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‘I can imagine,’ Elspeth said, and tried to hide the many, many questions she had about this. A housekeeper only three days a week? No wonder the place was looking tired. From what little Fraser had told her about his childhood here she had been expecting to find at least a few members of full-time staff, and more out in the grounds.
Not that she didn’t think Malcolm could take care of himself, but a building like this needed specialist care. It was more than one person—any one person—could manage by themselves.
She made small talk as she drank her tea and ate a couple of slices of toast, and then took a deep breath, unsure what reaction she would get to her next question.
‘Did you see Fraser this morning?’
‘Mmmph...’
The sadness in the older man’s expression tugged at her sympathy, and she knew that she had guessed right—Fraser had been out through the door without a word for his father this morning.
‘Well, Fraser’s not one for being kept still for long. He said something about taking a look at the north tower. Had a quick look outside and then came in and headed up the staircase.’
‘I think I’ll try and find him,’ Elspeth said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘If you don’t mind, of course,’ she added, not wanting to be rude. ‘I’ll look for him inside first. And if he’s not here I’ll take a quick look outdoors.’
And hopefully she’d catch up with him and talk some sense into him, she added in her head. Remind him that they’d driven all the way up here so that Fraser could actually talk to his father, rather than put as much distance between them as possible at the earliest opportunity.
‘Aye, well, if you can find him...’ Malcolm added. ‘But he could have taken one of the quad bikes. And—no offence, lass—I’m not letting you take one of those in your condition.’
Elspeth smiled, touched at his concern for her, even though she would have accused anyone other than her child’s grandfather of blatant sexism.
‘In any case I won’t go far,’ she promised, ‘indoors or out. And if I don’t bump into him, then I’ll come back. Don’t worry, I won’t be hiking up a mountain alone.’
Malcolm nodded. ‘I’ll walk with you inside, if you like. I usually just keep to the family rooms. It’ll be good for me to see the place through new eyes. And it’d be...good to walk with Fraser a while, if we find him.’
‘Thank you,’ Elspeth said, clocking his wistful expression, hearing the pain and longing in his voice. His love for his son was so palpable she couldn’t believe that Fraser was refusing to see it. In her line of work she saw a lot of family politics. People who—under the great strain that ill-health put on families—turned on the ones they loved.
Occasionally she saw those families find a way back together. But she’d also seen estrangements that had festered until it was too late. She had seen loneliness that had become pathological, contributing to the misery of patients nearing the end of their lives. She wouldn’t allow that to happen here. She wouldn’t allow Fraser—that pig-headed man—to leave this place until he’d at least had a proper conversation with his father.
And she didn’t care if that made her meddling and interfering. This was her family now, and that gave her every right to be involved.
She pulled on the fleece that she’d intended to wear outside, not realising that she would need it in the castle too. And as she left the kitchen with Malcolm she could feel a draught straight down the corridor. She stuffed her hands deep into her pockets, wondering whether it would be rude to put on her gloves and scarf too.
The further they walked around the castle, the clearer it became that it was falling into serious disrepair. The wind whistled through broken window panes, and there was a dampness in the air that spoke of long-set neglect.
Elspeth followed Malcolm down a long gallery that seemed to take them away from the inhabited part of the castle—away from carpets and radiators and home comforts, even the chilly and draughty kind. These rooms were imposing and echoing—lined with historical relics collecting dust. Where Malcolm’s apartment was comfily shabby, these rooms were a testament to a grand way of living that had long since ceased to be practical.
They found Fraser in a small room high up in the north tower, inspecting another broken window pane—or was he looking out over the estate?
He turned as they crossed the threshold into the room. His expression shifted through surprise to anger in the split second it took for him to register Malcolm behind her.
‘What are you doing up here?’ he asked, the question clearly directed more at his father than at her.
‘I wanted to see some more of the castle,’ Elspeth said, feeling the tension in the room and wondering whether she had made a huge mistake. ‘Malcolm offered to show me. We thought we might catch up with you.’
But she could see that he wasn’t really listening to her answer. His eyes hadn’t left his father when she’d spoken, and anger was clear in every line of his face.
‘Look at the state of this place,’ Fraser said, gesturing towards the window, knowing that he was letting his anger show.
How had his father let it come to this? It was hard to believe how badly the place had slipped into disrepair and decay in the years that Fraser had been gone.
‘What’s happened to it?’ he asked, though he didn’t really need to. His father had neglected it. He hadn’t cared enough about it to take care of it.
His father shifted his feet, and Fraser felt sorry for him for a moment—before he remembered that he was angry with him.
