ Frank suggests.
‘Yeah.’ I nod. ‘I can’t ask him to leave, Frank. I just can’t.’
‘No, I know, honey—’
‘Carly! CARLY!’ Dad yells from the living room.
‘Yes, Dad?’
‘Is dinner on the way?’
‘Jesus,’ Frank mutters.
‘Yes, Dad,’ I call back, although I have barely started it.
‘Not too big a portion for me!’ he retorts from the command centre. ‘You always give me way too much.’
‘All right!’
I look at Frank, and he groans. ‘Is there any need for that?’
I throw out my arms in a gesture of helplessness. ‘What can I do?’
‘You’re giving me far too much,’ Dad hollers through the house. ‘I’m putting on weight—’
‘This having to eat at six on the dot,’ Frank exclaims. ‘I don’t see why—’
‘It’s just the way he is.’
‘Okay,’ he huffs. ‘ Fine .’
However it’s not fine, and both of us know it. Another weekend comes and goes, and I wrestle with frustration over our new living regime, and guilt over not feeling one hundred per cent delighted about it. After all, the doctor did say Dad had a lucky escape. ‘He’s made of strong stuff,’ he told me.
I lost my mum young, and I know I’m lucky that Dad is still here, rankling us. It should be an honour to look after him.
Yet I can’t help thinking: is this it? This really is my second act?