Chapter 20

20

I find myself taking a deep breath as I stand outside my grandad's room. This will either go well or very, very badly. Raising my hand, I knock and wait. And wait… and wait.

I know damn well he's in there. Ellis said he hasn't left his room in decades, not since my father died and we left. A small kernel of guilt lodges in my chest and no matter what I do, I can't seem to dislodge it. I may have only been a kid at the time, and Mom did what she had to do, but I can't help thinking about the fact we had each other and then Warren and Royce. Grandad had no one, and he'd lost his wife as well as his only son.

Turning up now is probably too little too late, but I have to give it a shot. Not to soothe my conscience or because of some misplaced sense of guilt, not even out of pity, but because I'm his only remaining family and I want to get to know him. I'm glad he has Ellis and the others. They all stepped up and took care of him when we didn't.

Maybe we should have.

I shake my head—going around in circles isn't going to help. Raising my hand to knock again, I freeze when the door opens a crack and my grandfather's face appears, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as he looks me up and down.

"Oh, it's you," he mutters. "Should've known. Ellis just knocks and walks straight in."

"Hi," I greet him awkwardly. It's weird looking at him. It's like looking at a much older version of myself in the mirror, not just his features but right down to the drawn-down brows and the glower. "Can we talk?"

He stares at me for a moment and huffs, then turns around and disappears, leaving the door to swing open. Right or wrong, I take that as an invitation, however gruffly offered. I step inside and close the door behind me with a quiet click.

Grandad doesn't stop or sit down, he just continues across the room, his slippers making a swishing sound on the carpet. He enters another room and leaves that door open as well. I stand uncomfortably in his sitting room, not sure if I should follow or not.

"Are you coming in or not?" he shouts in annoyance after a moment. "I haven't got all day. I could be dead soon."

My mouth twitches and I remind myself to have patience. After all, this is probably going to be me in fifty years. I head through the doorway, only to draw up short and stare, my mouth falling open. I think I'd expected this to be his bedroom, but instead it's a huge room with the largest train set I've ever seen set up in it.

There's enough space to walk the periphery of the room, the train table sitting right in the middle. Clearly custom-made, it's a massive oval shape with the centre cut away so you could stand in the middle of it. I'm guessing it has a hinged pass-through somewhere to access it.

The table itself is covered with tiny fields and valleys, tunnels and stations. There's a little village and some roads, and tiny little people stand along the platforms edging the train tracks. The tracks themselves wind around the table and intersect at little signal boxes and sidings. A small version of the Flying Scotsman chugs around one track, pulling pretty passenger carriages. On a second track is a goods train with trucks and cargo.

I draw in a breath and kneel so I'm at eye level with the table and can study the details. It must have taken years to build this… or decades , I think, glancing up at my grandfather, who watches me intently.

"You built this?" I rise, taking in the small paint stains on his fingers and a half-finished cow shed sitting on top of a piece of folded newspaper on a table behind him.

He shrugs.

"It's incredible," I tell him.

"It helps kill the time until I die." He shrugs again and shuffles towards the small table where he picks up the cow shed and resumes painting with a thin paintbrush. The table's obviously his work desk; it's covered in plastic containers filled with grass, trees, and shrubs. Spare tracks, tiny pots of model paint, and jam jars filled with different sized brushes also litter the surface.

"You bought me my first train set," I murmur as another memory flickers through my mind. "For Christmas, when I was little."

He pauses his painting for a second but doesn't look at me. "You were three."

"I'm sorry," I say quietly and although he still doesn't look at me, I can tell he's listening because the strokes of his brush have slowed and he's painting the same spot over and over. "I should've come to see you sooner."

He doesn't respond so I keep talking. Maybe it's easier this way. I can get out everything I need to say in one go.

"I barely remember being here. Mom told me that the therapist said I'd repressed my memories because of the trauma of losing my dad, and I guess… I guess it was easier to stay away as I got older because I didn't think you'd want to see me."

He stops what he's doing and finally looks up at me, those dark eyes so turbulent and so similar to my own.

He opens his mouth to say something, then stops and stares at me for several long moments. "Did you have a good life?" he finally asks. "In America, with your mother?"

"Yes," I say honestly. "My stepfather was a good man. He loved me like I was his own and treated me and Mom well. I have a brother too. We were inseparable when we were younger, and we're still very close now."

He continues to watch me, something working behind that pensive gaze. "I'm glad," he says. "Your mother was right, you were better off. There was nothing here for you but sadness."

"Once perhaps, but I'm here now," I murmur. "Can't we start over?"

"You look like him." He nods to the wall behind me.

When I first entered the room, my attention had been captured by the trains, and I'd missed the walls. The walls filled with framed photographs of me, I realise with a start. The first six years of my life captured in colour. Not just me, though; my mom is in some of the pictures, so young and happy. Grandad is there too, with an attractive woman who I think was my grandmother. There's a fleeting recognition there, a brief memory of the smell of violets and of being held gently.

