2. Lucas Grant
LUCAS GRANT
P ulling up outside the house he’d grown up in was not something Lucas had imagined himself doing anytime soon.
And that was silly, really, because he’d known this day would eventually come.
His father, Eddy, was getting older, and as he lived alone and had no other children, it was up to Lucas to look out for him and to help him sort his affairs.
Bile filled his mouth at the word affairs …
He meant affairs of a financial and practical sense, but over the years the word had held less savoury connotations for Lucas and his mum.
Shaking the thought away, he inhaled deeply and prepared himself to go inside.
He paid the taxi driver, then grabbed his laptop bag and suitcase and climbed out.
He glanced around at the familiar street, then walked up to the garden gate.
Placing a hand on the cold iron, he paused as memories of his childhood washed over him, of his rocky adolescence and of the times when he’d brought her here.
His heart lurched as the cold wintery breeze enveloped him, rocking him on his feet and sending icy shivers down his spine.
It may be years since he’d seen her, but he could recall her face as clearly as if he’d seen her yesterday.
Once upon a time, she was everything to him, and then she walked away, leaving him alone.
And that was just the way he liked it these days. Alone. Single. Free from stress and trying to please someone else. Free from the responsibility of worrying about hurting another person or disappointing them. Because there was nothing worse than being a disappointment.
Shuddering, he pushed open the heavy gate, carefully closing it to avoid the dangerous spring.
He’d asked his father to change it several times after it had nearly kneecapped him and the postman, but the older man had refused.
He’d said that anyone entering his garden should only do so if they had a legitimate reason for being there, and if not, then they deserved to lose a limb. Typical of his father…
‘Come on, Lucas, get inside,’ he muttered, forcing his feet to move along the path and up to the door. He fumbled in his pocket for the key and slid it into the lock, but then he knocked anyway, not wanting to startle his father.
The hallway was cold, not a shock as his father had always been reluctant to spend money on heating the house, but it also smelt stale — like frying fish, damp and mouldering newspapers.
He put his case down at the bottom of the staircase along with his laptop bag and shrugged out of his padded jacket.
After he’d hung it on the wooden coat hanger near the door, he called out, ‘Dad? It’s me. I’m home.’
He paused, straining to hear a clue about where his father would be right now. It was eleven thirty in the morning so there was a chance that his father was still in the kitchen doing the crossword or that he was watching TV in the lounge.
Crossing the parquet flooring, he noticed how it tugged at the soles of his shoes, sticky as flypaper. When had his father last cleaned? It seemed like he’d tipped fluids all over it and left them there for months. Of course, Lucas wouldn’t know because he hadn’t been home in … in years.
The lounge was empty, the curtains still drawn against the morning light. The grate was dark, the room cold and musty, with the scent of damp stronger here.
He made for the kitchen and when he entered the large room with French doors that overlooked the rear garden, he spotted his father hunched over the table. Frowning, he stared at the newspaper spread across the table, his upper lip pulled back over his teeth like a growling wolf.
‘Dad?’ Lucas said, waiting near the doorway as if needing an acknowledgment to come forwards.
His instincts screamed at him to run, to get out of there and never come back, but unfortunately for him, this time he couldn’t do that.
This time, he had to stay and help his father to sort things out.
He’d known this when they’d spoken on the phone a week ago and his father had seemed a bit confused.
Lucas had been noticing this confusion for a while, but it seemed to be worse some days than others.
He had been forced to return to assess the situation in person to see if some intervention was needed.
‘Dad!’ His voice this time was sharper, more assertive.
Eddy Grant raised his head slowly, as if he had people saying his name in the kitchen doorway all day long and this was nothing unusual. He frowned and then pushed his glasses up on his head. Rubbed his red nose. Coughed into a gnarled hand.
‘Oh … It’s you.’
Lucas pressed the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He’d once read that this was an effective technique for dealing with stress and anxiety and since then he’d tried it more than once. He wasn’t sure if it worked, but he’d try anything to stay calm when facing his father’s coldness.
