Lighthouse by Alison Moore

remember my dad,’ he said, ‘Mr Futh, the chemistry teacher.’
    But no, she said, shaking her head, she did not remember him either.
    ‘He’s retired now anyway.’
    By now the rain was falling so heavily that Futh could barely see where they were going. Angela, squinting through the windscreen, speeded up the wipers and turned up the blower. She was going a bit too fast for Futh’s liking.
    He asked her, ‘Have you been away for the weekend? Have you come far?’
    ‘No,’ she said, ‘I just drove out to the service station to meet my boyfriend.’ After a moment, she added, ‘It’s in between his house and mine. We meet in the middle. He’s married so we can’t meet at his, and I live with my mother and she doesn’t like me seeing him so we can’t go there.’
    They drove for about a mile without either of them speaking and then Angela pulled over and stopped on the hard shoulder and Futh realised that she was crying. She was doing it rather quietly and he wondered when that had started. He did not know what to do. He said, ‘Are you all right?’
    She kept trying to talk but Futh could not understand her because she was crying at the same time. There were no tissues in the car, but there was the towel, although it was a bit damp. He offered it to her and she hesitated briefly before taking it and pressing her face into it and crying harder.
    Futh watched the windscreen – the wipers struggling to keep up with the hammering rain – and eventually she said, ‘I think he’s seeing someone else.’ When Futh said nothing for a moment she added, ‘I don’t mean his wife. I mean, I don’t think I’m the only other one. I’m just waiting for him to turn around one day and say he’s done with me.’
    Futh sat awkwardly beside her. Kenny, he thought, would do the right thing. Kenny would put his arm around her, say something which helped. But what, he thought, did one say? It’s going to be fine. Maybe it’s for the best. You’ll find someone else. But Futh was not Kenny.
    After a minute, Futh looked in his bag and found a packet of mints which he opened and offered to her. She shook her head without really looking. He went back into his bag and found an orange and offered her that. She looked at the orange and then at him and she laughed. ‘Go on then,’ she said.
    Futh peeled the orange and Angela took the half he passed to her and she said, ‘You know, I do remember Mr Futh. He was OK,’ and she put an orange segment in her mouth. ‘A bit boring,’ she added.
    When the orange was all gone, Futh wiped his fingers on the towel and Angela started the car again and they went on their way.
    As they approached a junction, Angela began to indicate and Futh said, ‘It’s the next one.’
    ‘There’s been an accident there,’ said Angela. ‘If we go that way we’ll be stuck in a jam for hours. I’m taking the back roads.’
    They took the back roads, but later, after she had dropped him off and driven away, Futh, sitting alone at his kitchen table, wished that they had taken the other route, longed for the traffic jam in which he would still be sitting with Angela in her small, warm car.
     
    After a few hours of walking, Futh’s new boots begin to rub. The same thing happened on the trip with his father, who sat down at the end of the first day and said, ‘I’m done in. No more walking,’ and Futh had not complained. Instead, apart from one day spent visiting, they spent the rest of the week killing time until, at the end of each day, Futh’s father went out and Futh went to bed, earlier every evening.
    Futh, sitting down now on a bench, the hot slats griddling the backs of his thighs, reaches into his rucksack for a drink and finds that he has already finished what he brought. At the same time, it occurs to him that he has neglected to put any sun cream on his face, and that he ought to be wearing a hat. He administers some factor fifty, smearing it over the scalp exposed by his thinning