He smiled as if he knew me. That kind of reaction wasn’t uncommon: Leigh was a small town, people tended to know of each other, even if they hadn’t yet met. I nodded back.
As I approached the large glass doors at the front, the tall man skipped in front of me. He smiled again, this time revealing perfect white teeth and a pair of intense blue eyes, then he held open the door for me. ‘Ladies first.’ There was an accent there, though the exchange was too brief to pinpoint it.
‘Thank you.’ I stepped through it and continued over to my car expecting him to follow me out.
He didn’t.
As I swung out of the car park I saw him behind the glass door.
I couldn’t swear to it, as I was a fair distance away, but I think he was watching me.
Back at the hospice, I found Sally.
‘I think it’s all right to take them,’ I told her and handed over the bottle. ‘There was another one there of the same. I know Dan usually has a lot of spares in case he mislays the meds. He’s not going to run out for a good while.’
Sally heaved a sigh. ‘It’s all been very stressful for poor Dan. You’re managing to cope, Sadie. You’re young and have friends and your dad. Dan’s pretty much on his own and I think he might not be handling this too well.’
I had been so wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself and Mum that it hadn’t occurred to me what Dan might be going through. Now I saw Sally could be right. I remembered a conversation I had once with him about his medication. He described the drugs as creating a ‘semi-porous wall’ which managed to keep out what he referred to as ‘the dark’. ‘Sometimes,’ he told me, ‘it’s just not strong enough.’
‘What do you do then?’ I asked him.
‘We go back to the doctors,’ Mum interjected.
What with everything that had been going on lately, I doubted very much that Dan had thought about making an appointment.
‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘I never thought of that. It’s been a very difficult time. I’ve been completely self-obsessed.’
Sally’s eyes crinkled into deep lines around the corners of her eyes and across the top of her cheeks.
‘Don’t beat yourself up about it, love. You’ve had your own cross to bear.’ She smiled gently. You could tell she did that a hell of a lot. The pattern of lines was etched deeply into her face through years of usage.
She held the bottle up to inspect then said, ‘Dan might have taken some time out to get his head straight. Then again, he well might have relapsed. If you’re not acting rationally, then you don’t think things through logically. Stress makes people react in different ways.’
‘Yes,’ I nodded. Now Sally was putting it like that, it did seem like the reasonable conclusion – Dan was probably taking a break. Perhaps he was running away. Maybe he was being cowardly. But perhaps that was necessary in order to preserve his own sanity. If I knew Dan, and I thought I did, whatever he was doing, he would have seen it as imperative.
Sally grunted at the pill bottle. ‘Forty milligrams. Not sure about that. Doesn’t look like a forty mil dose. Never mind,’ she shook the bottle and popped it on the shelf behind her. ‘I’ll ask Doctor Jarvis to advise.’
With a sense of unease I said my goodbyes and hurried home.
Chapter Five
The landline answer phone was flashing when I finally got back to the flat. It was a message from my dad, checking in on me to see how I was going. Lots of people were doing that. I didn’t phone many back. It was weird – although I wanted to be able to talk about it, I didn’t want to talk about it. I guess I just needed to know I had the option.
However, I should return Dad’s call at least.
I picked up the phone, hit ringback and got my stepmum, Janet, who informed me Dad was putting the kids to bed and would probably be another fifteen minutes. I said I’d call back in the morning and that, no, it wasn’t urgent.
‘You’re still coming on Saturday though, aren’t you?’ Janet wanted to know.
Saturday, Saturday. What was on Saturday? I reached into my handbag and pulled out my diary. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ I told her, still unsure of what I’d committed to.
‘Good, good. I know it’s a fair way. Your dad will appreciate the effort.’
‘Right. Of course,’ I thumbed through to Saturday’s entry – Uncle Roger’s birthday. I groaned.
‘Mercedes?’ Like my father, Janet too had developed the annoying habit of calling me by my full name.
‘Sorry, Janet. I had forgotten. I’m sure he wouldn’t miss me if I didn’t come.’
‘Mercedes, honestly! Don’t say that. Your dad certainly would. You know you’re the apple of his eye.’
I managed to stifle a snort of contempt. This was pretty typical of lovely rosy Janet, but a blatant lie. Dad had always been a remote sort of parent, though not unloved or unloving. But the emotional and physical distance increased when he and Mum split and he moved out of our home back to his native Suffolk. I’m not being self-pitying when I say he never appeared particularly interested in me. True – he did the regular check-up and monthly phone call thing. And true – it didn’t bother me one iota. But then my half-sisters, Lettice and Lucy, came along.
Janet was a homely and family orientated woman. A fair-haired big old farmer’s wife type, who insisted that I got more involved with the family. When I did, I saw that Dad absolutely idolised his new daughters with an affection that was doting. It was different to the parenting style I’d known, for sure. But to be frank, I couldn’t blame him: Lettice and Lucy were cool. Fourteen and eight years old respectively, and completely feral. Borderline punk. I liked their attitude.
I think a lot of their wildness came from living in the country; after he left, Dad bought a row of dilapidated cottages in the middle of nowhere. He did the first one up and moved into it whilst renovating the rest, then sold them on, retaining three of them to rent.
It was a canny move. Over the past couple of decades the ‘middle of nowhere’ had transformed into ‘desirable rural location’, affording him a very comfortable early retirement.
‘Mercedes? Are you still there?’ Janet’s voice brought me into the present. Oh yeah, the birthday party.
I made a snuffling noise.
‘Oh come on, love. Uncle Roger might not be around for much longer. His kidneys aren’t looking good.’
Dad’s rather morose older brother was a permanent downer at any festive occasion.
A small sniff conveyed my cynicism. ‘He’s been saying that for years.’
‘Yes, well now it looks like he’s right.’ Janet made it sound like a final reflection, demanding of compassion.
I sighed audibly. She changed tack. ‘It’d do you good to get away. And everybody’s expecting you. The kids are looking forward to seeing you and you know how upset your Dad will be if you don’t …’
‘Okay, okay. I’ll be there. I’ll only stay for a couple of hours though.’
‘That’s perfect. Thank you. See you Sunday then. One p.m. Try to be prompt.’
I hung up.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like visiting Dad. It was just with everything going on at the