‘Cornwall?’ Dennis looked surprised. ‘To the shack?’
She nodded, waiting for him fully to take in what she’d said.
‘It’s a ruin, no? That fella won’t have looked after it.’
‘I don’t know. That’s what I need to find out.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘And you want some money, I assume, to pay for the trip?’ There was a certain amount of glee in his anticipation of her request.
‘No, I’m OK, thank you.’
‘You are?’ He looked put out. ‘How come? Sandwiches paying more than I thought?’
The question she’d dreaded. He has no right to ask. ‘Don’t worry about it, Dad,’ she said quietly, heart in her mouth.
There was a long pause, during which her father eyed her with growing suspicion. Then he shook his head as if dismissing something.
Bel found she was holding her breath as she waited for the penny to drop. Because she knew it very soon would.
‘Wait a minute … not your mother’s jewellery,’ Dennis finally said, his voice fallen to a disbelieving whisper.
She saw no point in lying. ‘Her watch, yes.’ She paused, heart fluttering. ‘I’d never have worn it.’
Outrage sparked in his eyes as he jumped out of his chair. ‘The Cartier? You sold your mother’s Cartier?’ He eyed her furiously, breathing hard. Bel could see the rage building, watched him clench his fists by his side, perhaps to prevent himself lunging at her. ‘You scheming bitch,’ he growled. Angry spittle formed in the corners of his mouth. ‘I gave you her things in good faith. I entrusted them to you.’
Trembling, she straightened her shoulders. ‘The watch was mine, Dad. Mum would have wanted me to use it to look after the cottage. She loved that place.’
‘Ha!’ Dennis scoffed, stepping back and uncrossing his arms. ‘That’s your justification for pawning your dead mother’s jewels?’ He was wheezing noisily now, his face suffused a dark pink, his stocky frame still powerful and threatening. ‘How much?’ he barked, a small sneer appearing on his lips. ‘How much? Not nearly enough, I’m sure. You’ve got that sort of face. The sort that makes people think they can rip you off.’ He shook his head, like a wet dog. ‘You make me sick.’
Bel took this opportunity to drag the envelope out of her back pocket and hold it out to him. ‘There’s fifteen hundred in there. It’s not much, I know, but I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten the debt we owe you.’ She had supplemented a portion of the watch money with cash from the sandwich shop.
Dennis eyed the packet charily, as if she were offering him blood money. He made no move to take it. So Bel laid it gently on the table. But it seemed to have taken the wind out of his sails.
When next her father spoke, his tone was indignant, rather than angry. ‘So what am I supposed to do while you’re gallivanting in Cornwall? Maria’s buggered off back to Portugal. Who’ll do for me?’ Maria was Dennis’s cleaner – sullen and pretty useless, in Bel’s opinion, but she loved laundry – who had gone back to her home town after the pandemic to be with her extended family.
‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I can find someone to come in if you like,’ she said, in a conciliatory tone, twisting her fingers together in front of her, just dying to get away from him.
He huffed indignantly. ‘You don’t give a toss about me, do you?’ He clutched his back theatrically, just to remind her – although it hadn’t bothered him just now, when he’d sprung to his feet with the speed of a much younger man. ‘I take you in when you’re on your uppers, look after you, but as soon as it suits, you’re off without so much as a by-your-leave.’ He turned away. ‘What a bloody fool I’ve been.’
Bel sighed inwardly, then mustered a soothing reply from the tattered remnants of her patience. ‘Of course I appreciate all you’ve done for me, Dad. You know I do,’ she said, not for the first time. ‘But it’s only for a few days. We can find someone else to do your laundry while I’m gone.’
She watched her father stop in his tracks. He spun round slowly. ‘Is that all I mean to you? An old man who needs his smalls washed?’ His voice cracked. ‘Did it never occur to you I might be lonely, rattling around on my own with no one to talk to and nowhere to go since that sodding pandemic wrecked my social life?’
Suddenly ashamed, although she knew her father was a past master at pulling her heartstrings, she repeated, less certainly this time, ‘It’s only for a few days, Dad.’
Silence.
He shook his head, tiredly puffing out his cheeks. ‘Oh, do what you like, Bella. It’s not as if I have any say in the matter.’ With that, he picked up his reading glasses from the table – leaving the money where Bel had dropped it – and shuffled out of the room.
