by Ali McNamara
‘We were only down there a few minutes,’ I tell her. ‘You’ve hardly been incarcerated underground for years.’
Joey comes rushing over to see us, closely followed by Dorothy.
‘Did you find him?’ he asks anxiously.
I shake my head.
‘Damn, we’re doing our best, but this castle is a big place. He could be anywhere, and there are only a few of us here today to look. If we don’t find him soon I’ll call in some back-up from the village.’
Joey’s radio crackles on his belt and he swiftly pulls it loose. ‘Arthur, how’s it going?’
‘No sign here in the north wing; you haven’t found him yet, then?’
‘Negative to that. The others the same.’
Suddenly before Arthur has a chance to reply we hear a distant voice.
‘Mum! Up here!’
We all swivel around on the gravel of the courtyard and look up.
‘There!’ Tiffany says, pointing. ‘Up on the tower.’
We look to where she’s pointing and see Charlie waving at us. He’s standing on the topmost part of the tower, in a similar place to where I’d stood surveying the surrounding countryside on my first visit.
‘Charlie,’ I cry, ‘don’t move!’
‘But Mum, the view from here is amazing; you should come up and see it.’
‘I will. Just stay where you are. No, don’t lean over that far, Charlie. It’s dangerous.’
But Charlie can’t quite hear what I’m saying and leans even further over the turret.
‘Charlie, no!’ I shout, about to dash across the gravel. But then another figure appears next to Charlie – a man. He says something to him and to my huge relief Charlie moves back a little.
‘Don’t worry!’ the man calls. ‘I’ve got him. I’ll bring him back down.’
And then they both disappear from view.
‘Oh my God,’ I say to the others, ‘I thought my heart was going to stop beating then when he leaned out like that. Now it’s only going nine to the dozen. Who’s that man?’
The others look blankly back at me.
‘I have no idea,’ Dorothy says, crossing herself. ‘But thank the lord he was there.’
‘We have him, Arthur,’ Joey says into his radio. ‘Up on the South East Tower he was. Yup, will do.’
After what seems like an age, but is probably only a few minutes, Charlie comes dashing out of the door at the bottom of the tower. He runs over to me and I envelop him in a huge bear hug.
‘You shouldn’t have run off like that!’ I admonish him in an affectionate voice that doesn’t match my stern words. ‘And you must never go up to the top of one of the towers on your own, it’s very dangerous.’
‘But I wasn’t on my own,’ Charlie begins as another figure emerges from the door.
‘Yes, I can see that,’ I say, as I watch a young, well-built man walk calmly towards us. He’s wearing jeans and a casual pale blue shirt that fits snugly across his broad chest.
Arthur has emerged from the castle and immediately intercepts the stranger before he reaches us.
‘I must thank you,’ he says gratefully, holding his hand out to the man, ‘for looking out for the boy like that.’ They shake hands. ‘But I must also enquire,’ Arthur says, his voice changing, ‘what you’re doing trespassing in the grounds of Chesterford Castle? We’re not open to the public today.’
‘Hi,’ the man says, clearly not too bothered by Arthur’s stern tone. He holds his hand up to the rest of us in greeting. ‘Don’t fear, I’m friend not foe.’ He grins at his joke, but everyone just stares at him. ‘I was just passing the castle looking for work, actually.’
‘But we’re closed today,’ Arthur insists. ‘How did you get in?’
‘Through the front gate back there,’ the man gestures behind him. ‘It was unlocked, and no one came when I rang the bell.’
Arthur turns and glares at Joey, who is suddenly busy examining the gravel below him. ‘Joey! Did you leave the gate unlocked?’ he demands.
Joey shrugs. ‘I might have. It was just so hectic earlier with the mistress arriving with all her furniture and the guys that came in to help – I sort of lost track.’
Arthur’s face is now bright red.
‘Arthur, calm down,’ Dorothy says, stepping in. ‘Remember your blood pressure, and no harm has been done. In fact, something good came of it: this young man saved the master here.’
I grimace internally at their words.
