“Oh, I’ll survive.” He sees my face and leans forward to touch my shoulder reassuringly. “I’ll be fine, Effie. Really. Maybe not in a grand place like this, but life moves on. I’ll miss Greenoaks, but there we are.”
He pours himself some more whisky and offers me the decanter, but I shake my head.
“I understand, Dad,” I say. “I understand why you tried to keep Greenoaks.”
“I was so proud when we moved in here, you know,” says Dad wistfully. “A boy from Layton-on-Sea, in this house. I remember my old granddad coming to visit once. Remember him?”
“Er…just about,” I say.
“Well, he came to visit us in Greenoaks, and I still remember his face when he saw it. I remember him saying, ‘You did all right, didn’t you, Tony?’？” Dad’s face brightens at the memory. Then he adds more ruefully, “Of course, he was a scoundrel, my granddad. Did I tell you about when he and I decided to go into business together? We hatched all kinds of get-rich-quick schemes. None of them worked out, of course.”
“No.” I laugh. “Why don’t we go out to lunch sometime and you can tell me.”
“Thank you, my darling. I’d love that.”
I can see us in a cozy pub, maybe in front of a fire, Dad telling me funny stories about his past. Just the thought makes me feel warm and hopeful.
“But there was more to it than that,” continues Dad slowly, turning his glass round and round in his fingers. “It wasn’t just a status symbol. Greenoaks has been so dear to us. So central to our family life. I worried about what we would look like without it. Whether we would still…feel like a family.”
“We will,” I say with a conviction that takes me by surprise. “We don’t need Greenoaks, Dad. We’ll still get together, we’ll still be together, we’ll still be a family. It’ll just be…different.”
Where are these words coming from? I don’t even know. But as I say them, I realize there’s a new resolve inside me. I’m going to make them true.
“You’re very wise, Effie,” says Dad, his eyes crinkling. “I should have asked your advice all along.”
Yeah, right, I reply silently, but I won’t ruin the moment.
“I need to talk to Bean,” he adds more gravely. “I need to make things right with her.”
“Dad, you can’t sell her furniture,” I say. “It’ll break her heart. Can’t we take it out of the sale?”
“Oh, Effie.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. The buyers have been tricksy enough, throwing in extra demands here and there. I can’t risk derailing the whole thing.”
“But—”
“Effie, we’re not losing this sale.” He blows out, and I see a hinterland of worry behind that statement. “I’ll have to make it up to Bean some other way.”
For a minute we’re both silent. There’s no point pushing the issue any more now, I think mutinously. But it’s not right.
A shaft of sunshine appears from behind a cloud, then disappears again, and I glance up at Dad, who seems lost in memories. In this stillness, I feel as though I could say anything. Feeling as though I’m walking on eggshells, I take a deep breath and say quietly, “For a long time, I couldn’t believe you and Mimi had split up. I just couldn’t deal with it. I used to look back at photos of you both, all the time. Like this one, remember?”
On impulse, I take out my phone and summon up the photo of me standing on the rocking horse. I hold my phone out and we both gaze at the picture. Dad. Mimi. Me, in my tutu, with my disheveled bunches. All of us beaming radiantly.
“You look happy,” I say.
“We were happy.” Dad nods.
“That was real.” I suddenly realize I’m asking him a question. “It wasn’t…You weren’t just…pretending.”
A tear spills from my eye and runs down my cheek, and Dad’s face changes.
“Oh, Effie,” he says in dismay. “Darling girl. Is that what you’ve been thinking?”
I stare at the screen, my nose prickling. I know I heard him tell everyone outside that it was a happy time. But what if that was a performance too?
“The thing is…you seemed happy right until you told us you were getting divorced,” I say, still staring intently down. “So now I look back, all the way back to when I was little, at all the lovely happy memories, and I think…well, what was true?”