by Heidi Swain
‘Which is why you need to get out more,’ she said, tracking back to her original point. ‘I’m sure if you had a bit of distance from the situation, inspiration would strike.’
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ she confirmed. ‘In my experience that’s how all the best ideas come about. You have to stop thinking about it, Lottie, get yourself away from here for a bit, even if it is for just a few hours. At the moment it’s all too close. Life’s all about striking the right balance, isn’t it?’
‘Well, there’s the party at Skylark Farm Saturday night,’ I reminded her as Ed hopped over the gate. ‘Let’s see what comes to mind after that, shall we?’
I was delighted the next day when Matt’s van turned up, but my sunny disposition was soon heading for the hills thanks to Minnie’s less than hospitable welcome. She certainly wasn’t up for playing the gracious hostess if Matt was the only guy on the guest list.
‘Where won’t you need to look?’ I shouted over the noise of her persistent yapping and growling.
‘The greenhouse,’ he suggested with a straight face. ‘You could stick her in there until she cools off.’
I looked at the greenhouse, the searing sun and cloudless sky and back to Matt again.
‘You are joking,’ I frowned.
‘Of course I am,’ he laughed. ‘Why don’t you just tie her up in the shade under the tree? I’m sure I won’t be too long.’
I didn’t much like the idea of tying Minnie up anywhere. She might be a complete pain in the backside whenever Matt was in the vicinity, but she’d been subjected to enough drama and trauma during the last few months and as her new owner it certainly wasn’t my place to inflict even more.
Matt began to drum his fingers on the steering wheel and I knew I had to make a decision.
‘I’ll put her in the dining room,’ I said, quickly scooping her up before she could object. ‘I can’t imagine there’s anything you’ll need to look at in there.’
‘Has the damp dried out then?’
‘What damp?’
‘Last winter there was a terrible patch in the corner under the window.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I can’t say I’ve seen any and it smells all right.’
Minnie began to growl again and wriggle in my arms.
‘All right,’ said Matt. ‘Stick her in there and I’ll have a look at that another day.’
Having dumped Minnie in the dining room and made us both a drink, I followed Matt about the cottage, my freshly inflated spirit sinking with every head shake and sharp intake of breath.
‘Sounds expensive,’ I said when I couldn’t cope with the suspense of not knowing a second longer.
‘What does?’ he frowned as he tucked his pen behind his ear and stretched up to rub at a tiny speck of something on the bathroom ceiling.
I opened my mouth to answer, but catching a tantalising glimpse of his tanned, toned stomach and the slender line of fine blonde hair which led my eyes towards the waistband of his low-slung cargo shorts, the words died in my throat. I quickly turned away, thinking that if the work did turn out to be expensive at least the view of watching him hard at it would make up for some of the cost.
‘What sounds expensive?’ he asked again.
‘Hmm,’ I said distractedly, as I played out the little fantasy in my head. ‘Oh sorry, it’s your body language. Your body language sounds expensive.’
‘My body language sounds expensive,’ he frowned. ‘Lottie, what are you talking about?’
‘It’s a well-known fact, according to my grandad,’ I explained, ‘that if a builder goes about shaking his head then that’s at least another couple of zeros added to the bill, and God forbid he tuts or chews the end of his pencil, that would mean certain bankruptcy.’
‘Is that right?’ Matt laughed.
‘So he reckoned.’ I shrugged.
‘Well, I shouldn’t worry about any of that,’ he smiled. ‘I’d already quoted Gwen for most of what needs doing and all the figures we discussed were based on “mates’ rates”.’
‘Well, that’s good to know,’ I said, feeling somewhat relieved. ‘Thank you, Matt. Considering I don’t know what you quoted her, you could have plucked any old figure out of the air. That’s very generous of you.’
‘But how can you be sure?’ he teased, pinning me with his beautiful sparkling eyes. ‘For all you know, I could be about to pluck numbers out of the air right now. You said yourself you didn’t know what I’d quoted Gwen so I could just be adding on those zeros your grandad warned you about.’
