Page 21 of Coming Home to Maple Tree Lodge

When he wandered into the kitchen a short while later and found everyone but Lily making themselves lunch, Ben braced himself for the worst before speaking.

‘There’s a company coming tomorrow to install the wireless internet,’ he announced. ‘It should be accessible from every room in the hotel.’

‘At last,’ said Hannah, clapping her hands. ‘It’ll be so nice not to wait until I go to work to download stuff.’

‘Pah!’ Walter, who was sitting at the table, gave a shrug. ‘Folks should come here to switch off, not look at their phones.’

‘Good thing too with the lack of wi-fi,’ drawled Frankie, pouring herself a glass of water. ‘There’s absolutely no signal out here which is no good for all my suitors lining up to ask me for a date.’

‘Well, after tomorrow, that might just be sorted,’ Ben told her.

Frankie laughed. ‘The dates or the wi-fi?’ she asked.

He smiled at the small joke because it was so rare to hear Frankie laugh these days. They had known her all their lives as she was their mum’s best friend. But she had had a chequered love life and her last husband had turned out to be abusive. She had gotten out of the marriage but not before an air of sadness had descended upon her.

Faye had offered her the spare room in the staff quarters a couple of months ago and she had stayed with them ever since as a receptionist-cum-girl-Friday-cum-anything.

Her biggest role most of the time, along with Ben’s mum, was as peacemaker, it felt.

‘Anyway,’ he said, dragging the conversation back to more pressing matters. ‘That company with the solar panels are coming on Tuesday so at least things are moving forward at last.’

Walter nodded. ‘That’s the first good idea you’ve had. Use the sun for our energy.’

‘If we ever get any,’ quipped Frankie.

‘We’ve got to do something,’ Ben told her. ‘The electricity bills are still way too high. I’m hoping once the electrician’s finished, the new circuit board will get the costs down a bit.’

‘You could always ask Del for ideas,’ said Frankie.

Ben immediately shook his head. Del was Frankie’s godson. He had been the local coach driver until that business had begun to dry up and he had turned his hand to becoming a taxi driver instead. Del was a nice guy, always trying to be helpful around the local villages. It was just that his dubious ideas to help out his friends and himself had earned him the nickname Dodgy Del a long time ago. Trouble followed Del everywhere he went, despite his generous nature.

Thankfully Ben was saved by the phone ringing in the main reception and Frankie went to answer it. He sat down next to his grandad at the table.

‘So now that things are moving forward,’ said Ben, ‘we need to decide on a date to reopen properly.’

‘And then you’ll go?’ asked Walter.

Ben baulked. Was his grandad so desperate for him to leave already? ‘I thought I’d stay on a bit longer to help,’ he said slowly.

‘We don’t need your help,’ said Walter, his mouth set in a firm line.

For a moment, he looked every bit of his seventy-nine years of age and Ben’s heart ached. This was the man who had taught him how to fish. About the trees and the land. About the lake and the nature surrounding it.

Nobody wanted this place to be sold. It was their home. Their bolt-hole. And he was needed, however bad it made the atmosphere.

‘This land has been in our family for five generations,’ said Walter, sticking to an old, familiar routine.

‘And I’m trying to make sure it stays in the family for another five,’ Ben told him.

‘Why? Have you got some great-grandchildren for me hidden away somewhere?’ asked Walter, with a rare twinkle in his eye.

‘Not given the state of my love life at the present time,’ muttered Ben.

‘Even Dodgy Del’s had more dates than you, from what Frankie tells me,’ said Walter.

They exchanged a small smile. ‘I pity those poor women,’ said Ben.

Walter nodded. ‘Me too. You’re not going to let him near our new, entirely safe electrics, are you?’