1. An Encounter

Alfie McAlister turned up his coat collar against the chill of the air. Despite being November, it was a bright, sunny day, but Aberdeen, five hundred miles north of Bunburry, was considerably colder than the Cotswolds village.

He hadn’t known what to expect of this distant Scottish city, an east-coast seaport that was a hub of the offshore oil industry. But he was already completely charmed by the silver granite buildings sparkling in the sunshine, the elegant main street only a stone’s throw from the quays, the squawking seagulls.

It would be a perfect place for a holiday. Except he wasn’t here for a holiday. He had only made the decision to come north because he was exiled from Windermere Cottage, while an army of tradespeople renovated the home he had inherited from Aunt Augusta. At first, he took one of the rooms in The Drunken Horse Inn. Its luxurious en-suite bathroom was the model for what he would have in the cottage, at last replacing the avocado suite with comfort and style.

But the problem with The Horse was the cooking, or rather, the cooks. There was ferocious rivalry between Edith, mother of the inn’s owner, and Carlotta, the owner’s wife. Edith specialised in traditional English fare, while Carlotta not only preferred recipes from her native Italy, but had recently turned vegan. While he was staying there, Alfie spent as many evenings as possible with his friends, Liz and Marge, and sometimes escaped to the local Indian restaurant, From Bombay to Bunburry.

There was no escape at breakfast time, however. He loved Edith’s full English breakfast: bacon, eggs, sausages, grilled tomatoes, home cooked baked beans and sauté potatoes, accompanied by wholemeal toast with farm butter and thick-cut marmalade. But in order to keep the peace, every second morning he had Carlotta’s vegan breakfast, which could be chive waffles with mushrooms, or tofu pancakes with blackcurrant compote, or porridge made with hemp milk, blueberries and kiwi fruit, washed down with an exotic smoothie. It might not be his first choice, but it was always delicious, and Alfie would have been happy to ring the changes. But every morning, the two women hovered near him as he ate, jealously watching for signs that he was enjoying one breakfast more than another.

After a week, Alfie had feared he would have either indigestion or an ulcer if he stayed much longer. And so he decided to flee back to his London flat where he could eat whatever he wanted unobserved.

He had barely unpacked when his phone rang.

“My name’s Oscar de Linnet,” came an upper-class drawl. “I’m looking for a fellow called Alfie McAlister, newly arrived from the country. I thought I should introduce him to a spot of culture.”

“Oscar, I came up to London last month for the Beethoven at the Royal Festival Hall,” said Alfie drily.

“And tonight you’re going to hear Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House. Remember to change out of your wellingtons and dungarees – the place has certain standards.”

Alfie glanced down at his Savile Row trousers and fine Italian leather shoes. “I’ll try not to embarrass you.”

His friendship with Oscar still surprised him sometimes, given their very different backgrounds. Oscar was an Eton-educated aristocrat who had no doubt been taken to the Royal Opera House when he was still in short trousers. Alfie had been brought up in Hackney by a single mother, and had become a self-made man who found himself a multi-millionaire through the sale of his start-up. He might be able to match Oscar for bespoke tailoring and hand-made shoes, but he never took them for granted. He acknowledged that he liked having expensive, stylish clothes, but that was because when he was growing up, everything he wore came from market stalls or charity shops.

As always, Oscar had got the best seats for the opera, and the performance was magnificent. But afterwards, as they walked towards Soho for a late supper, Alfie found himself recoiling from the throngs of people, his eardrums blasted by the noise of the traffic, the blaring of horns, the sirens of emergency vehicles. As a boy in the East End, he’d thought it was an adventure to go “up west” and see the lights and the crowds. But now, after three years in the country, he had lost his tolerance for the ceaseless bustle, and it was a relief to reach the restaurant.

“And you claim you’re only here for a fortnight?” said Oscar once they were seated in the Cantonese restaurant, a pot of Oolong tea in front of them. “You do know that builders never finish when they say they will? You’ll still be here by Christmas, if not Easter.”

“I have an excellent local architect supervising a local workforce, and it’s all completely under control,” said Alfie.

