Fandango in the Apse! Read online

  Three pairs of eyes turned to her in disbelief.

  ‘Well, you know… if you imagine how it would look done up,’ she tried hopefully.

  In my opinion, the only word to describe the place was horrendous. It was a typical cottage with a door to the left and a small downstairs window almost completely obscured by cobwebs and an array of overgrown weeds skirting the front of the building. Protruding eaves overshadowed two upstairs windows below a roof warped by age. The whole place had a weathered look, not helped by grey, peeling whitewash. Darren, the young estate agent, was fighting to get the door open and I wanted to tell him not to bother, but I couldn’t. This place was the only habitable building we had found in my price range, in twenty-two properties and four days of looking. I had to buy something for cash because I didn’t have a job and therefore couldn’t get a mortgage. Mark had advised against renting and I agreed with his theory that renting was dead money.

  ‘If you can, it would be far better to keep your foot on the property ladder, there’s always money in bricks and mortar,’ he advised.

  That was the reason I was considering a dilapidated shack that had been empty for three years. It was sitting half way down a farm track in the village of Gringley-on-the-Hill, having once been a tithe cottage to a local estate. The previous owner had lived in it for over sixty years, according to Darren.

  ‘He didn’t do much to it then,’ I couldn’t resist saying.

  He did his best to secure the deal, despite my sarcasm.

  ‘It was rewired in the seventies and a bathroom put in in the eighties by the owner’s son, when his father got too old to use the outside toilet,’ he said, as if that made all the difference.

  It didn’t make any difference to me; it could have had half a dozen bathrooms and still been the shambles it was.

  ‘Shall we go inside?’ he ventured hopefully.

  Gawd! It seemed impossible, but if anything, the inside was worse. We walked straight into the living room whose only redeeming feature as far as I could see, was the original fireplace. The rest was a mixture of “improvements” made in what looked like every decade of the previous owner’s residence. With low ceilings and small windows, it looked dark and miserable. It also had the stairs hidden behind a door in the corner of the room.

  ‘Well, you can’t say it hasn’t got character!’ Alison remarked once she had time to wipe the look of dismay off her face.

  Darren, hoping we hadn’t notice the loose plaster and rotting windows, hurried us into what passed for the kitchen. It was miniscule, housing a disgusting-looking cooker, two cupboards and the original clay sink. The access for the “new” bathroom was through a lean-to that looked as if it had been a coal shed originally. I wasn’t sure I could face upstairs.

  ‘Come on, Mum, there might be ghosts!’ Toby said, looking extremely happy at the prospect.

  ‘I don’t want ghosts,’ whimpered Sam.

  Poor old Sam, he was always more timid than his older brother. I put my arm around his shoulders to reassure him.

  ‘There are no ghosts, Sam. Toby stop being so silly,’ I said, giving him my best glare.

  ‘Well there might be,’ he persisted quietly.

  ‘Toby!’

  Upstairs proved to be a pleasant surprise. The two bedrooms retained all their original features. Both had small cast-iron fireplaces and being situated in the eves, the sloping ceilings gave them a cosy feel. The windows weren’t any bigger up here, but it still had a lighter feel than below.

  ‘What do you think?’ Alison asked. ‘Could you live here?’

  ‘I’m thinking I haven’t got a lot of choice, it’s the best we’ve seen so far. Up here is not too bad though.’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking; if you got rid of the awful paper and painted the rooms in pastel colours, they could look quite pretty.’

  Standing with Alison in the overgrown back garden a little later, I had to admit the place was growing on me; it had an appealing quaintness if you could look past the dilapidation. Darren and the boys were still in the house, so we could talk privately.

  ‘The trouble is, Ali, it needs so much doing to it, and I’m not sure I could afford it. I mean central heating costs a bomb, I should think. It’ll need new windows, and the living room needs plastering. The kitchen would have to be extended – I don’t know, it’s a daunting prospect.’

  ‘It’s in a lovely position though,’ said Alison, ever the optimist, ‘and the school bus can pick the boys up from the bottom of the lane.’

