The House in the Clouds

by Connelly, Victoria

  ‘Not at all. We all have to learn and these are beautiful,’ Ronnie told her.

  ‘I was actually hoping you’d tell me what the pink ones are. I’m afraid I didn’t label them,’ Abi confessed, wincing at another of her amateur errors.

  ‘It’s cosmos rose bonbon.’

  ‘I love its fluffy flowers.’

  ‘They’re called doubles,’ Ronnie told her as he placed the flowers in an earthenware container. ‘Beautiful. But make sure you don’t go all double in your garden as some doubles are impossible for the pollinators to access. You want plenty of open flowers too.’

  Abi nodded. It was all so fascinating and she was lapping up his knowledge.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ he asked. ‘If you’ve time?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve time. If you have?’

  He nodded. ‘Always plenty of time here. The world moves slowly in the summer in this place.’

  Abi shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘Actually, there was something I wanted to talk to you about,’ she said, her voice whisper soft.

  ‘Oh? About your garden, is it?’

  ‘No. Not about the garden.’

  He turned to look at her as he placed the vase of flowers on the table and, seeing something in her face, he nodded.

  ‘Let’s get that cup of tea, shall we?’

  * * *

  Abi hadn’t told Dana or her other work colleagues about her pregnancy for a few weeks, anxious in her early stages for everything to go smoothly. Luckily, she didn’t suffer from morning sickness – much to the chagrin of Ellen who had gone through it with both her pregnancies.

  ‘You have no idea how wretched I felt!’ Ellen told her.

  Actually, Abi did know how wretched Ellen had felt because she’d texted her sickness updates every single day. But Abi felt lucky all the same as she read through blog posts and online forums about pregnancy, hearing women’s experiences and wondering if things would change for her.

  After telling Dante her news, she only saw him twice during that first month. He was busy at work, he told her. Abi had tried to hide her disappointment in him, wondering if he was making any plans for their future together. He certainly hadn’t made any suggestion that she should move into his flat or that he could move into hers. It was as if he was just getting on with his normal life. So much for Italians and their love of family life, Abi thought, typecasting horribly, but feeling better for a brief moment of giving her frustration free rein.

  But she delighted in her new-found state. Pregnancy was something she’d never really imagined unlike her sister. Even as a child, Ellen had always been one for dressing up dolls and brushing their hair; Abi had been far more interested in her coloured pens and little paintbox. But why shouldn’t she be a good mother? Just because she was creative and had been wed to her art for so long didn’t mean she couldn’t do a good job of raising a child. And perhaps her creativity would give her a little extra edge too, she thought, imagining her future self sitting at a table with her daughter or son, sharing with them the magic of colour, the splendour of pattern – just as she had with Bethanne.

  And then it happened. In the middle of the night. Abi woke alone and in pain and screamed as she realised what was happening to her.

  Dante came over immediately and held her as she wept. His hands stroked her hair which was tear-soaked and he rocked her back and forth like a baby. They didn’t say anything. There were no words which could possibly have filled that void.

  Abi didn’t go into work for the rest of the week, but Dante did. He rang her and texted her, but didn’t come over until three days later.

  ‘You look pale,’ he said when she opened the door to him. There was a part of her that wanted to scream at him, ‘Really? I wonder why!’ He seemed surprised that she hadn’t pulled herself together already.

  She sat on the sofa and watched as he moved around her kitchen, prepping the vegetables that he’d brought with him.

  ‘I thought we’d try a new recipe,’ he said, pulling a pan out of a drawer. ‘Something warming. It’s been so cold today.’

  Abi wasn’t normally one to hate people, but she couldn’t help hating him in that moment. How could he be so focussed on ordinary things when something so tremendous had happened to them? Had it not touched him at all? She wanted to scream at him and beat her fists against his chest, but she had the feeling that wouldn’t make a bit of difference. He still wouldn’t understand. And so she ate the meal he made for her and drank the wine he’d brought with him. Then, as they sat on the sofa together, he put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. She was ready to hear it then – the sweet, gentle words that would express his sadness.

  ‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ he told her. ‘It’s just us again.’

  Abi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How could losing a baby be for the best?

  ‘You know how I’ve always admired your talent and I think you’d be throwing it away having a baby. You’d probably never design anything else ever again.’

  Abi stared at him in bafflement. ‘Dante, women can have a family and a career as well. This isn’t the Dark Ages anymore.’

  ‘I know, but I think you can only do one thing really well in this life and perhaps yours is your design work.’

  She could feel tears pricking at her eyes, but she was determined not to cry in front of him.

  ‘I think you should go.’

  ‘What?’ he said, genuinely baffled.

  ‘I want you to go, Dante.’

  ‘Are you tired?’

  Abi nodded because she didn’t have the strength to tell him exactly how she was feeling in that moment, but she knew things had shifted between them and that they’d never get back to that sweet place they’d once shared.

  ‘I love you,’ he told her as he left. But how could he? How could he truly love her without loving the little being she had held deep inside her albeit for so brief a time? How could he love her without feeling the pain that she felt? Dante may have spoken the words of love, but Abi had felt none of the feeling behind them.

