“I expect this is what’s been on your mind,” he noted.
“The twins? Polcare Cove? Yes. I did think I had them in the very best possible situation. Paying jobs, a place to live, a car to drive. I thought they’d thrive away from that wretched place. The caravan, I mean. But now . . . ? I don’t know, Tommy. Gwyn’s been proposing she go back as well. But really, what sort of life is possible for her there? For either of them? I’m at a loss.”
“I can hear that in your voice,” he told her. “I’m wondering, though. Could it be that what was good for you—being taken from your parents and adopted into another family—might not be what was good for them? Could it be that the caravan with your—their—father is the best plan after all?”
“How can that be? A future as tin streamers? Living in a caravan? Yes, they have running water and there’s a wood stove for heat in the winter, but that’s about it.”
“Yet we do tend to run to what’s familiar,” he pointed out. “There’s comfort and security in that. Polcare Cove . . . ? It represents the unknown for them, doesn’t it? Have you a next step?”
“Admittedly, I’m flummoxed. I’m rather afraid to take Gwyn to the caravan, even to fetch back the car, which, frankly, she’s going to need if she’s to remain in Polcare Cove. She must have a way to get to work. But if I do take her to fetch the car, she might want to stay at the caravan herself, and then what’s to do?”
“Let her stay, I suspect.” Lynley paused for a moment. Through the microwave’s window, he could see the turntable making its rounds. He fetched cutlery and a placemat for the table in the kitchen, sending an unspoken apology heavenward to his father who, as far as Lynley knew, had never stepped into the kitchen of the family’s home in his entire life, let alone eaten a meal there. He went on to say, “I know it’s not what you want for her, Daidre. But she’s of an age to make her own decisions, isn’t she. And she would know that she can reverse that decision at any time. The cottage will still be there.”
“I’ve thought of bringing them both to London. Or at least Gwyn.”
“Have you?”
“I can hear the doubts in your voice, Tommy.”
“I was merely thinking of the change: from the sea in Cornwall to . . . well, to everything that’s London.”
“She does like animals. I could see if there’s something she could do at the zoo. She’d be among people, she’d be brought out of herself, she might even make a few friends. That’s better, isn’t it, than what she has now, or rather, what she thinks she wants now, which is to go back to the caravan.”
The microwave pinged. He opened its door. The meal sent before it a welcome fragrance of pastry suggestive of steak and kidney pie without the kidneys, which he could not abide.
He took this to the table as he said, “We’re back to that point, aren’t we. All of that is what you needed and what you wanted, Daidre. It’s next to impossible, isn’t it, to know what will fulfill the needs of someone else.”
He fetched a bottle of ale. Steak pie begged for it. In his opinion, nothing else would do.
She said, “You do always talk sense, Tommy.”
He chuckled. “I don’t and we’re both all too aware of that fact. It’s merely that I’m not invested in this situation. I mean, with your brother and sister. With you? That’s quite another tale. I’m invested there. Rather too invested at times. I do know that, Daidre. I also know what it’s like to watch someone take one decision after another when I very much want them to choose a different course. When that occurs, there are times when it’s a difficult admission.”
“What is?”
“Accepting and admitting I could well be wrong, that given the circumstances, the individual is taking the very best decision possible at the time and in their frame of mind.”
She was quiet again. He wondered what she could see from her car in the car park of the Salthouse Inn: the looming leafy trees behind it, a stony path leading upwards into the woods, the way she’d come on the narrow road from Polcare Cove. He sat at the table, uncovering his meal: steak pie it was indeed, along with courgettes that hadn’t quite made it through the reheating process unscathed.
She said, “Do you sometimes feel that you’re not fighting hard enough?”
“In my line of work? I expect you know the answer to that.”