Three

Back then, I was sure my sister hated me. I was certain the resentment she felt at having to look after me when our parents died was a little too all-consuming for her to love me properly. She’d been married to Luke just over a year when the accident happened. They’d just moved into their first home - Luke was born in Jersey and they’d met online before she’d moved here to be with him. They were newlyweds looking forward to starting their own life together and then I, a moody, bookish eight-year-old who’d just lost his parents, was foisted upon her.

I was a ‘surprise’ to my parents, born the year after my sister left home for university. I’m not sure what they were thinking, or if they’d been thinking at all; they’d just gotten rid of one child and now here was another one to tie them down for a further eighteen years. Since I’d popped out when my sister was eighteen, our relationship had never been a usual sibling one. We’d never lived in the same house and we had no shared childhood memories. She’d stopped being a child long before I came along and so when I moved into the house she shared with Luke, I was like a blood relative she didn’t know very well.

If my sister had been a different sort of person, our lack of a sibling connection might have made it easier for her to fall into the role she’d been expected to take up. But my sister wasn’t a very maternal person. It wasn’t a failing, it just didn’t seem to be in her genetic make-up at all. She wasn’t warm or particularly loving and in fact, there was a distinct coldness to her that made little sense to me since my mother had been almost overbearing in her affection for people. At least, that’s how I remember her. Smothering, but kind, open-hearted and generous.

So my sister’s teary emotional reaction to being pregnant was a bigger shock than the news itself.

Also, it meant we would have to move.

Luke and Beth still lived in the quaint two bedroom house they’d had since they got married and now we needed a nursery. They spoke about it over dinner, about how they could have the cot in their bedroom for a little while, but obviously not long term. My sister had given me a look that made me think she was going to ask me to move out, but then Luke reached across and grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

“You’re gonna be a big brother, Judey. How you feeling?”

“Uncle,” I corrected. “I’m gonna be an uncle.”

“Now you’ll know how it feels.” He grinned. ‘You scared? It’s fine if you are.”

I didn’t know what to say. How was I feeling? I was definitely a little scared. Unsettled. Anxious. Sort of too big for my own skin as my sister stared at me and mentally redecorated my room into a nursery.

“I’m looking forward to it.” I settled on, and Luke squeezed my hand again.

“We can start looking at places tonight,” he said, turning to Beth. “I’m sure there’s enough equity in this place by now. And if not, I can leverage some against Green’s.”

Beth nodded, biting her lip. “Well, now that I’m pregnant, my chance at promotion is stymied until I’m back from maternity leave, at least. And the holiday will need to be off. We’ll need every spare penny we can save, babe.”

Luke nodded and shovelled a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth.

I had one thought in my head and it wasn’t babies or holidays or nurseries. It was whether this meant I wasn’t going to get my new laptop.

Three weeks later, the answer to everyone’s prayers came from a most unexpected source:

Caspien.

The sun wasn’t as hot as that first day we’d come, but there was little wind and even less cloud cover, so it wasn’t far off it. When it was lunchtime, we retreated inside out of the blaze to eat in the house’s large, mainly unused kitchen. Stone walls and floor and high windows kept the space cool, and I slunk onto the bench and pressed my back against the cold wall.

Luke was talking about the baby, about names and his hopes that if it were a boy, he’d like dinosaurs and space, and how if it were a girl, she’d look like Beth when Caspien walked in. Today, he was wearing a striped blue and white linen shirt – too big as always – and white shorts some way above the knee. His long hair was twisted up into a knot like a girl’s, though some wisps of blonde tangled about his face. He wasn’t wearing his slippers today but strode towards the fruit bowl, feet bare and smooth legs lightly tanned.

He looked …ridiculous.

No boy I knew would be seen dead dressed like that. Not in front of another boy. Men, even.

But Caspien looked relaxed. Cool and clean and refreshed. He looked French or something.

He snatched up a bright green apple, tossed it into the air, then took a bite of it. When he turned, Luke swallowed his mouthful of tea and lifted his hand in a friendly wave.

“Caspien, how’s things?” Luke asked in that same friendly tone he used with everyone.

I hadn’t seen them interact before and didn’t know how Caspien might react. I braced myself for some scathing comment.

