The Hidden Truth, page 15
‘Anyway, I’ll go ahead and book my own flights for February. I’m so longing to see you, sweetheart.’ In fact, she had the strongest urge to be with both of her daughters right that second. To hug them and sit with them, relax as they chatted and laughed together, like in the days when they were still close by. Dispel the sadness that had almost imperceptibly built up around her – as a backdrop to knowing Bernard – from so many aspects of his life.
25
In the days that followed his confession, Bernard kept kicking himself. He honestly wanted to scream. Ostensibly, he’d come clean, finally admitted to Sara the horrible secret he’d been harbouring – the secret that was at the root of his occasional dark moods, and that she now assumed was behind his problems with his children. She’d been so incredibly sympathetic, so kind. Not that he’d have expected her to be anything else. Sara wasn’t judgemental – it was one of the things he loved about her. It was an accident. Her words echoed in his head, mocking him.
So why the hell had he mangled his confession with another bloody lie? Why didn’t I tell her the whole truth, when I had the chance? Although he knew the answer to that, of course. But now things felt worse between them, rather than better. His heart ached, remembering the hurt look on her face, that he hadn’t trusted her to understand. What drove his despair was the knowledge that, sometime in the future, he would disappoint her much, much more comprehensively.
That evening he watched as she carefully took the dish of kedgeree out of the oven for supper and laid it on the worktop, lifting the foil lid so she could press the tip of a knife into the centre to check that it was done. Her movements were calm and practised, but he knew that her expression, if he could have seen it, would be one of bewilderment at his current mood. He had tried so hard to appear relieved to have got the secret off his chest, but it wasn’t happening … for obvious reasons.
And however sympathetic Sara might be right now, when she finally discovered that his so-called truth was just another version of a much bigger lie, that he still didn’t trust her enough to reveal his real crime … He swallowed hard, choked by his own cowardice.
Since exposing the accident, he had found himself increasingly unable to function and push the bigger problem of that day – even now unresolved – to the back of his mind. He knew he must come across as sulky and self-pitying, but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it.
They ate in silence. ‘I’ll come to Wales,’ Bernard offered after a while. He knew how wound up Sara was about the Thanksgiving visit to her father, but she had not once suggested she wanted his company.
Sara smiled gratefully. ‘Thanks, but Lois mentioned Frank’s heart is bad when I tried to get out of coming this year. If he’s ill, it’s probably better I go alone.’
She never called him ‘Dad’, Bernard noticed, as he said, ‘I could support you, call him out if he’s mean to you.’
‘My father invents his own truth. He’s vain and selfish, but he’s not specifically mean to me,’ she said. ‘Just completely uninterested in anyone but himself.’ She grabbed his plate and stacked it on her own. ‘I’ll be fine. Lois is sweet and it’s just for one night.’
He felt embarrassed suddenly. At least one of the characteristics she applied so scathingly to her father could equally well apply – did apply, indeed – to himself. She doesn’t deserve to be let down by me as well.
26
It was sunny and dry on the Thursday Sara drove north – unusually good weather after days of rain and a biting wind. She stopped at a shop in town to buy Lois some flowers and a box of chocolates, a bottle of wine for Frank, planning to arrive by four o’clock – they always ate on the dot of six. She would stay the night, have a quick breakfast – Lois used to serve pancakes with bacon and maple syrup when the girls were younger, but it was now a piece of sliced white toast and cheap strawberry jam, unless Frank was up – and be on her way by nine.
As she drove up the various motorways to her destination, the November morning sparkling, she felt the spell of the cliff house fall away and her spirits lift. She realized just how much Bernard’s low mood was affecting her, especially as she couldn’t fully understand the root cause.
Her own mood was further enhanced because she had finally heard from Julian Cameron. A letter, beautifully hand-written in black flourishes on good paper, had arrived at her consulting rooms yesterday. It was at least two months since he would have had his test and the results, but it had obviously taken him a while to be able to admit to her that it was negative and seek her advice again. ‘I’m sorry I disrespected you, walking out like that and being so rude when you were only trying to help,’ he finished, before signing off. She was pleased, both to hear from him again and to get his apology. She knew she could help him and felt quite excited about the challenge. The one thing in her day-to-day life that felt clear and straightforward at the moment was her work.
