it could be. Actually, just as much of a challenge, if the truth were told, was containing her irritation at being sent off to do this now. It was like being ordered to bed so the grown-ups could talk in peace.
‘We have a lot of things to discuss,’ Freda had announced as her nephew’s car had pulled up outside the front door, ‘so it would be a good time for you to go and transcribe our little chat this morning.’
And so, without even being introduced, Joely had climbed the tower staircase, propped open the library door with a well-thumbed Gibbon’s Roman Empire, and settled herself down to the task at hand.
Now it was more or less finished, and she was feeling absurdly reluctant to go downstairs in case showing up unannounced angered Freda. If there were another way out of the tower she’d happily take it, for it was a beautiful day, almost spring-like, and she hadn’t yet taken a walk down to the beach. Or she could take the section of coast path that fronted the Valley of Rocks. From there she could make her way into town for a cup of tea in the inviting-looking tea shop at the top of the funicular ride and have a private chat with her mother or Andee on the phone.
Had Freda really been listening in to her call earlier? If so, what on earth had she hoped to hear?
Anyway, her host’s peculiarities aside, good manners – or something like that – had her trapped up here like she was some embarrassing guest who had to be kept out of the way in case she disgraced herself.
Well, the heck with that.
Sending her afternoon’s work to the printer, she picked up her phone and bag and descended as far as the library before coming to a cautious stop at the sound of raised voices down in the kitchen. Certainly one of them belonged to a man, and the other, though quieter was unquestionably Freda’s.
Reminding herself that it was outrageous to eavesdrop, she tiptoed to the top of the next staircase where she could hear much better.
‘… tell me the truth, Freda. I’ll find out anyway, you know that so …’
‘Edward, please stop bullying me …’
‘… let’s be sensible about this. I care about you, for heaven’s sake, you’re the only family I have now that …’
‘You have a mother,’ Freda cut in sharply.
‘… who we haven’t seen in decades. Freda, if you’re as …’
‘Stop, I know what you’re going to say, you think I’m about to die and that’s why I’m trying to finish this memoir. Well, I’m not that sick, Edward, and I’ll thank you for not calling my doctor again to find out when I last saw him.’
‘If I hadn’t I wouldn’t know that you’d been, and you never go unless it’s serious.’
‘Well it turned out not to be. I’m fine, or better than you seem to think, and this memoir is something I’ve been planning for a very long time, so you could say I’ve been working on it for years. So there’s no urgency about it, it’s just … time to get it out of my head and onto the page.’
‘OK, then explain to me why you won’t tell me anything about it. Why do I have to wait until it’s published to find out whatever the big secret is? If it concerns Dad, surely I have a right to know.’
‘It doesn’t concern him, or Doddoe. It’s something that happened a long time ago and it’s time I set the record straight.’
‘About what?’
‘We’re going round in circles. Let’s stop and have some tea.’
Joely stayed where she was, listening to the sound of the kettle filling with water and a chair being dragged from the table.
‘So how’s the ghostwriter working out?’ Edward asked, his tone less stringent now, more conciliatory.
‘She’s good,’ Freda replied. ‘Better even than I expected, but we still have a way to go.’
‘Where is she?’
‘In the writing room. I know you want to meet her, and I’m sure she wants to meet you too, but if I allow it you are not to bully her for information. She’s signed an NDA and I’m sure you don’t want her to be in breach of her contract.’
With a laugh, Edward said, ‘Who did you get to draw that up for you? I know it wasn’t anyone in my office or they’d have told me.’
‘Precisely, which is why I went to a firm in Taunton.’