The Last Days of Summer

The trees shimmered with tiny lights, and music floated up from the terrace on the summer breeze. In the Walled Garden, the flowers were in bloom – peaches and cream to match her complexion. Just beyond the walls, our friends and acquaintances chatted of inconsequentialities, and drank themselves stupid on the champagne I’d had delivered from France.

But inside the walls of the garden, the world was ours entirely. We were alone in Eden, and the world was new.

“Bella.” I felt in my pocket for the ring. “Beloved. I have something I need to ask you.”

Biding Time, by Nathaniel Drury (1967)

“Have you seen your grandmother?” Mum asked me, sidling close as I reached the top of the terrace steps. Ellie, I noticed, was hovering in the doorway, dressed in the same cotton skirt she’d had on that morning, although she’d changed her T-shirt for a beige-coloured camisole that almost disappeared against her skin. She looked washed out and miserable, making me feel guilty for forcing our confrontation in the Orangery.

“Neither has anyone else.” She leaned in closer, the green glass beads around her neck clinking. “And I think your sister’s about to lose it,” she added in a whisper.

Since I thought pretty much the same thing, it appeared it was time to make myself useful. “I’ll go see if I can find her.”

I didn’t realise that Edward had followed me into the house until he spoke. “Is everything okay?”

“If you mean, is it my fault that Ellie looks like she’s about to scream, I assure you that I have been on my best behaviour all afternoon,” I told him, not turning round.

“I didn’t, particularly.” He drew level with me as I headed up the stairs. “I was just wondering what all the whispering was about.”

“Curious fellow, aren’t you.” I turned left at the top of the stairs, rather than right towards my own room, and Edward said, “Are you looking for Isabelle?”

I stopped just short of knocking on my grandmother’s door. “Do you know where she is?”

Edward shrugged. “I dropped her off at that swanky hotel down the road this afternoon. She had some treatments booked, apparently. Something about sea salt and scrubbing.”

“Leaving Ellie to panic over all the last-minute details.” I sighed. Looked like I wasn’t the only one being selfish today. “Did she say when she was coming back?”

Back downstairs, the evening’s drinking was continuing apace at the dining table, as Dad dished up the food. I shook my head as Mum looked up questioningly at me, then I slipped into my seat beside Nathaniel. Edward, I saw, was already whispering to Ellie at the other end of the table, presumably explaining the situation.

He sat down opposite me, as Dad handed round plates of curry, which Isabelle would have hated anyway.

“Is there anything Ellie needs us to do?” I asked, reaching across for a naan bread.

Edward shook his head. “Not until tomorrow, anyway. She found a note from Isabelle in the kitchen, while we were upstairs, by the way. Apparently your grandmother felt it would be bad luck to see the groom before the wedding.” He passed me a plate of vegetable pakora. “She does realise this isn’t an actual wedding, doesn’t she?”

“At this point, who knows?” I sighed. “Perhaps she just wanted to get out of here for a while. I suppose I can sympathise with that.” Except I’d already been away too long. I didn’t need to escape, any more. I needed to find a way home.

When we were down to just the poppadom crumbs, Nathaniel clanged his wine glass with his dessert spoon and we all duly stopped talking. “In the absence of my lovely wife, I would like to say a few words.”

“Isabelle has apparently taken herself off to become even more beautiful, before we go through this rigmarole of a party tomorrow. I have no doubt that she will return, fresh and relaxed, just in time to meet her guests.

“The speeches, of course, are for tomorrow – and believe me, I have quite the announcement planned for you all.” The smile on my grandfather’s face was downright frightening and, across the table, Edward was looking very nervous. There was definitely something going on there, something I probably didn’t want to know about until I had to, I reasoned. Plausible deniability, and all that.

“It occurs to me that, if we are to treat tomorrow as my second wedding day, then tonight, by all accounts, must surely be my stag night!”

Down the table, Ellie squeaked in alarm, doubtless seeing her plans for helping hands in the morning drowning in a pool of whisky. Nathaniel ignored her. “And as none of you were able to join me for the last one, by virtue of not having been born yet, I insist that you all celebrate with me this evening!”

Downing the rest of his red wine, Nathaniel led the charge to the drawing room and the drinks cabinet.

