'You look tired,' Steve said. 'Shall I drive you home?'
Jenny didn't answer. She was remembering the helpless, terrified feeling her father's fury stirred in her. Even as a small child she had intuited that it came from somewhere deep within him, a place neither she nor her mother could reach.
'Jenny? Why don't we get the bill? We'll pick something up and cook at your place.'
She shook her head.
'You've got to eat. You look like a ghost.'
'I'm going to see my dad.' She stood up from the table, grabbing the photocopies and stuffing them into her handbag.
'Now? Isn't it a bit late?'
'He doesn't care what time it is. He doesn't even know.'
'Jenny, I really don't think —’
'You started it.'
She marched inside, making for the exit. Steve chased after her, grabbing her arm. Otavio looked round from tapping an order into the till.
'Jenny, please.'
She turned, sharply. 'What do you expect me to do?'
'At least let me come with you.'
Brian Chilcott had been confined to the nursing home in Weston-super-Mare for nearly five years. When Alzheimer's struck in his late sixties, his second wife left even more quickly than she had arrived. 'What would I be staying /or?' she said to Jenny. 'He's not my Brian any more, but he'll always be your father.'
It was the time of the evening when the elderly residents of the home were being given their night-time sedatives and hoisted into bed. With Steve in tow, Jenny passed along the carpeted corridor that smelled of urine, disinfectant and cold tea, catching nightmarish glimpses of decrepitude through semi-open doors.
Her father's door was shut. Jenny paused to gather strength.
Steve put a hand on her shoulder. 'You don't have to do this.'
'I do.' She reached up to touch his fingers. 'Come in with me.'
'You're sure?'
'For me. He won't know who you are.'
She pushed open the door and found her father propped up in bed, wearing bright blue pyjamas buttoned all the way up to the neck. For once the television was silent. A magazine lay open but untouched on his lap.
'Hello, Dad,' Jenny said quietly.
The old man, seventy-four years old and as strong as a carthorse, turned to look at them, but said nothing.
'Dad, you know me, don't you? It's Jenny?'
He stared at her blankly, seeming to focus on the wall behind her.
Steve sat on the arm of the stiff-backed armchair in which Brian spent most of his waking hours. 'Hello, Mr Chilcott. I'm Steve. Pleased to meet you.'
Brian appeared to respond. His eyes moved briefly to Steve's face before travelling to Jenny. She thought she detected a faint hint of recognition.
'I'm sorry it's been such a long time. I've been busy,' Jenny said, adding the lie: 'Ross sends his love.'
Brian turned his gaze back to Steve.
'That's not Ross. That's my friend, Steve. There's Ross.' She pointed to one of the few framed family photographs arranged on the shelf at the far end of the bed: Ross aged fourteen, posing with a surfboard on a Cornish beach.
There was a long moment of silence. Brian seemed to lose concentration and drift back to wherever he had come from.
'Dad—'
No answer.
Jenny was beginning to abandon hope, when her father said, 'He's the spit of me, that boy, and trouble with it.' He smiled.
It was a phrase he'd coined long ago, but at least it was something. The nurses had told her there were days, even weeks, during which he said nothing at all. But on some days he would bellow obscenities and hurl his belongings around the room without provocation. There was no pattern to his behaviour. His ex-wife was right, Jenny thought, he wasn't himself any more, so much so that she scarcely connected him with the man who, after her mother had left, had brought her up single-handedly from the age of twelve.
She reached into her handbag. 'Dad, I want to show you something.'
Steve shot her a look, losing his nerve now that he was confronted with the reality.
Ignoring him, she produced the crumpled photocopies and smoothed them out on the blankets.
'You remember last time I was here I asked you about Katy - Jim and Penny's little girl? I want to know what happened to her.'
She held the first article in front of him. 'The newspapers said she died falling down the stairs. You must remember that.'
'He's got a man's shoulders, that boy. He'll be a strong 'un. We worked on the trawlers when we were lads.'
'Please,' Jenny said. 'I need to know. Look.' She held up the