MORE THAN HE PAID FOR

Chapter 9: Ashford

I’m starting to dislike visiting my father. I hate myself for even thinking that way. But he’s changing too quickly. His dark eyes are the only part of him not losing their intensity. Weight is dropping, skin aging, hair thinning.

He’s dying. My father. My hero. Fading a little more every week.

Lucinda puts up a good talk, reeling off lists of activities he gets up to during the week. Swimming, physio, treatment, medications. She even took him along to her choir. Her round face beams with ruddy pride, her permed brown curls bouncing.

“Oh really?” I ask, failing to stop my eyebrows raising. “And how was the choir Dad?”

“Fine,” he grunted, shuffling in his chair, adjusting the blanket over his legs.

“He joined in!” Lucinda beamed. “Well, he didn’t sing but you clapped along, didn’t you Mr Hawthorne!”

“I did,” but he says it with such reluctance it’s like he’s confessing to murder. When Lucinda leaves us alone we share a chuckle.

“Don’t.”

“I won’t,” I smile, handing him his cup of tea. I love this. When we don’t even have to speak to share a joke. He’s still my dad in these moments, nothing has changed.

It doesn’t change the fact my father is shrivelling before my eyes. How I’m having to adjust my memory to the new version of him every time. I’m fast learning to treasure these Friday mornings together.

On the weekend he has a bevy of guests from his business career, distant relatives and busy-bodies all nuzzling in for a chance to create a bond that never existed in the first place.

Corpse flies, my father calls them. Sol sees him on a Wednesday morning, I visit Fridays.

He takes one long, considered sip of his tea before narrowing his eyes and going straight for the kill.

“So. Have you got a date for this wedding yet?”

“No.”

“Ashford-”

“I’ve told you, and Sol, I’m not dating at the moment.”

“Your brother’s wedding is just two weeks away.”

Don’t I f*****g know it.

Four nights on the island of Joali in the Maldives. Romantic ocean-hut for one please. First night bachelor party, second night intimate dinner, third night a bevy of other guests arrive for a large rehearsal dinner, then finally, the fourth night, my brother gets married to a woman who keeps calling me Ford.

“I know. But it’s Sol’s big day-”

My father waves a hand, “I don’t care. The best man doesn’t turn up alone.”

“I know most of Sol’s friends. They’re good guys. I’m not going to be on my own.”

My fathers cragged brow reaches a level of pissed-off that I’ve not experienced before. “I’m not talking about hanging with buddies. You’re not dating? Romancing anyone? When I’ve made it clear it’s my dying f*****g wish to see you and your brother secure and happy!”

“I can’t conjure up a girlfriend to make up for the fact you’re ill!” I snapped back, instantly regretting my words.

Only for my father, briefly invigorated with an energy from the past to stand up, pointing his finger at my face. “I’m not ill, I’M DYING ASHFORD! And you’re…you and Sol are my pride and joy. So you can bloody well try! For me! You’re not even going on any dates, Sol told me!”

The resulting coughing fit was not worth the energy it took to deliver his anger my way. Shame and guilt clawed away at my insides. Enough for me to taste vomit in my mouth. Adjusting his blanket and pressing a glass of water into his shaking, wasted hand I mutter.

“You need to stop assuming everyone has a great, true, amazing love like you and Mom had.”

Lucinda appears out of nowhere, fussing and adjusting various pillows and blankets. It kills me to see him reduced to this. We used to have our meetings on the golf course. Surrounded by fresh air and nature.

“Humour a dying man and try Ashford. Really try. Because I swear, when you find a girl like your Mom, you can almost feel the world stop spinning. Everything resets and centres around her. Your mother…she changed everything for me. And not just by giving me children.”

I bite my tongue. Because I want to ask, does he really think Sol has found that kind of love? Is the blonde, wrinkle-free Blair really the world-changing wonder my mother was? Because I’ve endured two restaurant dinners with her and found myself struggling.

Because Blair is bright, enthusiastic and engaging. Very pretty, in that glossy, perfect, model way. But all that enthusiasm is about money. Things that can be bought with Sol’s AMEX.

But Sol himself? I don’t know if she has the first clue.

He doesn’t bike, hike or ice skate because he has a weak knee. He loves swimming because of the rehab he undertook for his knee injury.

But she doesn’t know that. She nagged at him to sign up to an ironman at our last dinner.

She doesn’t know he is a dessert fiend either. You could give Sol the option of steak or cheesecake. I’m always going to choose steak. Sol will always, even if he had to battle demons to get there, he’s a cheesecake guy all day long.

Only Blair announced that the wedding cake is going to be made of layers of cheese and grapes. There will be fruit salad for dessert at the rehearsal dinner and wedding breakfast.

I cast a look at Sol but said nothing.

Maybe I’m too fussy. Too trained in seeing risk and failure with every move we make in this world.

Little things. Maybe pointless things. But I would have assumed someone’s soulmate would have taken their partner’s passions into consideration. Instead I got to hear an awful lot about dress designers, make-up artists, and the cost of having her engagement ring altered in order for the wedding ring’s pear-cut diamonds not to clash into it.

Thoughts swirled around my head the whole ride back to Hawthorne Risk Management.

Falling out with my dad. Sol’s wedding. Bachelor Party. No desire to go on a date.

Cora has killed my interest in the opposite s*x.

I don’t know if that’s because nobody else radiates the sexy, dominant-pliant push-pull vibe. No other woman I’ve met or swiped upon has her soulful eyes, that honey hair. Fills out a dress with sinful decadence as easily.

But she’s also my concrete proof that women cannot ever be trusted. I fell for the fantasy and got b***h-slapped by the reality of being hustled.

It’s so pathetic, a few weeks I even rang up the hotel in an attempt to get her details.

Without her surname they gave me nothing. The concierge forgot to put me on hold so I overheard him saying there was no Cora checked in that night.

So what? She used a fake name? She’s not even called Cora?

In a black mood I storm into the foyer of my business. A serene open plan wood and plant-filled space, Apparently it promotes positivity. I feel more like a rabid hound right now.

“Good morning Mr Hawthorne,” rings out like church bells from half a dozen pleasant, young receptionists. I avoid eye contact and stride into the elevator. Emails are awaiting my action, I just need to shut myself away in my office until my dad’s words ebb away,

“Mr Hawthorne! Mr Hawthorne!”

I force myself to exhale before holding the elevator door. “Yes?”

“You have a meeting? It started a couple of hours ago?”

“What? No I don’t have anything on a Friday morning,” I snap back. Probably harsher than I meant to, causing the young secretary to blush beetroot.

“It’s first aid. Mandatory for all. Director’s sessions are today. I mean, I can ask them to stay and do yours separately if you prefer?”

This is the absolute last thing I need. Manhandling into awkward icebreaker facts and trying to inflate a plastic mannequin.

“No, I’ll go now, see if they’ll pass me alongside the others.”

“Okay, Sir, they’re all in conference room B.”

I canceled my penthouse floor and select a lower one. Emails will have to wait. I guess I’m learning first aid today. Is it wrong to suggest I’d rather a colleague just drop than have to start giving the kiss of life? If everyone else is trained, surely I don’t need it.

But I find the conference room, knock on the door and push it open. “Sorry I’m late. I’m down for today’s session.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” a black-haired young woman in a vile purple and green nylon top asks. She’s straddling a plastic mannequin and I swear half of my directors have their eyes on stalks. “You’ve missed two hours of the class you know?”

“Ashford Hawthorn CEO.”

Behind me, someone, with a voice almost painfully familiar, whispers, “Oh shit.”