‘That’s right.’
‘Interesting.’ He tilted his head. ‘I guess I’ll see you again while I’m here.’
‘I guess you will.’
‘OK then…’ He tapped the counter with the tips of his fingers, then sighed. ‘Hopefully soon,’ he added before flashing her a smile and walking away.
Thora watched him join his father, then she muttered under her breath, ‘Hopefully soon.’
But as she turned to serve a customer who’d just come into the café, she found herself questioning her thoughts. She may be single, but she was a forty-one-year-old divorcée with twochildren, two jobs and a whole load of responsibilities. When she’d been with Lucas, she’d been young, carefree and naïve. She was no longer any of those things and so as pleasant as it may be seeing Lucas again, seeing him was all she would be able to do.
Lucas was her past and her present was quite busy enough, thank you very much.
6
LUCAS
Lucas had taken his father home after they’d had brunch at the café and settled him in front of the TV, then he’d gone into the kitchen and phoned his boss at the investment bank where he’d worked for the past ten years. He’d explained that he had some concerns about his father and that he intended to stay in Cornwall for a few weeks, probably until after Christmas. He could work remotely and always hop on a train to London should he need to attend a meeting, but his boss had told him to take some time off. She said he deserved time off in lieu for all his frequent overtime and his accrued holiday leave. He’d even cancelled a holiday in the summer because another colleague had been ill. With Christmas just five weeks away, she said he should take two weeks now, then see how things were. Lucas promised to stay in touch — he read his emails every day and responded whether or not he was at work — but she told him to forward his emails to her. Having lost her dad the previous year, she said it had altered how she looked at things, made her realise how brief life was, and that work wasn’t everything. Lucas wasn’t sure about that, but he thanked her, then ended the call.
Three days had passed and in that time, he’d started sorting out his father’s home. He’d cleaned around downstairs and bagged up rubbish and recycling. He’d disinfected the fridge and defrosted the old chest freezer, then he’d filled both with fresh foods and frozen meals so his father would have plenty of meals available. Lucas had enjoyed cooking when he was growing up, but with living alone in London, it often seemed pointless. Outside of work and some self-care at the gym, he’d begun to feel that he didn’t have much of a purpose, but now that was being replaced with a sense of being needed. His father needed someone to help him and Lucas, it seemed, was that person. Despite his transgressions, his father had always been a proud man, and Lucas knew he’d struggle to let anyone else into his home to help him. Therefore, for now it fell on Lucas to provide that help and since his return he’d found that he didn’t mind. It was kind of therapeutic for him to do something different for a change. He was also, to his surprise, enjoying being in Cornwall. It may be cold and wintery, but the location was still beautiful, with its rugged coastline and fresh winds that blew in over the sea, gathering the scents of salt and seaweed.
He’d decided he was going to do something nice for his father today, so he made him breakfast then told him to dress warmly. When they were both ready, he ushered his father out to the garage. His father went to get in the driver’s side of the car, but Lucas said, ‘I’ll drive.’
‘What? But what about insurance?’
‘We sorted all that yesterday, remember?’ These lapses in his father’s memory worried him.
‘Oh … yes, so we did,’ his father replied. ‘I’d clean forgotten there for a minute. But I can drive.’
‘You don’t know where we’re going, Dad.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I’d like to surprise you if that’s OK.’
His father mumbled a few things under his breath, but he got in the passenger side anyway and Lucas opened the garage door, then reversed out onto the street.
As he drove them along the road and then out of the village, his father gazed out of the window. Lucas wondered when his father had last left Porthpenny. He wanted to ask but also worried about the truth. How would it feel to be stuck somewhere, even if that place was as lovely as Porthpenny? To lose one’s physical freedom would be awful, surely? And yet, there were good things to be grateful for: his father could still get up and about, was still capable of holding a conversation (when he felt like it) and he still had the capacity to make decisions for himself. The main issue seemed to be that his short-term memory wasn’t as sharp as it had once been (he’d needed it to be in the past when he was being deceitful) and he hadn’t kept his home clean or been eating properly. But this could be down to apathy rather than a loss of faculties, and while Lucas was here in the village, he intended to get to the bottom of the issue.
‘Any idea where we’re going?’ he asked, wanting to break the silence that had fallen in the car.
‘Nope.’ His father sighed.
‘Want to guess?’ Lucas prodded.
‘Not really.’
‘Oh come on, Dad. I’m taking you out, so why not try to guess where we could be going?’ Lucas tightened his grip on thesteering wheel and clenched his jaw for a moment before he realised what he was doing and stopped himself.
His father glanced at him, then said, ‘Are we going shopping?’
‘Possibly.’
‘In … a town?’
‘Maybe…’
Now his father turned and stared at him. ‘Are you going to tell me or not?’