“I don’t like the sound of this garden you’re getting,” said Oscar. “You’ll start growing kale and keeping goats.”

“Of course I won’t,” said Alfie. “I’m modelling it on the gardens at Versailles.”

Oscar leaned forward eagerly. “Really?”

“No,” said Alfie, refraining from adding “you dolt,” even though this was what Oscar frequently said to him. “It’ll be like Versailles insofar as it will have flowers and grass, but there the resemblance will end.”

Aunt Augusta had left the garden to grow wild, but not prettily. This was mainly because although it was at the back of Windermere Cottage, there was no direct access to it, and any gardening involved walking to the end of Love Lane and clambering over a fence. It was simply an overgrown piece of land belonging to the cottage.

But now Alfie was getting a back door which would lead directly into a newly landscaped garden. As well as flowers and grass, there would be a patio where he could sit with his morning coffee. The thought made him even more wistful for Bunburry, but first he had to endure two weeks in London.

He was cheered by the arrival of the food. Oscar had chosen well: king prawns with black bean sauce, Taiwanese stewed chicken, stir-fried beef with ginger and spring onions, and egg-fried rice.

“The major work is the back door and the bathroom,” he said, pouring more tea as Oscar set about the serving dishes. “For the rest of the cottage, it’s just a matter of painting and decorating.”

Oscar stopped spooning rice into his bowl.

“Alfie, you wouldn’t,” he managed to say.

“Wouldn’t what?” asked Alfie innocently.

“The parlour – the wallpaper-”

“The wallpaper with those ghastly migraine-inducing psychedelic swirls? First thing to go,” said Alfie, pulling the dish of prawns towards him.

“No!” said Oscar urgently. “You mustn’t! It’s magnificent. A masterpiece of Seventies style. I forbid you to touch it.”

Alfie’s brow furrowed. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “When I said first thing to go, I didn’t mean it would be the first thing to go, I meant it had already gone. Every last square inch ripped from the walls.”

Oscar stared at him in horror. “Barbarian!” he whispered. “Vandal! How could you do such a thing?”

“Easily,” said Alfie. “Once I had sourced the identical vintage wallpaper to replace it with. The parlour will be an even more mind-bending agglomeration of purple, pink, black and white, since the stuff on the walls was getting a bit tired after fifty years.”

“Alfie,” breathed Oscar reverently, “how much did that cost?”

“More than you might imagine,” Alfie admitted. “But I economised with the guest bedroom. It’s going to be painted in restful neutral colours. No more melting brown and orange rhombuses. I can only cope with one lot of Seventies wallpaper.”

“Oh,” said Oscar slightly regretfully. “But you’re keeping the lava lamp?”

“I’m moving it to the parlour. I think it’ll be happier there.” As he reached for a king prawn, he could see Oscar’s brow furrow. In case there was going to be an instruction to leave the lava lamp where it was, he said quickly: “What did you think of tonight’s conductor?”

Oscar always had firm views on every performance he saw, and it was an easy way to distract him from the topic of Windermere Cottage.

But it continued to preoccupy Alfie. Windermere Cottage had been a godsend. He had been half-mad with grief in London after his Vivian died, at times unable to believe that she had gone, at times not wanting to live without her.

It had been impossible for him to imagine he could ever look forward to anything again. But now, three years on, at last putting his own stamp on Windermere Cottage, he had a sense of anticipation, that his life might be taking a new turn.

He hadn’t yet told Oscar about the unexpected link with Aberdeen. Nor had he decided what to do about it.

Then, after his first week in London, a frenetic round of meeting friends, and going to concerts, plays and exhibitions, he got a phone call.

It was the architect. “I’m afraid you’ll have to delay your return,” she said. “Builders never finish when they say they will. But I’m fairly confident an extra week should do it.”

Alfie was trying to reconcile himself to a third week in London when it struck him that he didn’t have to. He could go up to Aberdeen instead. It was a long way, but he could make it a leisurely drive, stopping off at other interesting places en route.

When he sold his start-up, he had begun travelling...