She waited till she heard his bedroom door close, then scooted along the corridor and shut herself in her room. I will not cry, she told herself. I won’t let him get to me. But she was trembling. Guilt vied with desperation as she wondered if she really was being thoughtless, leaving him alone. It’s not for long, she insisted to herself, staring out onto the communal gardens from her window. Maybe a break is all I need. The small seeds of a more permanent freedom were shrivelling in the hot air of her father’s emotional blackmail.
‘Cornwall!’ Tally exclaimed, when Bel phoned her a couple of days later. ‘Great idea.’
‘It’s only for a week.’
‘Yeah, but it’ll be amazing to have fresh sea air, some different wallpaper to stare at.’
‘Not sure there’s any of that in the cottage. It’ll probably be so manky I’ll turn tail and be back in the smoke by the weekend.’
‘Listen, Bel. Take a proper holiday,’ Tally said firmly. ‘Even if your place is gross – and it sounds like it might be – I’m sure there are spots where you can camp out. You’ve got the beach, the sea, and it’s almost nice weather. Send pics, make me jealous.’
Bel laughed. ‘Will do.’ She fiddled with a thread coming loose on the seam of her jeans. She wanted to confide in her stepdaughter about her fears over leaving her father alone. But Tally was speaking.
‘Sorry, Bel. There’s a work call coming in I’d better take. Listen, have a wonderful trip.’
‘Yeah, talk soon.’ Having said goodbye to Tally, she continued to sit on her bed, thoughts racing round her head. It was Friday and she was leaving in four days. Her father had been a nightmare since she’d told him her Cornwall plan. He’d barely left her side for a single minute, following her about, knocking on her door at all times of the day and night with concerns about how he would cope when she was gone.
‘I can’t carry stuff home from the shop with my back,’ he’d say. So she had set him up with online shopping from the local supermarket – he was perfectly competent on the computer. ‘The washing machine isn’t working properly.’ She checked and it was fine. ‘How do you make that spaghetti sauce with the tomatoes I like?’ She’d made a batch and put it into the freezer, along with single portions of macaroni cheese and shepherd’s pie. And ‘I don’t know how I’m going to manage without you,’ delivered over and over in a mournful tone, until she began to believe him. She’d offered to find someone to come in and help, but he’d stubbornly refused. She was beginning to wonder if the trip was even worth the hassle.
Now, as if her thoughts had summoned him up, she heard a loud knocking and her father’s voice urgently calling her name. Sighing, she got off the bed and went to open the door. ‘What’s up, Dad?’
Dennis was bent over, clutching his back, his face pale. ‘My sodding back’s gone. I can’t stand upright,’ he gasped, almost falling into Bel’s arms. Letting him lean heavily on her, she took his arm and helped him shuffle slowly along the corridor and onto his bed, gently lifting his legs until he was lying flat.
Her father was sweating, panting, his dark eyes creased with pain.
‘I’ll get you some ibuprofen. She hurried to the box in the kitchen where Dennis kept all his medication, her heart frozen in despair. NO, she wailed silently. No, no, no!
By the evening it was quite clear that her father couldn’t cope on his own. His pain appeared genuine, even though Bel knew he wasn’t above exaggerating the problem for his own ends. He seemed barely able to get out of bed for a pee, let alone make himself anything to eat. Bel was beside herself. Pauline had been round again the night before and God knew what she and her father had got up to. Would he be sufficiently improved by the time she was due to depart in a few days? And even if his back was better, it didn’t seem right to leave him in such a vulnerable state.
On Saturday morning – after a sleepless night – she waited for him to wake so she could assess the situation. She made him a strong coffee and a piece of toast and marmalade and took it through to the bedroom. Dennis was sitting up in bed, reading the Spectator in the bright beam of the bedside spotlight. Bel put down the toast and coffee and went to open the heavy curtains to the bright spring morning.
‘How are you, Dad?’
Pulling off his reading glasses, he let out a long sigh. ‘Hardly slept a wink. Every time I turn over, it nearly kills me.’
‘I’m so sorry. But you’ve got Holly coming at ten. She’ll sort you out.’
Dennis smiled as he reached for his coffee. He loved his physio. She had a dark, bouncy ponytail and a wide smile, and bossed him about with a combination of Nanny-knows-best and irresistible flattery.
