The Legacy, Caroline Bond [popular books to read txt] 📗

to be honest with Freddie. ‘But not in the morning. Me, your mum and Auntie Chloe have some things we need to sort out.’

‘About what to do with Grandpa?’

‘Sort of.’ Noah wondered what Freddie had overheard.

‘Maybe we could go in the afternoon?’

You couldn’t fault the kid for trying. And it was, Noah sentimentally and possibly a little emotionally recognised, nice to be wanted – by somebody. He stroked Freddie’s hair. ‘We’ll see. But I’m not promising.’ Getting Lily to bed was never this straightforward. Noah patted Freddie’s head one more time. ‘Light on or off, Fredster?’

‘On, please. Just till I get to sleep.’

‘Right you are. Goodnight, mate.’ Lulled by the wine and the calm mood in the bedroom, Noah bent down and dropped a kiss on Freddie’s cheek.

‘Uncle No?’

‘What?’

‘Grandpa isn’t still here, is he?’ Freddie asked.

Noah was caught off-guard. ‘Here?’

Freddie lay still and serious under the covers. ‘In the house.’

‘No, Freddie. He’s not still here.’ Noah didn’t elaborate on where precisely Grandpa was. That was a conversation best left to Liv.

‘Okay.’ It seemed enough to reassure Freddie. Noah was relieved. Trust was a lovely thing. His nephew closed his eyes. ‘Night-night, Uncle No. See you in the morning.’

‘Night-night. Sleep tight. Mind the bedbugs don’t bite.’

On the landing Noah stopped to regroup. His conversation with Freddie had lowered his guard, allowing a softness to creep in that he knew was dangerous. He could hear his sisters’ voices down in the lounge, an uneven see-saw of words, more weight on Liv’s side than on Chloe’s. Megan had said very little all evening, which was understandable, but unnerving. Her silent, submissive presence was like a reproach. She was probably still standing in the hall, waiting to be called upon to make more coffee or fetch another duvet – a martyr to the bitter end. He thought about his half-finished glass of wine on the mantelpiece, being warmed by the fire. The View was a big house with old windows. No matter how hard the radiators laboured away, there were always pockets of chilliness and untraceable draughts. But instead of heading downstairs back into the bosom of his family, Noah went into his room.

Except it wasn’t really ‘his’ bedroom.

It pissed Noah off that Megan had put him in the worst room in the house. It was a decent size, but it was dark, featureless and, most depressing of all – in a house called The View – it was view-less. No, that wasn’t quite true; should you bother to stick your head out of the window, you were rewarded with a glimpse of the garage roof, the bins and the property next door. Noah sat on the bed, a small double, and took in the anonymity of the room. On the floor under the window, Megan had set up a bed for Lily – a single inflatable mattress, which was possibly one of the surviving relics from their family camping trips. She had bothered to pick out some pretty bed linen and, from somewhere, had found an old doll, one of Chloe’s perhaps, which was propped on the pillow. Thoughtful touches that his daughter wouldn’t get to see. Another chink briefly opened up in Noah’s barricades. But the thought of Freddie and Arthur settled in their proper beds, in their own room – his old room – next door to Liv and Angus, who had been given the big bedroom at the back overlooking the sea, helped to shore up his defences.

Liv always seemed to come out on top, by design and by right. Her two kids trumped his one. Her big, present husband of ten years obviously outweighed his small, absent, live-in lover of five. Her noble profession, administering to the sick, made his freelance gig as a hotel assessor seem more like self-indulgence than work. (Sometimes, when he looked at his income per month, he had to agree.) The family pecking order was still being observed, even without his father to impose it.

Noah pulled out his phone and contemplated trying to call Josie, but her text had been unequivocal.

It’s been a long day. We’re going to have an early night. Speak tomorrow.

In other words… leave us alone! And why press ‘return’ and leave speak tomorrow hanging there, like a threat? Noah badly wanted to reach out to them, but the thought of stoking Josie’s anger stopped him even texting, Goodnight, sleep tight, as he always did when he was away. How fucked up was that? He couldn’t even say ‘goodnight’ to his own child. His stony exchange with Josie before he’d set off for Scarborough had been full of repressed anger. It was going to take time and a huge effort to dig those splinters out. Josie had been clear: their daughter was her priority, not him. The added implication that one child was more than enough to be dealing with at any given time had stung – though it was, of course, justified. Immaturity: it was a tag Noah was sick and tired of.

The depressing room only added to his creeping self-pity. The patterned curtains, the balding carpet with its indentations from furniture past, the precarious pile of old games on the top of the wardrobe – it all smacked of neglect. But there was no avoiding it: this was his ‘home’ for the next couple of days, and a crap room without a view was a small inconvenience in the grand scale of things. He stood up and grabbed his bag, intending to unpack, but when he went to put his few bits of clothing away in the wardrobe, he was confronted by a row of bulky winter coats and waterproof jackets. It looked like a full ski-lift. He yanked open a drawer. It was full of sheets. In the end he stuffed his clothes back into his bag.

This room had always been the one least used in the whole house – it had never been a family bedroom. For a brief period his mother had designated it their playroom,