Wish You Were Here

Chapter 3

One of the pleasures of living in Norfolk was the extensive coastline to the north and east of the county. You were never far from the sea but, without a car, it was rather awkward to reach and Alice didn’t get to see it very often but today was a wonderful exception.

‘It was good of Stella to let us borrow her car,’ Terry Archer said.

‘It’s your car, Dad,’ Alice said.

He shook his head. ‘No, no – it’s Stella’s all right,’ he said, nodding to the pair of furry pink dice hanging from the rear-view mirror.

Alice groaned and took them down, chucking them onto the back seat. ‘She was sorry she couldn’t make it today,’ she said. ‘She really wanted to be here.’

She heard her father sigh. ‘Alice, you don’t need to lie on behalf of your sister. I know what she’s like. In fact, I only expect to see her on special occasions like when she needs a cheque signing.’

‘She’s not still tapping you for money, is she?’ Alice said, aghast.

‘Only when I let her get away with it.’

‘Oh, Dad!’

‘I find it hard to say no to her sometimes – like your mother. I never could say no to her either.’

‘But you’d say no to me, wouldn’t you?’ Alice said with a grin.

‘You never ask in the first place, my dear,’ he said.

Alice smiled at him as she took the turn onto the coast road but she was secretly seething because that morning, she’d got a phone call from her sister.

‘Alice?’ a little voice had squeaked at the end of the line.

‘Stella?’

There was the sound of throat-clearing and then the squeaky voice began again. ‘I don’t feel so good. I think I’m coming down with flu.’

Alice had tried to believe her – she really had – but Stella was in the habit of crying wolf whenever it suited her and it was hard to know when she was telling the truth.

‘Are you wrapped up in bed?’ Alice had asked her.

‘Yes,’ the squeak replied.

‘Good,’ Alice said. ‘Then I’ll pop over and get the car.’

‘What?’ she’d shouted.

‘I thought you’d lost your voice?’

There was the sound of throat-clearing again. ‘I have! What do you want the car for?’

‘For Dad’s birthday. If you’re ill in bed, you’ve no use for it,’ she said and had immediately hung up.

When Stella had answered the door an hour later, she’d done a pretty good job of roughing her hair up but Alice could see she was wearing clothes underneath her housecoat and had a full face of make-up on, but she hadn’t bothered to challenge her. One thing was certain – she wasn’t going to let it spoil her special day with her father.

The little town of Bexley-on-Sea might not have Great Yarmouth’s funfair or Cromer’s pier but it was all the richer for that, Alice couldn’t help thinking. It was an old-fashioned sort of place with its row of Regency hotels and its simple promenade lined with pretty wooden kiosks selling fish and chips and ice cream. It wasn’t the first choice for the tourist venturing to Norfolk but it was a favourite with locals and Alice loved it.

Parking the car on the seafront, Alice shoved a woolly hat onto her head and, opening the car door, was greeted by an icy blast of salt-laden air. She got her father’s wheelchair out from the boot, erecting it in record time and then helped him out of the car and into it.

‘Just for a while,’ he said, ‘and then I’ll have a little stroll.’

The sea was steely-grey under a matching sky. Great boulders of dark clouds banked up along the horizon and a chill wind was blowing from the north reminding Alice that there was very little between them and the North Pole.

‘Not quite a day for a paddle, is it?’ Terry said from his chair.

‘I’m sorry, Dad! This was a terrible idea.’

His hand reached round and squeezed hers. ‘A breath of sea air always does the power of good,’ he said, ‘even if it does try to blow your head off your shoulders.’

They followed the promenade along the seafront for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. The kiosks were in hibernation for the long winter months but Alice had spotted a café that was open and earmarked it for later.

‘Park me here,’ her dad said after they’d been on the go for about ten minutes, ‘and sit down next to me for a bit. It gets lonely with you stuck behind me and I can’t talk to you properly.’

Alice stopped the chair by a bench and sat down next to her father. The bench was wet with sea spray and the slats were cold and uncomfortable but it felt good to be with her father and she took one of his large hands and held it between her own.

‘You’re cold,’ she said. ‘We shouldn’t stay here too long.’

Her father didn’t reply and she saw that he was staring far out to sea and she wondered what he was thinking about, his eyes seeming to glaze over with memories of the past.

‘Remember we used to come here with your mother?’ he said at last.

‘Yes, of course,’ Alice said, thinking of how her mother would get up extra early to make up the most enormous picnic hamper you’d ever seen and then rounding up every blanket, towel and toy she could find, stuffing the car to bursting point. A day at the beach was a military operation but her mother loved every moment and she never lost her patience when Alice and Stella bickered on the back seat of the car or spilt ketchup or ice cream down their dresses.

