Nevertheless, Sophie had complied, too numb with grief and pain and sadness to find the resources to do anything else. And despite the heartache, she had been instantly beguiled by Montenegro, its beauty and tranquillity. It felt like a healing place, even though she doubted she ever could be healed. And having come here at Anna’s behest it seemed a small leap now to be, at her insistence, looking around a house for sale. The fact that said house was near derelict merely added to the surreal nature of it all.
Anna had been indulging in a solitary game of ‘spot the property that’s ripe for renovation’ ever since they had arrived and had studiously scrutinized Kotor’s real estate office windows, swooning over what was immaculately restored and exclaiming in astonishment at the low prices of what was not. It had probably been inevitable that, at some point, Anna would succumb to temptation and insist on a viewing. But even Sophie, dazed and confused as she was, had been taken by surprise when it happened.
Having spotted a ‘for sale’ sign outside one particular stone house, serendipitously accompanied by a businesslike woman in smart clothes armed with a glossy brochure in her hands, Anna had summarily screeched the car to a sudden stop. And now here they were, Sophie inside, while Anna, her small son Tomasz, and the estate agent were on their way in. Sophie really had no idea what they were all doing. What she was doing. She felt as if she were permanently on autopilot, acting unthinkingly, without direction, just conforming with whatever she was told to do by someone who had a handle on the world. All her actions were immaterial; nothing mattered now that Matt was gone.
A noise in the background and a clattering on the stairs alerted Sophie to the fact that the others were almost upon her. She walked towards the door – her feet in flip-flops that softly flapped against the wide wooden floorboards – and rejoined them. Jovanka, the estate agent, led them around the rest of the house, revealing room after room, all equally dusty and neglected but full of charm and promise. In each one, she opened windows and threw back shutters, unleashing priceless view after view.
Sophie looked on, stupefied. It was her dream project, something she could transform as she had done the flat in Belsize Park, painstakingly remodelling and redesigning it until it was completely unrecognizable to the wreck she and Matt had bought. But the idea was ridiculous, nonsensical.
‘What are we actually doing here?’ she hissed in Anna’s ear, taking advantage of Jovanka’s temporary distraction with a recalcitrant window bolt.
‘Shh,’ Anna hissed back, and continued to follow Jovanka around, asking a constant stream of property-related questions designed, Sophie assumed, to make her sound like a clued-up potential buyer.
In one third-floor room with no electricity, a pile of grey plaster dust lay forlornly in the centre of the floor.
‘Damage from the 1979 earthquake,’ pronounced Jovanka, sagely. ‘It brought down most of Kotor,’ she continued. ‘But this is a good sign.’ She pointed at the mound of debris.
‘How do you work that out?’ questioned Anna, a note of challenge in her voice.
‘If that’s all the damage the quake caused,’ Jovanka explained, ‘then you know that this is a house that can withstand anything.’
Anna nodded, purporting a knowledge of seismic activity and its effects that Sophie knew was utterly feigned.
Outside, behind the house, the garden rose up from a courtyard through five terraces until right at the top the cerulean sweep of the water became visible again above the pantiled rooftops. Fig, pomegranate, lime, and grapefruit trees grew wild and untended, and the fragrance of wild mint scented the air as their legs brushed against its leaves. A plump tabby cat lay on a stone, basking in the heat.
‘How much is it?’ asked Anna. Sophie surreptitiously kicked her but Anna took no notice.
‘It has just been reduced significantly, and it won’t hang around at this price.’
Jovanka named a sum which, translated into pounds at the current exchange rate, was a steal. The price of a studio flat in London.
‘The owner of the house is ninety-four,’ the estate agent continued. ‘And she wants to sell. She’s set her heart on ending her days in a retirement village on the Croatian coast where it’s nearly always sunny. She’s already sold up in Zagreb.’
Sophie thought she might cry. She wanted the old lady to have sunshine and happiness in her twilight years, and was sorry it wouldn’t be them who made that dream come true. She comforted herself with the knowledge that – as Jovanka asserted – the house was definitely a bargain; someone would undoubtedly snap it up.
