Precious Time (22 page)

‘Do you know what’s wrong with it?’ She bent down to

investigate.

‘Haven’t a clue. It’s too modern and fancy for me. Jonah bought it last year and it’s been nothing but a damned waste of money. It’s supposed to dry as well as wash. All it does is bang about a lot.’

‘I’ll take a look at it later,’ she said, ‘though presumably it’s still within its guarantee.’

He looked at her scornfully. ‘You can mend a washing-machine?’

‘Sure. So long as it’s not the electronics, they’re usually straightforward enough. Sounds like the drum belt may have worked itself

loose.’

‘Mummy can mend all sorts of things,’ Ned said, helping himself to an empty whisky bottle and unscrewing the lid. He pulled a face when he held it to his nose. ‘Pooh!’

‘Is that right?’ Mr Liberty said, taking the bottle from him and replacing the lid.

‘I don’t like things to get the better of me,’ she responded.

‘Or people, I should imagine.’

‘How astute of you. Now, then, shall I get back to work, or will you show us the rest of the house?’

The tour continued upstairs, and mercifully the mess didn’t get any worse. As far as she could see, the damage was relatively superficial, but it was the scale that was so awesome. That, and the poignancy of some of the bedrooms.

‘This was my second wife’s room … It was where she died.’ Mr Liberty unlocked the door and let them in. It was strange the way he said it, and prompted Clara to ask how many wives he had had.

‘Just the two. And don’t look at me as though I was careless with them.’

It was a long oblong room with a view over the garden and the moors beyond. ‘Val loved to look across to Kinder Scout,’ he said, moving to the window, ‘which is why she chose this room. We never shared …’ He cleared his throat. ‘We didn’t have that kind of relationship.’

Clara would have liked to pursue this tantalising confidence, but wisely held back. Instead, she said, ‘What did she die of? Ned, don’t touch!’

They both looked at Ned, who had settled himself on a stool in front of a dressing-table. Set out before him was a dusty array of scent atomisers, pots and tubes of cream, lipsticks, powder compacts, necklaces, and bottles of nail varnish. At his mother’s words his hands, which had been hovering over a pair of reading glasses, dropped to his sides.

‘It was heart trouble,’ Mr Liberty said, joining Ned. He picked up the glasses and slipped them inside a tapestry case. ‘I should have got rid of this lot, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Makes me look like a sentimental old fool, doesn’t it?’

Without answering him, she said, ‘Would you like me to sort it out for you?’

‘There’s clothes too.’ He indicated two large mahogany wardrobes and a matching pair of chests of drawers.

‘Just let me know what you want to keep, and I’ll bag it up for you … if that’s what you’d like.’

Next he showed her the rooms that had belonged to his children. It was at this point, standing in what had been his daughter’s room, that Clara realised it was what Mr Liberty didn’t say, coupled with the emptiness of some of the rooms in this huge house, that revealed most about him. She realised, too, that she hadn’t seen a single photograph of any of his children. Other than the portrait of the first Mrs Liberty, and the second wife’s belongings, there was no record of anyone else having lived here. She thought of her parents’ modest little semi-detached house and the rogues’ gallery of pictures they had of her and Michael growing up, with treasured photographs of Ned and their latest grandchild. As a teenager she had been mortified at the number of photos around the house recording her transition from gummy baby to spotty adolescent. But by the time her graduation photo adorned the wall of the dining room, along with Michael’s, she had come to terms with her parents’ pride, and knew that when the time came she would probably do exactly the same.

Which she had. From his birth, Ned’s likeness had been framed many times over. When she had been clearing the house ready for the young couple who would be renting it, she had spent hours removing them, wrapping them and storing them in a box to go in the attic.

Ned had been captured in every conceivable pose: smiling, frowning, chewing, laughing, crawling, clapping, sitting, walking, even sleeping.

Caspar,

Damson and Jonah’s bedrooms were shabby and bare.

Each contained an uncovered wooden-framed bed, a rug, a few pieces of functional furniture and a series of ghostly marks on the walls where once there had been shelves and pictures. It struck Clara that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to strip these rooms. It seemed such a callous act. Vindictive. Almost a threat.