  * * *

  Now, after telling Ronnie what had happened to her, Abi looked at his gentle face which was full of concern.

  ‘When you mentioned your own loss the other day, I guess I had a moment…’ Abi began, but her voice petered out.

  Ronnie nodded and his rough hands reached across the space between them to hold Abi’s.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Abi. It’s a terrible thing to go through. And, if I may say so – that chap of yours didn’t deserve you by the sounds of things.’

  Abi smiled weakly, like a piece of sun trying to break through the clouds.

  ‘I don’t think he ever wanted any sort of commitment, which was kind of fine for a while because I was so obsessed with my work,’ Abi confessed. ‘He was one of life’s free spirits and I loved him because of that and I suppose there was a part of me that knew he’d resent me if I pushed him into any sort of serious relationship. Maybe that’s why I didn’t push. Not even when I found out I was pregnant. But I couldn’t go on after seeing that relief in him. It was unmistakable. He never wanted a child. Not then. Not with me at least. He wanted us to continue being together, but things had changed between us and I couldn’t bear to be with him any longer. Was that wrong of me? Was I unfair?’

  ‘No, no, my dear. You were just two very different people who wanted different things.’

  Abi sniffed, keeping the tears at bay as she nodded.

  ‘And how are you now?’ Ronnie asked gently.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Abi said honestly. ‘I thought moving out of London away from where it all happened would help, but I’m still having nightmares. Sometimes, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and feel that pain and it’s like it’s happening all over again.’

  ‘It’ll take time,’ Ronnie told her. ‘It’s something nobody wants to hear, but it will take time.’

  Abi looked out of the window into the green depths of the garden.

 
; ‘When it happened to us, we didn’t know how we’d ever get over it,’ Ronnie said. ‘It seemed insurmountable. But time passes, doesn’t it? And the raw edges get smoothed away a little.’

  ‘Just a little?’

  ‘A little enough so that you can go on living.’

  Abi nodded. There’d been a few dark days when she’d wondered if she even wanted to do that, and then Dana would show up at her home with a tub of ice cream, a bunch of freesias and a shoulder to cry on. When she’d reached out to her friend with the news, she’d been round in a heartbeat. Abi wasn’t sure what she would have done without her in those first couple of weeks, especially after she’d broken up with Dante. It had all been too much and that’s when she’d decided to sell her company. A fresh start. A new beginning. And here she was in Sussex, sitting in a stranger’s home telling him the most intimate details of her life. Only, he didn’t feel like a stranger. He felt like the very dearest of friends even though she’d only known him a short time.

  She looked at his face now, creased and kind, his eyes warm and gentle.

  ‘How about a walk around the garden?’ he asked her. ‘It’s a good cure-all, I find.’

  Abi nodded. ‘That sounds like a very good idea.’

  Later, once Abi was back at Winfield, she sat in her living room with the French doors open, tears streaming down her face. She hadn’t realised that she was still carrying around so much grief inside her, but talking to Ronnie had helped to release it.

  It was strange, but she’d found it so easy to talk to him. Much easier than talking to her sister. She still remembered the awkwardness she’d felt when Ellen had visited her just after the miscarriage. Ellen had gone into mother mode – tidying and going out shopping, preparing a meal for Abi and making sure she had everything she needed. It was kind of her, of course, but the one thing she didn’t do – very much like Dante – was to just sit and talk to her. Or not talk. Just to be with her in that same emotional space for a while.

  Even up to when she was leaving, Abi was expecting Ellen to say something, anything.

  ‘You have everything you need?’ Ellen had said, her hand on the door, ready to go, and Abi had nodded dumbly at her, wishing she had the courage to ask her sister to stay and to talk and talk until all the hurt was talked out of her.

  But, even now, they still hadn’t really talked about it and Abi suspected that they never would. Ellen probably just assumed that Abi was over it by now. After all, she’d moved house and, to Ellen’s mind, that showed strength and survival. Abi must therefore be fine. But was she? She still felt so prone to tears and strange spells like she’d experienced at Ronnie’s. She thought about him telling her that it would take time. It’s what everybody said, wasn’t it? Time will heal. Let time do its thing. This too shall pass.

  And what did you do in the meantime? Abi gazed out into her garden. You planted sunflowers, that’s what you did. Huge, happy sunflowers with chocolate and yellow faces that smiled down upon you. You couldn’t feel unhappy when you looked at a sunflower. Or a cosmos for that matter. Abi really shouldn’t give all the glory to the sunflower. Her garden was becoming her therapy, her escape, her joy, and she felt so grateful to have it. She would get through this, she told herself. With time and her garden and with friends like Ronnie, she would heal.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was the beginning of August and the books weren’t balancing. That was the conclusion Edward came to after a morning of number crunching. He knew he could make his business work, but it was going to take time to make a regular income that could be relied upon to run a house the size of Winfield. Even with Abi having shared the burden, Edward was still struggling to make ends meet and that meant one thing. He was going to have to start renting his apartments out much earlier than he’d anticipated.