‘You used to love those holidays,’ her father said. ‘Give you a bucket and spade and you could create a kingdom that would entertain you for hours.’ He shook his head and smiled at the memory. ‘Stella, however, would be bored after five minutes.’

‘She hasn’t changed much, I’m afraid,’ Alice said.

‘No,’ he said, as if accepting the fact.

‘We’re going away together in April.’

‘You two? On holiday – together?’

Alice nodded and laughed. ‘I know! It came as a bit of a surprise to me too but Stella was in a bit of a jam and didn’t want to go on her own.’

‘So, where are you going?’

‘Kethos,’ Alice said.

‘Where’s that?’

‘Greece. It’s a little island off the mainland.’

‘What do you want to go there for? Our beaches not good enough for you?’ Terry asked with a grin.

‘Stella’s boyfriend booked it but they broke up and now she wants me to go with her.’

‘I didn’t know she was seeing somebody,’ Terry said.

‘I don’t think it was for very long,’ Alice said.

Terry shook his head. ‘Poor Stella,’ he said. ‘So, do you want to go on this holiday?’

‘Yes, of course!’ Alice said, feeling the weight of her father’s gaze upon her. ‘I do, really I do, only I can’t help wishing you were going with me instead.’

He laughed. ‘You won’t get me out of the country now.’

‘Never did, did we?’

He shrugged. ‘There are them that’s made for travelling and them that’s made for home.’

Alice smiled, remembering her father’s little motto from years gone by. It had usually been wheeled out when Stella made a scene about their holiday destination.

‘Weston-super-Mare?’ she’d complain. ‘It sounds like an old horse. Can’t we go to Italy? Jude’s going to Italy with her family. Lake Como.’

‘Let them get on with it,’ their father would say. ‘Lake Como has nothing – absolutely nothing on Weston-super-Mare.’

Alice tended to agree with her father but she was more easily pleased than her sister which was just as well as she’d never had the budget for exotic holidays – one of the reasons she was looking forward to Kethos.

She looked out over the grey waves of the North Sea and tried to imagine the aquamarine ones waiting to greet her in Greece. How wonderful it would be to feel warm, she thought. The last few winters had seemed to drag on forever, as if the White Witch of Narnia was back in business and had cursed the whole of the UK. Alice felt quite fatigued by it all and couldn’t wait to shed her baggy winter layers and luxuriate in the feel of the sun on her skin.

‘A penny for your thoughts,’ her father said.

‘Oh, I was just wondering if I’d be able to make it to that holiday in Greece or if I’d freeze to death first.’

Her father chuckled. ‘Shall we go and get some lunch and warm up somewhere?’

‘Good idea!’ Alice said, leaping up from the bench.

They went to the tiny café Alice had spotted earlier and she pushed the door open into the welcome warmth before wheeling her father’s chair through. She didn’t need to ask what he wanted; it was always the same. So, she ordered two full English breakfasts with all the trimmings even though it was one in the afternoon, and they washed everything down with two mugs of piping hot tea.

‘Do you want anything else, Dad?’ she asked after everything had been consumed.

‘Ice cream, of course,’ he said.

‘But we’ve only just thawed out!’ Alice said.

‘You can’t come to the seaside and not have ice cream!’

Alice laughed. ‘Two ice creams. In cones, please,’ she said to the waitress who was hugely entertained by the idea but didn’t mind in the slightest. ‘One strawberry, one chocolate.’

Her father always had strawberry ice cream. You could offer him fifty different flavours from cherry chip to lemon meringue and you could guarantee that he would seek out the strawberry.

When the two cones arrived, they beamed at each other.

‘See what your sister’s missing out on?’ her father said.

‘Yes,’ Alice agreed. ‘It’s like being on holiday.’ And it really was. It felt wonderfully perverse to be eating ice cream in February with the wind blasting against the little café window and the great grey sea rolling malevolently towards the land. But it was even more wonderful being with her father. Not only did it remind Alice of her childhood when they’d all been together as a family, but she had his sole attention and Alice didn’t often have anybody’s sole attention. More often than not, people would talk through her or be looking over her shoulder or else they just wouldn’t bother talking to her at all. It was something she’d grown used to over the years but it was rather lovely to be with somebody who gave her his undivided attention even if they were genetically predisposed to do so. Which reminded her, there was something she had to talk to him about and now was as good a time as any.

‘Dad, I wish you’d rethink things,’ Alice said.

‘What things?’

‘About the home.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, looking up from his ice cream.

‘I mean, if we got a carer, you could come back and live in your own home.’

He shook his head. ‘We’ve been through all this,’ he said. ‘Haven’t we?’

‘Yes, I know, but I just don’t like the idea of you being there all on your own.’