But as Mr Liberty went on to show them the rest of the bedrooms, which were piled high with trunks and huge ugly pieces of furniture, with faded wallpaper coming away from the walls, she began to think it was no wonder he was so miserable. If she had to live in this mausoleum, she too would turn into a crabby old devil. Suddenly she felt angry with his children. How could they have left him to rot here? Okay, he clearly wasn’t an easy man, but why hadn’t they persisted and won him over? Because it was easier to turn their backs and forget him. They were a bunch of idle, pathetic cowards and they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

This thought was still with her when Mr Liberty showed her his bedroom. It was almost thirty feet long with a spectacular view over the garden and the moors beyond. She made a mental note to deal with the curtains, which were lying on the floor.

When he made a surprising offer to take Ned off her hands and play a game with him, she returned to the kitchen with renewed vigour and determination. She switched on the radio, moved the dial to Classic FM and pulled on her rubber gloves. Her plan now was to tackle at least one room a day, so that by the end of the week, a minimum of seven would have been scrubbed and polished, which would go some way to restoring the house to what it had been.

She turned her attention to the Aga and hoped it wasn’t a lost cause. If she could get that running smoothly, it would make all the difference to the dreary atmosphere in the kitchen.

Gabriel passed Ned the pack of playing cards and told him to shuffle them.

‘I’m not very good at that,’ Ned said, kneeling up on the chair and taking the pack uncertainly in his small hands.

‘I’m sure you’ll make a better job of it than I would.’

As he jumbled the grubby cards, Ned said, ‘Why are your fingers so funny, Mr Liberty? They’re all knobbly and crooked.’

‘That’s because I’m the crooked old man who lives in the crooked old house.’

‘No, you’re not. And your house isn’t crooked at all. What are we going to play?’

‘What can you play?’

‘Urn … Pairs. But we usually use picture cards. Nanna gave them to me for my birthday.’

‘Well, let’s try it with these. Have you finished messing them up yet?’

‘I think so. Shall I spread them out for us?’

‘Be my guest.’

Leaning across the dusty table, placing the cards face down, Ned said, ‘That’s what Granda always says to me.’

‘Uh?’

‘If I ask him if I can play outside, he says, “Be my guest.”’

‘I’m surprised Granda ever gets a word in edgeways with you around. Don’t you ever stop talking?’

‘Nanna and Granda are in Australia,’ Ned carried on. ‘Granda sometimes calls me his little pumpernickel. I have a baby cousin now.

I’ve seen pictures of him on the Internet. Do you think Nanna and Granda will see any kangaroos? Kangaroos are funny. They go boing, boing, boing.’

Just as Gabriel was despairing of ever keeping up with such a butterfly brain, the child got down from his seat and gave an impromptu demonstration of how he thought a kangaroo would bounce around the library of Mermaid House: ankles together, elbows tucked in and hands sticking out in front of him.

‘And you’ll go boing in a moment if you don’t get back into your chair. I thought we were playing Pairs.’

Gabriel watched the boy climb up into the leather armchair and resume setting out the cards. At least he wasn’t cheeky and constantly running about the place, smashing into the furniture. He had an enquiring nature, and Gabriel approved of that. His spitfire of a mother was doing a good job of bringing him up. Just as she was doing a good job of sorting out the kitchen. He was still surprised that she had changed her mind about helping him. Perhaps, after all, the money had swayed her.

But she didn’t seem the sort to be strapped for cash. People like her - quick-witted, intelligent, well-spoken and confident - didn’t usually struggle to make ends meet. They knew where they were going; they had a goal and went for it. They weren’t drifters who sponged off others in the hope of handouts. Which brought him right back to where he had started: why the dickens was she mucking out his kitchen?

He hoped it hadn’t been an act of charity. Charity was for those too weak to help themselves. That wasn’t him. And it never would be.

He caught the sound of music coming from the kitchen - blast the woman, she’d gone and fiddled with his radio - and his gaze moved from the boy to Anastasia’s portrait above the fireplace.