Three glasses of wine and a hefty dose of Nathaniel’s best brandy later, I noticed that Ellie had disappeared. That wasn’t fair, I thought. It wasn’t fair that she should feel so uncomfortable in my presence that she miss her own grandfather’s pseudo stag night. And, my fuzzy head insisted, it was time that I told her so, no matter what everyone else thought.

I drifted towards the doorway and slipped casually into the hallway, the others too busy watching Nathaniel juggle shot glasses to notice. Ellie wasn’t in the kitchen, which had been my first guess – she had a tendency to seek out tea in times of stress. Neither was she getting fresh air on the terrace, or hiding out in the back drawing room watching telly.

She’d probably gone to bed, I realised, to get an early night before the party. I headed back into the hallway, only to be stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

“You’re looking for Ellie,” Edward said, a statement rather than a question. “Again.”

I stared down at him, perched on the second step, his long legs folded up so that his knees almost reached his chest. “I just wanted to apologise for earlier. And, well, everything.”

“Haven’t we had this conversation before? Quite recently?” He sounded surprisingly sober for a stag night attendee. Much soberer than me, I realised. Soberer. Was that even a word?

“I just… I need to…” I scrubbed a hand across my forehead. “I need to tell her that I’m sorry. That she wins. She gets Greg and Rosewood and the family and you. I’ll leave if she asks me to. She can have whatever she wants…”

“As long as she forgives you.” Edward reached up and pulled me down to sit next to him.

I rested my head against his shoulder. “Don’t you have your own family to drive you crazy?”

Edward huffed a laugh, and I felt it in his chest. “I think I’m the one who drives them crazy.”

“I can’t see how.” Edward was, quite possibly, the steadiest, most sensible person I’d ever met.

“Right now, they think I’m having an early mid-life crisis,” he said, with a small laugh. “Jacking in everything to come and live here at Rosewood, as an assistant to an ageing Great British Writer.”

It hadn’t really occurred to me that Edward must have had another life, before he came here. Rosewood was always in its own little reality bubble. The outside world ceased to exist once you were inside it.

“What did you do before?” I asked. “And what made you come here, anyway?” Had he left another job? Did he have a wife and kids secreted away somewhere else? He could be anybody, I realised. All I knew about him was that he could withstand Nathaniel’s whims and tempers, and that he disapproved of me. Not a lot to go on.

“Nothing half as interesting.” He shrugged. “As for why I came… Maybe I’ll tell you the whole long, boring story. Another day.”

“Nowhere else is ever as interesting as Rosewood. It always was my favourite place in the world.”

“I can see why,” Edward said. “I mean, obviously. I haven’t left yet, have I?”

“You’re lucky that way.” I sighed. “I just want things to go back to the way they were when we were little.”

“We’ve already talked about that. You know it can’t happen.” Edward slung an arm around my shoulders, a show of camaraderie, which suggested he had at least sampled the brandy. Or maybe his disapproval really was starting to fade. It was probably the towel incident that did it. “Time only ever moves forward.”

“I know.” Sober, I suspected I’d be hideously embarrassed that it was Edward I was opening up to, the only person in the house not actually related to me. But even drunk I was a little grateful he had kept me from making things worse with Ellie. Again.

We sat in silence for a long moment, and I focused on the thrum of Edward’s pulse where my cheek lay against his throat to keep the world from spinning.

“You know,” Edward said, thoughtfully, “I think I saw some really excellent whisky in Nathaniel’s drinks cabinet. Want to see if there’s any left?”

I nodded, and he hauled me to my feet, tugging me back towards the drawing room. I’d just have to try and make it up to Ellie tomorrow.

Downstairs, there was coffee brewing in the kitchen, and a prominent list laid out on the table in Ellie’s neat handwriting, detailing responsibilities and delegations. Pouring myself a cup of strong, black Colombian, I sat down to read through the list.

Edward and Greg were charged with supervising the set-up of the tables and chairs, and the catering tents. Dad was looking after the caterers; Mum was making sure the cake was delivered and set up correctly, and looking after the musicians when they arrived.

“Are those our orders for the day?” Nathaniel asked, shuffling into the room and towards the coffee machine. “What am I down for?”

“Staying out of the way and making sure your bow tie is tied straight,” I told him, reading from Ellie’s list. “Possibly also greeting guests and stuff.”

He groaned. “Well, I’m all right with the first part. Especially since it means I can go back to bed for a while.” Taking his mug with him, he shuffled back out again.