Finally, my gaze lands on the pictures of my dad. Elliott Ashton-Drake. I could have been his twin when I was in my twenties, but now I've already outlived him by over ten years. It's hard to think he only made it to his twenty-ninth birthday, so that's where our similarity ended. He never had the chance to age, instead remaining that smiling young man immortalised in photos. It hurts deep inside, in a place that I'd thought had long since healed.

A life cut short, and so many people hurt.

I take my time studying the pictures, ones I've never seen before. My mother had told me once when I was ten years old that she had a photograph of my father for me. That if I wanted it, I could have it. Most of the pictures of him she'd left here because at the time she hadn't intended to make the move permanent, but there was one picture of the two of them, a strip they'd taken in a photo booth when they'd first met.

She'd seemed so sad when she offered me the last part of my father she had, and I hadn't wanted her to be sad, so I said no. I didn't need to see it, and we never spoke of it again.

Now, seeing the story of his life told in still images hurts in a way I never allowed it to before. I pause at a picture of me and Dad together. I don't know where we are, but I can't be more than four or five. I'm sitting in the cab of a locomotive and grinning widely with his arms around me.

"We took you to The National Rail Museum in York that day." He nods towards the photo. "It was like all your Christmases had come at once. You cried for an hour when it was time to take you home. Wanted to take all the trains home with you. I think you'd have had them all parked on the front lawn if we'd let you." He chuckles and it's so unexpected that I find myself staring at him in surprise.

"Elliott got all the sunshine in the family," he continues as he keeps his eyes on his model and half-heartedly swipes the paintbrush over it. "Got that from his mother. You always took after me. Grumpy little shit when you didn't get your own way. Bossy too."

"The apple didn't fall too far from the tree, then." I raise one brow, and he looks up and grins, which transforms his whole face.

"No," he says. "Just skipped a generation. Ellis reminds me a lot of your dad. Kind and sweet, smiley. Always ready to help, always thinking of other people, sometimes to the detriment of himself. I suppose that's why I took to the lad. That and the fact that you can't help but love that boy even if you tell yourself not to."

I know he's talking about himself, but it hits a little too close to home, and I turn to the photos while my heartbeat settles.

"Ellis says you don't leave your rooms." I turn back to him once I have my equilibrium under control once more.

He shrugs. "It wasn't a conscious decision. I didn't wake up one morning and say to myself, I'm never leaving this room again. It happened so gradually. A day became a week, a month… a year… ten. There was nothing left out there for me."

"But there is. There's Ellis, Rosie, Aggie. People who care about you."

He shakes his head. "There were always other people around, guests, and I don't much like strangers. I'm too old to be bothered with being civil to people."

"Why make it a hotel then?" I ask curiously.

"My older brother inherited the house, but he was a consummate gambler and a drunk on top of it. He lost every last penny of the family fortune, which wasn't that plentiful to start with. Our bloodline seems to have an inordinate amount of scoundrels, drunks, and gamblers. They've always been good at marrying into money and lousy at keeping it or their marriage vows. Clifford spent every last penny and took out several loans. Then, rather than face the consequences of his choices, he ended up with the easy way out. Heart attack in his sleep, leaving me to clean up his mess as usual. We barely managed. We were just scraping by when you came along."

"So you decided to open the house as a hotel?" I guessed.

"Actually, it was your father's idea," he replies. "Elliott thought it was the perfect solution. We poured every last penny we had into the place to pay for the renovations. Elliott was going to manage the hotel while I cared for your grandmother, who was very poorly by then. She had MS and it had worsened. Then she died and everything snowballed from there. The work had been done to the house, but we had to delay opening as a hotel while we paid for the funeral and dealt with our grief. Then Elliott…" He trails off and breathes heavily.

"I'm so sorry," I whisper, not knowing what else to say to him.

"I was in no fit state to run a hotel, but I'd already committed and all the money was tied up in it. Aggie, who was already the cook here and had been for years, had a cousin who ran a hotel in Strathclyde. He agreed to come and stay for a few months while his wife ran their hotel. He came in and interviewed staff, trained them, got a manager in place, and I left them all to it."

"You left them to it?" I parrot.

"In the beginning, they'd report back to me, but as the years went on, I was less and less involved. In the last couple of years, I've left Ellis and Rosie to do everything as we can't seem to get and keep decent managers. Then again, we can't exactly pay a competitive wage, so we tend to end up with the dregs of the employment pool anyway. I should just promote Ellis. He'd probably do a better job than all of them, and he loves this place."

"I noticed." I can't help the small smile tugging at my lips, and my grandfather's eyes sharpen in interest.

"You like fellas, then?" he asks rather bluntly. "Ellis does. You sniffing around him?"

"What a charming phrase," I say stiffly.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist." He huffs out a husky laugh. "I was only asking. I'm too old to tiptoe around people; if I want to know, I'll ask. I don't mean any offence by it. You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"I'm gay, if that's what you're trying to get at." Carefully omitting the fact that I am, in fact, sniffing around his favourite employee. Although I'm now starting to realise Ellis is a lot more to him than just an employee.

