Women of a Dangerous Age. Fanny Blake

four-hour drive north to visit her father in Preston was no more nightmarish than usual. Long queues of traffic crawled by stretches of unmanned roadworks. As Ali drove, her thoughts turned repeatedly to Ian. Eighteen hours had passed since she’d asked him to leave and she was still reeling. What had he been thinking? Had he really been trying to leave his wife to live with her when, all the time, he had another woman waiting in the wings? Had he been hedging his bets all along just in case this mystery woman turned him down? Ali couldn’t believe that anyone, least of all a man she believed she had loved, would be so calculating, so careless of the lives of people he professed to care for. How she had misjudged him. How she had misjudged herself.

      As the miles passed, her mind flitted between what had happened and what she was going to do with her life now, one possibility fading out as quickly as another came into focus: move to another country, change career, find a man, adopt a child, run away, become a recluse, retire under the duvet for good. Time for a change. But a change was impossible without a cash injection to pay her bills. Her father was unlikely to help her. She knew exactly what he’d say. ‘It’s your mess. You get out of it.’ She couldn’t count the number of times she’d heard that as she grew up. He believed in the school of hard knocks and, thanks to that, she’d learned her independence.

      She eventually turned in between the two brick gateposts and parked beside her father’s old silver Honda. Her heart sank a little as she envisaged the twenty-four hours that lay ahead, but at least she would have to think about something other than herself. Grabbing her overnight bag from the boot, she walked through the side gate and round the corner of the house to enter it by the back door. Her father would be in his study, tuned out from any interference including the doorbell.

      ‘Dad!’ Ali yelled.

      She was greeted by the muffled sound of barking: Sergeant, the ageing but still sprightly Border terrier who was her father’s fierce and constant companion.

      She tried again. ‘Dad! I’m here.’

      ‘Be down in a minute.’ His voice travelled from the study where Ali knew he would be at his battered but trusty Corona typewriter, the laptop she’d given him ignored, surrounded by what mattered most to him: shelves containing his library of history books, including those he’d written himself; maps stuck about with pins marking out military campaigns hung beside pictures of the historical figures who fascinated him; a huge noticeboard littered with hundreds of yellow Post-it notes tracing the structure of his latest book. By his desk was a table covered in toy soldiers that he manoeuvred as if he was in the Cabinet War Rooms.

      Ali went into the kitchen where she poured herself a gin and tonic – no ice, no lemon. Her father hated his drink diluted. The tonic was the only concession he made to his few guests.

      When her mother had walked out, Ali had been thirteen. From that day, everything in this house had changed. She leaned against the sink, looking around the room. Without her mother to put a bunch of flowers at the centre of the table, to weigh in against the nasty aluminium Venetian blinds that replaced the floral curtains, or object to the removal of the dining chair cushions, the room had taken on the shipshape air of an officer’s mess. There was no feminine touch here. The welcoming smells of baking and stewing, washing and ironing belonged to the time when they had been a family. Her father had done his best and so had Ali, but this kitchen had stopped being the heart of the family home long ago. Anything not put away was neatly aligned on the pristine worktop. Without thinking, she pulled open a drawer to discover his cooking utensils regimented, all handles to the right. Knowing the contents of the other drawers would all be similarly arranged almost made her laugh. The stainless-steel sink shone. Dishcloths were draped on the Aga bar, all folded and hung in exactly the same way, their edges level. The pans hung above it in descending sizes. Order. That was what stopped you from going under. Like father, like daughter.

      ‘Al! There you are.’ He entered the room just as she shut the drawer. ‘Having a good poke around? Don’t blame you. Checking up, I suppose. No need.’ He laughed grimly as he grasped the whisky bottle and a tumbler, and poured himself a generous slug. ‘See you’ve helped yourself. Cheers.’

      ‘How are you, Dad?’ Ali ignored his accusation. No point in getting her visit off on the wrong foot. Plenty of time for that. He looked well. Despite the hours he spent at his desk, writing and researching, he still held himself ramrod straight. The legs of his trousers were sharply creased, the brass buttons on his blue jacket bright. His moustache was neatly trimmed although there was a piece of tissue stuck with dried blood just beside his nose.

      ‘Can’t complain. Deep in research over a little-known aspect of the Wars of the Roses. Made some fascinating discoveries. Won’t bore you with them though.’ He tipped back his head and sucked his whisky through his teeth with a noisy hiss.

      Ali gritted hers in dislike of a drinking habit that had something unnervingly Hannibal Lecterish about it.

      ‘I wouldn’t be bored,’ she protested, despite knowing that within minutes of him detailing whatever historical minutiae he was studying, she would be yawning. She longed to be able to sit down and share his enthusiasm and had often thought how being thrown together should have made them closer. Instead, her mother’s departure thirty-two years ago had driven a wedge between them. A bitter cocktail of blame and guilt had driven each of them into their respective shells as they struggled to cope with the loss. As a teenager, Ali had blamed herself for not being a good enough daughter. As an adult, she learned that nothing was ever that clear-cut. Always, at first in the forefront of her mind and then, as time passed, fading to an infrequent fantasy, was the idea that her mother might come back for her. But they never heard from her again. Ali came to understand how devastated her father must have been, how humiliated when his wife left. His reaction had been to clam up, retiring to his study as frequently as he could, refusing even to mention her mother’s name. Moira Macintyre. Ali wondered whether he ever thought that he might have behaved differently towards her, his daughter, by trying to explain what had happened to her mother so that she would understand. She had long wanted to bridge the gap that had existed between them since her mother left, but he’d always rebuffed her.

      ‘Of course you would.’ He chuckled. ‘Tell you what, though. I’ve got a little surprise for you.’

      ‘You have?’ She pretended to think for a moment, knowing what was coming. ‘We’re going to the pub for dinner?’ He nodded, clearly looking forward to the evening out. So no surprise there, then. Whenever she came to stay, they always had their first meal in the Swan, and the next morning she went to the supermarket and stocked up for him before making lunch, then going home.

      ‘We are.’ He began to do up the buttons of his jacket. ‘But that’s not it.’

      ‘What then?’

      ‘Don called me, asking for you.’ His faded blue eyes shone with pleasure at the startling effect of his news.

      ‘Don?’ She repeated the name she hadn’t heard for years. ‘Don Sterling?’

      He nodded.

      ‘Are you sure?’ He must have made a mistake. Don was a chapter in her life that had been closed for many years. Yet just the mention of his name was enough to unsettle her. She checked herself. Why was that surprising? They had been sweethearts since they met in the sixth form, both determined to escape their roots and make a new start. She remembered their disbelief when they’d both been offered places to study in London, she at the Cass and he at the London School of Economics. They had shared a rundown flat in Hackney from the start. The years during which they had lived together there had meant everything. Back then, she had believed that Don was her saviour and her soulmate, each of them useless without the other. To think that she had ever been so sentimental. Her friends had loved him. Her father had loved him – as much as he’d loved anyone since the disappearance of Ali’s mother. She’d loved him.

      ‘Are you sure?’ she repeated.

      ‘Oh, one hundred per cent,’ he said, satisfied with the effect his news was having. ‘He wanted to contact you so I gave him your email address. That was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?’