I turned back to the list. In Isabelle’s absence, Therese was in charge of all the last-minute straightening and tidying the house required, even though it had been cleaned from top to bottom by professionals the day before, and despite the fact it was a beautiful day and the entire party was planned to take place outside. Ellie was looking after the florist, and all the other decorative bits.

Putting the list back for the next lazy slacker with a hangover to find, once they dragged themselves out of bed, I picked up my coffee and headed outside to see how I could make myself useful.

Greg and Edward obviously had stronger heads than I’d thought, or were even more afraid of upsetting Ellie than everyone else because, despite the considerable amount of Nathaniel’s best whisky I’d watched them consume the night before, they were both up and lugging tables and chairs across the grass. Not actually feeling up to manual labour myself, I decided to seek out Ellie instead.

She wasn’t hard to find. The florist’s van was parked outside the side door, and Ellie was watching as obscenely large arrangements of yellow and white flowers were offloaded and dragged down to the party area.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, sidling close before she could realise I was there and manufacture some excuse to disappear.

Ellie jumped at the sound of my voice, then sighed, the same tired, world-weary sigh she’d been using all week. “There was a mix-up with the order. They forgot the table decorations.”

“Isabelle’s going to be furious.” Which was a bit of an understatement, I felt.

“Well perhaps they can…” I tried, but Ellie cut me off, and I heard a hint of the temper she was back to keeping under wraps.

“They can’t do anything,” she snapped. “Apparently they’ve got an actual wedding this afternoon, and the bride and her mother are a lot scarier than me.”

“Then we’ll fix it ourselves,” I said, wracking my brain to think of a way to do that.

“How?” Ellie asked, impatiently. “Do you happen to have a flair for flower arranging I don’t know about? And some, oh, I don’t know, flowers?”

I grinned. “No to the first, but absolutely to the second.” And, grabbing her arm, I dragged her towards the Rose Garden.

“Isabelle was planning on only using the Rose Garden flowers in the house,” Ellie said as together we surveyed the few remaining yellow roses.

“Isabelle’s not here.” I handed her one set of the gloves and secateurs I’d liberated from the gardener’s shed, and pulled my own gloves on. “Besides, no one’s going to be going inside. It’s gorgeous out here.”

Ellie kept staring at the flowers. To encourage her a little, I started snipping off flower heads.

“Wait,” she shrieked, grabbing my wrist as the first flower fell. “What are we going to put them in?”

“Water?” I said helpfully. Ellie raised an eyebrow at me and dropped my arm. “Okay, well, glasses then. Or bowls. You’ve hired in crockery and glassware for outside, after all. How many tables are there? Ten?” Ellie nodded. “Perfect, then. We use the glass dessert bowls we had the mango sorbet in last night, fill them with water and float rose heads in them. That way, we won’t even need that many.” Which was just as well, as Isabelle had decapitated most of them already, for the many vases that now littered the inside of Rosewood.

Ellie considered it for a moment, then smiled for the first time that week, that I’d seen. “Okay, then.”

It was strange, cutting flowers with Ellie, for all the world as if it were ten years ago, and Isabelle had sent us out for roses for the dinner table before a party. In fact… “Do you remember how we used to do this as kids?” I asked, softly, hoping Ellie was in the same nostalgic place I was. Ever since we were tiny, I’d followed Ellie around those gardens, picking flowers and chasing butterflies. I’d have followed her anywhere, I knew. I’d thought she hung the moon and lit it.

“We’d crush the petals with water to make perfume, and put it in Isabelle’s tiny glass bottles,” I went on, lost in the memories of happier times. A time when my sister was my whole world, and I was the person she loved most in it. “We thought it was the most beautiful fragrance ever. It probably smelled terrible! But Isabelle would wear it, whenever we gave her a bottle, do you remember?” Ellie smiled – just a small, half smile, an absent gesture, but it warmed my heart to see it.

But then the smile faded. “I remember the last time we did this,” she whispered back, her voice tight. “The day before my wedding. The day after you slept with my husband.”

Ellie had woken me up really early, I remembered, far too excited to sleep. We’d picked the white roses for Isabelle to tie into a bouquet for Ellie, and a few golden yellow ones for me to hold. We’d talked about the future, about their plans, and mine. And I’d almost forgotten about Greg, until Ellie asked me what was wrong, why I was quiet. And I didn’t tell her.

