The Doll's House - [66]

He looked up from his untouched breakfast to find Caleb staring at him.

‘Are you frightened of me, son?’

‘Of course not,’ Lloyd replied eagerly, but his response sounded unconvincing.

‘Then why won’t you talk to me?’

Lloyd looked down at his plate. There were a million answers to this. Fear of being judged. Fear of not being good enough. Fear that he might not be loved. But how could he say any of this to his dad?

‘You’ve been chewing on this work problem for days now. Tell me about it. Perhaps I can help.’

‘Dad… ’

‘Please, son. I don’t like to see my favourite child unhappy.’

Lloyd could feel himself blushing – with embarrassment and shame. It wasn’t right for a parent to talk about favourite children and it made his feelings of guilt ten times worse.

‘I’m worried I’ve let you down.’

‘You’ve never done that. I may not always show it and I know I push you, but -’

‘I’ve betrayed you and betrayed myself.’

The bitterness in his voice was loud and clear. Caleb said nothing, eyeing his son warily, his face full of misgivings.

‘I’ve acted unprofessionally… illegally. In pursuit of a higher rank, more prestige. But… I’ve done the wrong thing, Dad. Sacrificed someone else to serve my own ends.’

There it was – out in the open.

‘What I did runs contrary to everything you ever taught me… everything I ever wanted to be. And now I can’t look at you.’

Lloyd continued to stare at his plate, expecting admonishment. But to his surprise he felt his father’s rough hand, lifting his chin. He found himself looking into his dad’s weathered face and saw kindness there, not judgement.

‘Who did you do it for, son? For me? Or for yourself?’

‘It’s the same thing,’ Lloyd replied truthfully. Instantly, he saw a wave of – what was it? Shame? Regret? – pass across his father’s face.

‘Then if you want to blame anyone, blame me,’ Caleb said softly.

‘This isn’t your doing. It’s down to me.’

‘No, it isn’t. It’s me. I’ve always pushed you so hard. I wanted you to be a better man than I was.’

To his shame, Lloyd felt his eyes fill with tears.

‘What do you mean? You’re the best man I know.’

‘Don’t say that.’ Caleb’s voice shook as he said this. But was it anger or something else making it shake?

‘I know you have always looked up to me, Lloyd,’ he continued slowly, ‘and I love you for that. But I have only been hard on you, expected so much of you, because of what I was.’

‘You worked every day to provide for us. Broke your health, your body -’

‘It wasn’t work that broke me,’ he replied, silencing Lloyd. ‘It wasn’t work.’

‘Then what?’ Lloyd asked, suddenly uncertain and unnerved.

There was a long silence, then:

‘I’ve never told a soul this. Not even your late mother,’ he eventually went on. ‘But I was a thief.’

Lloyd stared at him in disbelief. He knew what the words meant but still they didn’t make any sense.

‘In those days, when you worked at the docks, you had to belong. To a team. To a gang.’

Lloyd stared at him, wondering what was coming next.

‘I chose the latter, lifting a little stock here, a little stock there, as they passed through my area. I handed the goods on and got extra money in return. I needed the money for you all, but that doesn’t mean I don’t regret it. That time my back was broken. I didn’t fall. It was a punishment beating by a rival gang. I did what I had to to survive and if I was hard on you, it’s because I wanted you to be so much more than me. Do you understand?’

Lloyd nodded but his emotions lagged behind his brain. He didn’t know what to think or feel.

‘And I’ve hated myself for lying to you and your mother. Even your layabout brother and sister. But try to understand… sometimes you find you’ve gone too far down one road and there’s no way back. So don’t judge yourself by my standards. You’re ten times the man I’ll ever be.’

Now there were tears in Caleb’s eyes. Lloyd wept too, without embarrassment, holding on to his father’s arm. He cried for the lies he’d been told, for the feelings of inadequacy he’d felt for so many years. But mostly he cried because of his stupidity, knowing now that he had sacrificed his career in the worship of a false god.

107

Helen could feel Sanderson’s eyes crawling all over her, searching for any hint of instability or violence. They were sitting opposite Andrew Simpson once more and, although nothing had been said out loud, Helen knew her junior officer was alive to the danger of another explosion from Helen. She didn’t blame Sanderson for this. After a sleepless night, Helen looked even more exhausted and on edge than she had the night before. No wonder her colleague looked nervous.

Simpson was impassive as usual, though he appeared much more strained than before. He kept rubbing his face with his hand and massaging his temples: he appeared stressed, unhappy – he looked like he was in pain.

‘So do you want the good news or the bad news, Andrew?’

Simpson looked at Helen warily, unsure what game she had elected to play this morning.

‘The good news for you is that our POLSA teams have searched every inch of your properties and found no sign of Ruby Sprackling. The bad news is they have found enough evidence of illegal surveillance and pornographic file-sharing to make the CPS very excited indeed.’