23

The following morning, Sasha drove past her parents’ apartment and saw that the balcony door was open, the gauze curtain billowing in the breeze coming in off the sea, and her father was sitting in the lounger. He wore his usual pair of cargo shorts and a floppy hat to protect his thinning scalp from the sun. His face was hidden behind a pair of binoculars he was using to watch a tanker nose along the estuary. Sasha was surprised to see a beer can at his feet and checked the time on her phone. It wasn’t even nine.

Parking on the esplanade, she stood below the apartment block and called up several times – ‘Dad, Dad!’ – before the old man finally heard her. ‘Let me in!’

Alec Chancellor climbed from his chair and went inside. Reappearing a moment later, he threw down keys, which bounced on the pavement at her feet.

Climbing the stairs to the apartment, Sasha let herself inside. The place looked like a bomb had hit it. Her dad’s clothes were flung everywhere and the combined kitchen and living room was covered in mess. There were dirty plates lurking beneath the sofa and clothes flung over every piece of furniture, newspapers and magazines strewn across the floor. Her mother would demand an immediate divorce if she saw it in such a state, or more likely drop dead on the spot.

Sasha had never liked this flat. Her parents’ old home had been spacious and full of character. Yes, she felt a yearning nostalgia because she’d grown up there, but this new-build was poky and nondescript in comparison. She understood how they would want to downsize after retirement, but Sasha didn’t know why they’d choose to live here. There was that sea view, admittedly, with its glorious golden sunset – that’s what they were paying for – but the footfall on the pavement below was relentless.

‘Honestly, Dad.’ Sasha leaned over to kiss him on his wrinkled forehead. His face was so leathery that his flat, bristly moustache was almost invisible on his brown upper lip. ‘You’re living like a teenager!’

‘Yeah.’ He settled back in the lounger. ‘This is the life.’

She picked up the can, which was half full. ‘And drinking lager first thing!’

‘I can do whatever I like now,’ he said with genuine enthusiasm, ‘there’s no one to boss me about.’

‘Come on, Dad.’ Sasha pulled up a garden chair, taking off her shoes and resting her feet on a metal rung of the balcony. ‘What’s going on?’

He scratched his bony chest, in no hurry to answer. ‘You don’t know what it’s been like for me. The strain of it all these years. Married to that woman.’

‘You don’t mean that. You’re perfect for each other.’