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running.
    Ros busied herself with the estate papers, collecting the yellowing, brittle pages together. “Marjorie was fascinated by the wartime stuff, I thought.”
    “She was.”
    “Did you see her face when I showed her those Victorian ledgers? Fifteen shillings to build an ornamental pond, it’s unbelievable. Figures never lie.”
    “They don’t,” said Charlie, toying with his glass. “Look, Ros, I spoke to the surveyors today before they went.”
    “Any more wine left?”
    “A bit.”
    She tipped the bottle over her glass. A dribble came out. “Go on. You spoke to the surveyors.”
    “They’ll put it in their report, but they said that in their opinion the stonework’s going to need a lot of work.”
    “Well, that’s obvious. How much work?”
    “About a million pounds’ worth.”
    Her head went back as if he had slapped her.
    “And that’s not counting the roof.” He paused. “There’s something else. I finally got through to that National Trust contact Jules gave me.”
    “And?” she said.
    “We had a chat, quite a longish one. It seems the Trust isn’t taking on any more stately homes. Their portfolio is full.”
    “I see.” As a child, Ros had always been the braver of the two of them. Not a crier, a whinger, or a wailer. Stoical with the scraped knee, the bump on the head, the wasp sting. Now he could see the effort she was making to control herself.
    “Trisha Greeling, the woman I spoke to, didn’t rule it out entirely. But she did refer me to their more recent acquisitions—a Manchester workhouse, a terrace of back-to-backs in Salford, and the house where John Lennon was born. Or maybe they haven’t bought the Lennon place yet, I forget, but you understand what I’m saying.”
    “Cheap. Cheap to buy and cheap to run.”
    “A shift of priorities. All part of the heritage, as she reminded me.” Charlie wished he hadn’t had that cigarette, because now he wished he had another. And another. A pack. “She’s going to think about it and we’ll speak next week, perhaps meet, but frankly, it doesn’t look hopeful. I’m sorry.”
    “No, you’re not.”
    “You’ve got to see that the sums don’t add up.”
    Ros placed her hands on the table and spread her fingers. “It’s been less than three weeks, Charlie. We haven’t even started to explore the possibilities. OK, so it looks like we’ll probably have to rule out theTrust. And it’s going to cost more, a lot more, than we thought. But do you really want to sell this house and see it ripped apart?”
    “It’s Grade II listed. No one can rip it apart.”
    “A Grade II listing only protects the exterior. We sell this place to a pop star or whoever and the next thing you know there’ll be a Jacuzzi in the octagon room. All the work that Hugo and Reggie did to restore this place will be smothered in crap.”
    Families had their fictions. Here was Ros, the healer, the restorer of health and life, and here he was, the voyeur, the bystander of loss and destruction. Truth was, they both bought into it.
    “We have no choice.”
    “There’s always a choice.” Ros dropped her head in her hands, then raised it again. “What about your father-in-law?”
    “What about him?”
    “If we put together some sort of business plan, perhaps he might put up a bit of capital.”
    “Absolutely not!” Charlie pushed back his chair, stood up. He was furious. “It’s taken Rachel years to work out how to live her own life. If you think I’m prepared to throw all that away by asking her father for money to fix up this place, you can think again.”
    Ros twisted round in her seat. “It would be a business opportunity, not a handout.”
    “No, it wouldn’t be a business opportunity. It would be like cutting a hole in your pocket and seeing how much poured out on a daily basis. And before you get on to my father-in-law’s generous donations to charity, let me tell you that he knows down to the last cent the difference between a good