She was very beautiful, had been Miss Costello’s words earlier, but they didn’t cover half of what Anastasia had meant to him.

Her inner strength, humour, and dazzling candour had attracted him to her when they had first met at a mutual friend’s wedding.

Compared to his contemporaries he had left marriage relatively late.

He claimed it was because he was so busy, but until Anastasia he had never met a woman with whom he had wanted to spend more than a night, let alone the rest of his life. She had changed that as soon as he had taken his seat beside her at the back of the church. During the excessively long sermon on the sanctity of marriage, delivered by a vicar who plainly liked nothing better than a captive audience, she had leaned into him and whispered, ‘I know one is supposed to be awfully generous in these moments but, goodness, don’t you just want to heckle the man down from the pulpit so that we can get on and enjoy ourselves at the reception, which, hopefully, will be a lot more jolly?’

He had smiled and agreed.

‘I can’t tell you how tempted I was a few moments ago to leap to my feet and say I had a just cause and impediment as to why the marriage shouldn’t be taking place,’ she had added, her wide brimmed hat knocking his head as she leaned closer to him.

‘What is it?’ he had asked, amused.

‘That I know they’ll split up within the year. I can’t think of a more unsuited couple.’

When they were outside the church, watching the ill-fated bride and groom pose for the photographer, she said, ‘Do you think anyone would object if I removed my hat?’

He had wanted to say that if anyone did, he would personally knock them to the ground. He had watched her take it off, remove several pins and let an autumnal rustle of curly brown hair fall around her shoulders: it enhanced her long, slender neck and made her even more alluring. ‘I don’t think you should bother with hats.

You look perfect without one,’ he said.

She had given him a brilliant smile. Not one of those brittle, glued on social smiles, but a flash of sunny brightness. ‘Do you really think so?’ she said. ‘Between you and me, I paid a ridiculous amount of money for that one, and all to disguise my unfashionable hair. Every other woman here, including the bride, is dyed blonde like Grace Kelly. Had you noticed?’

Truth was, he hadn’t noticed a single woman until he had sat next to her.

‘I went all the way to London for that hat. It seems a shame to let it go to waste,’ she said.

There was no vanity in her, just a mild touch of irony. It was something he soon came to love. She was at her best when she was being entirely herself.

‘Have you seen Grace Kelly’s latest film, The Country Girl?’ she asked. ‘For such a natural beauty, she was surprisingly good as a plain girl.’

‘No. I don’t go to the cinema. I don’t have time.’

‘What do you have time for?’

‘Work mostly. Sorry if that sounds dull.’

‘You need someone to change that for you.’

He stared at her to see if she was mocking him, but she wasn’t. Her smile was genuine and he knew in his heart that there was no guile or cunning in her. He didn’t know her name or where she lived, but suddenly he wanted to know everything about her. More importantly, he wanted to know that he would see her again. He said,

‘What are you doing when this tortuous shindig is over?’

Confident brown eyes as dark as her hair had gazed at him, and he had momentarily lost his nerve. Why would this dazzling young beauty be remotely interested in a man whose friends described him as a confirmed, gone-to-seed bachelor?

‘Having dinner with you, I hope,’ was her answer.

A year later, in 1956, her prediction that their mutual friends’

marriage would end in separation was proved right. They heard the news two days before their own wedding, and it prompted him to say, ‘Do you know any just cause or impediment why our marriage should not go ahead?’

‘None whatsoever. We are the best suited couple I know.’

She had been right. They had been the best of companions, the best of lovers. She was reassuringly self-sufficient, which suited him: being so busy with work and travelling as extensively as he did, he had needed to know that she wouldn’t be lonely without him, or unable to cope with the running of such a large house on her own.

Too often he had seen marriages collapse because one half of the couple relied too much upon the other. He and Anastasia relished being independent spirits, but the welcome he received when he came home after a long trip away never left him in any doubt that his wife loved him as passionately as he loved her.

Still staring at the portrait above the fireplace, he sensed that, in many ways, Miss Costello was from the same mould as Anastasia.

She was a confident young woman who would glide through life on the strength of her own determination. She was just the kind of person to take everything in her stride and make the most of it.