ONE OF THESE DAYS...
an excerpt

Charlie Tripcony, in his jeans and with a long white shirt flapping around his slim waist, came into view running up the hill to Trevyth just as Greg judderingly engaged first gear.
‘Dearie me…’ Greg murmured, distressed. He glanced at Kate’s pale face, and brought the Lancaster to a halt.
‘Hello, there, Charlie!’ Greg said, as heartily as he could manage. ‘Come to make your farewells, then?’
‘Yess…’ said Charlie, slowing to a walk beside Kate’s window and sticking both hands in his pockets. His fair curls looked as if he hadn’t had time to comb them.
‘You must come and visit her, when she’s settled!’ Greg continued. ‘My friend Joan loves visitors!’
Kate’s face had become flushed.
‘I will that,’ said Charlie, his blue eyes gazing beseechingly into the car.
‘Say something to him, Kate,’ murmured Greg. ‘The poor lad’s made a real effort running up that hill.’
He saw his niece turn her head, reach through the open window and gently touch Charlie’s arm. He’d never seen anything as cool, or as loving, as that gesture from her. Sometimes, young Kate was a revelation. It wasn’t until later he asked and realised from her answer why she hadn’t spoken to Charlie just then. It was because if she’d opened her mouth she wouldn’t have been able to hold back the tears.
‘And that would’ve made him cry, too, uncle. He’d never have forgiven himself if he had.’
Greg had rested his hand on Kate’s brown head for a moment and realised how well she’d understood a situation where he thought she’d had no insight at all.

‘I don’t know why we didn’t get the train,’ Kate said, sucking a barley sugar and gazing out at Bodmin Moor as it passed by her window. The weather was dry, the wind blowing the clouds into patchy rags.
‘We could’ve done,’ said Greg. ‘But surely the luxury of our own vehicle is better? And I shall be motoring on to London straight afterwards, don’t forget.’
Kate hadn’t forgotten.
‘How soon will you go?’ she asked, as if it didn’t matter one bit.
Greg Ralph changed gears noisily, and didn’t answer straight away.
‘I may… I only say, I may…stay overnight.’
‘At Mrs. New’s…I mean, Auntie Joan’s? Or…?’’
‘I doubt she’ll have room, with that brood of hers,’ said Greg. ‘No - if I stay, it’ll be at an hostelry.’ Greg emphasised the words theatrically, making a joke of them. Kate saw him smile, but she couldn’t manage one in reply. The thought of Uncle Greg leaving…

They stopped for dinner. Kate had packed two rounds of egg and cress sandwiches and a couple of apples, just in case, but Uncle Greg - although full of gratitude and admiration for her foresight - would have no truck, as he put it, with cheeseparing.
‘We will take our luncheon at the first suitable place we see along the road from here,’ he said. ‘A cooked meal, Kate. A pot of tea. That’s what we need. Something hot.’
They had salad, as it turned out. But there was tomato soup first, and a bread roll.
‘Apple tart?’ her uncle asked, but Kate shook her head.
‘I’m too full, thanks.’
Uncle Greg finished his cabinet pudding with custard, and then they were ready to leave. Except the Lancaster was not.
‘I can’t imagine what’s wrong!’ Greg said, pacing up and down in the carpark. ‘It was fine when we got here!’
Kate climbed into her seat to wait for her uncle to fetch help from the restaurant they’d just left. He came back, accompanied by a man in an apron who chuckled and told him he’d do better if he took the handbrake off.
‘Nice car, though…very nice all round…’ said the man, appreciatively, cocking one eye at Greg and grinning.
Uncle Greg watched the man’s retreating back.
‘Impertinent devil. As good as said I had no business driving it! Do I look like a thief? I ask you…’
‘I’m sure he didn’t mean you’d stolen the car, Uncle!’
Greg Ralph eased himself into the driver’s seat, and the seat squeaked.
‘When you have lived as long as I have, my dear little Katie, you come to realise just how much may be conveyed with the lifting of one eyebrow. He definitely thought the car couldn’t belong to me.’
‘But it doesn’t!’ said Kate, laughing. ‘You hired it from Charlie’s cousin in Truro!’
Greg’s expression was solemn.
‘Not doesn’t, my dearest child. Couldn’t. You should understand the difference.’
Kate gazed at him, her brown eyes wide as her uncle continued.
‘If something doesn’t belong to me, that may be just a temporary state of affairs. But if it couldn’t…. then that means I can never entertain any hopes of it. Never ever.’ Greg paused, thoughtfully. ‘And no-one should live without hope.’
‘I see,’ said Kate. ‘So… I will always hope and hope to return to Trevyth, someday, shall I?’
Greg patted her shoulder.
‘If it helps, then yes,’ he said. ‘But don’t forget to live your life meanwhile. There’s plenty ahead where I am taking you. Good things.’
‘But it’s been good with you at Trevyth, Uncle Greg. You know how much I love it…loved it...and you…’ Kate added, her voice wavering. ‘After my parents died, all that while ago, you took me in. I would’ve been lost without you!’
Greg slowed down to take a bend in the road.
‘Kate, you are one of the world’s independents. You know your own mind, and you are your own person. You were never lost, not as far as I know. I was just around to give a helping hand for a while, but it was you who saved yourself, not me.’
He saw her digest this information.
‘But what you most need now is life as part of a real family. Not the uncertain life of the vagabond…’
‘Do you mean you’re a vagabond, Uncle?’ asked Kate.
‘I suspect all actors are… at heart,’ Greg murmured. ‘Outcasts, you see. From earliest times. Invited into posh people’s homes, or playing the church hall, but never belonging anywhere. Making the best of things.’
‘Trevyth was the best of things,’ said Kate, thoughtfully. ‘I thought so from the first time I saw it. When I visited you with my parents.’
‘But - as with this old car, my dear - the house was rented. It always belonged to Charlie Tripcony’s cousin. I could never claim it as my own.’