‘I don’t think you’d do that,’ I said, squeezing around him and back on to the landing.
‘But how do you know?’ he pursued.
‘Instinct,’ I told him. ‘Womanly intuition.’
Matt raised his eyebrows and bit his lip and I felt my heart start to thump a little harder.
‘I might not know the first thing about household DIY,’ I said huskily as I led the way back down to the kitchen, ‘but I know Gwen could read people all right and so can I. I’d recognise a conman if one crossed my path.’
‘Well, you might want to have a bit of a rethink about that,’ Matt said seriously.
‘Why?’ I said, spinning round to face him.
‘Because you’re too trusting by half!’
‘No, I’m not,’ I said defensively.
I was the last person in the world to go around bestowing my trust willy-nilly.
‘Yes,’ he laughed. ‘You are. Lottie, you never, ever admit to a tradesman, no matter how good his reputation, that you don’t know the first thing about what he’s turned up to fix.’
‘But I don’t,’ I shrugged, completely missing his point and thinking that if Gwen thought Matt was up to the job then I had absolutely no reason to doubt him or question his ever-growing list of jobs. ‘I wouldn’t know one end of a U-bend from another.’
Matt groaned and ran a hand through his sun-bleached sandy hair.
‘You really are a piece of work,’ he laughed.
‘What?’ I pouted.
I didn’t appreciate being laughed at.
‘Just promise me,’ he said, laying a hand lightly on my shoulder and looking deep into my eyes again, ‘that if you decide you don’t want me to do the work, promise me you won’t get anyone in, or have anything done, unless you’ve run their name and firm by me first.’
‘But—’
‘But nothing,’ he said, squeezing my shoulder. ‘I’m not trying to patronise you or be chauvinistic. You said yourself you haven’t got a clue, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I croaked. ‘I did.’
‘So you promise, then?’
‘All right,’ I nodded. ‘I promise.’
‘Good,’ he said, removing his hand from my hot skin and waving towards the kettle with a cheeky grin. ‘Now make us another drink, good woman, and I’ll tell you the damage.’
I peered into the depths of my mug, having heard the facts and figures Matt had just run by me and wishing I’d opted for something considerably stronger than coffee. A dram of single malt or a devilishly strong gin and tonic might have softened the blow, but caffeine-loaded coffee didn’t seem to be helping at all.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ said Matt consolingly. ‘We don’t have to tackle everything at once. Why not make the electrics a priority and we’ll work through the rest one job at a time?’
‘Yes,’ I agreed dully. ‘I suppose we could do it that way. In fact,’ I sighed, ‘I think we’ll probably have to.’
‘I have a cousin who happens to be a brilliant electrician,’ he said heartily. ‘He’ll be able to install the new shower for you, and make sure it’s properly earthed, unlike the death box up there at the moment, and he’ll put in an up-to-date fuse box so you won’t need to worry about thunderstorms any more.’
‘That sounds like heaven to me,’ I told him. ‘It would be a comfort to know I can have a shower in safety.’
And I wasn’t just thinking about saving myself the
risk of being electrocuted either.
‘I guess I’m just a bit shocked about all the other things that need doing,’ I admitted. ‘I hadn’t even noticed half of them until you began pointing them out, and that’s even before we’ve considered the damp you spotted in the dining room last winter.’
I couldn’t help wondering how many more little bombshells were waiting in the wings to jump out and surprise me when summer faded into autumn. The list Matt had reeled off made Cuckoo Cottage sound more like a Halloween house of horrors than a comfortable country abode, but if Gwen had been all set to push ahead then I was on board and, if anything, I felt relieved there was someone as helpful as Matt poised to make a start. I would never have tackled half of what he said needed doing myself for fear of messing it up. Cuckoo Cottage deserved the very best of attention and unfortunately my renovation and refurbishment skills weren’t going to be a lot of use when it came to tackling major jobs like damp and installing new electrics.
