Quote 7
From the day his daughter was born he has felt for her nothing but the most spontaneous, most unstinting love. Impossible she has been unaware of it. Has it been too much, that love? Has she found it a burden? Has it pressed down on her? Has she given it a darker reading? (9.11)
On the flip side to David's strange fatherly feelings towards Melanie, we get this passage about his relationship with Lucy. Though the narrator doesn't say it outright, but again the line between familial and sexual love is blurred – hence the "darker reading" that David wonders about.
Quote 8
What does he really want for Lucy? Not that she should be forever a child, forever innocent, forever his—certainly not that. But he is a father, that is his fate, and as a father grows older he turns more and more—it cannot be helped—toward his daughter. She becomes his second salvation, the bride of his youth reborn. (10.58)
Throughout the novel, David has to struggle with what his relationship with Lucy actually is. Since she's a grownup now, the dynamic between father and daughter is no longer the same as it was when Lucy was a kid. As a man getting on in years, David has to come to depend on Lucy in different ways than he's used to.
Quote 9
"Lucy and I are not getting on," he says. "Nothing remarkable in that, I suppose. Parents and children aren't made to live together. Under normal circumstances I would have moved out by now, gone back to Cape Town. But I can't leave Lucy alone on the farm. She isn't safe. I am trying to persuade her to hand over the operation to Petrus and take a break. But she won't listen to me." (16.42)
David seems to be as frustrated with Lucy, who is in her mid-twenties, as many parents tend to be with their teenagers. Is he only worried about Lucy's safety, or is he also concerned that he's lost his sway over her actions?