Bel hovered while her father ate his toast. Neither of them had an answer to the question burning on her tongue: ‘Will you be better by Tuesday?’ A lot can happen in three days, she kept telling herself. But her courage was waning fast: the trip appeared doomed.
Holly stood in the corridor with Bel. Her father’s door was shut, but the physiotherapist spoke in a low voice nonetheless. ‘He’s pulled a muscle in his lumbar spine. Nothing too serious, this area’s often caused him grief in the past, but the spasms must be painful. I’ve done what I can. Now he’s got to mobilize his back, not lie in bed all day. I’ve sent him exercises on email.’ She grinned. ‘Probably won’t do them, of course.’
‘So he should get up and start doing things?’
‘Absolutely. Just walking about for short periods – the stretches will help. Paracetamol every four hours.’ She stuffed a rolled-up towel into her sports bag and hoisted it onto her shoulder. ‘I’ll be back on Wednesday.’
‘Thanks, Holly. See you then,’ Bel said, wondering if she would as she thanked the physio and showed her to the door.
‘I can’t go,’ she said to Tally, when she rang her that evening. ‘I’ll feel terrible if I do.’ Her father had been up and about since Holly’s visit – Bel had insisted. Apart from a fair amount of grunting and groaning he was clearly a lot better. But whenever Bel asked him how he was, he would pull a face and groan, ‘Shite.’ She had no way of assessing the degree of his pain, of course, and was still unsure of the extent to which he might be laying it on thick for her benefit.
‘Wait a minute,’ her stepdaughter said. ‘You say he’s up and about, and you’re not going till Tuesday. He’ll be fine by then, won’t he?’
‘Probably not,’ Bel said gloomily. ‘And even if he is, he’ll pretend he isn’t. I’ll just worry.’
She thought she detected a tinge of frustration in Tally’s sigh. ‘Isn’t there someone you could arrange to drop in every day, check on him?’
‘No,’ Bel said, without thinking.
‘What about the porter guy? You could ask him to swing by, maybe do the odd bit of shopping.’
‘Riggs? He’s too weird.’ Bel knew she was being stubborn, but she didn’t feel as if she deserved to get away any more.
Tally laughed. ‘Right. Well, that rules him out, then.’
‘It was stupid, thinking I could just go off like this. He obviously needs me.’
‘Best to give up then, eh? Just settle down and accept your fate as a long-term carer for your dad.’ Tally’s tone was solemn, mimicking Bel’s.
‘I’ll go another time.’
‘When he needs you less?’
The silence between them was like a tug-of-war. Bel, despite resisting, knew Tally was right. Her father would only ever need her more. It was now or never.
‘What about Flo?’ Tally interrupted her thoughts. ‘You said she was doing shit cleaning jobs. Maybe a couple of weeks grappling with your dad would be light relief. He’s got the money, you say.’
Would she? Bel wondered.
‘You could ask her,’ Tally suggested, when Bel didn’t reply.
‘Dad’s so racist. He’ll probably give her a hard time. That wouldn’t be fair on her.’
‘Bel!’ Tally almost shouted. ‘For God’s sake.’
‘OK, OK! I’ll ring her.’
‘Blimey, it’s like coaxing a frightened cat out of a tree.’
‘Flo, the waitress?’ her father asked on Monday morning. ‘I told you I don’t want anyone here.’
‘I’m going to Cornwall tomorrow. You keep saying you can’t manage without me,’ Bel reminded him.
‘Like I need some idiot stranger fussing over me.’ He dragged his eyes from the morning programme he was watching.
‘Flo’s in no way an idiot or a stranger. You met her lots of times at 83. You always said you liked her.’
‘I don’t want her,’ he stated bluntly, turning back to the television.
Bel, frantically channelling Tally, stood her ground. ‘She could help with the shopping, do a bit of cleaning, cook for you, all the things I do … And Flo makes a fantastic curry.’ She knew this because Flo had once cooked a Jamaican curry chicken – served with fried plantain, coconut rice and beans (which Flo called ‘peas’) – for her, Louis and the rest of the staff one night when 83 was closed between Christmas and New Year. Bel could still remember its deliciousness.