‘So the owner would probably negotiate,’ continued Jovanka, cutting through Sophie’s ponderings and going on to present her with exactly what she had been dreading. ‘She’s spending a week or two here in the hope of getting everything sorted – she’ll be back any moment now. Her neighbour takes her for a little stroll to the café every morning. Let’s go in and meet her.’
Sophie and Anna exchanged glances: Sophie frowning, Anna beaming.
‘Lovely,’ said Anna, before Sophie had a chance to say anything. ‘Let’s go.’
Reluctantly, Sophie followed. The last thing she wanted to do was give the poor old lady reason to believe they might really be prospective buyers when they were anything but.
Mileva Golubovic proved utterly delightful, apologizing for speaking better Italian and German than she did English, and then proceeding to converse fluently in said language. Sprightly, bright-eyed, and petite, she looked years younger than she was. She made no secret of her desire to clinch a sale, talking of how much she worried about the house when she was far away in Croatia, about how she couldn’t afford the maintenance and upkeep any more and how she just wanted to be free of all responsibilities.
It turned out that she was a fan of the art form known as abstract expressionism, something she had in common with Anna – a talented artist who currently scraped a living from the paintings she produced in a dilapidated shed at the bottom of her garden. Amidst their avid conversation, Tomasz fell asleep on the aged sofa with a fraying fabric cover whilst Sophie found herself wandering off again, unable to resist the temptation to explore the house further, drawn to the rooms at the front with their gracious proportions and views over the glittering water of the bay.
An antique bureau stood beside the window in what had obviously once been the formal sitting room, its dark wooden furniture still precisely arranged for receiving guests. As Sophie stood there admiring it, thinking how good it would look once restored, the sun must have minutely changed its position in the sky so that it fell upon the heaped-up piles of papers, ornaments, and books shoved into its open front. The light caught something bright and shiny, a diamond sparkling amidst the clutter.
Drawn towards it, Sophie found herself shifting an ancient concert brochure to one side and revealing beneath it a finely carved wooden jewellery box with a mother-of-pearl inlay lid. Without thinking what she was doing, that she was intruding into someone’s private possessions, Sophie opened the lid. Inside, tied together with a ragged piece of ancient string, was a thin bundle of letters. There was something strange about them that at first Sophie couldn’t quite put her finger on. Tentatively, she reached into the box and picked them up.
Immediately, she saw what was odd. The letters were all unopened. They were also heavier than expected and as she handled them, an old-fashioned man’s watch slipped out from the middle of the bunch and tumbled into the box with a solid thud.
‘I’m sorry.’
The old lady’s voice sliced through Sophie’s absorption, causing her to jump and break out into a cold sweat. She had been caught prying into personal papers. How shaming. She turned slowly towards Mileva, flushed red with her guilt.
‘No, it’s me, I must apologize for –’
Mileva, interrupting, shook her head. ‘I’m sorry for the mess, the house is not tidy like it once was; everything has got too much for me.’ She was resting on her stick, breath
ing heavily. Sitting down she had looked so fit and well but standing as she was now, slightly bent, clearly finding all movement an effort, her years began to show. ‘Many of the things in that bureau I inherited with it and the house. I’ve never gone through it all. I started this summer when I arrived, but as you can see –’ she waved her hand to indicate the disarray ‘– I don’t think I have the energy to finish the job.’
Sophie nodded and smiled sympathetically. ‘I’m sure there’s no need to, is there? If it’s been here for so long, there can’t be anything vital.’ She looked down at the box, then hastily replaced the letters. Unimportant: possibly, and without value in monetary terms: almost definitely. But they were without doubt intriguing.
Mileva shook her head. ‘I suppose not.’ She fell suddenly quiet, her head drooping, her stick wobbling beneath her hand and threatening to destabilize her.