“I should have told you that day,” I said, now, finally. “I should have told you the minute it happened.”

“But Greg told me instead, later that morning. You just ran away the minute the confetti was thrown.” She snipped another rose head free of its stem, and it felt like she was cutting my heartstrings. Apparently forgiveness was still firmly off the cards.

“And I think that’s all the roses we need.” Gathering up her flowers in her arms, Ellie headed away from me, towards the house.

Once Ellie and I had distributed our makeshift centrepieces, I headed upstairs to get changed, luxuriating in the feel of the pale green silk of my dress against my skin, and hoping I could stay upright in the heels. With the matching headband and my slick bob, I felt just like a 1920s’ flapper girl.

As I teetered down the stairs, I spotted Greg standing in the hallway below, and my heart beat twice in one moment as I stopped, halfway down. I’d been home two days, and I still hadn’t been alone with Greg yet. Part of me had been grateful not to have to go through that – trying to find the right words, if any, to say. And part of me had been desperate for it, just to know for sure that everything between us was in the past. Perhaps even to learn how he’d managed to be forgiven – why he deserved forgiveness and I didn’t. So, did I stay or did I run?

Greg shook his head, slowly, staring at me until I began to feel uncomfortable. “What?”

“Nothing.” He caught my eye as I reached the bottom of the stairs. “You just look nice, is all.”

God, what I’d have given to hear him say those words two years ago. I could picture it perfectly, if I tried. But I wouldn’t. This wasn’t two years ago. I wasn’t going to blush prettily for him and try to deny it. I wasn’t going to smile shyly at the compliment.

It wasn’t even three, four or five years ago, when we were all friends, growing up with the world at our feet and sure that we would explore it, the three of us, together. I missed that feeling, but even I was realistic enough to know it wasn’t coming back.

“I’m looking for your wife,” I said, pointedly. “Any ideas where she’s got to?” If Isabelle still wasn’t back, then Ellie was probably going frantic.

“Join the club,” Greg said. “I’ll help you look.” Which wasn’t quite what I’d intended.

He followed me out into the bright sunshine; it was half past ten, and the sun was creeping higher over the house. Guests were due from midday. If Isabelle didn’t come home soon, she’d risk missing her own party.

It felt strange, being alone with Greg. Like we should be sneaking about, watching out for anyone who might see us. Except we’d never done that, even back then. It wasn’t how things were between us.

Over on the lawn, the tables and chairs had been set out perfectly according to plan, and decorated with white linens, chiffon sashes and our makeshift centrepieces, a splash of yellow in amongst the white. Places were laid with the hired white china and polished silver cutlery that glinted and sparked in the bright sun.

Backing onto the woods, even the catering tents looked starched and bleached. Outside each entrance was a pedestal flower arrangement filled with white and yellow flowers, and deep green leaves. From inside, some very tempting aromas were already drifting out as the food was assembled and reheated.

There was plenty of activity; I could see Mum settling the musicians on one side of the dining area, and Dad’s voice was clearly audible from inside the tents, asking questions about ingredients. But there was no sign of Ellie.

Greg didn’t seem bothered. “I’m glad I’ve got this chance to talk to you, actually,” he said, as I walked purposefully towards the Orangery, Greg ambling along behind. “There hasn’t been an opportunity since you came back. And I think there are some things we need to say.”

I knew what he meant. Even if I’d wanted to talk to him, with my family running interference, there wouldn’t have been the chance. Ellie wasn’t the only one they were steering me away from. But I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want the conversation. Didn’t want to discuss our mistakes, or talk about how in another time or place things might have been different. How we just weren’t meant to be, right here and now. I just wanted to pretend that two years ago never happened at all.

I’d thought that Greg would feel the same, but apparently not. And that made me very nervous indeed.

Suddenly, our meeting in the hallway seemed less serendipitous. “Greg, this really isn’t the…”

“Actually,” he interrupted, his voice sharper than I’d ever heard before, “I think it’s the perfect time.”

The Orangery was empty, and I was running out of places to look. “Maybe we should try the catering tents.”

As I spun on my heel, sinking into the grass, Greg grabbed my arm and said, “Saskia,” his voice firm.

