“Don’t you have school work to do?” he looks no more than fifteen or sixteen.
A cloud passes over his face. “No.”
Have I hit a nerve?
“Who else lives here?” I ask to change the subject.
“Oh the best is Llewellyn.”
“Who is he?”
“Llewellyn is a genius. He runs the business hub and lots of people from around here come to work because he has all this legitimately cool computer stuff and a super-fast internet. He says he will teach me IT and computer programming and in a few years I can have a really good job. Then I’m going to walk into the school and show them how I’m getting more money that all of them. Stupid teachers.”
Despite the bravado, there’s a faint but clear note of anger under his words.
“School can be difficult to fit into.” I offer to soothe whatever raw nerve has been triggered.
“They’re evil. They excluded one boy for nothing but stealing an ice lolly and now he’s going to be a policeman. I just want to see when they have a proper break-in and they ask him for help. I should make them beg. They don’t care about students. They exclude you even if they know your big loser arsehole stepdadthreatened to throw you out of your home if you’re not going to school.”
I watch Wyn, all freckles and smiles, rummaging around cushions and bedside lamps. He seems very familiar with everything here, as if he lived here. Was he the boy kicked out of school and home? And not for any ice lolly. I remember what Welsh Hagrid told me about the tricks kids played in the village
“There’s a man who helped me find this house. I don’t know his name. He’s tall and big with masses of bushy hair and beard.”
Wyn gives me a blank look. “What’s his name?”
“No idea. But he looks like Hagrid.”
A gleam of recognition in Wyn’s eyes. “Like fromHarry Potter?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“No.”.
“You’ll need a hand carrying all this?” Alex calls to us as he comes out of another door. What did you get?”
Despite my earlier concern about taking advantage of Wyn, I did get lost in all the beautiful things under dust sheets and have chosen lots of things all stacked up just outside the double doors to the North Wing. The best is a lovely silver framed mirror, but I’ve also rescued two delicate bedside tables, and a silk covered chaise longue and, thinking about the precious antique floorboards, a rolled-up rug.
Without letting me object, Alex and Wyn grab one end of the bed each and they carry it together. I follow with the bedside cabinets, one under each arm.
The leave me to arrange the room as they go back and forth and bring all the pieces. Haneen has left me a stack of bed linen and towels.
“This is starting to look like nice boudoir,” Alex says at last when everything is arranged and the room does indeed look like a something from Downton Abby. “Wyn,” he turns to the boy. “Why don’t you take the cleaning bucket back to the kitchen.”
Wyn, surprises me by complying with out a demur.
“I’ve never known a teenager to be so well behaved?” I say after he’s gone.
“Don’t be fooled,” Alex walks around the room checking places in the wall where the paint needs touching up. “He can get up to all sorts and often did before Evan took him in hand.”
“Erm… Alex, I wated to ask you something?”
He turns around and fixes me with a very attentive look, it makes me feel like one of the antique Versailles floor tiles.
“I wanted to give him something for his work. He really—”
“Oh no,” He quickly interrupts me. “Please don’t. Evan is very strict about this. Did the boy ask you to pay him? He shouldn’t have.”
“No, no. He said he was a volunteer, I just don’t want to take advantage of him.”