‘That,’ Matt reminded me, ‘is the cost of owning somewhere with a bit of age and character, I’m afraid. It’s inevitable, and repairs don’t come cheap, especially when the person responsible before didn’t quite keep on top of what needed doing,’ he added gently.
‘Um,’ I said thoughtfully.
I couldn’t take umbrage about that because given everything we had just gone through I knew he was right; Gwen had really let the work pile up.
‘I can’t imagine for one second that pointing up brickwork was ever high on Gwen’s list of priorities, was it?’
‘Exactly,’ said Matt, ‘but at least having asked me to make a start, she had made an effort to get to grips with the situation.’
‘That’s true,’ I conceded.
‘And at least you can get going now, Lottie, and literally have your house back in some sort of order before the winter. There’s nothing here that can’t be salvaged. It’s just going to be a bit of a money pit for a while, that’s all.’
I could all too easily imagine myself in the role of Tom Hanks. Getting stuck in a collapsed ceiling and living without a staircase was probably all I had to look forward to for a while now. So much for the grand plans I’d been starting to make. The house alone was going to take every penny Gwen had left me to put right.
‘Thank goodness Gwen was a bit of a saver,’ I muttered without thinking.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Fortunately she left me a bit of money,’ I explained. ‘So at least I can get on with some of the jobs straightaway.’
‘Did she now?’ Matt chuckled. ‘Well, well, I never would have had her down as someone with money in the bank.’
‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘I was surprised myself, and after the many charity bequests there wasn’t a huge amount leftover, but I can see now I would have been in a right old pickle without it.’
I might not have been panicking about finding a job before, but with all these repairs mounting up I knew I was going to have to start earning an income again soon because there was no way I was going to give the gossips the satisfaction of giving in. Gwen had seen to it that I would be here for at least a year but they didn’t know that, and in that time it was up to me to find a way to swim, not sink.
‘I hope I haven’t spoiled your day,’ said Matt, reaching across the table and lightly resting his hand over mine.
‘Not at all,’ I said stoically as I turned my hand over and grasped his. ‘I just need to work a few things out, that’s all.’
‘Well, order yourself a new shower and I’ll get in touch with my cousin and tell him exactly what needs doing.’
‘Thank you.’
I knew I was going to have to go back to town to order the shower online and thought I could conveniently combine the trip with talking to Jemma, so at least that was the glimpse of a silver lining, assuming I didn’t have another run-in at the café gate of course. I really did need to start researching some Wi-Fi options for the cottage because I couldn’t be dragging out the bike every time I wanted to google something or check my emails.
‘I really do appreciate your help, Matt,’ I said, wondering how I would have been getting along had he not stopped to help the day Will nearly ran me off the road. Perhaps our local unfriendly vet had unwittingly done me a favour after all.
‘No problem,’ Matt smiled as I released his hand and he glanced at his watch and stood up. ‘I’m sorry, Lottie, but I really need to get going.’
‘Of course,’ I said, ‘and I’d better rescue the dining room from the madness of Minnie.’
‘Do you think she’s up to spending a few hours here unchaperoned yet?’
‘I don’t know, why?’
‘Because I’d rather like to take you to a party at Skylark Farm Saturday night, if you’d like to come, and I’d like to do it with as little risk to my health as possible.’
‘Oh,’ I faltered, ‘I see. Thank you for the offer, but I’m already going with Mags from down the road. She’s giving me a lift along with her son and neighbour.’
‘Oh well,’ he shrugged, looking disappointed. ‘Not to worry. At least I’ll see you there.’
‘But I will have a word with Minnie,’ I promised, thinking it would probably be a good idea to leave her behind on Saturday now I knew Matt was definitely going to be there. ‘I’ll see if I can convince her that she could do with a girly night in.’
‘Great,’ he laughed. ‘Only don’t mention that you’re going to be seeing me or she’ll never let you out of the house.’
‘Good point,’ I laughed back.
‘I’ll see you at the party, then,’ he said as he headed towards the door, adding in a theatrical whisper when he reached the dining room. ‘Just don’t tell the hound.’
