“Have you been looking after him?” I ask, tentatively picking up the apple peel.
“I came back to Jersey to help him move into assisted living,” Ted says, his eyes on the road. “He can’t manage on his own anymore. I’m packing up his house.”
“I’m sorry, that must be hard.” I pause before adding, “I had to pack up my mother’s house after she died and— Well, I know how difficult it can be.”
“My father isn’t dead,” Ted says sharply, then glancing across at me he shakes his head, as though shaking off his reaction. “I’m sorry. You were close to your mother.”
It sounds like a statement rather than a question, but I reply with a single nod.
“She was my best friend.” I am surprised at myself, that I have willingly brought Mum into this conversation. I would usually be too wary of the torrent of emotion, which I know flows so close beneath the surface.
“How long ago was that?” Ted asks.
“Two years,” I manage to say.
“We lost my mother to breast cancer four years ago. Dad’s managed alone since then, but now he needs more support,” says Ted.
“I’m sorry.” I can’t think of any different words to say. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. How many times have those words been said to me? Maybe we don’t have enough words to express sympathy. We have fifty ways to describe a cup of coffee, but I can only think of one way to say, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I don’t think he minds going,” Ted says with a rueful smile. “He already has a girlfriend lined up at the place he’s chosen.”
I look across at Ted and see the muddle of emotion dancing behind his eyes as he tries to make light of something dark.
“He knows it’s time. Packing up the house is the part I’m finding difficult. My dad was born in that house, and Mum didn’t like to throw anything away. She was a hoarder, I suppose. Is it bad that I just want to bonfire the lot of it?”
Ted gazes ahead, talking as though to himself.
“Tough to do it alone. You don’t have any siblings?”
“A sister in the UK. My nephew has special needs—it’s not easy for her to leave.”
“I wouldn’t throw everything away. Keep the things that have meaning.”
“Everything in the house just reminds me of how things used to be, a different life. Nothing I keep can bring that back.” Ted massages his chin through his beard, his eyes still intently focused on the road. His voice is full of pain when he says, “Dad goes to bed early because he’s up half the night with his restless legs, and there’s something about being left alone at night with a task I don’t know how to start—picking through the rubble of my parents’ lives. That’s why I started driving the cab again.”
I can see Ted’s eyes are welling up, and he puffs out his cheeks to take a slow exhale. I reach out to squeeze his arm.
“Sorry, you don’t need to hear all this.” He rubs his eyes with his sleeve and clears his throat. “I’m deviating from my cabdriver script again, aren’t I?” he says with a lopsided smile. “Plémont headland is on the way. I’ll drop you there, and you can see where the Pontins used to be, where you said your parents worked that summer, and there’s the cave on the beach where your dad proposed. I can come back for you in an hour or so.” His words are now brisk, as though he’s embarrassed to have shared as much as he did.
“Please don’t worry about coming back for me, just throw me out anywhere,” I say, still watching Ted’s face. I never see a man get emotional. Perhaps, growing up without a dad, I am not close enough to any men to be allowed to see. Maybe the ones I have dated have not been particularly emotional men.
We drive in silence for a minute, and then Ted says, “I feel like I’m ruining this romantic comedy you’re in.”
“What?” I say, blinking at him.
“Your hunt for Mr. McGuffin. It feels like a romantic comedy to me: love in a suitcase, shoes falling off cliffs, a bee-themed treasure hunt.” He grins. “Now I’ve muddied the tone by talking of dying parents and depressing house clearances. Your audience will be asking for their money back.”
I laugh. It’s one of those laughs where you’ve been about to cry, and then someone says something, and their words tack your boat into the wind and take you in a new direction—there’s a thrill in the snap change of emotion as your sail billows out on the other side of the mast.
“I don’t know,” I say with a smile, “real life can’t be all bee-themed treasure hunts, can it?”
Ted’s phone rings again and he pulls into a lay-by to take the call. He talks to someone called Sandy, who I assume must be the neighbor. He sounds reassured and when he hangs up his face visibly relaxes.
“Good news?” I ask.
“My neighbor. She says Dad’s OK. He was mainly confused—just a cut on his arm, it looked worse than it was.” Ted pulls the car onto the road again and rubs his shoulder with the opposite hand. “The headland is just up here.”
Around the next corner the coastline reappears. Ted parks the car next to a field full of wild gorse with a footpath leading up to the cliff edge. He picks up my photo album from the armrest between our seats and flicks through to the pictures of the holiday resort as it looked in 1991.
“The resort that was here went derelict,” Ted explains. “They pulled it down a while back and put the headland back to nature.”
A photo of Mum and Dad dancing together in a hall is one of the few photos I have of them together. I don’t even have one of them on their wedding day because the budget photographer they used overexposed the film. In this shot, Mum’s wearing a blue dress with puffball sleeves, while my dad is rocking sideburns and wears a pale denim shirt and white jeans. The vibe is so eighties, it could be a still from the film Footloose. Though it’s a grainy picture, it captures a look in both their eyes, as though they only see each other, completely unaware of whoever took the photo.
“This must have been taken here,” I say, pointing to the picture. “This is Mum teaching Dad to dance. They used the hall to practice once all the guests had gone to bed. Usually to Phil Collins, Dad’s favorite.” I smile at the memory of Mum telling me the story. Then I tap the photo and say wistfully, “I doubt I’ll ever have a moment as romantic as this.”
I turn to see Ted looking at me with an almost tender expression. I didn’t mean it to sound that way, I don’t want him to pity me. It’s this photo, the look between my parents—it weaves a strange spell on me.
“It’s hard to imagine a huge holiday resort standing in this wild place. Soon, no one will remember it was even here. All the stories that happened here will be lost to posterity.” I glance back down at the photo. “Where do you think the love goes, when no one’s left to tell the story?”