  She turned and pointed down the vast back garden. ‘Look! It even has an orchard.’

  ‘Oh well, that settles it, if it has an orchard…’ I joked.

  ‘Do you know what I would do if I were you, Katie? I’d have a survey done, and if the building is sound, I’d make a really low offer and see what happens. You never know it, might be accepted, and it would solve your cash problems.’

  We were back at home in Exeter when the results of the survey came through. The house was structurally sound, but the roof needed some attention. However, wonder of wonders, there was no serious rot. Apart from a few recommendations about the wiring and guttering, it all seemed fine. I was amazed.

  Not giving myself time to think as usual (dangerous when buying property!), I got straight on the phone and put in an offer twenty thousand below the asking price for Lilac Cottage. I concealed my embarrassment over the cheek of it, and held onto the phone anxiously.

  ‘Let me put you through to Mr Beaufort, the manager,’ Darren replied after a thirty-second pause.

  Mr Beaufort’s bored drawl a few moments later gave the impression he thought I was a time waster.

  ‘I shouldn’t think the owner will entertain such a low offer, Mrs Roberts, after all, the property does have a lot of land attached.’

  His dismissive attitude made my hackles rise and I answered more abruptly than I intended.

  ‘Well, with respect, it’s not your opinion I’m interested in, Mr Beaufort. I have made an offer based on what I think the property is worth and would be obliged if you would pass it on to the owner.’

  ‘Very well,’ he sniffed.

  ‘Insufferable prig!’ I said aloud, once I’d rammed the phone down.

  There followed two hours where I alternated between castigating myself for my stupidity in making such a low offer and nursing a small hope that it would be the stroke of luck I needed. Then the phone rang. Out of sheer pigheadedness, I let it ring half a dozen times. No way was I going to let Mr Beaufort know I’d been practically sitting on the damn thing since I’d last spoken to him.

  ‘Ah! Mrs Roberts…’

  Did I detect a softening in his attitude?

  ‘I’ve had a word with the vendor. He is of the opinion that if you were to increase your offer by say, ten thousand, you would have a deal.’

  ‘Out of the question, Mr Beaufort.’ Ooh! I was getting good at this. ‘The property needs a lot doing to it, which is probably why it’s been on the market for three years. I’m afraid my offer stands.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll let the vendor know your position, Mrs Roberts.’ The haste by which he ended the call was completely unprofessional in my opinion.

  I wondered if I’d just played a masterstroke or made a huge mistake as I replaced my phone. It was unbearable to think I might not get the house. OK, it was a wreck, but I’d just got round to thinking it was my wreck. I tried to keep my eyes off the clock, the time was ticking on, there was only half an hour left before I had to pick the boys up from football. I eyed the phone, willing it to ring. When nothing happened in five minutes, I went to make a quick cup of tea. I would be philosophical about it, I decided in the kitchen, there was no point in buying a doer-upper, if I didn’t have the wherewithal to do it up.

  I was less philosophical en route to the boys’ school. Shit! Why hadn’t I offered another five thousand? It would have made things tight, but still manageable. I was an idiot.

  You know when you do some
thing that at the time you think is clever, and then when it backfires you want to poke yourself in the eye with a blunt stick? That’s how I was feeling. I’d temporarily developed an inflated opinion of my negotiating skills. Now, I was about to suffer the consequences. I wasn’t in the mood to think everything happens for a reason. Why do people insist on saying that? Trying to make out whatever happened was for the best. Bollocks! Cause and effect: you do something stupid and the effect is bad, because you did the something stupid.

  The call came through at twenty-five past five; my stomach lurched on the first ring. I took a deep breath and lifted the receiver. A couple of minutes later, I was whooping and hollering round the living room, scaring the kids to death. Both were looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.

  ‘We got it! We got it!’ I sang, while hugging my unresponsive sons.

  ‘We got what? Toby was the first to ask.

  ‘The house, we got the house!’

  ‘The last one we looked at?’

  ‘Yes!’ I beamed.

  The less than enthusiastic ‘Oh.’ from Sam, made me think that perhaps my boys didn’t share my vision of the future.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, even though I knew the answer.