‘For all we know he could have lured him up there,’ Arthur says, looking suspiciously at the man.
‘I can assure you I did nothing of the sort. I simply wandered in here unchallenged,’ he looks meaningfully at Arthur, ‘and saw him up there looking lost. When I shouted up if there was anyone with him he said no, so I found my way up there in case I could help.’
‘Tom is my friend,’ Charlie says now, walking over to him. ‘He rescued me from the tower like a knight in shining armour.’
Tom smiles down at him. ‘Hardly, fella, but thanks for the vote of confidence.’
‘Well, I’d like to thank you,’ I say, stepping in now. ‘If you hadn’t gone up to the tower goodness knows what might have happened.’ I go over to shake his hand, like Arthur had done.
‘You must be Amelia,’ Tom says, smiling as he takes hold of my outstretched hand in a firm grip. I notice now I’m close to him he’s not quite as young as I’d first thought. There are distinct laughter lines around his blue eyes, which only deepen as he smiles, and a few odd grey strands at his temples that pepper his otherwise jet-black hair.
‘I am,’ I reply, a little surprised he knows my name. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Benji sent me.’
‘He did?’
‘He said you might be in need of my services. So here I am!’
‘And what services are they, exactly?’ I ask, a little suspiciously now. Why hadn’t Benji said he was sending someone over?
‘Here.’ Tom reaches into his top pocket and pulls out a business card. ‘This is me.’
I look at Tom and then I look down at the card:
Tom Barber
Antique furniture restoration service.
All types of work undertaken.
15 years’ experience.
Member of the British Antique Furniture
Restorers’ Association.
‘Benji seemed to think I might be of some help here,’ he says, looking at me. ‘What do you think, Amelia; might I be of some service to you?’
Nine
‘Amazing view,’ Tom comments as he glances out of one of the tower windows. ‘You’ve fallen on your feet here.’
‘Some might say,’ I reply, pacing back and forth across the circular room as I wait for Benji to answer his phone.
‘Well, I’d definitely be one of them.’
I watch Tom as he sits down on one of the armchairs and waits for me to finish my phone call. I’d thought of him as well built when I’d first seen him follow Charlie out of the tower, but now I’m closer I can see that he’s extremely fit, with toned, well-developed muscles that sit neatly under his well-fitting clothes. He looks up at me watching him, and smiles before taking a sip from the mug of tea I’ve just made him.
Hesitantly I smile back. Come on, Benji, where are you?
Eventually Benji’s voicemail cuts in.
‘Hi, Benji; it’s Amelia,’ I say into the phone. ‘Er . . . ’ I glance at Tom again. ‘Could you call me when you get this, please?’
‘Busy man,’ Tom says as I hang up the phone.
‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’ I pick up my own mug and cross the room to sit down opposite him. ‘Is your tea all right? Only I haven’t had a chance to get out and stock up yet on food – so my teabags are courtesy of Dorothy, who you met before in the courtyard.’
‘Perfect, thank you,’ Tom says, raising his mug at me.
‘So, tell me about yourself,’ I ask awkwardly. ‘And just why you’ve come here to Ch
esterford?’
‘Is this a job interview?’ Tom asks, grinning. ‘I’d better sit up a bit straighter if it is.’
‘No. Well, possibly. What I mean is, there is a possibility we might need someone to restore some furniture here. To be honest, I haven’t had a chance to look into things like that just yet.’
‘I see. Benji probably thought I wouldn’t come so soon, but I didn’t really have much on so I thought I might as well come straight away.’ He smiles again.
‘So how long have you been restoring furniture?’
‘I don’t just do furniture, I do paintings, silverware, ceramics – you name it I can turn my hand to it – a master of all trades, you might say.’
‘That’s good. So what are your qualifications?’ I sigh internally. I know I’m making this sound exactly like a job interview, but Tom has caught me unawares; I haven’t even thought about things like restoration yet. There are definitely quite a lot of things that will need restoring here – my initial tour of the castle had shown me that – but whether we needed someone permanently on site I’m not so sure.
