Once upon a time, in an English market town, there was a castle. It had been there a very long time, so perhaps “once” upon a time is too short a term for it, but there at any rate it was, and getting older and shabbier by the year. People smiled as they passed it by, but they said, “It does need a facelift, poor thing!”

The English family who lived in it had not, by English standards, been there a very long time. Alderley, a diplomat in the time of George, Prince of Wales, had bought it, then lived in it now and again, and it had passed, as these things do, down the family. It was merely a hunting lodge; used in winter, ignored in summer.

The Alderleys in modern times lived in the castle all year round. They had not enough money to keep up the old place as it needed. The roofs all leaked conspiratorially during the winter months and the jackdaws nested in disused chimneys in the spring. In summer, climbing plants imported during the family’s wealthier years swamped many of the upper windows, and in autumn falling leaves clogged the gutters and eaveshoots so that rainwater ran down the walls, and indoors the damp proliferated. The wide ancient gates under the gatehouse were propped not quite on their hinges, gently crumbling into the unweeded gravel of the courtyard. Dust settled on ancient furniture, disused rooms grew black spots of mould, and plaster fell off and was not replaced.

The castle had no great paintings or famed china collections. It was not surrounded by classical topiary gardens, nor set in a picturesque landscape. It was not open to the public. The Alderley jewels were ugly and old-fashioned, and the little land that was left fetched only a small rent. There was nothing with which to endow it, to entice the National Trust. Thus, no-one expected anything other than the current state of affairs to continue, or a gradual decline into obscurity and perhaps, in the end, collapse. And the locals would still pass it by with a rueful smile, saying, “It does need a facelift, poor thing!”

The Alderleys had two sons. The elder one was personable but no world beater in the brain department while the younger one was sharp as a tack. The family sent both, with much economy and careful selling of silver, to a less expensive but still old private school, which gave them their social training, and to a young university, which exposed them to a wider range of personalities and allowed them lower second class degrees. The elder brother found that the Alderley name gave him the entree to smart parties in London, but he quickly tired of this superficial life and went travelling, as an understandable reaction to his efforts in Academe. He was often untraceably lost in far-flung parts of the world, and just as often returned with tall tales to tell and an aura of health and good nature that excused his lack of financial success.  His mother would secretly take and sell small items of the family jewellery and so, it seems, kept him afloat a little longer.

When the cleverer, younger son graduated, he too had the entree to smart parties, but being bright he made full use of the contacts he made. At one of the parties he met a rich and subtle Libyan gentleman, who wanted to buy an English property for use in summer. You are thinking of course that he sold the castle outright to the Libyan gentleman, but you must recall he was the younger son, and he could not inherit. However he persuaded the Libyan gentleman and his parents (I told you he was clever) that the rambling castle could contain both sets of people perfectly happily; and a short lease was then all that was required for everyone’s wishes to be realised.

That spring, the locals noticed that builders’ vans and wagons were driving in through the gatehouse. Scaffolding appeared around the walls as the roofs were repaired. The climbing plants were trimmed, and the jackdaw nests pulled out of the chimneys. The white dust of plaster floated on the sparkling air as men removed the old and spread on the new. The gutters were cleaned. The gates were tightened and renovated and varnished and replaced on their hinges. They were not locked, but the locals were unsure of their welcome now that everything began to look trim and regimented and looked-after. They did not know which parts were paid for by the Libyan and which by the Alderleys, so they did not know, either, what to say any more as they passed by.

The Alderleys adapted more or less comfortably to the new regime. They had less use of the castle, but that was no hardship, since in the lean years they had reduced their entertaining and had more or less abandoned the older and more difficult sections of the building to their fate. The mother wrote cheerfully about the improvements to the eldest son, or rather to the address from which he had last written, but he did not reply. She still abstracted pieces from the family collections, which vanished and did not return, and if the younger son or her husband noticed, they said nothing. During the summer the Libyan gentleman and his entourage visited occasionally, to oversee the renovation of the old sections, which became habitable and even luxurious. They developed new gardens, restored the curtain wall of the courtyard to its full height, and were pleasant to the Alderleys, to the locals and to the workmen.

During the winter (which was often wet and sometimes cold, but which did not disturb the Alderleys under their newly mended roof and did not freeze them now that they had effective heating) the Libyan family remained in the warmth of North Africa, though when the weather permitted some building continued in the old section of the castle.

However, when spring came again, there appeared a convoy of articulated wagons, too large to go through the gatehouse. Men in the Libyan house uniform dropped the tailgates of the wagons and brought out pairs of exotic animals and birds. There were cheetahs, disdainful on leashes, horses with polished golden hides and black manes, even a pair of great eagles wearing jewelled hoods and jesses jingling with silver bells. They were all housed in the newly renovated stables, and their handlers joined the regular staff in the castle.  The Alderleys looked on in astonishment, but said little. After all it was not really their business, and the lease was in order, and the castle was a comfortable home once more - and what were a few strange animals across the courtyard, compared to the hacks and hunters of the past?

