By lunchtime they were in even more need of a washing machine and a shower, but a lazy swim in the bay for half an hour would have to do.
They needed to be a little cleaner—they had a visitor to greet.
The trouble was, Ben didn’t know about this guest yet.
Aleksey had lots of excuses why he hadn’t told Ben, although he’d known a few days before they’d left home that it was definitely happening. They’d been busy finishing the last week of the summer holiday with the family. Then they’d had to get Miles started at his new school—lots of uniform to buy. But the fact he was making up justifications for not having the conversation he knew he should have had with Ben told Aleksey that it waspossiblehe was in the wrong about this. It wasn’t his island, it wastheirs, and therefore any and all decisions about it should be discussed and shared. So although most of the time Aleksey was quite willing to pretend they had become more normal and that therefore Ben was now an equal partner in their relationship, this new equity did not apply when the decisions were about things he, Aleksey, really wanted. In truth, as anyone with any common sense would quickly realise, he owned everything and controlled everything. He had not rationalised this to Ben, obviously, but when it came down to very important things, he didn’t want to be argued with all the time. It would be like being bossed around by the baby tyrant, only with more violence involved.
And he was doing this for Ben’s good.
That was the best excuse he’d thought up so far, and he was sticking with it.Hedidn’t want this visit, obviously. It was nothing tohim. No, Ben needed it.
His altruism in organising it, he was sure, would eventually be recognised.
But as they were dressing in front of the fire in the drawing room after their swim, he realised he could let this situation go on no longer. He went back up to their bedroom, averted his eyes from the bed, retrieved the newspaper, folded it to the incriminating article, and jogged back down to Ben.
Ben took the paper when it was thrust at him but kept his eyes firmly fixed on him. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing!’
‘Yet?’
‘What?’
‘It sounded as if there ought to be a yet on the end of that. You’ve been planning something, haven’t you? Something you’ve not told me.’ He glanced down. ‘What am I supposed to be reading?’
Aleksey pointed.
‘St Mary’s rolls out the flags for the royal visit. The Duke of Cornwall flies into Hugh Town on blah blah…What’s this to do with us?’
‘Phillipa’s coming with him.’
‘Doesn’t say that here. Wouldn’t it be dukeandduchess?’
‘No, she’s coming in a private capacity, just taking the opportunity to visit an old retainer on Benhar…spare seat…so after that we arranged—don’t look at me like that.’
Ben did what he asked and stopped looking at him at all. He just chucked the paper in his face and stormed off.
Yeah, he probably should have asked first.
But it was tricky. Ben would have said no—he didn’t want to see Phillipa. He had not, in fact, seen Phillipa since the incident in her bedroom the previous year, an occasion which Aleksey had heard much of from his ex, related in many amusing exaggerations over their various telephone conversations. But he’d not heard Ben’s version of those events. Aleksey was fairly sure Phillipa had not woken up to find Ben in bed with her. He was also relatively sanguine that Ben had not related to her some of the things they did together under the sheets to illustrate how much better their relationship was—although this was always the part of the story Phillipa seemed to relish relaying the most. No, Aleksey knew nothing about what Ben thought or didn’t think about that little episode, and so the silence had become a barrier between them. He wanted to be able to tell Ben about his late-night phone conversations, make him laugh at some of the things Phillipa said about her new not-sobeloved. But he could not, because this was just a minefield of hurt every time he broached it with Ben.
She had then mentioned this trip to Scilly, where she was going to spend the morning with Nanny One, whoever that was, and so had suggested she spend the afternoon with him, them, and finally see the island, of which she had now heard much, although not the parts that related to dead bodies, bio-weapons or Hitler. Which left out a lot, he knew, but kept the balance of power on his side, not hers, which was always essential.
And so it had been arranged.
He had not suggested to Ben that they have a week on the island expressly because this was when the royal visit to Scilly was scheduled—of course not. It was just a lucky coincidence. Which he hoped Ben wouldn’t query.
But if he’d known any of these plans, Ben would not have agreed to come. After all, this wasn’t like a surreptitious trip to Barton Combe, or even a visit by her to their Devon house, both of which were places Ben could just leave if he wanted—shoot off somewhere on his bike, or go for a run over to his friends’ new farmhouse. No, Ben was trapped here as effectively as if Aleksey had purposefully arranged this forced reconciliation. As if.
He sighed, finished dressing, picked up Ben’s t-shirt, and went to find the wilful one.
He stood outside Guillemot, pondering where Ben might be, then headed off towards the most obvious place.
Molly’s Drey, as the tree house had originally been called by Miles, had been renamed by the baby tyrant to The Crow’s Nest, because she’d seen one in one of her films and said drey was just a silly word that only a boy would use. So The Crow’s Nest it had become, and by the way Ben had constructed it around the trunk of a large beech tree, with ropes for rigging, it did resemble one of these structures. Ben, Aleksey had discovered, was extremely good at the practical aspects of construction. He should have remembered this from the way Ben had always stripped down engines and rebuilt them, and from the carpentry work he’d done in their Devon house when Molly had been a baby—various gates constructed of beautifully dovetailed oak—but this tree house was a genuine testament to his skills.
The beech tree grew in a southern glade in the woods between Guillemot and the sunlit sea, and so the house he’d constructed appeared to be something out of a fairy tale. In spring, the forest floor was carpeted by bluebells. In summer, the exotic flower species that had been brought back for La Luz from places as far flung as New Zealand and South Africa proliferated around the trees in wild profusion. Deciduous, the beech had been dense with brilliant green foliage whilst Ben was doing the construction, but now at the beginning of autumn, the leaves were starting to turn intense shades of red and gold.
The Crow’s Nest was accessed by a ladder which could be pulled up and let down by a clever pulley system they’d bought at the chandlers on St Mary’s. Originally a boat winch, Ben had repurposed it so it was easy for little hands to wind.