‘Qualifications? Now that’s a tricky one. I don’t exactly have any of those. But what I lack in certificates I make up for with bags of experience and, more importantly, enthusiasm.’
He certainly has plenty of the latter.
‘Did you train with someone?’
‘I did.’
‘Who?’
Tom looks at me as if he’s assessing whether it’s imperative he answer this.
‘My father.’
‘Oh, it’s a family business, then?’
‘It was. We fell out.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Yeah, well . . . ’ For the first time since I met him in the castle courtyard, Tom seems decidedly edgy. ‘It happens.’ He gets up and walks over to the window. ‘Did I say what an amazing view this is?’
‘You did.’ I wonder what has happened between Tom and his father to make him this uncomfortable talking about it.
‘Is that why you’re free to come and work here?’ I enquire as politely as I can.
Tom turns around. ‘Oh no, that happened years ago. I’ve just finished working at a stately home down in Bedfordshire, but it was only a temporary contract for National Heritage – some pipes burst and they had terrible flood damage. But now everything has been repaired and restored they don’t need anyone full time any more.’
‘Ah, I see.’ I think about this. National Heritage were reputable; if they’d employed Tom he must know his stuff.
‘So National Heritage would be able to give you a reference?’
‘Of course. So you do have some work?’ Tom asks hopefully.
‘The thing is, Tom . . . ’ I begin.
Tom grimaces. ‘I don’t like the sound of this . . . ’
‘I would love to give you a job here, and if Benji has sent you, that’s good enough for me. But—’
‘Please don’t say but!’ Tom says, holding up his hand. ‘I have other talents. If you don’t think you need a full-time restorer I can turn my hand to other things.’
Golly, he’s keen. I have to give him that. ‘Like?’
‘Anything,’ he says with assurance. ‘You name it; I can do it.’
I can’t help but smile. I admire his confidence. I would have said something similar many years ago if I’d wanted a job badly enough. But my own self-confidence has been knocked a bit too far from its perch in the last few years.
‘Okay then,’ I say, thinking quickly. ‘If you can do anything – impress Arthur.’
‘What?’ Tom asks, puzzled, two tiny crinkles appearing between his dark eyebrows.
‘Impress Arthur and Dorothy. They’ve been here for years. Stay here at the castle for a week, work with them both and see if you can impress them. Dorothy won’t be too hard to win over, I’m sure; but Arthur, now if you can get him onside, then you can indeed do anything.’
Tom’s eyes twinkle as he surveys me for a moment. ‘Interesting . . . I like your style, Amelia. All right, you’re on,’ he says, bounding over to shake my hand. ‘Give me a week and I’ll impress not only Dorothy and Arthur, but hopefully you as well, boss.’
He holds on to my hand as his eyes gaze directly into mine. ‘And I get the feeling that you, Amelia, might be my hardest challenge of all.’
‘So Tom is staying, then?’ Charlie asks that night when I’m tucking him into his old bed in his new room. Charlie has happily spent the rest of the day with Dorothy in the castle kitchen learning how to bake cakes, while I’d spent it finding a room for Tom to stay in, along with the somewhat harder task of persuading Arthur to give him a chance.
Eventually a spare room had been found alongside Joey, who like Tiffany has his own small room tucked away in the north wing of the castle – an area that had been used in the past for the staff of any visiting guests. I discover too that Arthur and Dorothy are the inhabitants of the little cottage in the grounds we’d seen earlier, and that they’ve lived there since they first got married.
‘Yes, Tom is staying, for now anyway.’
‘Goody, I like him.’
‘I know you do. But then you did have a bit of an adventure with him today in the tower.’
‘Yeah . . . ’ Charlie frowns. ‘Sort of.’
‘What do you mean, sort of?’
‘Well, the end of the adventure was with Tom when he rescued me from the tower, but the beginning was with someone else.’
‘Who?’ I ask, sitting down next to Charlie on the edge of the bed.
‘Ruby.’
‘Who’s Ruby?’ I ask, puzzled.
‘My new friend.’