‘Hi, Dad.’ He approached the table and pulled out a chair. ‘How are you?’
His father scowled up at him, his glasses still perched on his bald head, his grey eyes matching the colour of his scruffy beard.
‘Hello, son,’ he replied, grimacing as if the term created a bitter taste in his mouth. ‘Long time no see.’
Lucas sat down and shuffled the chair closer to the table, then folded his hands on the surface.
‘Well, Dad, that works both ways.’ He cleared his throat.
Standing up to his father had never been easy, not even as an adult, and it didn’t feel right even now at forty-one.
But he’d made himself a promise that when he came back to Porthpenny, he would not bow down to his father; he would stand up to him at last and be a man.
‘Humph.’ His father shrugged. ‘Do you want tea?’ He raised a hand, and Lucas swallowed a gasp because it was so distorted, it looked more like a twisted bundle of twigs.
‘I’ll make it.’ Lucas stood up. ‘Have you eaten this morning?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Wasn’t hungry,’ his father mumbled.
‘Well, I’ll make you something.’ Lucas filled the kettle and set it to boil, then he went to the fridge and opened it.
He almost keeled over at the stench that hit him, and he had to take a step back and hold his breath.
Turning, he looked at his father to see if he’d say anything, but his glasses were back on his nose and he’d gone back to his crossword.
Lucas stared inside the fridge, searching for some milk.
There was a carton of yogurt that looked like it was about to explode because the top was bulging.
There were jars of jam and pickle, some of which appeared to be empty, and one with a yellow-brown substance that might have been mustard once upon a time.
The bottom drawer had something fuzzy and spore-like growing in it that wouldn’t look amiss on an apocalyptic Netflix show.
Then there was a packet that looked like it had once contained meat and was now oozing a sticky brown fluid.
Recoiling, Lucas slammed the door shut and went to the sink to scrub his hands.
‘Tell you what, Dad, why don’t we go up to The Garden Café? We can get some air and have brunch there and you can tell me how you’ve been.’
His father looked up and raised his grey brows. ‘Brunch?’
‘Yes.’
‘At Pearl’s café?’
‘Yes.’ Lucas nodded, not sure if Pearl Draper still owned the café. He’d taken his father there a few times during his rare visits over the years and really liked what Pearl had done with the place. ‘That’s right.’
‘But it’s cold out.’
Lucas bit back the reply, It’s warmer out there than it is in here, and instead said, ‘We can wrap up warm. It’ll be nice to take a walk and get something to eat. Come on … When was the last time you went out? When was the last time you ate something?’
Silence fell in the kitchen apart from the ticking of the clock on the wall and the dripping of the tap over the sink. Lucas tried to breathe calmly, to give his father a chance to decide.
‘All right then. We’ll go out to eat.’
As the elderly man pushed his chair back and stood up, guilt and concern washed over Lucas because his father looked like a shrunken version of the man he’d once been.
His back was curved, his shoulders bony, and his jeans hung off his frame.
His shirt was wrinkled, and his beard needed a good trim.
Lucas was shocked by the difference; this wasn’t the man he remembered from his childhood.
He felt guilty that he hadn’t witnessed the decline from strong patriarch to elderly man.
A man who clearly was not taking care of himself.
Well, he reasoned, he was back now, and he would do what he could to help. If his father would let him, that was, because he could be a stubborn old goat and had always been the same — just without the old part.
‘I’ll just grab my jacket,’ his father said as they walked out to the hallway.
When he retrieved a battered black leather bomber jacket from the hook and pulled it on, Lucas knew the man he’d known was still there.
Just smaller and frailer. He’d always been quite vain, so something must have caused this shift in him.
Lucas would find out what had happened and put some measures in place to ensure his father was looked after going forwards.
But there was no way that he intended on staying in the village. No way at all. He’d left here once, and he had no intention of coming back to stay, not even to take care of an ageing parent.
Porthpenny was his past and his future was … well, it wasn’t here in Cornwall.