Instinctively, Sophie moved towards her to support her, weaving her way between the heavy furniture. ‘Are you all right? You look like you need to sit.’ She escorted Mileva back to her sofa.
‘Old age,’ Mileva murmured, as she sank down. ‘It’s a terrible thing, but I try to make the best of it.’
‘You seem to be.’ Sophie couldn’t think of anything else to say. She seemed like such a brave old lady, not lonely and needy at all despite being ninety-four and having lost her husband twenty years before, a fact that Sophie had gleaned from Jovanka earlier. A vision of herself, growing old without Matt, flitted through Sophie’s mind and she swiftly banished it.
She looked towards the wide-open window and the bright sunlight on the water. How much better it would be to end one’s days in a place like this than in grey, dreary England. She was envious of Mileva’s sun-soaked future.
Jovanka appeared at the door, looking at her watch, Anna beside her.
‘Ladies, I don’t want to hurry you but I have another appointment. And –’ she glanced meaningfully towards the sofa ‘– I think we should probably leave Mrs Golubovic to rest.’
‘Oh yes, of course,’ replied Sophie, not wanting to exhaust poor Mileva, but for some inexplicable reason not wanting to leave the house without knowing the fate of the box with its mysterious cache of letters.
‘If you buy the house you can have everything in it.’ The old lady seemed to have read Sophie’s mind. ‘Otherwise the house clearance people will take it all to the tip, and I’ll probably be heading for the human version soon so none of it’s any use to me.’
Her light-hearted tone did not mask the prescience of her words. This time, the thought of Matt was almost too much, reminding Sophie of his coffin disappearing behind the curtain at the crematorium, making her think about where he might have gone, where he might be now. She wasn’t sure if she believed in heaven, but couldn’t bear to think that he was nowhere, that he simply no longer existed, was not even a soul soaring somewhere far above the sky.
Mileva was talking again, and Sophie forced her attention back to her. ‘My third husband bought the house many years ago, in 1960 I think. I wasn’t married to him then, of course. We didn’t meet until the late Seventies.’ Mileva smiled, a wistful, nostalgic smile, as if looking back on good times, gone but not forgotten.
Sophie nodded, inwardly absorbing both Mileva’s ability to talk about her past love without the taint of sorrow that marred all her own memories, and also the fact that Mileva had been married three times. What had happened to husbands one and two? It felt too intrusive to ask.
‘He purchased it from a Serbian man who had rented it out for years. An absentee landlord, I suppose you would call him now,’ continued Mileva, dreamily. ‘The last family to live here had long gone. Apparently, they were tenants all through the Thirties and early Forties, but after the war they moved away from the area. The Serbian man was already ill and infirm and he simply left the place unoccupied and untouched until Zoran – my husband – bought it.’
‘Gosh,’ responded Sophie, inadequately. ‘It seems strange to think someone had no use for a property so beautiful, but …’ She left the sentence hanging, unsure where she wanted to take it. There were so many derelict houses around, testimony to people leaving for work, family, or myriad other reasons. Then she thought of something. ‘Where did the old tenants go?’ She wondered if they wanted their things back. Surely not, after the passage of so much time.
‘I’ve no idea what happened to them, or where they went,’ continued Mileva, as if reading Sophie’s mind. ‘They left so much behind, including that bureau, but people had no money in those times to pay for packers or removal firms. My husband and I came here only during summer, and somehow we never quite got round to sorting it all out.’ Mileva paused for breath, and met Sophie’s eyes. ‘So anything you want you are welcome to keep.’
‘If you’re sure,’ Sophie blurted out, holding back tears with difficulty. ‘Thank you.’ She had no idea why she was saying this when it was clear she was not going to be the house’s purchaser.
‘I’m sure,’ she vaguely heard Mileva say, her voice faint with tiredness. ‘And God bless.’
***
Stepping out onto the street, Sophie was momentarily blinded by the sun’s glare. The heat was stultifying. Anna, dragging a whinging Tomasz – who was unsettled by being disturbed from his impromptu nap – followed. After her came Jovanka, shutting the door behind her.
