8. Lucas
LUCAS
‘ B e careful!’
‘I will, Dad, don’t worry,’ Lucas said as he descended the ladder holding a box of decorations.
It was the fourth one he’d found in the attic, and he’d brought them all down to sort out.
The attic was dusty and looked like no one had been up there in a long time so he’d moved slowly to try to avoid disturbing as much of the dust as he could.
Even so, the boxes all had a film of dust, so he’d take them down to the back garden and wipe them off before trying to open them.
‘Now don’t try and pick one of the boxes up because I’ll take them downstairs. ’
‘But I want to help.’ His father met his eyes.
‘You can help by making me a cuppa. I’m parched after being up there and quite cold.’
‘I can do that,’ his father said. ‘The fire’s lit in the lounge so you can warm up in there after you’ve sorted the boxes.’
‘Brilliant.’ Lucas grabbed the first box and carried it carefully down the stairs. It wasn’t that the box was heavy, more that it felt like it could break at any moment and release its contents all over the floor along with plenty of dust, and Lucas didn’t fancy cleaning that up as well.
After he’d cleaned all the boxes off outside, he took them to the lounge where his father was stoking the fire.
A tray sat on the coffee table with a pot of tea, a small jug of milk, a bowl of sugar cubes and two mugs.
The teapot had a knitted tea cosy on it that Lucas realised his mother had made many years ago.
It was orange and brown and designed to resemble a pumpkin.
Something tugged in his heart, and he rubbed at his chest. Grief never really went away; it simply sat in your chest waiting for the next memory to sharpen its claws again.
In his London flat he was able to separate life there from life here but being home in Cornwall — despite how he’d tried to deny it, Porthpenny was home and always would be because it was where he’d grown up — he found that he was immersed in his memories again.
Memories of his mum and his childhood with his parents.
Memories of falling in love with Thora and planning a future together.
Memories of who he’d been before he’d left for London and life had changed when he’d been surrounded by people who knew nothing of his life before and nothing of who he’d been growing up.
It was easier in London to reinvent himself and to push the past and his childhood and adolescence away, to forget — if only for a while — what his father had done and how it had hurt him and his mum.
But now he was here in the place where it had all begun.
Where it had all happened. Where feelings had been sitting like woodlice underneath a log and once the log was lifted, the woodlice scattered in all directions.
Lucas knew that something similar could happen with his feelings and he was apprehensive about unleashing them.
However, he was also aware that he couldn’t hide them away forever and that sooner or later he’d need to face them.
It seemed that here, today, the process would begin.
He poured tea into both mugs, added milk and a sugar cube for his father then sat on a chair near the fire and sipped his tea.
Gazing into the flames, he watched as shapes appeared, faces and figures, flickering like images from an old reel of film.
None of them lasted long enough for him to discern exactly what he was seeing, and he knew it was all in his imagination, but even so, it fascinated him and added to the sense that something big was about to unfold.
An emotional event of sorts that had been a long time in the making.
He drank the rest of his tea then placed the mug on the tray on the table and stood up. ‘Right then, let’s have a look in the boxes.’
‘Lucas!’ His father stood too. ‘I have to tell you that I … I haven’t opened these boxes in years. Not since …’ His face crumpled and he brushed the back of his arm against his eyes. ‘Not since your m-mum passed.’
‘That’s a long time, Dad.’
‘Fifteen years.’
‘Haven’t you decorated at Christmas since?
’ Guilt gnawed at Lucas as he asked the question because it was the type of thing he ought to know.
Sons visited their parents over the holidays.
Loving sons did, anyway. But Lucas hadn’t been back to check on his father.
He’d had his reasons, of course he had, but even so, did it excuse him not caring enough to check on him — other than the odd phone call or text message and a fleeting visit several years ago?
‘There didn’t seem to be any point just for me. I couldn’t face it,’ his father said, his eyes watering. ‘And I … I felt so guilty about everything that I couldn’t do much more than exist. Getting out of bed every day took so much energy.’