I sighed. “Greg, we don’t have to. Really.” As I turned and looked up at him, I half expected all the old feelings to come flooding back. The obsessive need to watch him, to read his smiles, to catch his eye. The heat that touched my skin every time he looked at me. The connection we hadn’t been able to deny. “Look, we made a mistake, we both know that. We…we fell in love, when we weren’t free to do that. We shouldn’t have acted on it, but…we couldn’t help how we felt. But it’s over now.”

Greg let go of my arm with a laugh – a harsh, bitter laugh that grated against my ears. “Do you honestly still believe that?”

“That’s the story we told ourselves to try and make what we did less horrific,” he said. “I guess you’ve been telling it to yourself so long you really believe it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” We’d fallen in love. We’d given in when we shouldn’t. We’d made a mistake. What was I missing?

“That wasn’t love, Saskia,” Greg said, and I felt my stomach drop at his words. “And you know that, deep down. We were selfish, lonely people who thought that Ellie was ignoring us while she was so caught up in all the wedding stuff. I was scared about the future, about everything changing. And yes, I wanted you. And I knew you wanted me too – you weren’t exactly subtle, you know. I was looking for some comfort, Ellie wasn’t around and you were, and I was weak. I gave in. I risked everything that mattered to me in the world for a few minutes of feeling better, and it was the biggest mistake I ever made.”

I stared at him, unable to speak, unable to process his words, unable to even think beyond the realisation that he was right.

Greg shook his head. “If you think that was love, Kia…then you haven’t got a clue about what love really means. Love isn’t roses – it isn’t long glances across a room or secret rendezvous or any of the stuff we had. Love is owning up, saying sorry, and working like hell to make things right again. It’s sticking around to fix things, even when it’s the hardest thing in the world to do.”

“Ellie said…” The words came out raspy, and I swallowed and started again. “Ellie said you tried to call off the wedding.”

“I had to give her the option to walk away, with all the information. I’m just grateful as all hell that she gave me another chance.”

And maybe, if I’d stayed, if I’d confessed that morning in the Rose Garden…maybe she’d have given me one, too. But it was too late now. I’d never know.

I turned, wrenching my heels from the grass, and walked away. I couldn’t look at Greg another moment, not now I’d realised the truth. I didn’t love him. I never had. And he’d never loved me. No wonder it hadn’t hurt to come back and see him here, happy with Ellie.

It was all just a story, a way to make my peace with what I’d done. Only now, I knew there was no truth in that fiction.

The truth was I’d done the worst thing I could imagine to one of the people I loved most in the world. I’d betrayed her, and she was right not to forgive me.

With that one act, I’d torn myself away from Rosewood, away from my family. I’d run, and no one had followed. I’d slammed that door behind me, and I might never be able to go back through it. It wasn’t just my relationship with Ellie I’d ruined – it was with everyone. Nathaniel, Isabelle, Therese, Mum and Dad, Caro… Things could never be the same between us, ever again. Hell, it had even coloured any friendship I might hope to have with Edward. The first and only thing he knew about me was that I betrayed my sister. Not a great start.

I heard Greg calling after me and picked up my pace, until I was running across the grass on my tiptoes, racing towards the edge of the garden.

I slowed as I reached the trees, slipping between them into the cool dark of the woods. Without needing to think about it, I ran my hands along the bark of the trunks, counting trees as I went. One, two, three… Six and seven. I stopped. Seven trees in and four across. Easy. I turned right after the seventh tree and counted along another four and I was there.

When I was small, I was desperate for a place that was mine, a secret, hidden place where no one could find me. I wanted to be private and mysterious. And Nathaniel, my doting grandfather, indulged me.

One weekend, very early, we snuck out into the woods and found the perfect tree, just the two of us. It was bigger around the trunk than even Nathaniel could reach, and its lowest branches were far above his head. It was summer, and the leaf canopy was impenetrable, shading the whole area in darkness and magic.

We had to enlist some help, because my grandfather has never been very good with his hands, except when there’s a pen in them. Luckily, his assistant at the time was a young man called Graham, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-one, fresh out of university, and whose father was a carpenter.

Since Nathaniel and I both knew that Graham probably wouldn’t be around by the next month, we thought he was a safe bet. And so, in addition to Graham’s other duties (dealing with letters from readers, looking up obscure books, making tea, being shouted at, that sort of thing) he was shanghaied into building an eight-year-old girl a tree house.

