The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser (e books for reading txt) 📗

on the desk between us. There’s another painting over the mantel, mountains and moorland, and a watercolour between the windows, which I think is of the town square. It’s amusing to have a painting more or less of the view outside.

‘So, have you been to Baldochrie before?’ he asks, leaning back in his chair.

‘No, I never have.’ I tell him I feel terrible about never visiting, about not coming to the funeral. I ask him to tell me what Uncle Andrew was like, and begin to form a picture of him: self-reliant, a gardener and a lover of books, always smartly dressed, and funny; very sharp, says Alastair Gordon. ‘He made me laugh a lot. I miss him.’

Three

I pull off the road behind Alastair’s BMW, onto the wide gravelled drive that curves round beside the West Lodge. I’m excited to see it in the flesh, although I’ve looked at it on Google Street View many times. It’s a neat one-storey grey stone building with a slate roof. The lawn in front is beginning to be shaggy, but there are tulips and primroses, and some sort of climbing plant, still very naked, so possibly wisteria, curling round the bright red front door. Xanthe and I get out of the car and crunch across to where Alastair waits. It’s stopped raining, and there’s a hint of sunshine away to the south. Water drips from the eaves. He hands me two sets of keys and gestures towards the gate and the road that passes through it, onward towards the house for which the Lodge was built. I’ve looked at that on Street View, too, a large and imposing Georgian building that might be a hotel, or a school. There’s no sign, though; no car park full of cars – so perhaps not. Although surely no one lives in such a big house these days.

‘So that’s the Drive,’ he says. ‘It’s private – as much as one has private land in Scotland – that’s from the main road as well, and through the gates. But part of the covenant is that you and your visitors and tradesmen and so forth are allowed free access. As I say, that’s just a polite technicality.’

The gates are elaborate wrought-iron things easily twice my height. I don’t think they’ve been closed for a long time.

‘Your uncle bought West Lodge in the late fifties, from the present Laird’s grandfather. So Lord Hollinshaw would be your closest neighbour. The house – Hollinshaw House – is about a mile further on up the Drive.’

‘An actual lord?’ asks Xanthe, disbelieving.

Alastair nods. ‘I’m afraid so. Quite a lot of the estate buildings were sold – not just West Lodge. The post-war period was tough for the gentry,’ he says, slightly sarcastically. ‘They had to sell various things to pay for the upkeep on the house, which is an unnecessarily grand building. The tenth Lord H sold almost all the estate buildings. The East Lodge; this one; there are some cottages, built for gardeners and gamekeepers; and the Home Farm. And then his son sold off all the land that wasn’t directly associated with the house, so they just had the park.’

I step backwards, looking up at the roof of the Lodge. It looks fine from here. My dad says I ought to have a survey done, like I would if I was buying it. I suppose he’s right.

‘Dreadful for them,’ I say.

‘Yes. Anyway, since Lord Hollinshaw – Charles – took over in the mid-nineties, he’s been buying things back. West Lodge is the only estate building still belonging to someone else. I can assure you that, should you decide to sell, he’ll bite your hand off.’

‘Oh really?’

Alastair has stepped up to the front door. He turns to look over his shoulder at me. ‘Very keen to get it all back. He rents them as holiday lets, mostly. His first wife was an interior designer; they’re very stylishly done. They were in all the magazines, when he finished the East Lodge and the cottages. And the newest one was in the Telegraph magazine just last year. Andrew was holding out, but I don’t think you should let that affect your decision.’

‘How many wives has he had?’ asks Xanthe, always eager to know the details.

‘Oh, only two. I mean, he’s been married twice. And divorced twice,’ adds Alastair.

‘Really?’ Xanthe raises her eyebrow at me and I try not to laugh. She’s decided that being with the same person for twenty years is ‘horribly boring’ and I’ve had a ‘lucky escape’ from the tedium of long-term monogamy. This is all an elaborate joke to make me feel better, of course. It’s not exactly working, but I appreciate the attempt.

I clear my throat. ‘He didn’t want to sell? Or he didn’t want to sell to Lord Whatsit?’

‘Hollinshaw. They didn’t get on, it’s true. Ironic, really, because… Well, it’s a long story,’ he says, ‘and it’s not my story to tell.’

‘Oh, go on,’ says Xanthe, ‘you can’t just leave us hanging.’

He unlocks the front door with a third set of keys, which he then hands to me, and ushers us inside. There’s a long passage or hallway with a flagstone floor and various white-painted doors opening off it, on both sides. It smells slightly stale, but not damp. There’s a twirly Edwardian hall stand with a mirror and hooks for coats, with walking sticks and a multi-coloured golf umbrella leaning against the central drawer. A pair of Wellington boots, a waterproof jacket. These objects, evidence of the life lived here, make me feel slightly melancholy. I shiver, wishing again that I’d visited Uncle Andrew before he died.

I open the first door on the left and glimpse a green-carpeted sitting room with lots of furniture. We stand in the hall though, while Alastair continues, ‘Your uncle didn’t get on with Charles’s father at all. James. I’m not exactly sure what caused that, to be honest. But anyway, when Charles… It’s rather complicated. Charles