"Hmm," he grunts. "You want some dinner?"

I glance down at my watch and realise how late it is, then look back at my grandfather and the olive branch he's offering. "I'd love to have dinner with you. Will you come down to the dining room with me?"

"No need." He shakes his head and picks up the receiver of an old-fashioned black phone mounted on the wall.

Jesus, last time I saw something like that, I was being tortured with watching Casablanca because Aunt Sylvie insisted it was a classic.

I watch as Grandad dials a couple of numbers. An extension number, maybe? He holds the phone to his ear and waits for a moment.

"Aggie," he says gruffly. "Send up two plates tonight, will you?" He listens for a moment to the muffled voice. "Morgan's joining me this evening. Don't worry about bothering Ellis, just send it up in the dumbwaiter. Oh, and Aggie, send up some spotted dick for pudding if there's any left." He pulls the phone away from his ear and looks at me. "Do you like spotted dick?"

"Spotted what?" I say a little too primly.

He rolls his eyes and returns to the phone. "Just send up two portions. I'll finish his off if he doesn't like dick." His chuckle turns into a dirty laugh. "I'm guessing that's not the case though."

This time it's me rolling my eyes as he hangs up the phone.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" I say impulsively.

"What? You haven't been all evening?"

I smile slightly and then sober. "Can you actually leave your room, or do you just not want to?"

He stares at me for a long time, carefully considering his answer.

"I honestly don't know," he finally says. "I haven't tried."

"Do you want to? We don't have to go far, just down the corridor and back."

He turns his head and looks at the door, tapping his fingers against the edge of the table.

"No," he says quietly. "Not today. I'm tired."

"Okay." I nod, not wanting to push him. "Okay."

"Are you going back to New York soon?" Grandad asks, abruptly changing the subject. "I heard the weather's turning and although the snow's deep, most of the roads are being cleared."

For the first time, the thought of leaving has me feeling unsettled. "Yes, soon," I murmur, not feeling the relief I should. "I'm not sure when, exactly, but…"

"But?"

"I don't want it to be like last time," I say. "I'd like to keep in contact, maybe phone to see how you're doing. Maybe come and visit?" I offer, holding my breath.

I mean every word. As prickly as the man is, I want to get to know him, find out what sort of man he is and what his life had been like before it imploded. I'd like to know more about the house and the family of infamous reprobates I was born into, and I'd be lying if I said the thought of seeing Ellis again wasn't extremely appealing

Grandad looks over at his trains and a myriad of emotions flits across his wrinkled features too quickly for me to register. Eventually, he turns his gaze fully back to me.

"I think… I think I'd like that." He hesitates. "Can I ask something of you though?"

I nod, wondering what he could possibly want.

"I don't know how long I have left." It's not said with any kind of fear or sadness. It's as if he's just stating a fact. "I'm eighty-eight years old, Morgan. I could have another ten years, or I could die in my sleep. When I die, the house will come to you as the only living heir. I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse. For me, it was both. I personally don't care what you do with the house once I'm gone, but can you make sure Ellis is okay?"

"Ellis?" I repeat.

He nods. "Don't get me wrong. I love this house as much as I hate it, but Ellis… he wormed his way into my heart from the moment his mother brought him here. I thought I could keep some sort of distance if he continued to call me Mr Ashton-Drake rather than Cedric, or even… Grandfather."

My eyes widen but not in jealously—surprise, yes, but there's also a part of me that is so grateful that my grandfather had someone to love instead of being all alone, and although it doesn't make up for the past three decades, it eases something inside me.

"You love him?" I say softly.

"I do." He sighs. "He's impossible not to. He's like pure sunlight, just like your father. He's been my family since the first moment he smiled at me. I'd leave him something in my will, but honestly, there's nothing left to leave him. All I have are the bricks and mortar around me and a mountain of debt that just keeps growing. Promise me you'll take care of him. I don't mean financially. I mean just… check in with him, make sure he's not sad or lonely."

It's the easiest promise I've ever made.

"I swear."

He pushes himself up from his stool, his knees cracking loudly. I watch as he shuffles towards me, and I stand still like a deer caught in the headlights. I stiffen up, not sure what exactly to expect when he wraps his arms around me and pulls me in. Then I lift my arms and pat his back, not sure what to say.

We awkwardly embrace in silence, the quiet only broken by a whistle and the chug of the tiny train as it powers along the tracks. After a few more uncomfortable moments, we shift. It's like both of us aren't quite sure how we ended up in a hug situation and we're not sure how to get out of it.

Damn, Mom was right; maybe I am just like him.

"So, uh, this is nice," I say after a few more moments. "Do you maybe wanna put some pants on?"

"Nope." He releases me, turns around, and shuffles back to his trains. "I like the breeze on my nads."