By the time Sara neared the dreary conurbation of Prestatyn, the clouds had rolled in off the sea and it had begun to rain. Her previous optimism had deserted her and she was tired from nearly six hours on the road, her gut churning not only from the slimy, refrigerated egg sandwich she’d eaten on the way, but in grim anticipation of what lay ahead. Is Frank dying?
Her stepmother – although Sara had never thought of her as such – and the corgi’s excitable yapping welcomed her at the door of the neat, pebbledash bungalow, which sat in a row of almost identical houses, two blocks back from the sea. Sara could sense the eyes of all the other bored resident-retirees trained on her behind the nets in the quiet street, storing up information about her car, her clothes, the flowers she carried, the length of time she stayed, for gossiping about later.
Lois was dithery, plump and powdery, her dyed blonde hair piled on her head in a frizzy topknot, pink lipstick from the sixties garish against her old skin. She had a tinkly laugh, which she used instead of speech when she felt self-conscious – which seemed to be a lot of the time.
‘My, those are just gorgeous,’ she said, in her wavering American accent, when Sara handed her the flowers. ‘You’re so kind, sweetie. Frankie loves dahlias.’
‘You should put them in water right now, Lois. I’m afraid they’ve suffered a bit from the journey.’ The house smelt of roasting turkey, but she couldn’t detect the usual rotten-egg pong of Frank’s homemade wine and hoped this meant they would drink the bottle she had brought at dinner.
‘I’ll do that right away. Go ahead and say hi to your daddy,’ Lois said, waving towards the sitting room. ‘Stop it, Shula. Leave poor Sara alone, will you?’ She shooed the dog away from Sara’s feet, where it continued to yap insistently.
‘Where’s Jill?’ Sara asked after the other corgi, and wished she hadn’t, because Lois’s eyes clouded with tears. ‘Oh, I’m afraid she passed a while back. It was her kidneys.’
‘Sara?’ came a weak call from the sitting room.
‘You’d better go in,’ Lois said nervously.
The room was boiling, the gas fire – a glowing rectangle surrounded by shiny metal and brown wood – was on full blast, the double-glazed windows firmly shut. Frank was sitting in a beige flock La-Z-Boy in the centre of the room. The side table to his left held an impressive array of pill bottles and packets, water jug and tissues. The one to his right was piled with car magazines, the local newspaper, a small radio and two pairs of spectacles.
Frank was now slight, bald and thin – much thinner, as Lois had warned, than when Sara had last seen him, his skin bearing the bluish tinge of someone with a compromised heart. She had seen photos of him – found among her mother’s things after she died – in which his then lustrous dark hair and sharp blue eyes, his jaunty, flirtatious air, might have been attractive. But since then he seemed to have sunk into weaselly bitterness, a frequent twitch around his right eye disconcerting, almost piratical.
He had once said to Sara, his voice whiny with disappointment, ‘Life never treats you the way you deserve, Sara.’ To which Sara had responded silently, Your problem is that life has treated you in exactly the way you deserve.
He held out his hand to her, producing a charming smile with obvious effort. ‘You made it all right?’ His voice was still surprisingly strong and held the faint flat echo of the Midlands, where he was born. ‘I heard on the radio that the M6 was blocked around Stoke.’
Sara, after clasping her father’s hand for a brief second, had retreated to the blue chintz sofa. ‘It wasn’t too bad by the time I got there.’ She felt strange, sitting there trying to think of what to say to this man who had hovered so invisibly, but still powerfully, over her life. Whose features she searched for familiarity, and found none, whose gaze she plumbed for signs of affection, and also found none. But each time she still hoped for a breakthrough, some indication – she didn’t know what – that might finally redeem their relationship.
‘I should go and see if Lois needs my help,’ she said, after a few more minutes’ chat about the weather and the roads.
