I slowed as I reached the trees, slipping between them into the cool dark of the woods. Without needing to think about it, I ran my hands along the bark of the trunks, counting trees as I went. One, two, three… Six and seven. I stopped. Seven trees in and four across. Easy. I turned right after the seventh tree and counted along another four and I was there.
When I was small, I was desperate for a place that was mine, a secret, hidden place where no one could find me. I wanted to be private and mysterious. And Nathaniel, my doting grandfather, indulged me.
One weekend, very early, we snuck out into the woods and found the perfect tree, just the two of us. It was bigger around the trunk than even Nathaniel could reach, and its lowest branches were far above his head. It was summer, and the leaf canopy was impenetrable, shading the whole area in darkness and magic.
We had to enlist some help, because my grandfather has never been very good with his hands, except when there’s a pen in them. Luckily, his assistant at the time was a young man called Graham, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-one, fresh out of university, and whose father was a carpenter.
Since Nathaniel and I both knew that Graham probably wouldn’t be around by the next month, we thought he was a safe bet. And so, in addition to Graham’s other duties (dealing with letters from readers, looking up obscure books, making tea, being shouted at, that sort of thing) he was shanghaied into building an eight-year-old girl a tree house.
And, true to form, Graham quit two weeks after it was completed. As far as I know, he never told anyone else in the family about the tree house. Neither did I, and neither did Nathaniel.
Which meant, when I reached my tree and found the secret ladder already lowered and smoke blowing out of the window, there was really only one person who could be in residence.
I paused at the bottom of the tree, catching my breath after the rush through the woods, trying to stop my head spinning from my conversation with Greg. I’d wanted to be alone, to get away from Rosewood and all the horrible realisations it brought up. But now I was there, I wanted my grandfather. I wanted the comfort of Nathaniel’s presence, the warmth of his voice, the reassurance of his arms…even the distraction of his stories.
I’d been alone for too long already. I wasn’t going to miss this chance to be with my family, however hard it was.
“You know, this wasn’t built as a smoking house for you,” I called up, putting my foot on the first rung of the rope ladder. Now I thought about it, perhaps Therese’s vintage silk dress and matching heels weren’t the ideal costume for climbing trees.
Nathaniel stuck his head out of the doorway. “Who paid for the wood? And the labour? And where is the gratitude? I ask you.” He took a good look at me. “Are you coming up in that?”
Grasping the rope, I swung my left foot up onto the next rung. “Apparently.”
The tree house was fairly basic: a square base of tightly joined wooden planks, with just enough space for Nathaniel and I to squeeze in together, more plank-made walls, with gaps left for doors and windows, and a few more planks over the top at an angle as a roof. In essence, a wooden box.
When I was eight, I thought it was the most perfect place in the world.
I hoisted myself through the narrow doorway, ducking my head to avoid the ceiling, and slid onto the low stool Nathaniel held steady for me beside the sloping shelf beneath the window.
“We used to fit in here better,” he observed, taking another puff on his pipe.
“I appear to have grown up.” I smoothed out my skirt under me, and hoped I wasn’t ruining the fabric.
“Indeed you have.” Nathaniel caught my eye. “So why don’t you tell me why a grown-up like you is hiding out in a child’s tree house.”
“I could ask the same of you,” I pointed out.
Nathaniel spread his arms as wide as the walls of the tree house allowed. “Ah, but I have never really grown up. Proper writers never do.”
“So, who are you hiding from?” I asked. “Isabelle isn’t even back yet.”
“I’m not hiding,” Nathaniel said, sounding affronted. “I am rehearsing.”
“Your speech?” Truth be told, I was starting to get a little nervous about Nathaniel’s speech. My grandfather had a tendency towards long, obtuse but somehow insulting oratory. I was just hoping he’d wait until most of the guests were plastered before he started. At least some of the cleverer, crueller insults might pass over their heads that way. “Is it going well? Do you want to practise in front of a live audience?” If I knew who he was planning to offend, perhaps I could distract them.
