‘Great! I’m so happy for you.’
Her eyes sparkle under the chandelier. ‘Thank you, Kate – for everything. I can’t tell you how much it helped to have you there with me, with Ruthie gone.’
‘Oh, Alice. It was a pleasure, really.’
‘You know, it was never a happy place for me.’
‘I gathered that,’ I say cautiously.
‘It never felt like a proper home,’ she continues. ‘It was all about the B&B – the paying guests. I don’t want to sound self-pitying but I always fended for myself.’
‘You’re the least self-pitying person I’ve ever met.’ I catch her gaze and she shrugs. ‘Is that why you had the tiniest room when you were a child? Because all the others were guest rooms?’
‘Yes and, crazy as it sounds, they still felt that way when you and I were there together. As if I didn’t belong in them and wouldsullythem just by going in. My father argued with Mum about it, saying I deserved a nicer room as a child, and not that gloomy little cave, as he put it. But she wouldn’t back down and I loved that little room, actually. It was the only part of that big old house that felt truly mine.’
Our lunch arrives, and although we fall into chatting about her son, and my family, I sense she is holding something back. ‘Can I ask you something?’ she asks finally, when our table has been cleared.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘You’re a gut-instinct person, aren’t you, Kate?’
‘I never thought I was,’ I reply. ‘I’d always wanted to feel secure and steady, and that’s probably why I jumped straight into life with Vince. But lately...’ I think of my bathroom window escape, and the fact that I didn’t hop off that Glasgow-bound train before it pulled out of Euston. ‘I think maybe I am,’ I add.
‘So, I have dilemma here,’ Alice explains. ‘The couple who want to buy Osprey House are lovely. I know they’d make a great job of it...’
‘But...?’ I prompt her.
‘But I don’t want to sell it, Kate. It’s insane, I know. But since Ruthie died our place here just hasn’t felt the same, and I miss hertoomuch—’ She cuts off, catching my surprise. ‘Did I mention that we lived together?’
‘No, you didn’t,’ I say.
‘Platonically, I mean. But actually...’ Alice smiles, her face filled with sunshine and memories ‘...she was my wife. My platonic wife. We were just this perfect pair, and it worked beautifully, and we always said we’d share a cutlery drawer until one of us died.’ She stops and tilts her head, checking my reaction. ‘Does that sound strange?’
‘Living with the woman you love?’ I smile too. ‘It sounds perfect.’
Alice chuckles. ‘Well, you know, I think about her all the time but time’s passing. I can’t stay in that flat, keeping it as some sort of shrine. Ruthie wouldn’t want that. She was the adventurous one who planned our trips to India and South America. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d have been sitting with a cocktail by a pool.’
‘So... what are you going to do?’ I ask.
‘I want to take Osprey House off the market, Kate. I want to sell my flat and move up there and run the place myself.’
‘Are you sure?’ I try to picture her alone up there, in her mid-seventies, rattling around in all those empty rooms. ‘But I thought you weren’t happy there?’
‘It’s different now,’ she asserts. ‘It feels as if it’s filled with possibilities. And I was thinking, I loved my students when I was still lecturing. Young people make me feel alive and vital and I’ve missed that so much. So I was thinking I could have groups of students staying. Young people on geography field trips or art students who want to immerse themselves in the landscape. Or urban teenagers who don’t have the chance to get out to the countryside.’ Her face is flushed, her eyes shining brightly. ‘I don’t need to make money from it. I just want to do this, and bring the old house back to life.’
‘I think it sounds wonderful,’ I say.
‘Morag is in on the idea,’ she goes on, ‘so we could manage it together. I mean, I’m no spring chicken.’ She laughs lightly. ‘But we’d run it so the young people all pitch in and help, and it’s a community thing.’
‘Alice, I think you should do it.’
She beams at me and squeezes my arm. ‘Darling, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear. You’re so smart. You always know the right thing to do.’
After lunch we stroll to her flat. She’d described it as a shoebox but in fact it’s quite beautiful. On the second floor of a mansion block, it has gleaming parquet floors, tasteful mid-century furniture and a balcony overlooking leafy communal gardens. The dogs race towards me, a blur of ears and tongues and tiny feet. I spot a window box housing shrivelled plants. Presumably these were once tended by Ruthie.
Alice makes tea and we step out onto the balcony. ‘So you’d really feel okay selling this place?’ I ask.
‘Oh, yes. I’m way too young to retire, Kate.’ She catches my eye and laughs. When it’s time for me to leave she insists on clipping on the dogs’ leads and walking me to the tube station. Christmas decorations sparkle the whole way along her local high street.
