Sam took a deep breath before stepping into the wing of the Elm Trees nursing home where Arthur was now staying.
It was certainly far more welcoming, homely place than the NHS hospital where his grandfather had had his operation. Large bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms were occupied by various elderly patients. The place had soft carpets and lots of cosy lounges filled with armchairs. It was a place for respite care. For peace and for recovery.
So on his first visit, Sam was somewhat surprised to hear what sounded like a rowdy exchange taking place in one of the lounges. He hoped it wasn’t keeping Arthur awake a few doors along the corridor. But when he went to walk past the lounge, there was a group of six or so elderly gentlemen cheering and laughing.
‘Come on, Silver!’ shouted a grey-haired man swaying from side to side on crutches.
‘Don’t you mean, Hi-Ho Silver!’ said a familiar voice.
As he drew closer, Sam realised that his grandad was sitting in a chair, holding a small radio on which a horse race appeared to be blaring out. A mix of cheers and groans rang out as the winners were read out.
Sam was saddened to see his grandad’s smile slip from his face as he spotted him standing nearby.
‘Watch out, lads,’ said Arthur. ‘My grandson’s here to keep me in check so you’d better hop it.’
‘I can’t hop anywhere,’ said the man on the crutches with a grin.
‘It’s tea and cake time anyway,’ said one of the others. ‘We’ll keep a piece of Battenberg back for you, Arthur.’
The group slowly dispersed, leaving Sam and his grandad alone.
‘Don’t worry,’ muttered Arthur, in a sulky tone as he switched off the radio. ‘I haven’t got any money to gamble, unlike my mates.’
Mates? Sam realised that he had never heard his grandfather talk of friends before.
‘So, what do I owe the pleasure of your company this afternoon?’
Sam bit back a harsh response, remembering the scrapbook that Annie had found. His grandad was a proud man. And stubborn too.
‘How are you?’ he asked instead.
‘The staff seem pleased with my progress.’
‘I understand they’ve reduced your heart medication now as well.’
Arthur nodded. ‘And I’m only on one crutch instead of two. I keep telling them that I’ll be just fine at home. I’ll manage the stairs somehow, but they keep giving me excuses. I don’t know why.’
Sam slumped down into one of the vacated chairs, the horror of what he had to say making the words stick in his throat.
Arthur frowned as he stared at his grandson. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
Sam took a deep breath. ‘You can’t move back home yet.’
‘Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, lad. I’ll be all right.’
Arthur was such a proud man. He didn’t want to lose his independence but he needed the support.
‘It’s not you,’ said Sam, shaking his head. ‘It’s the Hall. It’s a mess.’
Arthur shrugged his shoulders. ‘That’s only builder’s stuff. It’ll be OK.’
‘No, it won’t!’ snapped Sam, his words ringing out in the room and causing a nurse passing by in the corridor to glance over at them. ‘I’ve made everything ten times worse,’ he carried on, in a softer tone.
His grandad studied him for a while, all the time looking surprisingly calm. ‘Tell me what’s happened,’ he said eventually.
Sam took a deep breath. ‘The builders I hired were a bunch of cowboys. They’ve taken me for a ride and caused substantial damage.’ He finally looked his grandad in the eye. ‘They’ve destroyed the staircase, leaving just a ladder in its place. That was the final straw. I’ve given them the sack but the place is pretty much uninhabitable. Especially when you’ve just come out of major surgery.’
Arthur nodded, deep in thought. Sam had been expecting rage and perhaps even tears but neither came. Just silence.
Finally Arthur spoke. ‘Have we still got walls? Windows? A roof?’
‘Definitely walls,’ Sam told him with a grimace. ‘Some windows. Most of the roof.’
‘I see.’
Sam was a little shocked at the lack of reaction. ‘You don’t seem surprised.’
Arthur gave him a wan smile. ‘Our Annie isn’t a terribly good actress. Every time I asked her about the building work, she told me in a very cheerful voice that it was all going marvellously well. I might be old, but I’ve still got all my faculties. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that something was wrong.’
‘And you have every right to be steaming mad at me,’ said Sam. ‘I’m so sorry. I take full blame. It’s my responsibility and I’ve made such a mess of it.’
‘If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,’ said Arthur, tears filling his eyes. ‘I should never have let the place get so bad. I know the house needed sorting out. I just couldn’t face it on my own.’
Sam reached out to take his grandad’s hand in his. ‘You’re not on your own anymore.’ ‘I’ve failed. I couldn’t make the estate work.’ A tear ran down Arthur’s face.
‘It’s still got walls and a roof,’ said Sam. ‘Mostly. We can rebuild it. Start again and make it better.’
‘It came off worse during the World War II blitz,’ said Arthur with a teary smile.
‘Kevin Jacobs didn’t need wartime bomber planes to nearly destroy the place.’
‘Kevin Jacobs?’ His grandfather’s eyes grew wide. ‘You let him near our home? That dreadful, little…’
‘I know. I know,’ said Sam quickly. ‘I didn’t realise he was so bad.’
‘You would have done if we had been talking,’ Arthur told him, looking sad.
They locked eyes, blue to blue.
Sam looked away first. ‘Look, about what I said last Christmas,’ he began.
Arthur shook his head as if to stop him. ‘That’s all in the past. I don’t care about what you said.’
‘I was wrong to blame everything on you. Of course I don’t blame you for Mum and Dad’s deaths. I really don’t. I was an idiot.’ Sam hung his head in shame.
‘You’d just lost your grandmother,’ he heard Arthur say. ‘She had taken care of you since you lost your parents. You had every right to be upset.’