  ‘Um, nothing… well… it’s a bit dodgy, Mum,’ said Toby.

  ‘And it might have a ghost,’ Sam piped up.

  Hmm…I needed to do some quick thinking here. The house was ours, we would be living in it, but I sensed the need for caution. And the damned telly blaring in the background wasn’t helping. I asked Sam to switch it off, which he did under protest, and then I patted the seats beside me on the sofa.

  ‘Right, listen to me, Sam, there are no ghosts in Lilac Cottage, OK?’

  ‘But Toby said there was.’

  I could have thumped Toby for his stupidity, but had to be contented with what I hoped was a ferocious scowl. He got the greatest of pleasure out of winding up his brother and it irritated the hell out of me.

  ‘Toby doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s never seen a ghost in his life!’

  ‘But you said there weren’t any ghosts!’

  Damn, I walked right into that one and judging by Toby’s grin, he knew it too.

  ‘That is exactly why he’s never seen one.’

  Sam didn’t look convinced. There was nothing for it; it was time to resort to bribery.

  ‘Tell you what, boys, when we get there, you can do whatever you like to your room. You can choose the wallpaper and carpet, and have your room exactly the way you want. How does that sound?’

  A vision of two walls covered in Spiderman wallpaper and the other two with Manchester United flashed in my mind, but I ignored it. Desperate measures were required if I was to convince my boys they could be happy in the new house. Ignoring the ethics of the situation, I added a little icing – just to make sure.

  ‘You could even have those bunk beds that you liked.’

  Bingo! That was the deal clincher. The ensuing argument over who was having the top bunk meant I’d scored a decisive win. They’d once seen the beds in a shop and plagued me about them for months, but as they each had their own room there wasn’t any point in buying them. Now they needed bunk beds and if that was all it took to make the boys happier about living in Lilac Cottage, then I would consider it money well spent.

  It was a little trickier a few days later when I asked them to sort through their toys. They refused to believe there wouldn’t be enough room to fit a playroom and two bedrooms’ worth of toys into the new house. I knew how they felt when I wandered round myself. The whole of the ground floor in the new house wasn’t as big as the living room in this house. It was heart-breaking, but there was nothing for it – I would have to get rid of most of the furniture – very little of it would fit the new house.

  The sale went through without a hitch and seven weeks later, I closed the door on my old life. The new owners of the house bought quite a lot of the furniture, which we agreed as a private sale separate from the house purchase. The rest I sent to auction; there was one thing I was sure of though, Eddie would be getting nothing.

  As I dismantled my life, a deep-set anger towards him settled in the pit of my stomach. On ringing round “our” friends – actually, they were primarily Eddie’s friends, but I still felt it was polite to say goodbye – I found he had been there first.

  It became increasingly obvious that he had been positively demagogic in his desperation not to be found at fault for the demise of our marriage, and he had shamelessly manipulated our friends. The general opinion, from reading between the lines, was that I was a bit of a nutcase. He had managed to do a nice job in assassinating my character, the bastard! He had felt it necessary to mention my need for anti-depressants and counselling. He had told them how hard he had tried to stand by me, but once I was on the mend, I had changed from the woman he had loved. It had all been too much for him, so he’d decided on a fresh start to get his life back together. No mention of his male lover, of course, so in the end, I had felt duty bound to let that bit of juicy information slip. But in hindsight, they probably thought it was a figment of my less than “normal” state of mind.

  Eddie had now gone off to live in his “fantastic” new apartment with Ethan, according to the boys. Apparently, you had to use a private lift to get to it and the building had a swimming pool in the basement, according to the boys after their first visit. It seemed Eddie was exactly where he wanted to be. Me? Well, I was on my way to a tumbled down cottage with a van full of flat-pack furniture and the smallest sofas I could find. I would not feel sorry for myself; I would look on it as an adventure. Yeah, right!

