Chapter 3

We had lunch with Mum in the library café, telling her what was happening and how far we had got with the house. Margaret told her that the two of us would be at the church earlier to stand with our Uncle and Aunt. After that, we went back to the house, where I had to get shirtless and sit in the garden while my sister worked on my hair.

We went to the Cricketers for a meal and danced to the band, with each other and with other partners. On the short drive to the house, Margaret put her hand on my arm and thanked me for a lovely evening. I think that my sister was coming to realise just how important this time was becoming in our growing up. That night, I spoke quietly to Boots, laying on the bed next to me, telling him that his world may be changing. I don’t think he took it in, as he wagged his tail and licked my chin. That reminded me that I would really have to shave in the morning.

Saturday started out as every other day, with animal feeding, collecting eggs, getting breakfast and then us getting showered and dressed. Today, though, we put the dogs outside and closed the door while we got ready. After my contemplation in the shower, I sat in front of the good mirror, with the lights on, and used my electric shaver. After I had dressed in my suit, Margaret came in and used the mirror to do her make-up.

We made sure that the dogs were inside again, and locked the house, driving to the church to arrive in good time. Uncle Edward greeted us.

“Thank you for getting here early. A few have already arrived. You’ll be sitting with us at the front during the service. I can tell you that Tom did die of a heart attack, from the same hereditary problem that took my father. It seems to follow some in the family, so you’d better make an appointment to start seeing doctors, Tony.”

“Thanks for that, Uncle, I think.”

We stood with them as people arrived. I was making a mental count and there was still fifteen minutes to start time when we passed the catered limit. In all, there must have been a hundred in the church when the service began. The only one from the family who didn’t attend was Henry, and nobody missed him. I was called on after my Uncle had spoken about Toms’ early days, and I spoke about how my cousin had altered my life.

At the end of the service, the coffin was carried by members of the family, with me in the middle so I didn’t have to support much, not that he weighed a lot, and it was slid into the hearse that would take the body to the crematorium. I stood with Margaret, and watched him being taken from me, for the very last time. After that, we stood around with cups of tea and pieces of cake and caught up with the family gossip.

Around one, we were sitting in the Cultivo Lounge, somewhere new to me. It wasn’t highbrow but wasn’t a burger bar either. We were a smaller group; me, my family and Eddy with my Aunt. We had a nice lunch, some quiet talk, and left feeling as close as family members could be. My Uncle and Aunt were very appreciative of what we had done to tidy up the house. When Margaret and I went back to Lower Green, my parents followed us.

When we pulled into the property, the first thing I did was to let the dogs out for a run and pee. The house smelt slightly of dog, but not much. Margaret did the hostess thing and brought our parents in and showed them around. They were both pleased with our hard work, Mum having seen the inside and outside on the previous Sunday. Dad made sure that he looked everywhere with his legal mind in operation. He came into the kitchen as I was pulling bottles out of the box.

“There’s a lot of stuff here, son. If the house goes on the market, it could be sold with the furnishings, but there’ll still be a lot to send to an auction house to sell. You’ll just have to wait until you see the lawyer. We don’t even know if there’s a mortgage on the place.”

“Uncle Eddy took a folder that he said was all the accounts, so the papers would be in that.”

He looked at my sister.

“What do you want to do, now, Margaret?”

“I’d like to stay on here, if that’s all right. I’ve been lazing around at home, waiting for my phone to ring with a job offer, and this has been a wonderful, if sad, few days. As you say, there’s still a lot to be done and I don’t want to leave Tony here with all the work. I do have one question. Why have we never had pets?”

“That’s easy. When we married and lived in a flat while we both did studies, it was a no pet place. By the time we came to live in Stevenage, we just hadn’t thought about them, How are you getting on with those dogs?”

“They’re lovely, friendly, and great companions. Except for the snoring during the night, that is.”

“At least they have plenty of space to run about in while they’re here. They will have to go to a shelter when the house is sold.”

“That would be so sad. I know that with us all out to work, we couldn’t keep them at home.”

I offered wine, beer or hot drink, and we all had wine. Dad wanted a chardonnay that I had, Mum and Margaret both had a dry white, and I poured myself one of those for me. As I was doing that, there was a knock on the door. I put the bottle down and went and opened it.

“Francis, come on in. I saw you with a group of ladies this morning.”

“We were all old schoolfriends of Tom and had to say goodbye. That eulogy of yours was really from the heart. I hope I’m not disturbing things.”

“Of course not. These are my parents, Mary and Robert Underwood, and my sister, Margaret.”

