Any Day

by Brian Lancaster

  But in Leonard’s mind, all of their hard work would have proven pointless without one final arrangement. To fill the house with friends, family, fun and laughter. And with that thought in mind, he had already contacted his friends and colleagues to tell them to reserve a date for a house-warming at the end of June. All he needed to do now was to talk to the locals he knew around the area.

  Early in the week, Adrian confirmed that Toni and her partner would stay over on Friday night, in part to help them put the furniture in place but also to be his first official guests for dinner. Once they left on Saturday morning, he would have Adrian all to himself.

  Everything seemed to be going exactly to plan.

  Until Wednesday morning when Mary had sent him a cryptic text message to tell him her mother, Aunt Millicent, had asked to discuss something urgently with him and could he drop in to see her. At first he’d hesitated, wondering why they couldn’t simply speak over the phone or why his aunt couldn’t meet him halfway. Mary had explained how her mother rarely left her flat, and what she wanted to discuss needed to be done face-to-face. Leonard had finally capitulated and arranged to see her at midday on his way to Wales.

  “It’s not a worry, Lenny,” said Adrian, placating him again on Friday morning, as Leonard sat in his car readying to leave. “The important thing is that you’re going to be here later today.”

  “We could have been having lunch together if the woman would deign to use a phone. Anyway, depending on what she has to say, I should be with you by four, at the latest.”

  “Then chill. But remember it’s Friday, and traffic will be manic.”

  “Listen out for the furniture truck. You’ll need to check everything and sign off for me. I doubt they’ll be able to get down the drive, but you can try. If not, you may have to help them unload.”

  “If you’re not here when it arrives, do you mind if I get Toni and Jack to help me arrange the furniture in place? I already know where you want everything.”

  During their weekends together, Adrian had helped Leonard choose the furniture and decide what would look best in which part of the house. They had agreed on most things, and the few they had disagreed about, Adrian usually had a better, more practical reason for the placement.

  “As long as you guys don’t mind. Will be great to see the place finished. But I’m not being much help, am I?”

  “I’ll think of a few ways you can pay me back when you’re here.”

  Leonard laughed aloud and felt instantly better. He’d missed Adrian. With everything finished, he would need to sit Adrian down and figure out how they were going to move forwards. One thing was for sure—he wanted Adrian in his life.

  Before setting off, he checked the address and postcode given to him by Mary and tapped the details into his GPS. From previous conversations, he seemed to remember people saying they lived in Clifton in the Bristol area, but the address of the flat was for somewhere called Broadmead. Not knowing the city, he assumed the latter to be a neighbourhood of Clifton.

  Even with the GPS, he still managed to get muddled and stopped to ask a passer-by for directions. Just as well, too, because the old chap he spoke to recommended he park up at a nearby municipal car park then walk the five or ten minutes to the council flats. If he chanced parking outside in that part of town, his ‘nice-looking motor’ would either get towed or stolen or stripped bare. Those were usually the three options in that area, he was told.

  So he chose to walk and arrived at an uninspiring low-rise apartment block, nothing out of the ordinary, just before midday. Despite an apparent attempt to spruce up the external façade of the building, the interior felt old and tired and worn.

  His aunt’s flat stood on the second floor at the end of a long walkway. The peeling purple door had a once shiny stainless-steel letterbox cum knocker, now mottled by opaque blotches. Unable to find a doorbell, he knocked and waited. A few minutes later, someone unlatched the door.

  “Ah, Leonard,” said his aunt, smiling thinly. “How nice. Please come in. Go through to the parlour.”

  Although she still had the same pinched and guarded expression, the same dark, suspicious eyes, she seemed older somehow than when Leonard had seen her at the funeral. Grey strands of hair, those that had escaped the brutal restraint of her black headband, fell to the sides of her face. Over a drab but straightforward stone-grey dress, she wore a baggy black cardigan with a hole in the left arm, the pale flesh of her forearm showing through and a dried mustard-coloured stain near the neckline. Only the pink woollen fluffy slippers seemed at odds with the rest of the sombre ensemble.

  She opened the door wide, and he entered into the corridor of the duplex, the stairs to his left. As he approached the back room, he noticed a large crucifix fixed above the entrance.

  The room seemed comfortable enough if a little spartan. A two-seater sofa and single armchair in faded green corduroy faced an ancient box-like television, the view from the windows obscured by bleached-white net curtains.

  “Take a seat while I fetch us some tea. Then we can talk.”

  With his aunt gone, Leonard scanned the living room. A worn pair of leather slippers, men’s style, sat next to the room’s old electric heater. Most of the titles on the bookshelf meant nothing to Leonard, except for the Bible. But the collection had theological themes or made direct reference to faith and Christianity. To one side of the shelves, only one photograph stood pride of place, of Aunt Millicent in the middle, with Matthew on one side, probably in his teens, with a girl he assumed to be Mary on the other. Apart from her shoulder-length hair, they looked almost identical. Even though they dressed in summer wear, only Mary smiled at the camera.