Sam looked up at him. ‘But you’d just lost your wife. I shouldn’t have made things worse. I didn’t know what to say to you anymore so I legged it. At the age of thirty-two, I ran away from home.’
‘I know you did,’ said Arthur. ‘And I don’t blame you. I know that I don’t have your grandmother’s soft way with you boys. I also know that Willow Tree Hall isn’t your life. It’s mine.’
‘Maybe it could be,’ said Sam, hanging onto a small scrap of hope. ‘If I let it. You know, I never understood before. About the responsibility. That’s a lot to carry on your own.’
Arthur nodded.
‘But you’re not on our own anymore, Grandad. I’m here.’
Arthur’s eyes filled with tears but he said nothing, unable to speak.
‘Look, I’m going to make it up to you,’ said Sam, beginning to find his strength return from somewhere deep inside. ‘I’m going to make the house whole again for when you get home.’
‘Believe me, I know it’s not easy keeping a big house like that. But it’s in our blood, lad.’
Sam nodded. ‘I can see that now.’
‘Us two Earls of Cranley need to have the courage to carry on living there. To not give up.’
‘You’re not worried about leaving it in my hands?’
‘Never,’ said Arthur, his voice full of pride. ‘I trust you.’
‘It’ll probably mean you might have to stay in here until at least December.’
Arthur smiled. ‘To be honest, it feels like a bit of a holiday.’
Sam realised how much of an effort it had been for his grandad and how hard he had been battling for their futures without any money. Arthur was actually grateful for the help and for the burden to be taken off his frail shoulders at last. Sam realised how blind he had been.
Arthur squeezed his grandson’s hand again. ‘But, lad, you’ve got to realise that you might have enough money for the repairs but not enough to keep the estate afloat. That problem hasn’t gone away.’
Sam sighed. ‘I know. We’ll think of something.’
‘Maybe we can work together on a solution this time.’
After a cup of tea, Arthur slowly walked Sam back to the lift to say their goodbyes.
‘So we can start to look to the future now,’ said Sam.
‘Does it have one?’ asked Arthur. ‘The Hall?’
Sam was relieved to see his grandad give him a wink at his attempt at humour.
‘Of course,’ he said, squeezing Arthur’s arm. ‘Besides, Annie’s defending the place like one of our ancestors in a suit of armour.’
‘She does love it.’ Arthur smiled. ‘It’s in her heart.’ Arthur reached out to take Sam’s hand. ‘Make sure we don’t lose her, lad. I can’t imagine the place without her.’
Nor could Sam. That was the most shocking thought of all.
Arthur leant against Sam as he paused in his walking. ‘I’ll just get my breath back. You can carry on, if you’re in a hurry. I’m no Usain Bolt these days.’
Sam grinned. ‘Were you ever?’
But he waited for his grandad to recover before chatting about Arsenal’s season all the way to the lift.
Before he drove home, Sam rang the first name at the top of the list of local reputable builders that his grandad had given him. Mr Reynolds appeared to know all about both Willow Tree Hall and the sensitive renovation of old buildings. Which certainly made a change from his predecessor.
They fixed a meeting for the following day.
Finally, Sam felt as if things were moving in a positive direction.
*
Annie was waiting for Sam in the drawing room when she heard his car pull up outside.
She felt sick to the stomach with nerves, but she had to confess. For all of their sakes, as well as her own sanity.
The thought of leaving Willow Tree Hall filled her with a deeper despair than she had ever known. But it had to be done.
She had packed all she owned into two large suitcases before flinging them down from the gallery onto the dusty floor of the entrance hall then cautiously making her way down the wretched ladder. It was still wobbly and scary but at least it would be her last time using it. But even that made her sad.
Hearing the front door open with a loud creak, she drew herself up tall before walking into the entrance hall.
‘Hi,’ said Sam, glancing up briefly from his mobile. He looked tired but more relaxed, she thought. Something had changed, shifted deep inside of him.
‘How was Arthur today?’ she asked, delaying the impending misery.
‘Better than I had hoped, actually.’ He gave her a smile before looking back down at his phone. ‘You know, we’re actually talking to each other at last. And I’ve got in touch with a new builder. I’m meeting with a Mr Reynolds tomorrow morning.’
‘Good.’ Anxious to get it over with, Annie took a deep breath. ‘Look, everything’s coming together for you and Arthur and that’s great. Except it’s not. I mean, I’m not.’
She desperately tried to form the words that she needed to say.
‘You see, it’s all lies,’ she carried on. ‘I can’t sew. I can’t iron. Or bake. I’m not organised. I’m rubbish at all of that stuff.’
She braced herself and took a peek at Sam’s face. But he was still looking down at his mobile, scrolling through the emails on the screen.
‘I got the job under false pretences,’ she said, a little louder as she tried to get his attention. ‘Megan lied. I lied. You see, I was never a housekeeper before I came here. I mean, I was only a chambermaid. I had no experience with big stately homes. Nothing.’
At last her lie was out in the open and she felt a lightening of the spirit that she hadn’t expected.
Finally Sam looked up from his phone. ‘Is that it then?’
She nodded, wondering if he had actually understood. ‘I think I should leave,’ she told him.
‘Leave?’ He looked astonished. ‘You mean, leave here forever?’
‘Yes.’ She began to feel cross. This was a huge deal for her. ‘Didn’t you hear what I just said? It’s all lies. I’m not actually a housekeeper. I never was.’ She was nonplussed by his reaction. ‘Aren’t you mad at me?’
He stared at her for a moment before saying, ‘Right now, I’m mostly hungry. How about we go to the pub and have a decent dinner for a change?’
She stared at him, open-mouthed.
‘Good,’ he told her, with a nod. ‘Come on. Grab your coat.’