Francis accepted a drink and sat with us in the kitchen.

“You were Mary Anderson, and you were in the library when I was going to school.”

Mum laughed.

“And you were Francis Wilder, who devoured everything we had on knitting and crochet. Since I’ve taken over as the librarian, I’ve put little signs up to help people find things, and the craft section is now called the ‘Wilderness’.”

“It was all helpful for me. I managed a craft shop until I got married, and every generation of my family are outfitted in my work.”

They talked about old times for a while, and my sister and I learned more about our parents during that chat than we had known. Dad had always been a workaholic, and somewhat distant. Now, however, he was showing a humanity that we hadn’t seen. Perhaps today had shown him that we’re all mortal, after all.

Finally, Francis got around to what she wanted to tell me. She had asked around Lower Green and found someone to take all the poultry. He would show up on Sunday with a truck and cages to transport the birds. I told her that I would haul the unopened sacks of seed out from the shed to add to the load. Francis left to walk home, and Mum and Dad left, not long after. Margaret and I stood and waved them off as Dad backed out onto the lane, bags for the charity shop in their car. Margaret giggled.

“We’re standing here like a married couple, waving visitors off. This is like a quick lesson in what adult life can be.”

“I know. I’ve had more responsibility this week than I’ve known, even with tending a bar. Having a whole house and land to look after has been a great experience.”

On Sunday, the guy came for the birds. Together, we rounded them up and loaded them on the truck in cages. Then we loaded the remaining seed and dismantled the chicken coop and fence, loading that all up. The eggs that we collected were put into trays for a final delivery to the Cricketers. While all that was happening, the dogs were running around like mad things, wondering what was happening in their world. When the site was cleared, the guy gave me fifty pounds and left with his quacking and clucking load. I got the mower out and trimmed the site to look similar to the rest of the area, if a different colour.

The two of us were sharing the cooking and cleaning, with me learning things from her, and her learning things from me. Whatever we did, we had good meals, with the dogs doing pretty good with leftovers. As she had said, we were spending the days like a married couple. When Monday dawned, we both dressed neatly to see the lawyer. Margaret was never going to let me face the outcome alone.

We dropped the final eggs off at the pub on the way, telling them that the birds had now gone to a new home. We were told that they already knew where the birds were and would still be getting their eggs. We found the lawyers office in Letchworth and parked the Defender.

“So, here we are at Bailey, Bailey and Bailey. I wonder why they didn’t just call the firm Bailey Brothers.”

“Maybe they thought that it sounded like the name of an off license. Anyway, gird your loins, brother dear, and see what happens.”

We met my Aunt and Uncle inside, and we were all escorted to a large office, where a Mister Jackson was waiting for us.

“Good morning, folks. I’ve been Tom Andersons’ lawyer since he came back from London. This won’t take very long, as his estate is very simple. Please sit, does anyone require a drink?”

We all shook our heads and sat. He sat at his desk and picked up a folder, opening it and pulling out a sheaf of papers.

“This is the last will and testament of Thomas Anderson, formally of Lower Green, Ickleford. There are a number of bequests in it. I remember the signing quite well, as he only wrote this one out in late January. He told me that he was worried about the new epidemic, now the pandemic, and wanted to have a new will that didn’t include Albert, once he had died.”

He looked at the paper again and read.

“There are the usual clauses regarding sound mind, but the nub of the matter is that he has left bequests of five thousand pounds, each, to six ladies who had remained friends since his school days. He also has left twenty-five thousand pounds to you, Mister Anderson, as a repayment of a long-ago loan, with interest. Then he leaves the rest of his estate, after fees and charges, to Mister Anthony Underwood, ‘who has shown me true friendship and aid through a difficult time and has the talent to be a pianist or chef, given the support that my money would afford him’. The details of the estate will be for Mister Underwood to hear. Does anyone have any questions?”

My Uncle and Aunt stood and shook hands with the lawyer. Uncle Eddy smiled.

“Things are just as they should be. This makes me proud of my son, as he has used what he gained to help Tony, who is a particularly apt person to receive the estate. Thank you. I’ll see you later, Tony, and we can arrange to pick the bins up. I’ll still pay for them, as this is an outcome I had hoped for, but didn’t expect.”

We had hugs and they left the room. I was still in shock.

“This is all such a surprise, sir. I never expected him to leave me anything.”