  Five minutes later she returned and lowered the tray onto the glass coffee table before perching on the edge of her seat, back stiffly upright. Barely bending forwards, she poured tea from the white teapot into each mug, one plain purple, the other with the red and grey crest of a football team.

  “With or without?” she asked, holding up the carton.

  “With, please.”

  After pouring a splash of milk into the chipped football team mug, she stirred the tea with a white plastic spoon before handing the drink to Leonard.

  “How is your mother?” she asked, handing him the mug.

  “Thank you. She seems to be coping well. I’ve been checking in with her regularly, maybe a little too much. She’s always been fiercely independent.”

  “Everyone grieves in their own way. Some of us prefer solitude, time alone with the Lord, when dealing with our losses.”

  Knowing his mother’s stance on religion, the words of solace would have meant nothing. She had been far from alone spending much of her free time in the company of his Aunt Marcie. But then his aunt appeared to be alluding to her own mechanism for coping with loss. Was she referring to the death of her son? After taking a sip of her tea, she appeared to get straight down to business and Leonard steeled himself.

  “Can I assume you’re planning on keeping Bryn Bach, Leonard? Seeing as you’re already in the throes of restoring the old place. And that you’re not planning to sell?”

  How she knew about the renovations, he had no idea. He had told Mary, but Mary said they didn’t talk to each other. Maybe Mary still communicated through Matthew.

  “Yes, I’m keeping the house. Surely that’s not why you asked me here?”

  “In part,” she said, before plucking a crisp white letter from her lap and handing the single page to him. “The main reason for inviting you here was to tell you I’ve formally dropped any legal action concerning the will. This is the acknowledgement letter from my solicitor. Matthew convinced me to see reason, to respect the legal process and my brother’s wishes and to realise that keeping the house in the family is what’s important. We’ve enjoyed the home for many years and I’m grateful nobody else, outside the family, is going to become the new owner.”

  Leonard studied the concise letter from Hope and Masters briefly before handing it
back. So Matthew had eventually persuaded his mother to back down. Maybe his cousin had some influence and common sense after all, although Leonard had a feeling that somewhere in the background, his cousin Mary may have played a part.

  “No, I am going to keep the house. But just so we’re clear, because I don’t think you have a true measure of who I am as a person yet, I was fully prepared to drag you through the courts, if that’s what it took. And even if it had taken years, and thousands in legal costs, I would not have lost. Do we understand each other?”

  His aunt sat studying him impassively for a few moments.

  “We do,” she said, her lips pouting. “Yes, I recognise certain traits of my brother now. The same single-minded stubbornness.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Whatever you wish,” she said, before reaching into her pocket for another envelope, this one old and well-worn, and removing an aged piece of paper. “But just so you understand my original concerns around the property, this is a letter I received from my father many years ago.”

  Leonard took the crumpled letter and read. The words, written in his grandfather’s cursive handwriting, confirmed what Leonard already knew. In a clear and steady hand, the crux of the message stated—

  Traditionally, ownership would have passed to the eldest surviving male member of the family, which in this case is your brother, Colin. However, I have decided to break with tradition and leave the house to your eldest. I have arranged for my solicitor to amend my will accordingly. Your brother knows of my intention and is fully supportive of my decision.

  “With the property being transferred to my side of the family, Leonard, I hope you can see that it was only natural for me to expect the house to revert to me.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” he said, handing the letter back. “After your eldest died, and long before my grandfather’s death, he amended the will again to leave the house to my father.”

  “Without my knowledge.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” he said, not caring if he rattled her. “My grandfather had no reason to hide anything from you. If you’re so adamant, why don’t you check with his solicitors, if they’re still around. In any case, you would have known at the reading of your father’s will, an occasion I can’t imagine you would have missed. Not that any of this matters to me. In changing his mind and his will, he did nothing illegal.”

  “Unless he was coerced into doing so by my brother.”

  “Good luck trying to prove that.”

  Whatever ridiculous point she was trying to make, Leonard knew better than to listen. He had somewhere to be. Leonard’s father had inherited his integrity and common sense from his own father. Aunt Millicent seemed to sense Leonard’s hardened resolve because her face softened a fraction.

  “Have you written up a will of your own, Leonard? And have you considered who would inherit Bryn Bach if anything were to happen to you?”

  “I have a will. But I haven’t thought about Bryn Bach specifically. Not yet.”

  “And do you have any expectation to marry?”

  “That’s nobody’s business but my own.”

  She nodded, whatever thoughts going on behind her frosty exterior hidden from him. As though reaching an internal decision, she smiled at him.

  “I must admit to being pleasantly surprised to hear you are restoring the old house.”

  Leonard folded his arms and relaxed back in his chair. If she wanted, he could play nice. Not difficult when he thought back to the progress they had made.

  “In my line of work, I deal with period homes all the time. Bryn Bach is a simple, but solidly constructed house, which lends itself beautifully to the surrounding countryside. What came as a pleasant surprise was learning the history of the house, and getting to know the local area, as well as finding traces of our family, especially Luke—”

  “No!” she snapped, thumping her mug down, her eyebrows drawing together. “We do not mention that name in this house.”

