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