‘Oh, no.’ I brush him off.
‘Seriously, I still can. Want to have a look at train tickets?’
‘Really?’ I have been dreading doing the return journey, if I’m honest. Dad thought I was crazy to not just stay in London for the weekend, but I didn’t want to miss April’s party.
‘Yeah, come on,’ he urges.
I’m perfectly capable of checking out my own train times, but I think he enjoys my company as much as I do his.
I go straight from Wembley station to the pub. Dad is working tonight.
‘It’s my little girl!’ he cries as I walk through the door. Several of his punters turn to stare at me.
‘Hi, Dad,’ I reply with affection as he comes out from behind the bar to gather me up in his arms.
‘Ooh, I missed you,’ he grumbles into my hair.
‘I missed you, too.’
‘How’sHermie?’ he asks, pulling away and looking at me expectantly.
‘Great.’
‘Really?’ His eyes light up.
‘Yeah, really,’ I laugh. ‘I’m used to him now. I kind of like my mini home on wheels. The only thing that’s missing is a toilet.’
‘I knew it!’ he erupts, clapping his hands together once and pointing at me. ‘You want to take it back with you?’
I laugh at the eagerness of his offer. He really does love his portable loo. ‘Still not quite there, thanks, Dad. It’s all right. I won’t be in Cornwall for much longer.’
Charlie and April come to mind and I realise how very sad I’m going to be to leave them at the end of the summer.
Dad finishes up soon after I get there, driving us home to the house where I grew up. We moved here when I was eight, when he was still married to Mum, but, although she came here on and off during the next couple of years leading up to their divorce, it never felt like it was hers at all.
There’s a photograph of her in a picture frame on my windowsill. She and I are standing cheek to cheek with nothing but the cold blue of the ocean behind us. She’s wearing her assistant cruise director’s uniform and I’m wearing my cruise-coordinator get-up. She has dyed honey-blonde hair, groomed neatly into a topknot. My dark hair is flowing freely. You can see the resemblance in our navy blue eyes and cheekbones, but, when I smile, people say I look more like my dad.
I still remember the early years, after Mum went back to the cruise ships. At first I cried for her a lot. I was only six, and she was gone. If I fell ill, got picked on at school, or toppled over on my bike, she was the person I called out for. It must’ve broken Dad’s heart.
Eventually I learned that he was the only one who would dish out medicine, talk to my teachers or hold me until I stopped crying.
He was there for me, while Mummy was somewhere in the Adriatic Sea giving manicures and pedicures to rich pensioners. And, what’s more, shewantedto be there.
I soon learned who my primary parent was.
Despite her lack of maternal instinct, I think Mum struggled with that when we first started joining her during school holidays. I remember one time when I must’ve been about seven and I had cut my knee slipping down some steps near the pool. She came running, but I didn’t want her. I wanted Dad.
It was his name I wailed as she tried to pick me up. As soon as I saw him coming, I stretched out my arms and she had no choice but to step aside and let him be the one to comfort and mollycoddle me.
I looked at her from over Dad’s shoulder – I genuinely remember this as if it were yesterday – and she was crushed. I’d hurt her.
I was glad.
Mum and I have always had a complicated relationship. But she’s a complicated person.
Sometimes I wonder if I’d be any different if I’d grown up with two stable, happily married parents. Would I have settled down myself by now?
The parallels between Nicki and me are intriguing. Her parents are also divorced, and her father moved to another country when she was younger. Her relationship with him was challenging, just as mine is with my mother.