I look at Charlie lying snug as a bug under his dinosaur duvet. Surely I’d been introduced to everyone at the castle today. Who was Ruby?
‘Your new friend, eh?’
‘Yeah, she’s cool; she can just appear and disappear like that.’ He lifts his hand from under the duvet and clicks his fingers.
‘Can she now? Does Ruby live in the village?’ I ask, thinking perhaps one of the local schoolchildren knew their way around the castle.
‘No, she lives here at the castle. She told me.’
‘She does, does she?’ Did one of the staff have a child they’d not told me about? But whose child could it be? Arthur and Dorothy were far too old to have a young child. Joey wasn’t a dad, was he? Perhaps it was Tiffany’s child? But she was a bit young too.
‘This is a child you’re talking about, isn’t it?’ I suddenly ask, in case Charlie has made friends with a dog or a cat or something. He’d said she’d spoken to him, but Charlie, being an only child, had a very, very vivid imagination, and talking to animals certainly wouldn’t be beyond the realms of his creativity.
‘Yeah,’ Charlie says indignantly. ‘Of course, she’s a kid like me.’
‘Sorry, of course she is, and she’s called Ruby?’
‘Yup, and she’s lived here at the castle for over a hundred years. She told me that, too.’
I blink a couple of times in disbelief. ‘Surely you misheard her, Charlie? She can’t possibly have lived here all that time now, can she?’
‘She can if she’s a ghost,’ Charlie says matter-of-factly. ‘Night, night, Mum.’ He yawns, pulling the duvet up around his ears. ‘I’m really tired now.’ And he closes his eyes. ‘See you in the morning.’
Ten
‘He said what?’ Tom asks as he puts down his axe for a moment and ceases chopping up the fallen tree that Arthur has tasked him with this morning.
‘He said his new friend Ruby was a ghost. I tried talking to him this morning at breakfast to see if he was making it up, but he’s adamant that’s what she is.’
Tom had eaten breakfast in the main kitchen with the rest of the staff. Apparently he’d settled in well last night and seemed to be a popular addition to the household with everyone but Arthur (as I suspected might be the case). Even Joey had taken this newcomer in his stride, and said that at least
he wouldn’t be left to do all of the manual labour on the castle estate now.
Although I already love our tower apartment, I do feel a little isolated up there with everyone else living in the main castle. But I guess isolation was the fate of many of the castle’s previous owners, and I’ll get used to it in time.
This morning, after Charlie had gone off with Arthur to look for a shield, I’d decided to see how Tom was getting on on his first morning with us. I hadn’t heard back from Benji, and although Tom seemed pleasant enough, I still didn’t really know that much about him.
I tried to make it seem like I wasn’t checking up on him by engaging him in casual conversation about Charlie, but I think Tom guessed my motives for coming to find him.
‘Kids have great imaginations at that age,’ Tom says, wiping some beads of sweat from his brow. ‘Even I had an imaginary friend when I was young.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yeah, of course. Didn’t you?’
I shake my head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
Tom surveys me for a moment, his steely blue eyes seeming to take in every part of me in one quick gaze. ‘Practical, are you?’ he suddenly asks.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, you excel in the logical aspects of life, not the creative ones. Your best subjects at school would probably have been maths, sciences, that sort of thing. You didn’t really understand artistic types, as you’d call them – you probably still don’t. Am I getting close?’
‘Perhaps,’ I reply, wondering how he could possibly know this about me.
‘Did you go to university?’ Tom enquires. ‘Wait, of course you did – you’d be far too organised not to have missed that opportunity. What did you study? Maths, chemistry?’
‘Business and economics, actually.’
Tom holds up his hands in a there-you-go gesture.
‘What did you study, then?’ I ask defiantly. ‘No, let me guess this one – it has to be history of art?’
Tom shakes his head. ‘Nope, you’re wrong. I didn’t need to go to uni. Got all the training I needed on the job.’
‘Of course you did,’ I say, wryly shaking my head. ‘Anyway, what does it matter what subjects I liked at school or what I studied at uni?’
