Page 77 of One Cornish Summer With You
‘It always is with you. Remember Alexandra. I’m glad that’s over. She was such a cold fish and a snob.’
‘Thanks,’ Ruan muttered, eager to move away from this topic too.
‘You’re better off without her even if it’s complicated with this new girl. Now, I won’t hassle you, I can see it’s a tricky subject. Tell me a bit more about the house.’
Ruan didn’t feel he’d gleaned any new information about Walter, but a new idea was forming in his mind. He would have to find someone who’d known Walter in his later years and his mother’s comment about Alzheimer’s had given him an idea of how he could possibly do that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
‘Hello. I’m here to see the manager. It’s Ruan Mitchell. I have an appointment.’
On Monday, once he was back in Cornwall, Ruan asked the solicitors where his uncle had spent his final years and decided to take the morning off to go and talk to the manager and staff of the Logan Rock Care Home to see if they could provide any insight into his uncle’s state of mind towards the end of his life.
‘OK, Mr Mitchell. I’ll let her know you’re here. Please take a seat. There’s tea and coffee in the machine if you’d like one. Do help yourself.’
The receptionist spoke softly and cheerfully at the same time, as if she was prepared for all eventualities – which she probably was, considering the vast majority of the residents seemed to be north of ninety from what he’d seen in the gardens on his way in.
Some of the residents had been sitting on benches in the grounds, or by the duck pond in wheelchairs. Others were chatting to each other and a small group seemed to be helping a gardener cut some roses, triggering Ruan’s vaguest memories of helping his mother – though not of meeting Walter himself.
The home itself was a large Victorian manor, similar in size to Tremain House, albeit a hundred years newer. The grounds were beautifully tended with stands of oak and beech, and formal flower beds filled with agapanthus and roses.
Had Walter been fit enough to help tend the roses? Or had he stayed in his room, as reclusive as he always had been once he’d bought out the Pendowers and forced them to move to Porthmellow?
Ruan quashed all fanciful thoughts that Walter had suddenly discovered a passion for gardening, remembering he’d let his own property go to rack and ruin. Although it was unlikely he’d been well enough to manage the place, physically or mentally. He never would have agreed to live in residential care otherwise.
‘Hello, Mr Mitchell.’ A tall woman with a blond crop and broad smile held out her hand. ‘I’m Helen, the manager.’
‘Hello. And please, call me Ruan,’ he said, rising from the armchair to shake her hand.
‘Would you like to come into the office? I understand you want to know more about your Great-uncle Walter?’
‘I do,’ Ruan said, feeling slightly like a fraud when he hadn’t known the man at all. Helen must surely wonder why Ruan had never visited while Walter was alive. ‘He was here until he passed away, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, he was. He was eighty-eight when he died, suffering from Alzheimer’s.’
‘Was he on his own?’ Ruan asked.
‘If you mean did any relatives or friends visit him, thenno, but his care team were there, including Kyra, who knew him well. He passed away peacefully in his bed here.’
Ruan paused, feeling desperately sad that, even though the man was thoroughly unpleasant, he’d died without anyone close to him because he’d driven them all away. He was grateful to the care home staff for being there.
‘He had an advanced care plan when he arrived and he was able to sign it then, saying he wished to stay in the home, not go to hospital. Someone is always with a resident at the end of their lives,’ Helen went on.
‘I’m glad he didn’t die alone in his house,’ Ruan said, feeling a sense of loss for a man he’d never known.
‘Our residents, including Walter, are like family to the care staff. After the death, all the staff usually go into the room to say goodbye and the window is opened to let their soul fly free.’
Ruan found himself very touched by the staff’s kindness towards such a man as his uncle. ‘Thank you for telling me that. That’s the reason I’m here really, to try to find out a little more about his last years. I wasn’t close to my great-uncle. Unfortunately, from what I hear from my family, he could be a very difficult, cold and reclusive man.’
‘I must admit we’d worked out that his conscience was troubling him,’ Helen said. ‘From the time he joined us, he would often get agitated and upset about the past. He’d often tell us he’d “wronged people” and sometimes start crying about it.’
‘That’s awful,’ Ruan said. ‘I mean that he could have had a more fulfilling life and chose not to. I only ever methim once when he visited my parents. I was probably only around six or seven. After that, I never heard from him again until the executors told me he’d left me the house.’
‘Sounds as if he acted on his regrets,’ Helen said. ‘I’m afraid we hear a lot of very poignant stories like that.’
‘I feel guilty that I never spoke to him about his decision or thanked him for his change of heart.’
‘You couldn’t have possibly known he was ill. Maybe he left it to you to make amends.’
