Page 28 of Summer in Greece

She smiled. ‘If I want company, Dad, I can go into any pub and snap my fingers. Honestly, you don’t have to worry about me.’

He stared at her, processing what he’d heard. ‘I think you’ve done a wonderful job getting yourself through university, taking care of me and setting up the surgery. Your mother would be as proud as I am.’ Then, he blurted as an afterthought, ‘But what about me grandchildren? I’m not blind to the fact that time’s running out.’

They stared at each other for a moment, both saddened and confused by the series of thoughts, words, and memories that lunged from the past. Shelly’s anger rose and she had to turn away from him before she said something she knew she would always regret. How could he forget? It was his fault he didn’t have grandchildren around! She stared out of the window lost in her rising feelings. ‘Dad . . .’

‘No, wait, Shelly love, I’ve got to say this. I think about it every day and it’s been too many years. But I could never get the words said. Help me out by keeping your back turned, and don’t speak till I’ve finished.’

There was a sickening silence while she sensed his emotional struggle. She heard him sigh, then realised she could see his reflection quite clearly in the glass.

‘Shelly, what I did after your mother died was wrong. I want to say, I’m really sorry, and I’ve regretted it for decades. My only excuse is that I think I had some kind of breakdown.’

She watched his reflection. He dragged a big white handkerchief from his pocket and dried his face before he continued. ‘What I did, making you give DJ up after your mother died, well, I could have handled it better. I want to say how sorry I am for all the hurt I caused you . . . and I’ve been trying lately, you know, to be nicer.’ He blew his nose noisily. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

She couldn’t speak. In some fairy-tale fantasy, she would hug him and forgive him, of course, and life would go on with his burden, and her burden, lightened. But this was the real world. The terrible pain he had inflicted on her almost twenty years ago, had been deliberate and vicious. She stared at his reflection, too numb to speak, and afraid that whatever she said would be wrong.

‘I’ll put another Gran Gertie tape on while we eat, OK?’ she said.

He nodded glumly and she hoped the tape would contain a little humour. They both needed a smile.

In her mind, she heard her great-grandmother’s voice whisper:

Forgive him, Shelly. Your father’s just a lonely old man doing his best. He simply struggled along from day to day in those terrible days after your mother died, blaming the world and dealing with the injustice while trying to hide his confusion and pain. And being a man, he would never ask for help.

She had never thought about it like that before. Poor devil. But then again, she was little more than a child, desperate for the support of the only parent she had left.

The tape clicked and hissed and Gran Gertie’s words filled the room, so sharp and shockingly clear that Shelly half expected to see her standing in the corner, smiling. Then came the aftershock. The grand old lady with a neat grey bun and pale blue eyes wasn’t standing there with her arms loosely folded beneath her shapeless bosom. Her feet weren’t planted a foot apart in pink, fur-trimmed Christmas slippers. However, that was how Shelly always saw her.

The voice that filled White Cottage was younger than Shelly remembered. Clearly, her great-grandmother’s spirit had come to life in the room.

How I miss you, Gran Gertie.

Gordon was shovelling steak and kidney pie into his mouth like a condemned man. The emotional outpouring had given him an appetite. Then he looked up, and said, ‘Your mum told me that when she was a toddler, Gran Gertie would stand at the back fence, shake a can of seed, and stare at the sky for ages.’

Shelly pressed pause. ‘Why?’

‘Waiting for Icarus, a carrier pigeon, with a message from someone special in Greece.’

‘From Greece? Wouldn’t that be too far for the poor little bird, unless it thumbed a lift off EasyJet?’

He blinked at her. ‘No, a good bird can do it at a push.’

She resisted the urge to make a joke, Gordon took his birds very seriously and woe betide anyone who poked fun at them.

Shelly opened a beer and passed it to her father, then placed their plates in the sink.

‘I’m shocked by Gertie’s tapes, Dad. I had no idea she’d had such a life. Let’s open the trunk, shall we? Did you pack it?’

‘No, someone from the parish council, after the funeral. But if I recall, the trunk was practically full already.’ He thought back. ‘I was in no fit state for anything. Do you remember much from then, Shelly?’

She looked into his eyes and nodded.

‘I do know you’re still suffering, not just from your mother’s death, but from all that followed too. I feel bad about that, Shelly love. I’m ashamed of myself.’ He frowned, glanced at her, then the floor, then back to her. She had an odd feeling that she didn’t want him to say what was on his lips.

‘Don’t go there, Dad.’

‘I must, you see, I know it’s my job as your father, to advise you no matter how old you are; but I’m no bloody expert, am I? So, I have to say this in my own clumsy way. Have you thought about going for some kind of help, treatment, grief counselling, like?’

Deeply moved, she smiled softly. ‘I deal with it in my own way, Dad, don’t worry. I keep busy . . . and of course, I dive. Every time I dive, it sort of dilutes what happened a little; do you know what I mean? It’s a kind of therapy. Anyway, let’s drop the subject and get back to the trunk. You say the church people packed it?’