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We walk over the bridge slowly sloping down, to the coastal path. Misty rain dampens our cheeks and a tiny letterbox slot of sun through the clouds turns the sea to liquid pewter. ‘What was he like?’ I ask.
Dad thinks, deeply, as if sifting, trying to find the right words. Then he says, ‘Just – toxic. I wish I could say a nicer word, but, toxic. Julian was toxic.’
The word tightens my chest.
‘I don’t believe he wanted to be. Not deep down. But – the alcohol. It dominated his life in the end. And in turn, your mother’s.’
I nod. ‘And she got out?’ I ask, even though I of course know the answer. But I feel like a child who needs a happy ending. A crumb of hope on the next page of the book. I can’t bear it, imagining Mum, of all people, stuck in a toxic, destructive life.
‘She did. I helped her. Another friend of ours, did too. And then—’ He smiles at me; ruddy wind-beaten cheeks, watery, wise eyes that have seen and know so much. ‘Well. You know the rest.’
And I suppose that’s what waits on the next page. Dad. Us. The Chandlers. Our family.
‘For me,’ I say, ‘it’s that she didn’t tell you.’
‘That she lied.’ Dad nods, walking tall, beside me.
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘That’s it,’ says Dad, simply. ‘That’s what I can’t get past. That’s what hurts. The intention of it. The lie. Something she carried around and didn’t tell me.’
We arrive at the bottom of the bridge, and to the path that runs along the beach, railings on one side, the train line on the other. Scenes like these, are why I love living here so much. It’s the contrast of everything. The beauty of the ocean, the vast expanse of sky, the sunsets that look like watercolours; and then, the weather-beaten rust on railings, the spiky, overgrown train lines, the boat store, clumsily piled up with peeling, overturned boats with exotic names. Ugly and beautiful, all at once, light and shade, rough and smooth. Like .?.?. life, I guess. Like people. And that’s why we hold on, isn’t it? Because while we’re in the shade, we know the light will come eventually if we just wait a little longer. And as much as my heart aches now, looking at my lovely dad, his thick, black waterproof jacket, the blue checked shirt peeping underneath that my mum would have ironed for him, hung meticulously in his wardrobe, Iknowthere has to be a way through this. They’re a solid unit. This unwavering, solid unit.
‘I said to her,’ Dad continues, ‘how much pain, Toni, does someone have to cause in order for you to believe it’s just what they do; who they are? At what point do you grant someone no forgiveness? He left her with nothing.’
I nod, my heart, like a tender exposed wound in my chest. Mum is so strong and together. The sort of person you feel has a lovely clean slate of a reputation; not a foot put wrong, not a single memory that makes you think, ‘ach, glad I’m not likethatanymore’. Like Kieran. Not like me. And just thinking about her putting her trust in the wrong person, being mistreated regardless of her intelligence, her strength .?.?. It makes me think of Cate. Of me.
I suggest to Dad we sit down and have some tea, and we walk a few yards more until we come to the wooden beach shelter, its panels painted a vanilla custard cream, and the benches a midnight blue. We sit on a bench looking out to sea, at the haze of mizzle, water on water, and I pour us two teas into the two plastic cups from Ralph’s Thermos. Dad smiles when I reveal the biscuits in my bag.
‘You’re such a good kid,’ he says, and I see his mouth quiver, but he hides it with his cup. ‘Sometimes I worry you don’t know that we think that of you.’
I nod. ‘It’s OK, Dad.’
Dad then gives a stiff shrug. ‘I think we put pressure on you,’ he says. ‘To .?.?. I don’t know. I .?.?.’
‘Walk the line?’ I offer, almost too quietly, a part of me hoping he doesn’t hear, that my words get carried out to sea, instead, but Dad looks at me, almost shocked. And I am too, in a way, that those words just left my lips. But theydidput pressure on. Gentle, but constant. To do my homework, to get good grades, to have teachers write things like ‘conscientious’ and ‘polite’ on my school reports. To find a conventional path and follow the steppingstones, one at a time. Even when I met Owen, there was a sort of collective sigh of relief between them. That okay, I might have dropped out of university and I may have no career, but at least I’d met a nice, ambitious, family man who wanted all the token things you’re supposed to want, like a wedding, a house, and savings, and maybe even a family. All things conventional. And I suppose at first, I didn’t really see it as pressure; more them wanting the best for me. But is it ever wanting the best for someone, if you’ve already decided what that best looks like for them?
‘I’m sorry if you’ve ever felt that, my darling.’
‘It’s – it’s OK .?.?.’
‘Well, all the same .?.?.’
And I don’t try to paper over it. Because what is it Ralph often says? Feeling things is what we’resupposedto do, as a human, but not everyone is always going to sit with something you feel and be comfortable with it. And it’s not up to you to take that discomfort from them, especially not if it means trading in your own truth for it. ‘It’s OK, Dad,’ is all I say, again, and I place a hand on his.
Dad and I sip tea, and eat biscuits. The tide is in, lapping against the concrete wall by our feet. ‘I stayed at your Auntie Vye’s last night,’ he says. ‘In the conservatory, on a put-you-up bed. Just to get my head together. I thought we needed space from all the talking.’
Something sinks in me, hot and heavy. Mum and Dad, in separate houses. No. Not Mum and Dad. Not my safe, dependable parents.
‘God.’ I say. ‘And also, not that bloody conservatory,’ Dad allows himself a laugh. It’s bad enough knowing Mum and Dad slept separately, but in the emblematic conservatory of ladies-who-lunch-and-brag-about-hollow-things? It feels like an alternate reality.
‘Are you .?.?. are you both going to be OK?’
Dad swallows. ‘I hope so,’ he says. ‘I just need some time,’ carries on Dad. She doesn’t want to stop seeing him. And I understand that. But I’m just not sure where that leaves me.’
Dad takes a deep, shaky breath in and we sit, together, staring out to sea, my heart aching a little. The tide slowly, slowly fades before us, the sludgy sand revealing itself, millimetre by millimetre, water slipping away.
‘I think lies hurt more than any truth ever could,’ Dad says. ‘Because it turns the person into something else. You start to wonder what else they’ve been concealing, even if it’s nothing at all. It’s like someone turned the lights on and for the first time, you can see something you never knew was there. And you have to trust again. Trust that there is nothing else concealed, to see. That’s the hard bit.’