‘And you’d rather have me at the mercy of Stella?’

‘She doesn’t have to live there. She’s big enough to get a place of her own. I can’t believe she’s never thought to do that.’

He took a lick of his ice cream. ‘Alice – you mean well – I know you do – but you know my thoughts on this. I’m not having either of you worrying yourselves about me all the time. Carer or no carer, if I was at home, you’d be fussing around me all the time and you’ve got your own lives to live. I’m not going to do that to you. Besides, I like the home.’

‘You do?’

‘There’s company there. I’m not on my own at all as you so often think.’

Alice narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve met somebody, haven’t you?’

Her father smirked. ‘I might have done.’

‘Really?’ Alice laughed. ‘Tell me!’

Their matching blue eyes locked together but her father wasn’t saying anything.

‘You naughty man!’ Alice said. ‘I’ve been imagining you sat in a chair in a corner of some lonely room with nothing to do all day and, all this time, you’ve been flirting!’

He chuckled. ‘I’m a wicked old man,’ he said.

‘What’s her name?’

‘I forget.’

Alice frowned. ‘Oh.’

‘I’m kidding, for goodness’ sake!’ he said with a chuckle.

‘Oh, Dad!’

‘Her name’s Rosa and she’s eighty-two.’

‘Eighty-two?’

‘Yup! Who would’ve thought your old man would be somebody’s toy boy at seventy years of age?’

‘You’re incorrigible!’

‘So, that’s my love life up to date. Are you going to tell me what’s going on in yours? Any nice young man on the horizon?’

‘On the horizon? If there is, I think I need a telescope because I haven’t spotted him yet.’

For a moment, Alice thought of Ben Alexander at work – his handsome face and lopsided smile that always made her heart flutter.

‘There is somebody,’ she said quietly, ‘but he doesn’t even know I exist.’

‘Why not? Why doesn’t he notice a pretty young girl like you?’

‘Dad! I’m not pretty and I’m not that young anymore either.’

‘What nonsense!’

‘It’s true! I’m just ordinary – I know that – you don’t have to be kind. Stella was always the pretty one.’

Her father frowned at her. ‘How can you say that?’

‘Because it’s true.’

‘You are so beautiful, Alice. You have a pure and giving heart—’

‘And the sort of face nobody looks at twice.’

‘But nobody wants to look at a beautiful face if it hides a cruel heart,’ he said and Alice couldn’t help wondering if he was talking about somebody in particular. ‘Listen,’ he continued, ‘Stella might get all the attention when it comes to the opposite sex and she might get her own way when it comes to you and me but just be careful.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You mustn’t trust her so wholeheartedly. She takes advantage of you.’

‘Well, I’m used to that.’

‘But you mustn’t let her—’ he paused.

‘What?’

Her father shook his head and something inside him seemed to close down. The conversation was over; he wasn’t going to elaborate.

They finished their ice creams and then drove home in virtual silence. The winter sky had darkened dramatically and Alice turned the car headlights on. Her father’s eyes kept closing and she didn’t prod him into wakefulness with conversation although she was desperate to know what he’d meant about Stella.

You mustn’t trust her so wholeheartedly.

Of course, Alice knew that her sister wasn’t completely honest all the time but she was used to all the white lies and Stella wouldn’t be Stella without them. But was there something more sinister than that?

Alice turned into the tree-lined driveway and the south front of Bellwood House rose up out of the immaculate lawn to greet them. It was an imposing Georgian house which had been extended and modernised to provide more ground-floor facilities for its residents. Her father, though, despite his wheelchair, had insisted on having a first-floor room because he wanted a good view.

Alice pulled up outside the front door and one of the carers, Sam, was immediately there to help. He always had the uncanny ability to spring up out of nowhere when he was most needed and Alice watched as he helped her father into his chair, wheeling him up the ramp into the home.

‘No need to come with me,’ her father told her.

‘Are you sure?’

‘You’ve done quite enough for today, my dear.’

Alice bent down and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Give me a call soon, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ he said, grabbing hold of one of her hands. ‘Thank you.’

Alice smiled at him. ‘Happy birthday, Dad.’

She watched as Sam wheeled her father’s chair into the lift up to his room on the first floor and waited for him to return, peeping into the main sitting room which overlooked the front lawn and wondering if she’d catch a glimpse of Rosa. Would it be too intrusive to ask for her? she wondered. Yes, it would and what would she say, anyway? Excuse me – are your intentions towards my father honourable? No, she was quite sure that he was old enough to know what he was doing when it came to the opposite sex.

At last, after settling her father into his room, Sam returned.

‘Did he have a good day?’ he asked Alice, his young face beaming at her.

