Daddy was very upset by Flook’s illness. He usually only went into the Drinking Room on Saturdays, but while Mummy was at the hospital he drifted in every evening and stood, shoulders hunched, staring into the cold fireplace. Louise left her children with her mother and came to look after us, but I thought Daddy needed more care. I peered through the crack in the door at dusk, worried that he might be lonely. He was looking out towards the river, one arm raised to the top of the window frame. Through the small panes of glass clouds bowled across a sky dark with approaching storms. Daddy turned round and saw me. ‘Come in, my love, come in.’ The Drinking Room seemed forlorn with just Daddy and no fire lit, and although I hated drinking evenings, I wished Daddy had someone there to cheer him up.
‘Daddy, are you all right?’
He smiled and pulled me over to him. ‘I’m keeping company with Bacchus and some old ghosts,’ he said. ‘I miss your Mummy.’
I sat down in a deep armchair. ‘She’ll be back soon.’ I curled up and leaned my cheek against the soft density of velvet. ‘Flook really is getting better now, isn’t he?’
Daddy poured a splash of Martini and some water into his glass and raised it. ‘Yes, thank Christ. He is better. But he has paid with the loss of innocence.’
Louise came in. ‘Now Patrick, what stories are you telling this poor child?’ She sounded a little flirtatious, deliberately light-hearted, like all Mummy’s friends when they talked to Daddy.
Daddy looked at her and didn’t speak. He drank some Martini and still he didn’t speak. He winked at me. ‘A tiny discussion about Life and Love and the great Hereafter,’ he said in his most professorial tones.
Louise laughed. ‘Well, it’s supper-time, so come and have some spaghetti.’
‘Dear God, these women are frightening,’ Daddy whispered to me as we followed Louise. ‘But what can I do? Your Mummy has left her orders, and we must obey her.’