Bel saw Dennis’s ears prick up at the carrot she was so shamelessly dangling. Her father adored curry. He didn’t reply – probably not wishing to give her the satisfaction of capitulating so soon – but she could tell he was thinking about it. She left him to mull it over. Even if he rejected the idea of Flo, she felt she was off the hook. She had found someone to help him. It was up to him if he wanted to avail himself of the offer.
Later, she texted Tally: Flo on board. Dad cantankerous. At least I tried. Off to Cornwall in the morning. THANK YOU! xxx
Her father, whose back was noticeably better, except when he realized Bel was watching, barely spoke to her the next day, as she prepared to leave. Flo had come over the previous evening for Bel to go through everything with her. She’d picked up a key and some cash for the next ten days, agreeing to come in for three hours a day until Bel returned.
‘You’ve saved my life,’ she said to Bel, beaming as she tucked the key and the money into her purse. ‘One more rich client with attitude and I might have stabbed someone.’
‘That’s Dad you’re describing, I’m afraid,’ Bel said. ‘He’s probably worse than all of them put together.’
Flo looked if she thought Bel was joking, then saw she wasn’t. ‘I’m sure I’ll cope,’ she said, with a reassuring smile.
‘If, or should I say when he’s rude, or racist, or sexist or any of the other “ists” he favours, I apologize in advance,’ Bel said. ‘He’s probably nastier to me than anyone else, if it’s any consolation. He doesn’t mean it.’ There I go again, she thought, wincing. Even if her father didn’t mean it, he should know better than to indulge his baser instincts so casually.
Flo raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
And when Dennis was introduced to Flo, he’d been at his charming best. She’d asked about his back and he’d thrown one hand into the air with a flourish. ‘Takes more than a pulled muscle to bring Dennis Carnegie down,’ he’d said gamely, an almost flirtatious look in his eye as he smiled at Flo. Bel hoped her friend would survive.
Now her father stood in the hall, arms folded resentfully, and watched in silence as she dragged her backpack to the front door. Her packing was minimal: she’d bike to the station and then from Penzance at the other end so she couldn’t carry much.
‘OK, Dad, I’m off,’ Bel said, straightening after zipping her phone into the front pocket of her pack. ‘I’ll ring when I get there, if there’s a decent signal.’ She leaned forward and pecked his cheek. ‘I hope you have a good time with Flo. She’s a gem.’
Mouth pursed and an eyebrow raised, he eyed her coolly. ‘Safe journey,’ he mumbled, and turned away. Bel tried not to feel hurt. She would have liked a hug. Or to have been able to share her excitement – and nervousness – about her trip. But Dennis had stone-walled her since the moment she’d said she was going away.
Riggs was waiting in the basement. ‘I did the tyres. Back one was flat as a pancake,’ he told her, as he pushed the bike into the lift and propped it against the wall. He was smiling that discomfiting smile of his, but Bel was grateful and told him so. ‘Going far?’ he queried.
‘Cornwall for a few days. A friend’s coming in to help Dennis while I’m away. Flo Liverpool. She’s got a key.’
He held the lift door back with one arm. ‘I’ll keep an eye.’
She thanked him again, and emerged onto the pavement, leaning on the handlebars and letting out a huge sigh of relief … as if she’d just escaped from a long spell in a dark, airless dungeon.
The journey to Paddington station was hairy and she took it slowly. Bel was an experienced cyclist: she’d spent many hours circling the paths of Epping Forest with Louis and on her own when she lived in Walthamstow. But her backpack, although not huge, was heavy enough, threatening to unbalance her, and being out in the traffic of Central London for the first time in months was unnerving.
It wasn’t until the train was easing slowly out of the station – bike and case stowed, reserved seat located, tuna sandwich, crisps, apple and water in the bag at her feet – that she allowed herself to relax a little, and finally breathe more easily. Over the last few days she had felt as if she was balancing on a knife edge. She’d never been quite certain – even with Flo’s help – that she would actually get away.
Now, she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, hardly able to believe she was on this train, heading out of London … It seemed much more significant than just a few days in Cornwall. She thought of a line from Winnie-the-Pooh that her mum often used to quote to her when Bel was small and reluctant to socialize: ‘“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you,” sweetheart.’ I’m coming out of my corner, Mum, Bel thought, as the carriage swayed gently and she drifted off into an exhausted doze.