When Ben woke up the next morning, it took a few seconds for him to work out where he was. The surroundings were familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. He sat up and noticed the portrait on the far wall. At once, it came back to him. He wasn’t in Scotland, he was in Helmsley.
The portrait was of his grandfather, painted in oils, surrounded by the kind of ostentatious wooden frame that would have been better suited to the Victorian era. He had never liked the portrait, the eyes following him around the room on top of an unsmiling face, as if whatever he did was very much not approved of.
Jeremy Robertson, his father’s father. He wondered if Peter had a poor relationship with Jeremy. Were all fathers and sons doomed to fall out?
He could hear Peter in the next bedroom, the bed creaking as he sat up with a groan.
Should he have gone home? Avoided the awkward conversation he was about to have? It was a difficult question to answer but it was a moot point anyway. He had stayed the night, sleeping in his childhood bedroom, bereft of any of the things he remembered from his time there. Had they hidden them away somewhere? Boxed them up? Or perhaps got rid of them when he left.
Somehow he didn’t think so. If Peter had been so furious with him as to dispose of his things, the picture of him as a child wouldn’t still hang in the office.
Climbing out of bed, he opened his bag and dug out a fresh shirt. It was creased from its confinement, not that he minded but no doubt his father would comment on it.
Peter didn’t say a thing about his shirt. When he saw Ben walking into his bedroom, he instead said, “You’re still here then.”
“Apparently so,” Ben replied.
“Going to stand there all morning or going to make me a tea?”
“I’ll put the kettle on if you take your pills.”
“You’re my nurse now, are you?”
“Just do it. I’ll fetch you some water.”
Ben headed downstairs, filling the kettle in the sink, looking out of the window whilst waiting for it to boil.
The sun was up. It was a little after eight, later than he would usually rise. But then it had been a long day. He’d spent some time in bed the previous evening thinking about Martha, wondering what had caused her to scream like that. She had acted as if the trespasser had been about to murder her. Was Helmsley so dangerous a place as to warrant a reaction like that? He had looked about fifty to Ben, and in no fit state to attack anyone, his gut filling out his robe far more than was healthy.
The kettle flicked off and he made two mugs of tea, leaving his on the table and taking his father’s upstairs with a glass of water.
“About time,” Peter grumbled. “And what are you doing with yourself today?”
“I thought I might have a look around the castle.”
“Did you now?”
A silence descended between them. Peter looked as if he was about to say something but instead he pushed two tablets out of the foil blisterpack, swallowing them with a slug of water, grimacing as he did so.
“I’ll see you in a bit,” Ben said, turning and heading downstairs. Whatever his father had been thinking about saying, it had gone.
He sat alone in the kitchen and drank his tea, remembering the family meals he’d had at that table. It was strange to think his father lived there alone in what had once been a house for four. The perfect nuclear family. Boy, girl, mother, father. What would become of the place if his father did agree to sell to Alex? Would it be turned into another holiday rental cottage? The idea made the tea taste bitter and he drained the last of it down the sink before slipping on his shoes and heading outside.
The sun was fighting its way through a bank of clouds, flashes of light between grey gloom. The wind had died down since last night but was still lingering, as if it was waiting for a chance to come back.
He walked around Helmsley for a while, passing through the empty marketplace, down to the river and then back up again, each location linked to a memory in his past. The tunnel where the stream fed under the road and then out to the river, forced into that tunnel by Alex and told not to come out ever again.
There was a little lip of stone about ten feet into the tunnel. He wondered if it was still there. He’d sat at that makeshift seat and waited for an hour before tentatively emerging, ready to dive back in should Alex still be there. He wasn’t of course.
The tree that he used to climb, the wide branch that was his base for watching the birds had snapped off, leaving a jagged stump. The bookshop he so enjoyed browsing through was now a cafe. The Helmsley of his past was gone, the only part of it that remained was the castle, unchanged, still watching over the rest of the town.
He walked back past the visitor centre, noticing it was open. Pushing the door open, he stepped inside. The place looked different in daylight, the large glass windows letting in plenty of light where the night before they’d been black as if they were painted that way.
Martha was behind the counter talking to a man and a little girl.
He stood watching the man talk to the girl, unable to stop himself from comparing their interactions to that of him and his father. Were they father and daughter? No, he just heard her call him Granddad.
Martha gave him a smile before continuing to talk to the pair in front of her. He smiled back, waiting for them to finish. As he stood there, the phone in the office began to ring.
“Excuse me a second,” Martha said to the man in front of her, leaning round him to look at Ben. “Would you mind getting that? If it’s Chloe, tell her I’ll ring her back in a minute.”
Ben nodded, heading into the office and picking up the phone. “Hello?”
“Ben?” His father’s voice. “What are you doing answering the phone? Where’s Martha?”
“She’s busy with some visitors.”
“Right. Well is Joanne there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well find out.” Peter coughed loudly.
Ben left the phone on the desk, sticking his head back out of the office.
“Is Joanne here?” he shouted across to Martha.
“She’s in the stockroom. Who is it?”
“It’s my Dad.” He turned back to the phone, picking it up. “She’s in the stockroom apparently.”
“Right, when she comes out, get her to take over. I want to speak to Martha. You as well.”
Ben went to reply but Peter had already hung up.