What Fathers Know

After dinner Eddie washed up and Arthur dried. Clara sat at the little kitchen table and watched two men who had spent twenty years avoiding each other disagree politely about where the plates lived.

It was better than she had expected. It was also exhausting.

“Go and put your feet up,” Eddie told Arthur. “You’ve driven enough.”

Arthur hesitated, evidently unwilling to be sent to bed by a man who kept mugs in the plate cupboard. Then he folded the tea towel and went out.

Eddie waited until the caravan door closed.

“He doesn’t know about the station.”

“I was going to tell him.”

“When?”

“On the way.”

“Which way? Home?”

She took the tea towel and dried a spoon that was already dry.

“He’ll think he was right.”

“Was he?”

“That’s not helpful.”

Eddie pulled the plug. A piece of parsley circled the drain.

“I was sorry about Mia. But she did what she needed to do.”

“I know.”

“And so are you.”

“Yes. Everyone’s been very sensible. It’s disappointing.”

He smiled, but didn’t pursue it. She appreciated that. People who had let her down were sometimes better at not demanding that she make an immediate improvement.

“Did Mum know you’d stopped drinking?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Did she believe you?”

“Eventually.”

“Were you angry that it took a while?”

“I was. That wasn’t one of my more reasonable positions.”

Clara hung the tea towel over the oven handle.

There had been a time when she imagined sobriety as the return of the father she might have had. Instead, she had acquired a quieter version of the father she did have. He still talked too much when he was nervous. He still forgot dates unless he wrote them down. But when he said he would come, he usually came, and when he couldn’t he called before she put on her coat.

“Do you remember the school concert?” she asked. “The one where I played the recorder?”

“Not very well.”

“You said your car broke down.”

He leaned against the counter.

“It didn’t. I forgot what day it was.”

She looked at him.

“I thought if I told you about the car, it wouldn’t feel like I hadn’t wanted to come.”

“It felt like I wasn’t allowed to be angry with you.”

“Yes,” he said. “I can see that now.”

Clara nodded. The answer did not mend anything, exactly, but it removed an old piece of grit.

Outside, Arthur’s caravan light went on.

“Was he there?” Eddie asked.

“At the concert? Yes. He filmed the wrong child for the first ten minutes.”

Eddie laughed, then caught himself, uncertain whether he was entitled to.

“You can laugh,” she said. “It was funny.”

Later she took two clean mugs and a packet of biscuits to the caravan. Arthur opened the door wearing a T-shirt and trousers with no belt. Without his belt he looked less prepared to deal with her.

“Am I keeping you awake?” she asked.

“No.”

“Dad says the kettle’s temperamental.”

“It isn’t temperamental. The contact needs cleaning.”

“Of course.”

She climbed in and sat on the opposite seat. The caravan was warm and smelled faintly of dust from the heater. Arthur had lined his shoes up under the little table.

“It’s nice,” she said.

“It is.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am.”

She gave him the biscuits.

For a while they discussed the route. Arthur had bought a road atlas because he disliked the phone telling him to prepare for a turn while he was still preparing for the previous one. Clara found Saltwick, put her finger on the old railway line and almost told him.

Instead she asked, “Have you packed Mum’s clothes?”

“Some.”

“What does some mean?”

“Coats. Shoes. Things that were easy.”

“Why were shoes easy?”

He looked at her, surprised.

“They didn’t look like her without her in them.”

Clara ran her finger along the railway line again.

“I thought you’d just cleared it all.”

“No.”

“You didn’t say.”

“I didn’t know I had to report.”

She withdrew her hand.

He pressed his lips together. There was the mouth again, though this time it appeared to be directed at himself.

“Sorry,” he said. “That came out wrong.”

She nodded.

“I don’t know what you want me to keep,” he said.

“I don’t know either.”

They sat for a while without speaking.

Before she went back inside, Clara picked up the road atlas. A sheet of paper lay beneath it, covered in Arthur’s square handwriting. Measurements for the flat. The largest space was a living room barely wider than the caravan.

“Will your workbench fit?” she asked.

“Not upstairs. It’ll stay at the workshop.”

“And on days you’re not working?”

“I expect I’ll think of something.”

He spoke lightly, but she had known him too long.

At the caravan door, she turned back.

“I’ve got an interview on Monday,” she said. “For some regular kitchen work. At the hospital.”

“What about your place?”

“It might be useful alongside.”

“Oh,” he said. “Good idea.”

She closed the door before he could ask anything else.