‘She’s fine,’ Frank said tersely. ‘Tell me how you are. It’s been such a long time since I saw you.’
Sara didn’t rise to the dig. ‘I’m OK. Busy, work’s going well.’
‘The girls?’ He always referred to them this way, as he seemed never to remember their names.
She filled him in, drawing out the detail to occupy the time, although she could see he wasn’t really taking it in, his gaze wandering, waiting till she’d finished.
‘You know I’m not well,’ he finally interrupted her. ‘It’s my heart.’
‘Oh … I’m sorry.’
‘I could go any time.’
‘Have the doctors said that?’
‘Pretty much.’
Sara didn’t know whether to believe him or not.
‘Lois is getting worked up about it. But there’s nothing to be done.’ He spoke nonchalantly, but Sara could hear the anger beneath his words.
‘That must be scary for you both.’
Frank was eyeing her. Ignoring her comment, he said, ‘I wanted to tell you … I’ve seen you right, Sara. You should know that.’
Not quite understanding what he meant, Sara nodded. Is he talking about his will?
There was a sudden loud clank from the kitchen and she got up. ‘I’d better go and give Lois a hand.’
Lois was flustered and red-faced, her frilly apron spotted with gravy. When she saw Sara she laughed self-consciously. ‘Nearly there,’ she said, as she spooned roast potatoes into a white china serving dish.
The meal seemed to go on forever. Sara was exhausted, the wine and the overheated air making her head ache. Conversation jogged along effortlessly, though, Lois wittering, in a steady stream, about local dramas, the dog’s sleeping habits – it had taken to lying on her pillow at night, since Jill had died, much to Frank’s distaste – the terrible storm a week ago. Sara had only to nod and smile. Her father contributed pompous tales of his genius in controlling the idiots on the parish council and occasionally berating Lois for some detail she got wrong, when he didn’t have his head bent over his plate, shovelling in the turkey and gravy and potatoes.
Sara helped Lois clear up afterwards. ‘It was a lovely meal,’ she said, not completely untruthfully, although the pie had been the usual challenge.
Lois pulled a face. ‘The pumpkin was out of a tin this year, I’m afraid, potatoes and gravy M and S. I haven’t the energy to cook any more.’ She paused in her drying of a stemmed wine glass and glanced towards the door. ‘I need to speak to you privately, Sara, before you go,’ she muttered anxiously.
Frank shuffled slowly off to bed with the pained martyrdom of a man who feels nobody fully appreciates his suffering. Sara was longing to do the same, even though the single bed was narrow and pressed against the wall, the fitted sheet slippery nylon, the pillow microfibre. But Lois was giving her meaningful glances. As soon as they heard the bedroom door shut, she hurried over to the sofa and sat down next to Sara. She could smell stale lily of the valley as Lois moved closer. Shula leapt onto her lap and Lois petted her, her hand movements jerky with tension.
Staring hard at Sara, she began to whisper: ‘This is so embarrassing. I’m just going to come right out with it.’ There was a split-second pause. ‘Frankie has left you the house. When he dies, you … will … own … this house.’ The last words were enunciated slowly, as if she were worried Sara wouldn’t understand.
Sara wasn’t sure she did. ‘But … but … as his wife …’
Tears were forming in Lois’s pale eyes. ‘Frankie never married me. He said two was enough.’
Sara was shocked – but not surprised – by her father’s selfishness towards a woman who had cared for him devotedly for fifteen years, and was of the generation to whom marriage was a necessary social requirement. ‘I didn’t realize, Lois.’
The old lady shrugged. ‘I don’t mind too much. I know he’s a difficult old cuss, but I love your father.’ She hesitated. ‘You two aren’t close, but he does love you, sweetie. I understand why he’s done it. But I’ll have nowhere to go if you sell the house.’ At this, Lois began to cry softly, digging a tissue from her sleeve to hold to her nose.
Boiling with fury, Sara took Lois’s hand. ‘I don’t want the house, Lois. If Frank has left it to me, I’ll give it to you.’