And, true to form, Graham quit two weeks after it was completed. As far as I know, he never told anyone else in the family about the tree house. Neither did I, and neither did Nathaniel.

Which meant, when I reached my tree and found the secret ladder already lowered and smoke blowing out of the window, there was really only one person who could be in residence.

I paused at the bottom of the tree, catching my breath after the rush through the woods, trying to stop my head spinning from my conversation with Greg. I’d wanted to be alone, to get away from Rosewood and all the horrible realisations it brought up. But now I was there, I wanted my grandfather. I wanted the comfort of Nathaniel’s presence, the warmth of his voice, the reassurance of his arms…even the distraction of his stories.

I’d been alone for too long already. I wasn’t going to miss this chance to be with my family, however hard it was.

“You know, this wasn’t built as a smoking house for you,” I called up, putting my foot on the first rung of the rope ladder. Now I thought about it, perhaps Therese’s vintage silk dress and matching heels weren’t the ideal costume for climbing trees.

Nathaniel stuck his head out of the doorway. “Who paid for the wood? And the labour? And where is the gratitude? I ask you.” He took a good look at me. “Are you coming up in that?”

Grasping the rope, I swung my left foot up onto the next rung. “Apparently.”

The tree house was fairly basic: a square base of tightly joined wooden planks, with just enough space for Nathaniel and I to squeeze in together, more plank-made walls, with gaps left for doors and windows, and a few more planks over the top at an angle as a roof. In essence, a wooden box.

I hoisted myself through the narrow doorway, ducking my head to avoid the ceiling, and slid onto the low stool Nathaniel held steady for me beside the sloping shelf beneath the window.

“We used to fit in here better,” he observed, taking another puff on his pipe.

“I appear to have grown up.” I smoothed out my skirt under me, and hoped I wasn’t ruining the fabric.

“Indeed you have.” Nathaniel caught my eye. “So why don’t you tell me why a grown-up like you is hiding out in a child’s tree house.”

Nathaniel spread his arms as wide as the walls of the tree house allowed. “Ah, but I have never really grown up. Proper writers never do.”

“So, who are you hiding from?” I asked. “Isabelle isn’t even back yet.”

“I’m not hiding,” Nathaniel said, sounding affronted. “I am rehearsing.”

“Your speech?” Truth be told, I was starting to get a little nervous about Nathaniel’s speech. My grandfather had a tendency towards long, obtuse but somehow insulting oratory. I was just hoping he’d wait until most of the guests were plastered before he started. At least some of the cleverer, crueller insults might pass over their heads that way. “Is it going well? Do you want to practise in front of a live audience?” If I knew who he was planning to offend, perhaps I could distract them.

“It will be the highlight of the year,” Nathaniel announced, waving a few dog-eared notecards around. “And you’re just going to have to wait and listen with the rest of them.”

“Of course!” He placed his notecards carefully on the floor beside him, out of my reach. “So, what can I do for you?”

I didn’t want to admit that, actually, I hadn’t been looking for him at all – I’d been running away from Greg. From my own mistakes. So instead, I leant back against the smooth wood of the wall and said, “Tell me a story.”

“I suppose not.” He smiled around his pipe. “So, what sort of story are you after?”

“One about Rosewood,” I decided. If I had to leave again, as it seemed I would, I wanted to take as much of this place with me as I could. “Not about the ghosts and the history. A story of you here at Rosewood.”

“A story about me. My favourite subject.” Another joke. For all that his books featured versions of himself and his life, I knew full well that none of those characters were the real Nathaniel. In fact, I suspected they were a screen for him to hide behind – more fiction than truth. A way to keep his true self private, even in the face of intense public scrutiny. My grandfather, I reflected, was a complicated man.

He gave me a look I couldn’t quite read, and I frowned for a moment. But then Nathaniel settled back on his stool, pipe clamped between his teeth, left a dramatic pause, removed the pipe and began his story.

“Once upon a time, there was an incredibly handsome and talented young man who had a very beautiful and intelligent wife. They lived in a tiny London flat in the most fashionable area, and she made it up to look twice the size it really was.”

“Patience,” Nathaniel said. “Now, the lucky couple loved nothing more than throwing wild parties and showing each other off to all their friends. And their parties became renowned. Famous. Even notorious.”