“When I last saw Tom, he was telling me how he had the best music student that he had known, as well as one of the quickest to learn new things. He told me that Albert had gained great pleasure in teaching you to cook, and also told me how you supported him when Albert passed on. He considered you the son he never had, and this was the only way he could repay you. He didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, but that’s something none of us expect.”

He picked up another folder and opened it.

“This is the estate detail. You are now the owner if the house in Lower Green, all the goods and chattels therein, and the vehicle. You will be now liable for the services, rates, and other charges that may arise. Before we go any further, I have to advise you that, as you are now responsible for the property, you really should make your own will, as you could well be knocked over walking to your vehicle when you leave here. You’re free to go elsewhere.”

“It’s all right, sir. I’ll stick with you. There’s so much to think about.”

“All right. Now, the house is fully paid for. Thomas closed the mortgage with some of the money that he received from Alberts’ life policy. There was a policy on Thomas’ life as well, which he changed to name you as the beneficiary. When that is paid out, the cash part of the estate will be just shy of two hundred thousand pounds. He also left an envelope with me to give to you. I have no idea what it contains, but it does feel like a letter and something flat but solid.”

He gave me the envelope and I clutched it as he called for his secretary to bring in the paperwork to sign me on as a client. In the space of a few minutes, I had gone from an innocent lad with dreams to someone who needed to have a lawyer!

We went through the papers, and I signed in several places.

“We will now take our retainer from the estate, before paying it into your bank. It is only a token amount, as there are charges for our work at later dates. Now, if you’re up to it, Anthony, we can take your will details. It doesn’t have to be extensive, at first, and you can update it at any time as life goes on.”

“I think it can be pretty simple, sir. I’d like to leave everything to my sister. She’s helped me clean the house and has almost as much input into it as I have. As you say, I can make bequests as I wish, but let’s stay simple for the moment.”

He wrote down Margarets’ details and we were ushered to an office tearoom where we sat with a tea and biscuits while the will was being typed on the proper paperwork. Margaret had been very quiet.

“Are you all right, sis?”

“It’s all just so much in one go, Tony. You have the house and car and will have money in the bank. It means that you’ll not come back to live with us and will be able to keep the dogs. You can give up tending the bar and do anything you want.”

“Do you want to move in, as well? I think that you’re enjoying the independence.”

“Yes, please. If I get my license, I could find work in Stevenage, Letchworth, or Luton. I could get a motorbike one first and ride your Honda. Give things a month or two, and we can both see what the future holds for us. There has to be something we can do that’s better than working in a bar or a salon.”

“All right. Let’s do it. I’ll tell the Poachers that I’m not coming back, and we can clear out our rooms at home and set up in our own place.”

When I had read through my will and signed every page with Mister Jackson and his secretary witnessing it, he gave me the papers for all the services, telling me to contact them to change the property ownership. I gave him my banking details. Clutching a new folder, with the paperwork, my copy of the will, the envelope, and the estate details, we went back to where I’d parked the Defender. Now, my Defender. Margaret rang Mum and arranged to meet at the library café for lunch and a chat, and we drove into Stevenage and parked.

We had a little while before meeting Mum, so I pulled the envelope out of the folder and opened it. There was a letter, with a key. I sat and read the letter and then passed it to my sister, as I was getting tearful. She read it and had to repair her make-up. We sat, in silence for a few minutes.

“He did love you as a son. This is about as heartfelt as his love for Albert. You must have been a rock for him at that time, seeing that he writes that it was only the thought of taking you further on the piano that stopped him ending it. The bit at the end is strange. Whatever could be in a locked cabinet that would make you think less of him. He was almost sorry that he had left it for you. It must have been something profound from his early days for him to lock it up and give his lawyer the only key. The line at the very bottom, which looks like an afterthought, could lead to other information.”

“Yes. I’ve no idea who this Harvey Parker or his son, Hector are. We’ll find out when we open it. In the meantime, nothing about that to Mum, just the bare facts of the estate, and then we have a long list of places to go to and change billing details.”

I left the envelope in the vehicle and took the folder with me when we went to meet Mum. She was as surprised as we had been when told that I now owned the house. Being methodical, she took us up to the library and photo-copied the will, the estate estimates, and the list of services to show Dad, so he could have details should he want to give me advice. We told her that we would be coming home to clear out our rooms and both live at Lower Green, for the foreseeable future. She told us that she could already see good changes in both of us with our new-found independence.

We put off seeing the utility companies until later, going first to a whitegoods shop to order a new washing machine and dryer, pay for them, with delivery to the house. Then it was a visit to my bank to tell them about my likely income and set up a new account which it could be paid into that would give me interest. Margaret also banked there, and we both changed our address with them. The lawyer was going to get Toms’ banking changed to my name, with new cards issued once that had been done.

