“How’ve you been, Roberta?” he asked in his pipe-roughened voice. “Your mam keeping well?”
“She’s fine, Charlie.” I gave him a hug. “Our Jess says hi too.”
“Well, you’re good girls. So.” He jerked a thumb at Ross. “This young idiot tells me you got him blotto and talked him into opening a pub in my Annie’s lighthouse.”
“Er… yeah, something like that. That ok by you?”
He shrugged. “No business of mine, not once you’ve signed on the dotted line. Come through, kids.”
“Charlie, you sure you want to do this?” I asked when Ross and I were seated on his uncle’s beige sofa with him in an armchair opposite. The lighthouse paperwork was all laid out on the coffee table, waiting for the solicitor Charlie had booked to witness the sale. “I mean, you haven’t got a few marbles missing or anything?”
“Only the same handful that’ve been rolling around upstairs for the last 20 years, flower,” he said with a shrug.
“You could get a good price for it, you know.”
“I could. And do what with the money?”
“I don’t know, get yourself new carpet slippers or something; you’re old. Or buy another pervy gnome, scare the kids on their way to school.”
“You’re a cheeky lass.” He grinned, a wide smile showing off his few remaining teeth. “Knew I liked you for something other than being Bertie Hannigan’s granddaughter.”
“She’s right though, Uncle Charlie,” Ross said. “We don’t want to take it off you unless you’re absolutely sure you want rid at that price.”
“Look, son, you and the rest of the family must’ve worked out by now I’m a miserable, cantankerous old bastard whose only joy in my old age is causing trouble for you all.”
“It has been noted, yeah.”
“Good, then you’ll know it’s easiest to shut up and let me have my way. I can’t be arsed faffing with estate agents and the like, it might well finish me off. You kids just sign the deeds, take the bloody lighthouse and bugger off.” He leaned over the coffee table for his pipe and started stuffing it with fresh tobacco from a tin on the arm of his chair.
I frowned. “There isn’t any more to this, is there?”
“How d’you mean?”
“Well, you’re not about to pop your clogs or something?”
The old man shrugged. “Not that I know of. Might last a few more years if I keep eating my greens.”
“So you really want to do this then? You, Charles Mason, being of sound mind and body and all that jazz?”
“Yep.” He sighed as he took a match to his old Dublin pipe, wreathing the room in brown-blue wisps that tickled our eyeballs. He inhaled a deep draw before he spoke again. “All right, if you really want to know, there is another thing. The bloody council.”
“They written to you again, have they?” Ross said.
“It’s worse than that. Bastards are threatening to sue me.”
“What?” Ross shook his head in disbelief. “On what grounds?”
“Reckon they can make a case based on me letting the old place fall into disrepair, affecting the tourism industry. Some jumped-up little bureaucrat at the town hall sent me an ultimatum. Sort it out, sell it on or face the music.”
“Bastards!” Ross’s brow knit dangerously. “Who threatens to sue an old man? I’ll bloody well go down there.”
“Oi. Less of the O word.” Charlie’s papery face broke into a smile. “But ta, lad. Nice to know someone in the family gives enough of a monkeys to watch my back.”
Ross sent an affectionate smile back. “Well, you’re not a bad old sod. You know I’ll look after you. So is that why you’re selling then?”
“That and I just want rid. Anyway, it’s worked out well, this young lady convincing you to take an interest.” He bobbed his silver head in my direction. “Lighthouse would’ve gone to you in the end anyway. Was going to leave it you in my will.”
“Me? What for?”
“Piss your dad off, mainly. And to see your face from the great beyond when you realised I’d saddled you with a lighthouse.”
“Ha. Yeah, I bet.”
“I still don’t know, Charlie,” I said. “Not sure we should take it if the council have bullied you into it like that.”
“Trust me, you’re doing me a favour.” His expression softened. “Look, she’d want you to have it. My Annie. Seems right it should go to our Ross, keep it in the family.”
“What was the lighthouse like when Aunty Annie was young?” Ross asked. “Don’t remember her ever talking about it.”
“Well she did, all the time. Still, you were only a nipper when she passed, doubt you’d remember.” Charlie took another long draw on his pipe, his crinkled eyes unfocused. “It were an impressive sight in its heyday. There was still a keeper back in the thirties, Annie’s grandad Wilf. Lived there with his wife. Proper old-fashioned battleaxe her Granny Peggy was, scary as the Old bloody Gentleman. And by, but she were houseproud. Every day she’d be out there topping up the paint, scrubbing the front step with sand. The floor were bare stone – they’d no brass for carpet – but she’d have you take your shoes off and walk round in your socks like she had ruddy shag-pile down.” He smiled wistfully. “Pride of the town, our lighthouse, in them days.”
“So how did it end up like it is now?” I asked.
“Oh, the war came. Light had to go off, Peggy and Wilf moved out. When peace broke out they decided they didn’t want to go back and leased it to other keepers, offcumdens who didn’t take the same pride in it. By the time Annie inherited it, the day of the lighthouse was over. Ours were a husk of what it had been by then.”
“So it’s just been left to rot?”
“No, when Annie were here she did what she could with it. The paint always shone when she were alive. She wanted everyone to see it, pride of the town, same as when Peggy had it.” He blinked, and I thought I saw the hint of a tear in the already watery eyes. “And then my Annie were gone, and no amount of paintwork could bring her back. It’s been years since I could bear to look at the thing.” He summoned a gap-toothed smile. “Ah well, no good getting weepy now, I’ll see her soon enough. You kids take the lighthouse. Make your aunty proud, eh, our Ross?”
I glanced at Ross, and was surprised to see tears in his eyes too.
“I’ll do my best for her, Uncle Charlie.”
“Ross, can I have a word?” I said. “I mean, in private.”
Charlie grinned. “I can take a hint. I’ll brew us up a pot.”
“He’s grieving,” I whispered when Charlie had tottered off to the kitchen.
“I know. He misses her.”
“Then we can’t take it, can we? We’d be taking advantage of a lonely old man.”
“We wouldn’t though. She’s been dead 18 years, he’s not exactly rushing into it.” He shuffled on his cushion to face me. “Look, the lighthouse makes him miserable. Every time he hears about it, it reminds him the love of his life is gone and that bastard’s still standing.”
“Yeah, but… well, it isn’t right.”
“You heard him, Bobbie. My Aunty Annie loved the thing.” His brow gathered into a determined frown. “Well, you make your choice, you’re entitled to back out. Me… I never