I’d hurt his feelings, and he’d completely misinterpreted my reaction. I moved to stand next to him. “No. No. I didn’t mean anything other than…wow!” He smiled then, for the first time since I’d met him and it changed his face completely. “I’ve never seen anything this big except in Hamley’s.”
He grin got wider. “I suppose I’m used to it. But I always think it could be better.” He moved crab-wise around the side of the room. It was the only way you could move, as, except for the two narrower ends of the room, the boards that supported the train set came within about eighteen inches of the walls. “What I’d really like is a garden layout, but with our weather it would be difficult, Dad says.”
“You could certainly do with more space,” I said, moving around in the opposite direction to examine the rest of the table that I couldn’t see from where I was. There was a papier-mâché mountain in the centre of the room, with tunnels in four places, and over in the far corner, I found a miniature port terminus with unloading apparatus and even a small barge affixed to a flat blue painted wharf. There was so much to see I almost forgot about Alec’s presence, and it wasn’t until a few minutes later that I worked my way back around to where he was tinkering with the underside of an engine.
“This must have taken you years.”
He looked sideways at me and the side of his mouth turned up. I couldn’t help but smile back. His smile really was infectious, and up to that point, I’d never known what that meant.
“Pretty much.”
“Did your Dad have this before you?”
“He had some of the track, and the engines. This one’s one of the first ever Dublos. He had it in a cardboard box for ten years.” He shook his head.
“I know a man who buys toys—you know, dolls and models—for investment,” I said, watching his fingers manipulate the screwdriver; they were long and brown and agile, like a pianist’s. I’d noticed a piano downstairs and I wondered if he played. “He just puts them in a trunk in the loft. He doesn’t even unseal the box.”
“Ruins their value to take them out,” Alec said, without looking up. “But for me, it’s using something beautiful that’s what makes it valuable. My mum’s got plates—some posh china—wrapped in tissue in packing cases. She got it for her wedding and she never uses it. Not even at Christmas. What’s the point of that?”
I nodded. Valerie was the same; she had things for “best” too. “Some people were like that about sitting rooms, too, not long ago.”
He laughed. Just the sound of his laughter made me smile; it was rich and uninhibited. He even closed his eyes when he laughed. For all that he had seemed shy on first impression, he wasn’t at all.
“Our last place was just like that. We lived in the kitchen, and only went into the parlour when we had visitors. It used to smell horrible—all damp.”
The door opened and Albert arrived, interrupting our laughter, so I never got a chance to say anything.
“Well, what do you think?” Albert said.
“I was just telling Alec how impressive I found it.”
I was going to say something else, but I looked over at Alec and his face was shut down again, and expressionless. He put the train on a shelf and started moving track around.
“When we’ve got the electricity sorted out, I’ll give you a knock,” Albert said. “There’s a problem somewhere. But no worries, eh, son? We’ll get it worked out.”
“Yeah.”
“I should go,” I said, “Sheila will see me out. I’ll leave you to get on.” I stopped at the top of the stairs. “Alec,” I said, and he looked at me properly for the first time. “I’ve got an engine…in a box…” I smiled, and he echoed me like a secret shared. “Perhaps you could come over on Saturday and tell me something about it? If it’s any good, perhaps it would be better being used than in a box.”
“Well, that’s kind. Isn’t it? Now, say thank you, Alec.” Albert said. But Alec didn’t. He just smiled and as I walked down the stairs, I could hear Albert telling him off for not being polite. I remember thinking that I hadn’t noticed; he’d seemed perfectly nice to me.
Chapter 6
Alec didn’t come that next Saturday, and I couldn’t blame him. I reasoned he wasn’t interested in being forced to socialise, and I made a mental note to drop the engine in next door when I found time. The weekend afterwards I was out in the garden with Valerie, being given my orders. The children were out, off swimming with friends and Valerie was explaining to me what she wanted done with the land beyond the three plum trees. I was mentally cataloguing it away in order to explain it all to Tyler, our gardener, when he came next. She was quite capable of dealing with him herself, but while she designed the shape and style, she always considered the manual labour in the garden to be my domain, although I hardly knew a snapdragon from a dahlia and rarely lifted a hose.
So she told me what she wanted done, I told the man, and the man did the actual work. Oh, I would wander out from time to time and sweep a path free of leaves or snow, or wander around with a bucket, looking important, but that was about it.
“The wind has quite ruined the honesty,” she said, investigating the herbaceous border at the bottom.
I peered at the ragged shrub she seemed to be looking at. “So, do you want it replaced?”
“No, I’m sure he can just prune it.”
“I could prune it.” I was mildly stung that I wasn’t even considered up to the challenge.
She straightened up. “No, I wouldn’t let you near secateurs again, darling.” The gate latch sounded, saving me