Lucas pressed his fingers into his jaw and opened his mouth, trying to relieve some of the pressure building up from tensing.
‘But it was all your choice. You did the things that caused the issues in the first place. You decided to… to cheat on mum repeatedly knowing how it hurt her and… Why couldn’t you have just kept it in your pants? ’
Heat rushed to his face and his father’s eyes widened.
He waited, expecting outrage and admonishments but they didn’t come.
Instead, his father sank onto the sofa and placed his misshapen hands on his knees then started to cry silently.
Big fat tears rolled down his cheeks and plopped onto his shirt where they sat like glass beads.
Lucas didn’t know what to say because he’d brought this about by being so brutally honest. He hadn’t intended on saying those things quite so harshly, but his father had told him he felt guilty and then the words had tumbled out of Lucas like an avalanche down a mountain.
Years of pent-up emotions, suppressed thoughts and questions, had gushed to his tongue like lava to the mouth of a volcano and he had exploded.
The relief he’d have expected to feel after finally speaking the truth was absent though.
All he’d done was cause an elderly man pain and anguish and it seemed like his father had already been beating himself up about what he’d done for years.
It was all well and good assuming a devil-may-care attitude when you were young, but as you aged, your body started to slow down and fail and then all you were left with were the thoughts and memories, the time to sit and stew over things you could have done differently.
‘I-I’m so sorry.’ His father peered at him through his tears. ‘I wish I could tell your mum how sorry I am.’
Inside Lucas, something cracked. All the hurt, pain and worry of the past seemed to exit him like steam from a tumble-drier and he sighed as it vanished into the air. He went to his father’s side then placed a hand on his arm.
‘I know you are. For a long time, I didn’t think you cared but then I didn’t come back to find out. I think we’ve both been carrying a lot around with us for far too long. There’s no quick and easy solution to healing things between us, but I do know that I’d like to try.’
His father nodded slowly then pulled a tissue from his pocket and dabbed at his eyes.
‘I would like that, Lucas. I’ve been so sorry but unable to tell you.
Sometimes saying sorry is the hardest thing to do and it can be easier to bottle things up and pretend they’re not there.
Let the dust settle on top of them thick as that in the attic. ’
‘You’ve not always been the easiest person to be around,’ Lucas said, gently patting his father’s hand.
‘And for that too I am sorry. My own father was a hard man, quite cold actually, and he never told me or any of my siblings that he loved us. It’s why my brothers emigrated as soon as they were old enough, I swear.
They got away from him because they couldn’t stand to be near him or to see how downtrodden my mother was.
And there was only me left but I moved away from Wales and settled here in Cornwall where I met your mum.
But a difficult childhood causes problems…
I didn’t used to understand this, but you watch enough daytime TV and you learn plenty from all the chat shows and therapists on there.
I’m not trying to excuse my behaviour as a father at all, but I have tried to understand myself more over the years.
I always felt like I was a letdown to my father and then I let you and your mum down.
Finding validation in affairs and female attention made me feel better about myself, but it was only a short-term fix.
I wasn’t actually fixing myself deep down.
It was like eating chocolate or drinking whisky.
There was a dopamine hit but it soon faded and left me wanting more.
Your mum didn’t deserve that nor did you.
And feeling that the pain I caused her finished her off…
That she died from what was essentially a broken heart…
I can’t bear knowing that it was all down to me. ’
Lucas had to force his mouth shut because he couldn’t believe that this was his father talking.
This man who’d once been so confident and arrogant, who’d put him and his mum down time after time was now talking openly about his flaws and failings and trying to understand why he’d done what he had.
It seemed that Christmas miracles could happen…
‘Dad… despite everything, there were good times, and I did have happy moments in my childhood. There were difficult times and yes, you did hurt me quite a lot over the years. Mum tried to counter that by being even softer, but I always loved you. That never stopped.’