The Couple at No. 9(56)

And then his heart falls. The cupboard is empty. All that effort and his dad has locked a fucking empty cupboard. He looks around as though this is some prank and his dad is at the door laughing at him. But no, he’s alone. Why would his dad lock an empty cupboard? Unless, he thinks, gathering his thoughts, his dad has moved whatever was in there to somewhere more secure. He peers into the cupboard, gently pushing on the shelves within. The bottom one creaks under his hand. He inspects it more closely: it’s loose, more like a panel than a shelf. He pushes it and the top comes off, revealing a sort of hidden section underneath. Theo’s heart pounds. Something’s there: a small pile of newspaper cuttings with a black A4 flexible folder placed on top. He reaches for the cuttings. They are all dated from 2004 and are from local newspapers about his mum’s accident. He understands why his dad might want to keep them, but why hide them? Perhaps he just forgot about them, he thinks, putting them back.

Then he turns to the folder. It has clear plastic sleeves. He flicks through it. Each of the fifteen-odd sleeves has a photograph loose at the bottom. Nothing more than that. He takes out the first. It’s in colour, muted autumnal tones, and is of a woman around his age, and it looks like she’s unaware the photo has been taken. She’s heavily pregnant. By the style of her hair and clothes it looks to be from the late 1960s or early 1970s. He turns the photograph over, expecting maybe a date or a name, but it’s blank. He flicks through the rest of the folder and it’s the same: photographs of women, taken unawares. But nothing else. The latest photo looks more recent. Maybe ten years ago, fifteen at a push. Definitely the twenty-first century. Why has his dad got a folder of these random women?

An appalling thought suddenly hits Theo. Perhaps his dad molested them and has now become obsessed with them. Stalking them? A myriad different hideous scenarios flits through his mind, like a storyboard for a horror film, and he snaps the folder shut. No, he reasons. That can’t be it. If his dad was a serial sex offender wouldn’t at least some of these women have come forward and made a complaint? As far as he’s aware nobody has, apart from Cynthia Parsons. He wonders if one of the women was her. He opens the folder again and goes back to the first photo. If only he had some other names to go by. He reaches for his phone in his back pocket and, he’s not sure why, but he takes snaps of the first five photos.

The crunching sound of gravel under tyres makes him jump and he stands up to look out of the study window. His dad is pulling his Mercedes onto the driveway next to his old Volvo. Bollocks. He’d thought he had more time. His dad will see his car and know he’s here. In the house. Alone. Something he hasn’t done since moving out properly after university.

He shoves the folder back on top of the newspaper cuttings and drops the shelf on top, slamming the cupboard door shut, his heart hammering so hard he can feel the pound of it in his ears. He dreads to think how apoplectic his dad will be if he catches him in his study. He tries to relock the cupboard but no amount of wriggling of the paperclip works. Sweat breaks out on his forehead. He has no choice but to leave it and hope his dad thinks he just forgot to lock it.

He goes to the window again. His dad is standing in the driveway frowning at Theo’s car, his hand stroking the back of his head. Then, he looks up at his study and Theo has to duck. Shit, was he seen?

He crawls on his hands and knees away from the window and exits the study, running down the elaborate staircase, his trainers squeaking on the parquet as he races into the kitchen. He can hear his dad’s key in the lock. Theo grabs himself a glass of water and sits at the island, trying to catch his breath and make it look like he’s been sitting there the whole time.

The soles of his dad’s expensive brogues echo in the hallway. And then he’s there, filling the doorway, all six foot three inches of him.

‘What are you doing here?’ he growls.

‘Mavis let me in. I wanted to see you to – to apologize for the other day.’

His dad eyes him warily, as though unsure whether to believe him.

‘She told me you’d be back soon.’ The lie slips surprisingly easily from Theo’s tongue but he blushes anyway, like he used to do at school when he was caught out by a teacher.

His dad goes over to the kettle and switches it on. He looks tired. There are new lines under his eyes and he places both hands on his lower back and does a kind of stretch.

‘Are you all right for food?’ asks Theo.

‘Of course I am. I’m a grown man. I can look after myself. I did do national service.’

Christ, thinks Theo, mentally rolling his eyes, not that old chestnut. His father had been in the last cohort to do national service and, growing up, he never let Theo forget it.

He watches as his dad makes himself a cup of tea; his tanned arms are sinewy in his polo shirt. He’s always felt he knew just the kind of man his father was. Strict, old-fashioned, brilliant, old-money, educated and controlling. But not a pervert.

Or a stalker or psychopath.

Are you those things, Dad? he silently asks.

Theo wonders, as he surveys him pressing his teabag against his mug, whether he has ever loved his father. He’d pitied him, yes, felt a sense of duty towards him, felt responsible for him after his mother died. But love? He’s not sure. Maybe when he was a kid, when he was still full of hope that his dad might care about him, become the father he’d always wished for. He realizes, with a jolt, that he doesn’t like his dad. He’s cold and he’s hard and Theo is fed up with trying to make excuses for him in his own mind.