Free Something Only We Know by Kate Long Page A

boyfriend,’ I said primly, opening up my mobile.
    ‘It’d only be for a laugh.’
    ‘A laugh costing ninety quid a month. Or didn’t you notice their tariff page? Executive rates, those’ll be. To keep the commoners out.’ The message turned out to be from
Ned, asking if he could meet me for lunch.
OK
, I texted back.
    Gerry began to walk away, shaking his head. ‘All I can say is, if I was paying the best part of a hundred smackers a go, I’d be expecting a damn sight hotter date than our
Rosa.’
    ‘That’s because you’re a pleb,’ I called after him.
    If it wasn’t for Gerry, I’d pack the job in tomorrow.
    When I got to the café, Ned was waiting for me. He was wearing mucky combats and a T-shirt and he looked whacked.
    ‘Busy day, then?’ I asked, pulling in my chair opposite him. Ned is odd-job man/caretaker at Farhouses, a gracious, castellated nursing home off the A41. It’s one of the
Bedevere group of care homes, so top-end clientele and facilities. Ned tends the gardens, fixes pipes and transformers and loose carpets, deals with vermin, and has been known to step in as a
bouncer if emergency dictates. I also know he’s helping one of the care assistants to pass her EFL exam, and that he sometimes plays the piano for the residents if he’s free and they
ask nicely.
    ‘We’ve been shifting furniture out of the dining room,’ he said. ‘So they can start the renovations.’
    ‘To the ceiling?’
    ‘Ceiling first. Then the walls, the floor, everything else that’s been water-damaged. It’s a bloody mess. That’s the trouble with old sandstone buildings.
Randolph’s pulling his hair out at the cost. And squirrels have broken into the attic and eaten some of the wiring. I daren’t tell him about that yet.’
    Ned had taken me up onto the roof of Farhouses once, completely against the rules, and shown me the view from the turrets: flat green Cheshire plain spreading out lushly on all four sides.
I’d seen the squirrels from there, leaping between the trees and scratting about on the lawns. He’s supposed to live-trap and then shoot them, however I know that he drives them in
secret up to Delamere Forest and releases them there. This is completely illegal because they’re classified as a pest species, but he’d break any number of laws rather than upset my
animal-loving sister.
    I said, ‘Anyway, it’s nice to see you. To what do I owe this honour?’
    ‘Do I need a reason to take a pal out to lunch?’
    He was smiling, his body language open, and a casual observer would have thought he was at ease. Yet I could see the slightly too-wide grin, the tension in his shoulders. Our Ned had something
on his mind.
    I knew if I asked straight out he wouldn’t tell me, so I decided to kick off the conversation with a worry of my own. Once we’d placed our orders, I had another moan about
Chelle.
    ‘Two weeks she was supposed to be staying, at the outside. It’s already nearly four and she’s showing no signs of shifting.’
    ‘Ah.’
    ‘And don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think she’s a proper threat – well – no, I don’t. I trust Owen in that way. But the situation’s still
disturbing. Just, her
being
there. Parading round in her little vest tops and shorts, drinking with him into the night. Plus she has a front door key. How can that be right when I
don’t?’
    Ned was sniggering.
    ‘What?’ I asked him. ‘It’s not funny.’
    ‘It sort of is, though. You can’t take her seriously. I mean, what kind of parents call their kid “Shell”, for God’s sake? Or is it one of these eco-tags
she’s adopted for herself – “Dances-with-whelks” sort of thing? Hey, over breakfast does Owen go, “Do you fancy an egg, Shell?” Does he go, “Have you seen
my razor, Shell?” “Look at my muscle, Shell.”’ Ned made me laugh in spite of myself. ‘And when you first walked out of the bedroom in your jim-jams, was Shell
shocked?’
    ‘Enough