In high summer, the Libyan gentleman returned with a great family of people, many more than had been seen before. His wife, whom few locals met, was a blonde Englishwoman, something of a beauty, and an heiress in a small way. She employed a secretary from the town, a timid middle aged gentleman to whom she apparently entrusted all her paperwork. While the Alderleys never enquired about the Libyan household, nobody in the town knew whether this was from reasons of upper class English reserve or from lack of interest, and they made their own attempts to find out what went on by discreetly pumping the secretary. It was soon widely accepted that the Libyan family had moved north in summer to escape the fierce heat of their North African climate; that they ate chilled seafoods, the best cuts of lamb, imported fruits and sticky sweet desserts; they drank expensive coffees, mineral waters and fruit juices instead of tea or the local brewery’s beer. The women lived largely separate from the men, eating, singing, dancing and making merry in their own quarters. The men pursued their own pastimes, sometimes riding out, lofty and aloof, on the golden-skinned horses, and sometimes driving in sports cars of fabulous make and superb insolence. The cheetahs were said to be of uncertain temper, and the townspeople were anxious until it was clear that they were never brought out of the castle gates, but only glimpsed strolling in the security of the courtyard. Occasionally the eagles were seen, hooded and leashed, on the wrists of the Libyan and his young son, as they walked the fields of the estate. It was curious, said the townspeople, how they still managed to look down their noses, whether from the backs of horses or the low seats of sports cars. Slowly, people passing the castle began to remark – not without envy - on the shocking luxury of life within. They speculated as to whether the Libyan might have a harem there, rather than discussing the castle’s improved exterior.

And so the second summer passed.

In the autumn, as the Libyan family began to give orders for the household to pack up for the trip back to the North African coast, the elder son of the castle (remember him?) came home with a guest.

The guest was an American. He was as yet unmarried, although his father had left him a large business and a healthy income, which must have made him a great catch. The family were charmed by him, not least because he too was an Alderley, and that surely must guarantee a link in the distant past. They even regretted not having a daughter whom he might marry and so secure his fortune for the estate. They were astonished, and secretly delighted, to find that their elder son had persuaded him that what he most deeply desired was to be the Lord of the Manor. For the moment, he remained merely their guest; but it seemed likely that his status would soon change. He would pay handsomely to obtain the title.

As the Libyan family loosened its hold on its side of the castle, so did the elder son’s guest settle himself into the Alderleys’ side, until he seemed as much part of the fabric as the son. The two brothers, however, did not seem happy with each other. The younger criticised the American for his intrusive voice and freely-stated opinions, which ill accorded with his personal tastes. The American was a Christian of a rather strict kind, while although the Libyans were Moslems, they were easy-going within the confines of their religion. The elder disliked the Libyans’ subtle, evasive tactfulness which made him feel obtuse and confused, and their opulent lifestyle contrasted sharply with his memory of the shabby surroundings in which he had been brought up. The younger son pointed out that the Libyan lease was temporary, yet had refurbished the family’s property, while selling the title of Lord of the Manor was something that could never be undone; the elder retaliated that the American was a distant relative and of the same religion and race as the family, and to sell him the title was not even a change in name. How else could they maintain the castle in the manner to which they were now becoming accustomed; the manner that, for them, had been only a memory of their grandparents’ time? The younger brother reminded him he was stupid; capital should never be divided; there should never be a time when family assets were sold outright. The elder brother sneered and reminded him how their educations had been bought, pointing to all the gaps where precious items no longer stood.

They strode arguing from room to newly decorated room; they faced each other snarling over the antique furniture; and the echo of their bickering filled the castle like a chill breath of winter.

One evening in September their mother made an end of it. She called her sons and her husband to the sitting room. High headed, in front of the fire, and looking out over the darkening lawns to the end of the walled garden, she confronted them all.

“I have a confession to make,” she said. “I have gambled away all our money. I have backed horses that lost and invested in stocks that have failed. I have sold all the silver we still possessed. I have taken out loans against the property and I have lost those too. We cannot possibly pay them back. In short, we are ruined.

“The American must buy us out. There is no other way. We will move somewhere distant, where you cannot see the castle to argue about it.”

The men all protested vehemently, and all through that autumn they sought to find ways to keep the castle, but in the end what the mother said is exactly what happened. The Alderleys removed from the castle and from the town, and vanished from sight.

* * *

The Libyan family returned to their winter home, leaving the American Alderley in sole possession. The locals wondered how the Christian and the Moslems would get along when the Libyan family returned, but it appeared they lived, intermittently, side by side, in harmony for some time.

However, as the third summer drew to a close, the American fell in love with the Libyan’s English wife, and she with him. The Libyan shot the American for his theft.

The English wife said nothing to her husband. He beat her and still she said nothing. In the morning she ordered the animal steward not to feed the cheetahs. Two days later she barred the outer gates, the gates so well mended with her husband’s money; she released the cheetahs into the enclosed courtyard that the workmen had repaired with such skill, and she locked herself in the house, leaving the man who shot her lover outside with the cats.

And the castle? Ah yes, the castle. The American Alderley’s brother inherited that. He dismantled it and took it to Florida, and built a fine new set of company offices on the empty site.

And the locals tell their children, “Once upon a time, there was a castle ... ”