“It will be the highlight of the year,” Nathaniel announced, waving a few dog-eared notecards around. “And you’re just going to have to wait and listen with the rest of them.”
“You’re all about the dramatic tension, aren’t you?” I said, fondly.
“Of course!” He placed his notecards carefully on the floor beside him, out of my reach. “So, what can I do for you?”
I didn’t want to admit that, actually, I hadn’t been looking for him at all – I’d been running away from Greg. From my own mistakes. So instead, I leant back against the smooth wood of the wall and said, “Tell me a story.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a little old for story time?”
“Is that even possible?”
“I suppose not.” He smiled around his pipe. “So, what sort of story are you after?”
“One about Rosewood,” I decided. If I had to leave again, as it seemed I would, I wanted to take as much of this place with me as I could. “Not about the ghosts and the history. A story of you here at Rosewood.”
“A story about me. My favourite subject.” Another joke. For all that his books featured versions of himself and his life, I knew full well that none of those characters were the real Nathaniel. In fact, I suspected they were a screen for him to hide behind – more fiction than truth. A way to keep his true self private, even in the face of intense public scrutiny. My grandfather, I reflected, was a complicated man.
“Okay,” he said, at last. “I have it.”
He gave me a look I couldn’t quite read, and I frowned for a moment. But then Nathaniel settled back on his stool, pipe clamped between his teeth, left a dramatic pause, removed the pipe and began his story.
“Once upon a time, there was an incredibly handsome and talented young man who had a very beautiful and intelligent wife. They lived in a tiny London flat in the most fashionable area, and she made it up to look twice the size it really was.”
“I thought this was a story about Rosewood?”
“Patience,” Nathaniel said. “Now, the lucky couple loved nothing more than throwing wild parties and showing each other off to all their friends. And their parties became renowned. Famous. Even notorious.”
Would this party, this Golden Wedding, be one of those parties? I’d had an inkling it would, back in Perth, when he called and asked me to come. And, looking at his stack of notecards on the floor, I felt even more certain that it would. Nathaniel had never used notecards in his life; he just told a story, whenever he needed to speak in public. And his stories had never needed index cards.
What was he going to say in his speech? And what would it mean for all of us? I was almost too nervous – or excited – to ask.
“Are you still listening?”
“Of course!” I straightened up and started paying proper attention again.
“Tales of the parties they held filled the social pages, not to mention the conversations in all the most artistic haunts. People angled for an invite to the next one whenever they spoke to someone who’d been there. The themes became more outlandish, more spectacular. Until the day the couple announced that they were moving house.”
“To Rosewood?”
Nathaniel silenced me with a look. “Moving to a charmed mansion in the English countryside, complete with a Rose Garden, a fountain, an orangery and a tiny, splintery tree house.”
“Poe
tic licence already?” I asked. “The tree house didn’t exist whenever you’re setting this story.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t query the ‘handsome and talented’ part earlier. Now, shut up and let me tell the story.” I obediently shut up.
“Their new house would allow them to throw even bigger and better parties, the woman declared. It was, she said, the ‘absolute perfect house for parties.’” I could almost hear Isabelle saying the words as he spoke them. “They decided that they would hold the best ever party, to celebrate moving into their new home. They invited everyone who was everyone, and quite a few people who weren’t anyone at all. It was the party of the season, and people fought tooth and nail for an invite.
“The day of the party arrived, and the woman spent all day – hell, all week, all month! – preparing for it, while her husband was writing. She dressed in her finest clothes, while he forgot until the last minute then couldn’t find his cufflinks. The guests arrived and the champagne flowed. The band struck up a song, and people danced. And as the night went on the champagne flowed faster and the conversations got louder and the band grew tired and went home. But still the party went on, long after the moon had risen and fallen again. The sun came up and still the party continued. The champagne ran dry, but they just moved on to spirits. The house was filled to overflowing with people and fun and laughter…”
A pause, just a small one, and I realised Nathaniel was trying to decide the direction of the story. What would happen next? How much of this was real? I wondered. And how much part of his imagination?