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alison and Mark were waiting when I followed the removal van up the narrow lane towards Lilac Cottage. Because of the distance involved, everything to do with the sale had been done by post, so they had offered to collect the keys for me. I had a bit of a crisis when I got my second look at the house. In the two months since I’d seen it, I think I’d romanticised the place in my head. Now, looking with renewed eyes, it was just as bad as the first time I’d seen it, and my heart sank.

  The men had everything unloaded into the house within an hour. I had a sticky time backing my Volvo Estate down the narrow lane in order for them be on their way, but apart from a small scratch where I’d driven too close to the hedge, I managed. Late into the evening, Mark was upstairs putting together the bedroom furniture with what I hoped was helpful assistance from Toby, and Sam was exploring the wilderness out the back. I was plugging in the second of two lamps when Alison came in from the kitchen with two mugs of tea. She stopped in the doorway.

  ‘Wow, what a difference!’ she exclaimed. ‘It looks cosy now; you can really see how it’s going to look once you’ve decorated.’

  I had to admit, with the furniture in, the room did look different. The brown leather sofas were a far cry from the ones I’d left behind, both in comfort and style, but they suited the room. A couple of occasional tables complete with lamps and the TV were the only other furniture the room could take. However, the addition of some cushions, a brightly coloured rug and a few carefully selected ornaments on the mantelpiece gave the dilapidated room a homely feel. My spirits lightened considerably. Maybe, just maybe, everything would be OK.

  Then again, maybe not. Sam stood in the living room when Alison and Mark had gone, adamantly refusing to go to bed. Bunkbeds or not, there was no way he was sleeping in what might be a haunted house. He was the quieter of the boys, but could be fiercely stubborn when it suited him. His mutinous expression now signalled trouble I was too tired to cope with.

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you, Sam? This house is not haunted, it’s old and in need of some love and attention, but that doesn’t mean it’s haunted,’ I sighed, my patience evaporating rapidly. ‘I’ve had enough of this now, you’re being silly. Go and wash your face and hands and get to bed.’

  While Sam sloped off to the bathroom, I rushed upstairs to
have a quiet word with Toby, who had happily grabbed the top bunk in his brother’s absence. I warned him on pain of having his bike and pocket money revoked for a month, not to tell Sam ghost stories. With his solemn promise in place, I tucked them in and hoped for the best.

  The boys only had two weeks at their new schools before the summer holidays. Then they would be spending a week with Jean and Arthur, and three weeks with their father and Ethan. The first week they would be in London, followed by two weeks in Portugal. They were beside themselves with excitement as we shopped for new holiday clothes. I didn’t intend to kit them out completely, I would provide the basics and their father could do the rest.

  I decided to wait until they were gone to start decorating the bedrooms – the only rooms that didn’t need re-plastering, and I kept to my word about letting them choose the wallpaper and carpet. In the end, it was a compromise between all three of us. Each had their own favourite football team colours on their beds and I would paint all the walls in a pale blue. I’d had the plans for the extension drawn up and submitted to the planning office for approval as soon as I knew the house was mine. When I passed the papers to the clerk, it was with the with the fervent hope they didn’t employ anyone with my mother’s work ethic. I needed an upstairs bathroom and a new kitchen.

  In deference to his age, I agreed to meet Arthur at the services on the M5 near Birmingham, to swap over the children. I assure you, this offer had nothing to do with me being embarrassed to let them see where we were living. I don’t want you thinking I’m a snob or anything, but you have to admit my change in circumstances was spectacular and OK, a tad embarrassing – there, I admitted it! Arthur was quiet when we met up. He refused my offer of a coffee in the café, saying he wanted to be on his way as quickly as possible to avoid the holiday traffic. Poor Arthur, it looked as if he would never get over his son being, in his words, a poof!

  Alone in the house that night, I will admit, I had a few misgivings. Had I done my usual trick of jumping in with both feet, before thinking the whole thing through? Of course I had, and then, the first time I’d had a chance to catch my breath since the move, I was daunted by the task in front of me. It was one thing reassuring the boys everything would be OK; believing it myself was something else entirely. There I was, someone who had never picked up a paintbrush in her life, with a whole house to renovate, I must have taken leave of my senses after all. I was scared.