Would this party, this Golden Wedding, be one of those parties? I’d had an inkling it would, back in Perth, when he called and asked me to come. And, looking at his stack of notecards on the floor, I felt even more certain that it would. Nathaniel had never used notecards in his life; he just told a story, whenever he needed to speak in public. And his stories had never needed index cards.

What was he going to say in his speech? And what would it mean for all of us? I was almost too nervous – or excited – to ask.

“Tales of the parties they held filled the social pages, not to mention the conversations in all the most artistic haunts. People angled for an invite to the next one whenever they spoke to someone who’d been there. The themes became more outlandish, more spectacular. Until the day the couple announced that they were moving house.”

Nathaniel silenced me with a look. “Moving to a charmed mansion in the English countryside, complete with a Rose Garden, a fountain, an orangery and a tiny, splintery tree house.”

“Poetic licence already?” I asked. “The tree house didn’t exist whenever you’re setting this story.”

“I’m just glad you didn’t query the ‘handsome and talented’ part earlier. Now, shut up and let me tell the story.” I obediently shut up.

“Their new house would allow them to throw even bigger and better parties, the woman declared. It was, she said, the ‘absolute perfect house for parties.’” I could almost hear Isabelle saying the words as he spoke them. “They decided that they would hold the best ever party, to celebrate moving into their new home. They invited everyone who was everyone, and quite a few people who weren’t anyone at all. It was the party of the season, and people fought tooth and nail for an invite.

“The day of the party arrived, and the woman spent all day – hell, all week, all month! – preparing for it, while her husband was writing. She dressed in her finest clothes, while he forgot until the last minute then couldn’t find his cufflinks. The guests arrived and the champagne flowed. The band struck up a song, and people danced. And as the night went on the champagne flowed faster and the conversations got louder and the band grew tired and went home. But still the party went on, long after the moon had risen and fallen again. The sun came up and still the party continued. The champagne ran dry, but they just moved on to spirits. The house was filled to overflowing with people and fun and laughter…”

A pause, just a small one, and I realised Nathaniel was trying to decide the direction of the story. What would happen next? How much of this was real? I wondered. And how much part of his imagination?

“The party seemed like it might never end. People slept where they sat, and woke up and started all over again. The bedrooms were taken over by guests too, but very few people were sleeping in them. The sun set on the second day, and still the party went on. Until…”

“What?” I asked, as desperate as always for the next part of the story. “What happened?”

Nathaniel refocused his gaze on me. “Like I said, the house was overflowing. It spilled out onto the terrace, into the gardens, and even out the front door onto the steps. It felt like the party might just keep growing and take over the whole land…until suddenly a scream cut through the celebrations.”

I flinched, and Nathaniel reached across to hold my hand. His fingers smelt like tobacco, and I knew mine would too, afterwards. I didn’t mind.

“All the guests ran towards the sound, and the man wondered for a moment if the sudden shift would cause the house to tip. Silence fell – an eerie, painful silence that rang in the ears – as they all stared at the figure of a man lying at the bottom of the white marble steps, blood streaming from a gash on the back of his head.”

Yeah, this one really wasn’t suitable for Caro. But what I wanted to know most was, was it true?

“And in moments, the house was empty. The party was over, and only the man and woman were left. Well, just them and the body and the police.

“Did that… Is it a true story?” I asked, half expecting him to laugh. Of course it couldn’t be true. Apart from anything else, I knew for a fact that Nathaniel and Isabelle had held plenty of parties at Rosewood since they moved in.

“Aren’t they all true, one way or another?” Nathaniel said, with a shrug. “It just depends on your interpretation.”

“And now, I believe I have another party to attend,” Nathaniel interrupted. Bending over he collected his index cards, then stood up with a groan. “I’m too old for this, Saskia.”

He smiled, then leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “And you will always, always have a home at Rosewood,” he said. “Whatever you do. Don’t you forget that.”

With a final puff on his pipe, he placed it on the rickety shelf and descended the ladder, cards flapping in his hands.

How did he do that? We’d talked about his speech, about some mythical party at Rosewood and a possible death, and his age. Not a word about me or Greg or being home. And still he’d known, without even having to ask, exactly why I was hiding out in the tree house.

I blinked away my tears and, after a few moments alone with the quiet and the stale smell of smoke, I followed my grandfather back down the ladder and through the woods to the house.