‘Are you going to put in an offer?’ she asked, addressing Sophie whilst Anna was half hidden inside the car. ‘The house will not stay around for long at this price.’ Her tone was forceful.
‘Oh no …’ Sophie began.
‘I’m not sure.’ Anna’s voice, as she emerged, rose above Sophie’s. ‘We’ll have to think about it. It’s a lovely house but there is a lot of work to do, so –’
Jovanka was momentarily distracted by her phone ringing.
‘Be careful,’ hissed Sophie. ‘You’ll make Jovanka think you’re in the running.’ She caught the glint in Anna’s eyes and stopped, abruptly.
‘I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m not sure I like it, whatever it is.’
Anna merely shrugged and smiled in response.
Jovanka was off the phone again now.
‘That was the representative of the Russians who saw the house yesterday,’ she said. ‘They will definitely be offering, later today or tomorrow.’
‘OK. That’s interesting to know. We’ll be in touch.’ Anna’s voice had an affected air of disinterest about it. She shook Jovanka’s hand and opened the driver’s door. ‘Speak later.’
In the car, Anna decisively clicked her seat belt into the catch. ‘Never let estate agents think you’re too keen,’ she stated, definitively. ‘And if she thinks we were taken in by that Russian buyer story, well, she must think we were born yesterday.’
Sophie put her head in her hands. ‘Why are you playing games?’ she asked, when she had recovered enough composure to speak. ‘You’re not even thinking of buying that house, are you?’
‘I’m not,’ replied Anna, speeding off along the shimmering bay road amidst a cacophony of horns at her sudden pulling-out. ‘But why don’t you?’
The strobing sunlight streaming through the trees that lined the road was like a flashing neon sign, impossible to ignore.
‘Me?’ Sophie wasn’t sure whether to be angry or amused.
Anna slowed down as a cluster of houses approached. ‘Think about it.’
Chapter 2
The route to the beach took them all along the waterfront, past numerous other ancient stone houses, many restored, others even more romantically dilapidated than the one they had just viewed, with dark ivy growing thickly up crumbling walls and through broken windowpanes. Everywhere were tiny konobas, all boasting prime waterfront positions, the many piers that jutted into the flat blue sea bright with tables laid for lunch. Fishing boats of all sizes lazily drifted on the calm water and seabirds swooped and soared above. Alongside one house, a quaint but rusting commu
nist-era, banana-yellow Trabant – barely bigger than a motorbike sidecar – was chocked up on bricks and awaiting restoration.
‘It’s like I imagine the South of France – Nice or St Tropez – circa 1950,’ mused Sophie, gazing out of the hire car window. ‘I keep expecting Princess Grace to appear in front of me, all priceless elegance and white gloves, and get into an open-top car and drive off to lunch somewhere divine.’
Anna laughed. ‘I know what you mean. And apparently, according to the guidebook I was reading on the plane, she loved it here.’ She paused for thought, frowning. ‘Or maybe it was Ava Gardner. I forget.’
‘Well, both always had immaculate taste, didn’t they?’ replied Sophie. She saw Anna glance at her, as if trying to work out what she was feeling before replying.
‘Sure did.’ Anna clunked the gears as she had to suddenly slow down for a fast-approaching vehicle. ‘So are you glad we came? Despite the reluctance?’
***
In the immediate aftermath of Matt’s death, Sophie had cocooned herself at her parents’ house, the house in which she had grown up, where she had lived until she and Matt had left home to move in together. For days, she had been unable to get up but had lain in bed in the bedroom that had been hers for so many years. Flat on her back, staring at the ceiling, the tears slid off her cheeks and soaked her pillow and nightie.
Her mother had lent her the nightdress, which was long and white and ethereal, like something a Victorian consumptive might wear whilst waiting to cough up her lungs. It was supremely unsexy and Matt would probably not have allowed her into bed with it on. But now Matt would never comment on her night attire, or any other aspect of her, ever again.
Under an Amber Sky Page 2