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