I began to giggle and Minnie, sensing espionage, began to woof.
Chapter 13
It was a relief to have the party to look forward to at the end of the week because, with the cottage in far worse repair than I’d initially realised, and the prospect of so much work to be done, I could feel that I was in very real danger of being completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything that lay ahead. Just as my nemesis in the café had predicted, it was suddenly and dishearteningly all ‘a bit too much to cope with’ and I was devastated by my downturn in spirits, especially given how upbeat I had been feeling after Amber’s visit.
I thought back to the months I’d been stuck in my horrid house-share in Lincoln, with my breath held, waiting for the blow which would snatch away my hope to strike and just knowing that becoming the proud and lucky owner of Cuckoo Cottage was simply too good to be true.
I had assumed that once the legalities were dealt with and I was making friends and daring to dream of an exciting future, my fears would be consigned to the past, but I was wrong because they were still right there and I was heading back to that god-awful place in my mind. Only now I had the responsibility of a deteriorating property weighing heavy on my shoulders on top of everything else.
‘Is this place really in as bad a state as Matt reckons it is?’ I asked Minnie, as I tried to decide which outfit to wear to the party. ‘Am I going to come home tonight and find you sitting on top of a crumbling pile?’
Funnily enough, the little dog didn’t have a competent answer, but she did yap at the mention of Matt’s name nonetheless.
‘I know,’ I said, hoping that she was thinking of my sanity rather than Matt’s ankles. ‘I know. I need to stop getting things out of all proportion, don’t I?’
She yapped again and I thought back to what Mags had said about how a person can stagnate if stuck in the same environment for too long. Perhaps everyone was right. Perhaps four wheels of my own would give me the freedom to lubricate the creative juices and stop me brooding. I recoiled at the thought of climbing behind the wheel, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to put it off for much longer, not living here in the flat, and sometimes unforgiving, Fen.
‘My goodness, don’t you look smart!’ gasped Mags as I opened the door when
she came to pick me up.
I ran my fingers over my sunflower earrings and looked down at my home-made fifties-style marigold-patterned skirt, and then at her jeans and creased T-shirt and realised I’d got completely the wrong clothes on.
I’d agonised over what to wear for hours, even poring through some of Gwen’s old books for more clues as to what Lammas was all about. Yellow and orange, early harvest, grains and bread were overriding themes and consequently I’d made a batch of very misshapen rolls as a gift and teamed my outfit to the corresponding colours.
‘Shit,’ I muttered, thrusting the basket of rolls into Mags’s arms. ‘Please tell me I’ve got time to change.’
‘What on earth do you want to change for?’
‘Well, this is a bit over the top, don’t you think?’ I said, pointing at myself and then at her. ‘You’re in jeans for goodness’ sake.’
Mags began to laugh.
‘Firstly, no, there is no time to change,’ she grinned, ‘and secondly, Amber invited you because she wants you to be there and she wants our friends to get to know you, the real you.’ She added pointedly, ‘And to my mind, that outfit is totally you.’
She pulled me over the threshold, reminding me to lock the door and hurry up, then marched back to the van and threw open the back doors.
‘Come on!’ she called as I fussed over Minnie and my keys. ‘Get a wriggle on. Your carriage awaits.’
I’d completely forgotten her little yellow minivan only had two seats and braced myself for a bumpy journey and inelegant arrival.
‘Hello there, Lottie,’ called her passenger as I approached and was wondering what would be the best way to hang on to my dignity as I climbed in the back. ‘I bet you don’t remember me, do you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ I said, rushing over to the window. ‘Of course I do. Mags has been telling me all about her lovely neighbour, but I had no idea it was you. I’m so sorry, George,’ I admitted, ‘but I didn’t make the connection until now.’
Gwen had taken Gran, Grandad and I down to see George in his house, which was built just a stone’s throw from Hecate’s Rest, quite often when I was little. From what I could remember, he had the best vegetable garden in the area.