Lois blinked through her tears. She didn’t appear to hear Sara. ‘It’s worth a bit. I’ve kept it nicely and it’s only a short walk to the sea. You have the girls to think about.’
Shaking her head, Sara said, ‘Listen, I would never make you homeless in a million years, Lois. As far as I’m concerned, this house is yours.’
Lois, almost shaking with relief, clutched Sara’s hand ever tighter. ‘You should talk to your father. He won’t be pleased you don’t want it. He’ll think I’ve been manipulating you.’
Inhaling what was supposed to be a calming breath so she didn’t immediately go and drag her father out of bed by the scruff of the neck and give him what for, she put her arm round the old lady by her side. ‘I don’t give a toss what my father thinks. What he’s done is beyond cruel.’
Lois looked horrified. ‘Don’t speak like that, Sara. He’s your father.’
Sara shook her head. ‘I share his DNA. That’s the sum total of his involvement in my life. I know you’ve tried … but honestly? I’m very fond of you, Lois, but he means nothing to me.’
Eyes wide with shock, Lois must have sensed Sara’s rage because she said, ‘What are you going to do? Don’t say I said anything, please. It’ll only upset him, me going behind his back like this.’
‘I will speak to him. But I won’t involve you, I promise.’
Tired as she was, Sara found it hard to fall asleep. Adrenalin, triggered by the conversation with Lois, rendered her wide awake and twitchy as if she’d downed five cups of full-strength espresso. She wanted to ring Bernard and offload, but the walls of the bungalow were thin, and she was so livid, she might end up shouting. She lay there, instead, nursing her fury, constructing and refining what she would say to Frank in the morning.
Lois made herself scarce after she’d set the breakfast on the table. She looked washed out and fragile and Sara’s heart went out to her. Frank, on the other hand, seemed rested, tucking into his fried egg and bacon with his usual absorption.
‘You said last night you’ve “seen me right”,’ Sara began. ‘What did you mean?’
Her father’s expression took on a knowing look. ‘Aha, so you’re interested, eh?’
Trying to keep her temper, she nodded.
Frank waved his knife around the room. ‘This is all yours when I go.’ He smiled magnanimously, a teasing glint in his eye, waiting for her gratitude.
‘Oh?’ she said, as if this were news. ‘And what about Lois?’
He frowned. ‘You’re my daughter, Sara. I want to leave you what I have. I know I’ve not always been around for you.’
A little late to work that out, Sara retorted silently. ‘So what would Lois do, if I sell the house?’
‘She has a sister in Louisville. She’s always saying she misses Kentucky …’
Unable to believe what she was hearing, Sara took a minute to reply. Then, almost without thinking, she said, ‘Please change your will, Frank. Leave the house to Lois … Or marry her, for God’s sake. You know it’s the right thing to do. I don’t feel I can see you again, unless you do.’ It seemed like a very feeble threat to Sara, the withdrawal of her once-yearly visits, but her father’s eyes widened in consternation.
‘Has she been saying things?’
‘Why do you ask? Is it because you know she’s probably worried sick?’
Frank had the grace to look shamefaced for a second. Then his confidence was back. ‘I can’t understand why you don’t want my house, Sara. I thought you’d be grateful.’
Sara stood up fast, nearly toppling the kitchen chair in the process. Her heart was exploding with rage. She was on the verge of spewing out a lifetime of resentment towards a man who had abandoned her and her mother, never paid a penny towards her childhood upkeep, never even sent her a birthday card, then turned up unannounced at her mother’s funeral in a shabby brown suit and declared he was Frank Colquhoun, clearly expecting Sara to fall at his feet. When she’d asked him why he’d come, he replied, Because I’m your father, as if the notion had suddenly come to him in a vision.
But she knew there was no point. He was a man who had never taken responsibility for his actions, everything always and exclusively revolving around him and what he wanted. He was leaving her the house not because he cared for her but because it made him feel better about his transgressions. ‘I should get going before the traffic builds up,’ she said flatly.