  The trouble was, the builders were far from leaving. There was still so much work to be done and that might put a potential tenant off. Still, it hadn’t put him off moving in. You just had to find the right person, he reasoned. The right person wouldn’t mind a bit of hammering or dust. Or walls being knocked down. Well, that’s what Edward hoped anyway.

  There was one apartment that was almost ready to let and Edward went to see it now. It was the one adjacent to his own and he’d asked the builders to prioritise work on it over his although his was very nearly finished now. Opening the door into it, he couldn’t help smiling. It was a wide open space with huge white walls, beautifully finished floorboards and the same marvellous view of the downs that he enjoyed from his own apartment. Who wouldn’t want to live in such a place? It was a place one could dream in. Dream and breathe. That’s what he’d been able to do most in his short time at Winfield. Although he’d been horrendously busy with everything, there had been some magical moments when he’d just stood in the middle of his living room, breathing in the beauty of the scene.

  He smiled to himself. Winfield was turning him into a romantic. Well, he’d just have to find someone with the same sort of sensibilities to share it with.

  The first viewer was most certainly not a romantic. He was called Mr Basildon and he owned his own company manufacturing something expensive in the car industry. He was a sprightly sixty-year old who said he was looking for a country retreat that he could escape to at weekends. He’d sounded very pleasant on the phone but, when he arrived, Edward wasn’t sure that he wanted this man as his neighbour. There was just something about him – a restlessness. He was one of life’s fidgeters and he also liked to clear his throat, very noisily, at regular intervals. Edward began to count the time between the throat clearings and it was less than thirty seconds. No, he would not do as a neighbour.

  The next person was a Mrs Asprey who was a head teacher at a very nice school for girls who wore green blazers and straw hats in the summer.

  ‘Does it come furnished?’ she asked.

  ‘No, it’s unfurnished,’ Edward told her. He’d thought the advertisement had made that clear, but obviously not.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘And the garage?’

  ‘No garage. But plenty of room to park on the driveway.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Edward tried to hide his frustration at the fact she hadn’t yet praised anything she was getting.

  ‘And the walled garden – that bit over there?’ she asked when they were outside.

  ‘That’s somebody else’s,’ Edward said, ‘but you’ll have access to this part.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said again with a derisive sniff this time.

  Honestly, he thought as she drove away, some people were never happy – no matter what you gave them, they always wanted something else.

  The third viewer was a Mr Harry Freeman who seemed like a nice guy. He did something in advertising for a large company in London, had family close by in Sussex and, most importantly, really seemed to understand Winfield.

  ‘These sash windows are great,’ he said.

  Edward smiled. ‘They are, aren’t they? They were one of the things I first fell in love with.’

  ‘And the views!’ Harry gave a long, low whistle.

  ‘You’re in London at the moment?’

  ‘Suburbs. A bit cheaper, but the commute’s a pain.’

  ‘But won’t commuting from here be worse?’

  ‘Actually, I’m going to be opening up an office in Brighton.’

  Edward nodded. ‘An easier commute than London.’

  ‘Just a bit.’

  Edward continued the tour, answering Harry’s questions and giving him all the information he thought of interest.

  ‘Thank you,’ Harry said when he came to leave. ‘You’ve got my number?’

  ‘I have. You’re interested then?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  They shook hands. ‘I’ve got one more person coming, but I hope to get back to everyone soon after that.’

  ‘I look forward to hearing from you.’

  Edward watched as Harry Freeman drove away, noticing the way he glanced back at th
e hall. He was just as smitten with the place as Edward had been after he’d viewed it for the first time all those months ago.

  The next viewer arrived a little late, but Edward soon forgave her when she got out and smiled at him. Tamara Wakefield was nearly six foot tall with raven-black hair down to her shoulders and a smile that was pure sunshine. She was a business consultant and had had enough of her noisy flat in Eastbourne and wanted some peace and quiet.

  Edward gave her the tour.

  ‘And there’s just the one apartment?’

  ‘At the moment.’

  ‘So there’ll be more in the future?’

  ‘No more than eight in the whole building.’

  He was just about to tell her something else when she smiled at him and the thought completely left his head. And so he showed her the garden, thinking that some fresh air might shake him back to his old self.

  * * *

  Abi was just returning from shopping when she saw a woman walking out of the hall with Edward. She was tall with plenty in the way of legs and hair, Abi couldn’t help thinking. Rather like a fine racehorse and probably just as expensive to maintain.

  She watched as the woman got into a sporty-looking car and drove away and then Abi got out of hers.

  ‘Ah, Abigail!’ Edward called over to her. ‘Time for a chat?’

  ‘Of course.’

  They walked round his side of the hall and sat on the bench in a spot of sunshine.

  ‘I meant to tell you,’ Edward began. ‘I’m going to be renting one of my apartments out. I hope that’s okay. I should have run it by you first.’

  ‘You don’t need to do that. It’s your half of the hall. You can do as you see fit.’

  ‘Still, it’s only polite to tell you my plans. After all, you’d soon notice a stranger walking around.’

  ‘A tall, willowy stranger?’ she asked with a grin and, to her delight, she saw Edward blushing.

  ‘Well, we’ll have to see.’