  Leonard frowned, startled by the whiplash change in his aunt’s mood and tone. Her face had now tightened around the mouth and eyes. After a few moments, he regained his composure.

  “I don’t understand. He was your son—”

  “You will not mention that name. Do I make myself clear?”

  As far as overreactions went, Aunt Millicent’s seemed absurd. Moreover, how could any mother refuse to recognise the existence of her child, even if he had taken his own life? Leonard’s mother was hardly the most maternal in the world, but at least she acknowledged and supported her son. If his aunt were intent on making him feel uncomfortable in her home, he would abandon any politeness.

  “Well, while we’re on the subject of the house, can I ask what happened to the furniture? My furniture? I understand my grandfather had some nice pieces, because I’ve seen the photographs of when your family used to stay. And the will stated quite clearly that I was to be left the house and all chattels, which in my experience means the contents of the house.”

  His aunt sat up even straighter and stiffer in her chair, exuding an air of defiance.

  “I had the furniture sold. Many years ago. Your grandfather approved. This was long before your father took the house from us. I had children to put through schooling and my late husband was, among other things, an incompetent provider.”

  Late husband? On their call, Mary had said she still kept in touch with him, and from what he could tell, she hadn’t meant through a spiritual medium. Did his aunt tell people her husband had died to save her the embarrassment of telling them he had walked out on her? Whatever. Leonard was not about to be fobbed off.

  “You had my grandfather’s written consent for the sale, I assume?”

  Not once did she blink when she replied.

  “Consent was granted verbally. What does it matter? The furniture was old and needed replacing anyway.”

  Based on the Polaroids Leonard had seen, the furnishings looked far from worthless. But without being able to corroborate her story with his grandfather, he could nothing realistically about the missing furniture.

  “I see. I suppose I should be grateful for the cast-iron bed frames and the dresser—”

  “Dresser? What dresser?”

  “The Welsh dresser. Boarded up in the wall,” said Leonard, enjoying the moment. “You didn’t know?”

  Once again, Leonard discerned a moment of surprise followed quickly by annoyance cross her face.

  “I wasn’t aware. My son, Matthew, negotiated a lump sum for the furniture clearance many years ago. That particular piece must have escaped his notice.”

  “Or maybe hidden by the person who should rightfully have inherited the house. There were some interesting old photographs and other items inside the dresser’s cupboards.”

  She studied him coldly now, clearly curious and waiting for Leonard to elaborate. She could wait. If she wanted to play games, then so could he. Instead, he decided to move the conversation in another direction.

  “Not sure if you were aware, but one of my online businesses deals in antiques. And I’m told that particular dresser is a classic piece, in almost mint condition. Would fetch a tidy sum at auction. Not that I intend to sell. A beauty like that needs to be returned to its rightful place in the living room, now the rest of the house has been restored. I’m on my way to complete the final checks as soon as I leave here.”

  She sipped from her mug of tea and glowered at him over the rim.

  “That’s nice. And how have the renovations gone?”

  “For the most part, very good. Although over the May bank holiday, while we were asleep in the house, someone threw a petrol bomb through the front window into the living room and started a fire.”

  Aunt Millicent’s tea mug froze on its way back to the tray.

  “While you were—?”

  “Asleep. I was asleep in the upstairs back bedroom, the one overlooking the back garden. Fortunately I’m a light sleeper. We managed to get the fi
re under control before any permanent damage could be done. But of course the police and fire services had to be called, and the incident officially reported.”

  Seeing his aunt’s ashen cheeks, Leonard felt sure this piece of information came as news. What he was not about to tell her was that since then, he had arranged for security lighting and a comprehensive camera surveillance system to be installed both front and back. If anyone tried anything similar again, he would catch them. Of course, since the incident, nothing more had happened.

  “The bank holiday, you say? Probably hooligans on holiday from the Midlands. That part of Wales always did have a problem with petty crime over the holidays. Caused by heathen youths, no doubt. I blame the parenting. Discipline seems to be a thing of the past.”

  Leonard said nothing. He cringed inside to think of his aunt’s views on discipline.

  “I’ve gotten to know a number of people in the area since I started the work. Some you might know. Megan Llewellyn at the Manor Inn, Pippa Redfern, Freya Williams.” Leonard took a sip of the milky tea before continuing. “Had a good chat with PC Morgan, too, when he came to investigate the fire. He remembers you well.”

  “Does he?” asked his aunt, her stare unwavering.

  “Sounds to me as though you had some lovely holidays in the area. As a child, with my father, and also with your own family.”

  His aunt put her mug down on the table and composed herself, a thin smile on her face.

  “We did, Leonard. Which is why families need to stick together and help each other—”

  “By threatening to take them to court?”

  “And on the subject of helping each other,” she said, ignoring his question, “I hope you don’t mind me offering you some advice.”

  Leonard hesitated. What advice could his aunt possibly have that he would want to hear?