I almost choked on my water when he smiled. I’d never seen him smile before – properly smile – and it made my stomach feel funny.

“Fine, Mr Green, trying not to expire in this disgusting heat. It must be hellish out there.”

“I’ve told you, it’s just Luke. And we’re used to it, aren’t we, lads?” Luke smiled amiably. Harry and Ged mumbled their assent through their sandwiches.

“Make sure you take regular breaks out of the heat and help yourselves to the water in the fridge,” Caspien was saying. Kindly.

My eyes were wide, my mouth too. Who on earth was this person?

“Will do, will do. Thanks, lad.”

Caspien smiled and moved to pour two glasses of water himself before turning to offer us one. When we accepted, he walked over and refilled all our glasses from a jug with ice and lemon, with calm, steady hands. Even mine.

He didn’t look at me as he did it.

“Oh, Luke has some news,” Ged said to Caspien. Like they were friends. Like he might care. Like he was a normal person who could hold a conversation without biting like a small, blonde, venomous snake.

“News?” Caspien asked, eyebrows raised in interest. He glanced expectantly at Luke.

I was still staring at Caspien like he had grown a second head. I honestly did not recognise this person as the same one who’d spat gypsy at me outside on the first day, or the word arboretum at me last week. They were two distinctly different people, and I didn’t understand why I hadn’t been allowed to meet this one when Luke, Ged, and Harry had. Something hot and bitter simmered in my veins.

“Yeah, Beth’s pregnant,” Luke said, face undeniably filled with joy and happiness.

“You’re going to be a dad?” Caspien said, eyebrows raising. “That’s amazing, Mr. Green. Congratulations! You’ll be smashing.”

Smashing.I almost snorted. Who said ‘smashing’ like that? What was he, fifty?

“Ah, thanks, thanks. We’re excited.” Luke glanced at me. “Means we have to move, but it’s time we got a bigger place anyway.”

Caspien frowned. “You’re moving?”

“Well, not yet. But we’ve been looking. We’ll have to go a bit out of town to get something for our budget, but we’ll make it work.” He was smiling wide, but I felt guilty all over again. For taking the room that should have been a nursery. For existing.

Caspien was biting his lip thoughtfully. “Will that mean you can’t work for Uncle Gideon anymore?”

“God, no, ‘course not. Just means we have to drive a bit longer in the mornings. Which is no bad thing, Judey is great company first thing.”

My head snapped towards Luke, who winked at me.

“Judey,” Caspien repeated, eyes darkening with something I didn’t like. “Is he now?”

“Nah, he’s a bit of a grump first thing, truth be told. Takes him at least an hour to wake up.”

My cheeks felt hot. From the fact that Caspien knew anything about how I woke up, that he knew Luke called me Judey. That we had to move a little out of town because Luke couldn’t afford a bigger house in Gorey.

I slid a weird half-smile at Luke and stood. “Need the toilet,” I said and tried not to run as I put distance between me and the pony-tailed boy at my back.

The moment Beth got through the door, Luke had told her. Beth listened intently, confusion growing with each word.

“I don’t understand,” Beth exclaimed a little breathless.

Luke was grinning wide. “It’s crazy, right? But it’s perfect, babe. Wait until you see it.”

“He’s just…giving it to you, rent-free?”

“To us.” Luke seemed to remember I was there and turned to where I sat on the sofa, gripping the second-hand copy of 1984 in my lap. “I mean, it needs some work, but nothing I can’t do myself. He said if we accept it, he’d get contractors in straight away to check the essentials: electrics, water, heating. The decoration I can do when I’m not working. It’s perfect, Beth. You’ll love it.”

“Why would he do this?” Beth shook her head, genuinely confused.

I couldn’t blame her. I was, too. I’d seen the cottage, and it was in fine condition. It would rent for a fortune if he’d wanted to do that. Four bedrooms, a large living room, a generous garden at the front, an even bigger one at the back that looked out onto a lake. A lake. And Lord Sir Gideon Deveraux was offering it to Luke and Beth, and me, to help us out.

It made no sense. But it was happening. It had happened.

Before we’d finished up for the day, Gideon called Luke in for a chat about the contract while we waited in the vans. I half wanted Luke to come back and tell us Gideon was unhappy with our work and that we should finish up at the end of the week. That way, I’d never have to look at Caspien Deveraux again. Of course, that would be a disaster for Luke, Beth and the baby, and I didn’t want that.