‘He did,’ Alice said, knowing that Sam was referring to the mental and physical state of her father rather than whether he’d enjoyed himself. ‘He was absolutely fine. No problems at all. Just got a little tired at the end of the day.’

‘Don’t we all?’ Sam said with a smile.

‘You’ll let me know if he has another turn, won’t you?’

‘Don’t worry, we’ve got your number,’ Sam assured her.

‘My mobile and my home number?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the office one?’

‘We checked them all last time, remember?’ Sam said.

‘Oh, yes,’ Alice said.

‘He’s well looked after, Miss Archer,’ Sam assured her. ‘We’ve got him on the new dosage of medication for the MS and he’s eating well, sleeping like a log and – well, everything is absolutely normal.’

‘I know. It’s just that I want to make sure,’ Alice said.

‘And the dementia – well, he has good days and bad days.’

Alice nodded. ‘It’s so unfair,’ she said. ‘Isn’t MS enough? Why dementia too?’

‘Old age can be very cruel sometimes,’ Sam said. ‘I’ve seen so many of our clients battling no end of ills.’

Alice nodded, blinking fast so that her tears wouldn’t spill. ‘But he isn’t old,’ she said hopelessly.

‘Well—’

‘He isn’t! Not by today’s standards.’

Sam nodded. ‘You just have to take things one day at a time with ageing. That’s all you can do.’

Alice nodded and said goodbye, leaving Bellwood House for her sister’s. It was dark now but there were no lights on in the house. Alice wondered if her sister really was tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle and a box of tissues but she quickly dismissed the thought as she popped the car keys through the letterbox.

Walking to the end of the road, Alice turned left and headed towards the bus stop. Fishing her mobile out of her pocket, she texted Stella.

Had a great day with Dad. Car returned. Hope you’re feeling better. Xx

The reply took only half a minute to arrive.

Hope you topped up the petrol. S x

Chapter 4

‘We can’t possibly go on using that room for interviews – it’s far too noisy with them digging up half the street outside,’ Larry Baxter told Alice without actually looking at her.

‘How about the old filing room?’ Alice suggested.

‘What?’ Larry snapped.

‘The old filing room at the end of the corridor. It’s only got one old filing cabinet in it and we don’t really use it anymore. It’s quiet in there too and has lots of natural light.’

Larry deigned to look at Alice for a moment but didn’t really appear to see her. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ he said at last, scratching his bald head.

Alice shook her head. Ben Alexander had three interviewees arriving in less than an hour and they had nowhere to put them. The least Larry could do was listen to her perfectly decent suggestion or they’d end up interviewing the candidates in the canteen which would probably flout the all-important health and safety regulations.

Alice was just racking her brains for an alternative suggestion when Ben Alexander walked into the room.

‘Hello, Larry. Hello, Anna,’ he said, his all-encompassing gaze sweeping Alice oh-so-briefly. ‘All set for the interviews?’

Larry cleared his throat. ‘I suggest we use the old filing room at the end of the corridor,’ he told Ben. ‘It’s quiet and has lots of natural light.’

‘Excellent idea!’ Ben said, clapping his hands together.

‘Yes, I thought so,’ Larry said.

‘Your boss is a miracle worker, isn’t he, Anna?’ Ben said.

Alice turned round and rolled her eyes, returning to her desk where she found Larry’s empty coffee cup waiting for somebody to wash it. She sighed, thinking to herself that her situation might be more bearable if she had somebody in the office she could talk to but the only other woman who worked in her department was part time. Her name was Pearl Jaggers and she was about a hundred and twenty years old and was only interested in small talk if it was about her eleven grandchildren.

She wasn’t sure how she managed to get through the next few weeks leading up to the holiday. She endured countless cold mornings at the bus stop, her neck retreating like a shy tortoise’s into the woolly folds of her scarf. Bruce was his usual uncommunicative self and didn’t even attempt to help when a speeding car splashed an icy puddle up her legs.

Wilfred the postman was as grouchy as ever, complaining about the conditions postmen had to endure during the cold months and then promptly sneezing on her and, at work, Larry continued to ignore her and Ben continued to call her Anna. Life was perfectly normal if far from perfect.

But, finally, the great day arrived. Alice had spent the final five evenings before the holiday packing. And unpacking. She just didn’t know what to take. She’d looked up the temperatures in Kethos online and was assured that mid-April was mild but not hot. That meant you had to take absolutely everything: jeans and jumpers in case it was cool and dresses and swimsuits in case it was warm. Not that Alice had much in the way of clothes; she wasn’t the sort of woman who had an excess of anything – unlike her sister who had once bought a favourite dress in three different colours. Alice thought of her sister’s heaving wardrobe and the number of clothes which had been flung over their father’s old bed. She couldn’t help thinking that something was wrong when a person had more shoes than books in their home.