George blushes. ‘I’m glad to hear that. I hope it’s true.’
‘I bet I’m different to how you remember me?’ she asks.
‘Completely,’ he replies with a smile. ‘No, that’s not true. Not completely. You were chatty, full of beans… Not always, but when we were alone, and sometimes with Mum.’
‘Not with my dad?’
George shakes his head. ‘Not with him. He wasn’t…’
His voice trails off, but Sophie fills the gap in his sentence. ‘He wasn’t a good guy. I read about him in my Life Story book.’
‘I see,’ George says, as Jude and Roy nod with solemn agreement.
‘I’m so glad you finally joined Facebook!’ Sophie seems to be leaving the subject of her biological parents behind for now.
I’m sure she and George will discuss them again in time, perhaps when it’s just the two of them.
‘I’d been checking on and off for about a year,’ Sophie says, ‘and then, suddenly, there you were!’
‘That was Leah’s doing.’ George casts me a sidelong look of affection.
‘Well, I’m very grateful.’ Sophie gives me a warm smile. ‘It’s not as though I wasn’t happy before. These two are the best parents I could ever wish for.’ She wraps an arm around her dad, who’s sitting beside her. ‘But I always had this feeling that something was missing.’ She pauses. ‘I know that you looked after me a lot when I was little.’
George nods. ‘I tried to.’
‘Thank you.’ She reaches across the table and squeezes his hand.
‘You’re welcome,’ he replies quietly, sincerely. ‘I never wanted to be separated from you. I searched for you for a long time afterwards.’ His eyes are shining as he gazes across the table at his sister.
‘I’m glad you found me.’ Sophie’s expression matches the emotion in his. ‘Well, actually, I found you,’ she adds abruptly, grinning. ‘But I can’t wait to get to know you again!’
George laughs lightly. ‘I’m looking forward to getting to know you again too.’
It’s a joyful afternoon. Sophie is a breath of fresh air: kind, confident and spirited. She’s very talkative and there’s rarely a gap in the conversation so it never feels uncomfortable. George doesn’t say anywhere near as much, but I can tell that he’s completely and utterly smitten – it’s written all over his face.
We say goodbye after a couple of hours, happily accepting the invitation to come via their home for a cup of tea on our way back up north.
After buckling Emilie into her car seat, I climb into the front of the truck and smile across at George.
He shakes his head at me, speechless, before putting the truck into gear. It’s a while before he can talk, and even then he keeps falling quiet after a few sentences. I think he needs time and space to process all this, so I don’t attempt to make aimless conversation.
* * *
Ernie is retired now, but he still lives in the old cream-stone gatehouse on the estate, along with the lad who took over from George. It’s this lad who answers the door to us, an affable freckly faced man in his late-twenties called Freddie. After he and George enthusiastically greet each other, Freddie disappears into the kitchen to make a pot of tea.
George takes me through to the living room to meet Ernie.
George explained to me on the way here that Ernie lost his son, a soldier, in the Iraq War, and his wife a year later following a long illness. He says that when they first met, Ernie struck him as someone with a lot of love to give and no one to give it to, which is probably why Ernie took him under his wing in the first place.
I adore him instantly. He’s just as George described with crazy salt-and-pepper hair and a big handlebar moustache, but he seems stiff when he gets up from his armchair by the window and comes over to greet us. To my surprise, he homes in on me first, a wide grin on his weathered face and a look of pure delight in his eyes.
‘So this is the one that got away!’ he exclaims.
George groans and I laugh, even as my cheeks flush.
George proclaimed Ernie sprightly when they first met, but although he might not fit that physical description anymore, he’s certainly still chirpy.
‘Who’s this then?’ he asks, grinning down at Emilie. ‘You must be Emilie,’ he adds before I can introduce them.
George must’ve already told him about her. I’m dying to know how much he said.
‘Would you like a biscuit?’ Ernie asks her.
Emilie nods eagerly.
‘I’m coming!’ Freddie calls through from the kitchen.
‘Sit down, sit down,’ Ernie commands, returning to his armchair by the window. His view looks out onto the thick rough trunks of towering pine trees. The light spilling down through them is minimal, even on a sunny day.
George, Emilie and I settle on the sofa.
‘How are you, lad? How did the meeting go?’
As George tells Ernie about Sophie, I take in our surroundings. The living room is warm and cosy, with a fireplace that still has charred logs in the hearth, and chequered blankets and throws slung over the well-worn chairs. A glance through to the kitchen tells me it hasn’t been updated in probably fifty years, but it looks clean and tidy.
It’s strange to think of George living here, but it helps in an odd way too. I’m starting to be able to piece together his journey after he left us.
‘He wasn’t much of a talker when I met him,’ Ernie says to me after Freddie has returned with tea and chocolate chip cookies. ‘But once I got to know him, and once he started, you couldn’t get him to shut up! It was all Leah this and Leah that.’
‘Ernie,’ George chastises him grumpily.
‘Shoosh, lad.’ Ernie waves him away. ‘Life’s too short, enough of the nonsense.’ He catches my eye and holds my gaze. ‘You know that only too well, don’t you, love?’ His tone is gentler. ‘I do too. Don’t waste it.’
George interrupts to talk to Freddie about the work he’s been doing on the estate and Ernie lets the subject go, but I feel his eyes on me often over the next hour. I’m bizarrely not too discomfited by his scrutiny, and when we come to leave, he gives me a brief tight squeeze and repeats in a whisper, ‘Life’s too short.’
I squeeze him in return.
* * *
‘Sorry about that,’ George mutters on the drive back to his cottage.
I can tell he’s embarrassed.
‘Don’t apologise for Ernie, I want to adopt that guy as my grandfather,’ I declare. ‘I’m so glad he was there for you.’
‘Me too.’
‘He raised a few questions, though,’ I admit with a perplexed glance across at him. I look over my shoulder at Emilie before returning my eyes to George.
I plan to get to the bottom of it later.
George shifts uneasily and drives on.
* * *
That evening we have takeaway fish and chips out on the patio. It’s only big enough to have three chairs lined up in a row, so we face the sea rather than each other, and are so famished, having barely touched our food at lunchtime, that we eat without saying much.