He nodded, phone already out. “Yeah. One of the resident vets and his girlfriend have family over so we’ve let them use our house. They’re looking after the practice too and Wren’s got a meeting with the university about a new project so it’s all worked out.”
“You don’t want to buy this place?” Callum was the only one who didn’t live in London or have a property here.
“No. It’s free to stay at your house whenever we want, so I’ll stick with that. Rose was asking for another pet, by the way.”
“What was it this time?” Rose was definitely working her way around asking my siblings for things and favours now she knew they were all aware of what was coming up.
“A pair of rats that she can train. Not a bad idea for her. I have two that we took in that she could have. Healthy, clever things. What do you think?” Callum folded his arms, leaning against the doorframe.
We were all in exactly the same positions as we had been many times before, when he’d stopped by Payton’s room looking for me or her and we’d ended up talking. He was the middle child, who’d been the youngest, the link between the older three and the younger three.
“Ask her mum.”
Payton laughed, opening and closing a drawer. “That’s such a cop out. Georgia will probably say yes though. Rose’s asked me to choose her a bookcase from here for her room. And she asked if ‘Uncle Owen’s got any spare books to fill it.’”
I shook my head. My daughter was taking the piss. “She’s taking advantage. Tell her no. She can have the bookcase, but she can do something to earn the books – get her writing reviews to go up in the stores or something.”
“That’s a good idea. I think Owen’ll just give her half an hour in the store after it’s closed and tell her to fill her boots.” Payton stood up and headed to the door. “Let’s go and investigate the secret room. You could get her a couple of rats from there.”
“Jesus, don’t suggest that to Mum. She’ll burn the place down.” Callum shook his head. “Let’s go and explore this room again. I don’t think I can even remember it properly.”
It had possibly been a more secret room for the last decade than at any time in its history, except for a pile of stuff that’d been left near the entrance,
The secret room was at the end of the walk-in larder, down in what would’ve been the servant’s quarters. There were hooks on the back, so when you saw that wall, you didn’t realise that a door was there, the door being thickly plastered and blending in with the wall.
Behind it was a substantial sized room, fairly narrow, but long and who knew what it’d been used for in the past. Jacksonhad found it by accident when they first moved in, then ended up in the room not sure how to get back out for some reason, so Marie thought she’d lost him.
She hadn’t. Max discovered him four hours later, after the police had been called and half of London had been out looking for him, only coming across the room because he’d been hungry and the larder was where the biscuits had been stored.
After that, it became the place where children hid or met up for ghost stories or had wanted to be to avoid adults. I’d even slept in there once when I’d stumbled home from a law society ball when I was in my early twenties, not wanting Dad to find me in my room or somewhere in the house vomiting back up the shots I’d sunk.
It’d stayed full of crap from our childhood, including, when we put the lights on, marks on the wall showing our heights as we’d grown, including Max, Jackson, Claire and Callum’s heights when they first moved in.
“There’s your Mills and Boon collection, Payts.” I pointed at the stack of books that she’d read in secret because she thought Marie would’ve said they were too grown up for her. “Take them home to Owen. Give him some tips.”
She picked one up off the top. “This is actually Black Lace which were a lot spicier. And I’m not showing Owen as any of that business is off the cards until he’s had the snip.” Her smile was as evil as Claire’s could be at her very worst.
“Poor guy.” Callum was looking at the newer pile of stuff. “This had been put here recently.”
I looked over at him. “What is it?”
“It’s Mum and Dad’s stuff. Photo albums.” He started looking through one. “Shit, this is from when they were in New York.”
Payton was next to him before I was, sitting on one of the camping chairs that were probably a health and safety hazardthey were that old. The room was warm and dry though, so they could’ve been worse.
“Look at this. Dad’s written notes on the back of each photo. This one says on the back that it’s the first photo he’s taken with his new camera.” He closed the album. “Hang on, let’s get Max and Jackson and see what they remember.” He went to the larder door and yelled for them both, the noise seriously too loud.
A minute or so later and both of our older brothers joined us, muttering shit about us being time-wasters and we were due for Sunday lunch at Roast.
“Look at this.” Callum waved the first photo under their noses. “Did Dad buy a camera when he was in New York?”
It was Max who nodded. “He did. He wanted to have photos to show us when he got back. I think it was about the same time he remembered he actually had kids who wanted to know about him.”
I looked at Max, surprised by the sound in his voice because he hadn’t spoken like that about Dad for years.
“Did he tell you about the photos when he got back?” I put my hand on Max’s shoulder, still secretly pleased I was an inch taller than him.
“I remember the day we got them developed. Dad and Marie got home on a Saturday and by the following weekend we were staying in a suite in a hotel so we could look at houses that week. We saw this on the Monday and it was a done deal that week. Marie went into a mad panic buying furniture for it and paying extra to get everything done extra quick. That was the week they decided to get married quick too. Bernadette was with us as well. I remember thinking how bonkers she was.” He was smiling now, his shoulders relaxing.
