Page 16 of New Beginnings on Railway Lane

It was Katy’s turn to be horrified. ‘But that’ll take ages!’ she told him. She waved a hand around at the messy, full room they were standing in. ‘From what I can see, none of this is important. I mean, Marie Kondo would have a complete meltdown if she saw this place.’

‘Who?’ asked Ryan. ‘Oh, you mean that woman on Netflix who makes everyone tidy their drawers and cupboards.’

‘Her mantra is only keep what brings you joy,’ Katy told him.

‘And is that how you live in your home?’ he asked, looking somewhat bemused.

Katy frowned at the unexpected question. ‘My home is clear of clutter, if that’s what you’re asking. All clean surfaces and minimal decoration. It makes life a lot easier.’

Ryan’s eyebrows shot up. ‘No keepsakes or ornaments?’

‘None at all,’ Katy told him. ‘I like a nice clean home with straight lines and no mess.’

‘Straight lines?’ She followed Ryan’s gaze to the nearest wall, which, she had already noticed, was not exactly at a ninety-degree angle. ‘Short of rebuilding the place from the foundations up, I’m not sure how you’re going to achieve that here.’

‘Well, hopefully I’ll achieve something,’ she said through gritted teeth.

It was going to be a long week, she decided, wondering if perhaps she would have been better off on a beach holiday after all.

But she wouldn’t give up. She would make them see her way in the end. And that would be better for everyone, wouldn’t it?

However, given Bob’s unexpected reaction, she was beginning to have a tiny niggle of doubt that any change would not be for the best and that perhaps it should just have been left as it was.

9

Ryan’s bad day was getting worse in ever-decreasing circles, he thought, as he stood in the waiting room of the station.

Ethan’s ridiculous job advert had been a disaster after all. His dad and Katy were suddenly at complete loggerheads. Katy was enthusiastic to throw out everything and his dad wanted to hold on to everything. It was a classic impasse and Ryan could see no way out.

On top of that, there was the large loan still needing to be repaid on the station. With his dad having already retired, how on earth was it going to be paid off?

It didn’t help that Ryan had just lost his job and had no income of his own to help out. What he needed was time and space to think and that was impossible with the position that Ethan had put him in.

He dragged a hand through his hair as he looked at Katy, trying to think of a way to break the bad news. It was no use. She would have to leave. His initial gut instinct had been right after all. There was no immediate solution to the whole messy family situation.

‘Listen,’ he began to say to her. ‘You know that we appreciate you trying to help—’

But as he took a deep breath to carry on, his mobile rang, showing a telephone number from Italy.

His heart leapt in his chest. Was it a restaurant? Someone offering him a job?

His heart then immediately sank, as he wondered how on earth he was going to cook in a restaurant every night. His passion and flair for cooking seemed to have disappeared as quickly as his self-confidence.

Besides, no matter how many times he had run away before, this time he couldn’t abandon the sinking family ship. Cranfield, despite the bad memories of his parents’ marriage, was still home. His dad and grandad lived there and the emotional pull was too deep for him to ignore.

Whatever the outcome, though, he needed to answer his phone, so he excused himself and headed out onto the platform to take the call.

But it wasn’t anyone connected with the restaurant business. Instead it was his landlord, calling to say that his top-floor apartment in Rome had been flooded by the water tank and that he needed to retrieve his possessions as soon as possible so that work could commence to make it habitable once more.

Feeling upset, Ryan agreed to head out to Rome to clear the apartment.

As he hung up, Ryan knew that the situation in Cranfield was nothing short of disastrous and now he was facing yet another problem in Rome.

He quickly scoured the internet for the first available flight and found one that left the following day. He booked it, anxious to retrieve his many precious recipe books and notes that he had made over the years and left behind in his apartment temporarily. He just hoped they weren’t completely ruined.

He looked back through the glass door to where Katy was seemingly carrying on with the matter of tidying up the ticket office. Ryan had been wondering whether he should ask her to leave. But now his only one thought was that when he headed back to Rome Katy would at least be there to keep an eye on his dad. There were friends close by, of course. Flora and her grandmother at the farm and Harriet and Joe just down the lane, as well as Libby. But Katy and his dad were staying in the same apartment. They might be at loggerheads downstairs, but hopefully upstairs they may come to some kind of amicable agreement. For all of Ryan’s misgivings about the whole situation, he would feel better when he was away knowing that Katy would be around.

He headed back inside to tell her that he was leaving the following morning to catch a flight to Rome for two days.