We went home to Lower Green and we both cuddled a dog, now knowing that they would be with us for a long time. We went to our rooms and started making changes with the knowledge of other things we would be bringing here, making lists of things we needed to get. Later on, I disconnected the washing machine, and we tossed it into the bin. We both avoided opening the cabinet. There had been too much happening today to add that to it.

That evening, I cooked us dinner, which we had with a glass of wine, and we sat at the table with a notebook to make a shopping list of foods we wanted, now our residence was to continue beyond a few more days. Before we went to bed, I unloaded everything from the chest of drawers onto my bed, while Margaret emptied the smaller one in her room. We exchanged the furniture, so she could use the lit mirror, and reloaded the drawers.

That night, as I laid in bed, with Boots snuggled at my side, it came home to me that this was now my bed, in my house, and this was my dog. I went to sleep with a smile.

On Tuesday, it was a whirlwind of shopping and seeing the services in the morning. The afternoon was delivery of the new whitegoods, so we set to in the laundry, scrubbing it out. The delivery guys did take them out of the boxes and carry them in for us, for a tip, but we were left to connect them up and get them ready to be used. I found a file, in the office cabinet, where the guarantees and instructions could be put, and broke the boxes down to go in the household goods bin.

At the end of the afternoon, I rang the Poachers and explained that I was now a house owner and was too far away to come back to work. They were not totally happy but had to be good with it. On Wednesday, we went to our old home to collect all the things we were taking. We had the two suitcases for Margaret, as well as her laying a lot of clothes on the back seats of the Defender. My side was a bit easier, a garbage bag with jocks and socks, tee-shirts and other small things. The rest of my things were laid on the back seat with hers. I had a box with my CD and DVD collection and my laptop and printer. My old X-Box, games and old toys were left on the bed with a note to say that they were donations to the childrens’ section of the library.

We took it all home and helped each other carry things in. Tom must have updated the electrics when he fully owned the house, as every room had more outlets than usual. I was able to set my laptop up in the bedroom, on the chest of drawers, with the printer beside it. All the extra paper and oddments joined similar things in the office. The key remained in the envelope, snug in the bedside table drawer.

When I put all of my CD and DVDs in the office, there wasn’t a lot of room left. Margaret had all hers in plastic containers with slots, and had put her collection in the office, the three containers on top of each other. If there was ever another lockdown, we could listen to music all day without repeating a thing.

On Thursday, we went to the big box store park in Stevenage, getting a free-standing clothes rack for all the dresses that wouldn’t fit into Margarets’ wardrobe. I got a battery driven chainsaw to work on those branches. In the afternoon, I worked on that job, filling the bin, while Margaret did a proper clean of the annex and putting the laundry through the new system. That evening, we watched TV, learning more about the unit and finding a DVD slot in the side that we had missed. After the show had ended, Margaret slid one of her favourite band DVDs in the slot to give me a bit of a training session on the latest trends for teenage girls. I didn’t find it very good, but I couldn’t get a few tunes out of my head when I went to bed.

On Friday, I called the number to have the bins removed, and they gave me a time on Saturday morning. We took the dogs, with leads, and drove to Luton, where Margaret was keen to wander in the Matalan store. We left the dogs with a window slightly open and spent a half an hour checking the place out, with Margaret keen to come back for at least half a day. We then went into the main town, finding a parking spot at the Luton Indoor Market, and took the dogs for a walk. She had noted a few employment agencies along Stuart Street, so we looked at their boards, and had lunch at El Grubego, a Polish style café with just the one small table outside where we could sit with the dogs.

By the time we got back to the Defender, the dogs had had enough, so I looped east again, bypassing Stevenage, and went to a place I had been on the Honda. We parked by Cromer Windmill, and took pictures of each other, with and without the dogs. Margaret wanted to send an update to her friends, and this was different enough to make a statement.

On Saturday, Francis walked in as the bins were leaving. We were invited to dinner at the Two Chimneys, with her, her husband, and the other five couples who had received their money from the estate. It was a lovely time with all the girls telling us stories of Tom when he was at school, right up to the time he had left to go to London.

That night, before we went to bed, Margaret just said ‘tomorrow.’ I knew what she meant. We knew about Toms’ school days. We knew about is time living in Lower Green and his teaching. It was time to discover his story in London. We couldn’t put off opening the cabinet any longer.

Marianne Gregory © 2026