Not really.

As we drove back, Luke told me what Gideon had said. He was offering Luke a job, and it wasn’t the one we’d come here to do. He was offering Luke the job of head groundsman at Deveraux House.

He said there hadn’t been a live-in groundsman at Deveraux House for almost twenty years. Luke had told him that he owned Green’s Gardening Group and that he’d not want to give up his own business. Gideon had an answer for that, too. He’d invest in Green’s to allow Luke to hire a regional manager if he wished. Maybe they could even set up a satellite branch on the mainland.

Then Luke could help restore Deveraux, which would look great on the company testimonial page while keeping Green’s running, too. The icing on the cake was that it was a live-in position. It came with a four-bedroom, two-storey stone cottage about a mile from Deveraux on the eastern side of the estate. This was all incredibly fortuitous and completely unbelievable to me as I sat there, stunned. But the most incredible part was still to come: Gideon had said that my living on the estate meant I could be of some company to Caspien. Caspien, who didn’t really have any friends in this country and who could benefit from hanging out with someone his own age.

“No way. I hate him,” I told Luke when I finally lifted my jaw from the van’s footbed.

“Oh, come on. He’s a little posh, sure, but he’s got a good heart.”

I glowered at Luke. “Actually, I’m not sure he has one at all, Luke.”

“Judey,” he chided. “You know, I’m sure it was his idea.”

I laughed at that but it came out sounding all weird. “That we be friends? I doubt it; he bloody hates me.”

Luke glanced at me sideways. “Thought you hated him?”

“Well, it’s both. We hate each other. We’re not gonna be friends, Luke.”

“Hmmm. Well, let’s see,” said Luke diplomatically. “But no, I meant the cottage. I think he was the one who suggested it to Deveraux. It had to have been. How’d Gideon know we needed a new place to live for the baby?”

This made a strange crawling sensation move over my chest.

“Well, maybe he just mentioned to his uncle about the baby, and it was Deveraux’s idea.” I’m not sure why I hated the notion that Caspien had done something…thoughtful. Something that had helped us out. Something nice for someone. I thought about the way he’d spoken with Luke, all soft and sweet and polite, and I hated that too. He didn’t fool me. He was a nasty little shit, and if he had been the one to suggest it, then I was certain there was something underhand in it.

Except right now, I couldn’t figure out what that might be.

“He said we can drive up and see it tonight. Or tomorrow, whatever you want. But it’s perfect, Bethy. I think you’re gonna love it,” Luke told her. He was literally shining with joy. Beth was uncertain, like she wanted to let go of the edge and fall into full-blown joy but was scared to.

“What did you think of it?” she asked me.

I was so shocked that she cared what I thought at all that I just blinked at first, thoughts trying to scramble into something I could voice. Neighbours with Caspien? Seeing him more than I already did? Even when school started again, and I didn’t have to work with Luke, there was gonna be the potential to see him every day. I hated the thought of it. It made my gut ache.

But if we moved there it would mean they didn’t need to use all their savings on a new place, and she’d maybe hate me less, and I probably wouldn’t have to change schools.

School.

Caspien went to school in Switzerland.

When school started, he’d leave. I wouldn’t have to see him for months, if at all.

He’d leave, I’d still get my new laptop, and things would go back to the way they were before. And it was a nice cottage.

“It was nice,” I said finally. “I liked it.”

Beth smiled, biting her lips. Then she nodded. “Okay, let’s go see it tomorrow.”

I wonder now just how different things would have been had Beth hated the Groundsman cottage. I’d likely never have seen Caspien again after that summer. He’d have been a boy I’d had some weird feelings about when I was fifteen. That would have been it. But she hadn’t hated it.

She’d taken one look at its ivy-covered walls, white window trims, and stone path leading up to the front door, and almost squealed.

Gideon got contractors in that same week. Luke would do some work on it when he could this summer, and we’d move in when school stopped in October – that way it wouldn’t interfere too much with my schedule.

It did mean that there was a possibility Caspien would be there while we carried our stuff into the house. He’d probably sneer at our furniture from his horse. I could only hope fancy schools in Switzerland had different holidays from normal English ones.