The Rectory

by Ivan B

  “Like to look at the garage first?”

  Ulterior motives extruded from her, but she could have pressed arsenic in my hand and I would have swallowed it without a thought.

  “Why not.”

  We continued our walk down the drive and once again I counted paces, by my rough reckoning the garage was some 300 feet from the house. She produced her bunch of keys again and waved a red one at me.

  “The locks are all matched and this master key fits everything, otherwise there are separate keys for the garage, the flat, and the front and back doors.”

  She turned the key and opened the end of a long wooden concertina door that ran across the front of the garage.

  “’Fraid you can’t get to the studio flat without going into the garage, stairs are at the end.”

  As soon as I walked in I realised that the garage was well over two cars long as well as just under three cars wide; in it sat a sit-upon lawn mower, a bright red Land Rover pick-up of dubious vintage and a car hiding under one of those tailor made chamois leather soft covers that expensive car dealers use. My spirits rose. I tried to appear casual.

  “What’s the car?”

  She paused and grinned like a practical joker;

  “Take a look.”

  I gently grabbed one corner of the cover and pulled it back, she must have seen the look on my face, but then she knew what was coming.

  “It’s a Studebaker Station Wagon, don’t reckon that he’s driven it for twenty years, but he faithfully had it MOT’d every year, so in theory it’s usable, that is if you can cope with the eight miles to the gallon.”

  My eyes strayed back to the Land Rover, Bryony must have been watching my every move.

  “That’s street legal as well. Series one though, so there’s no home comforts.”

  I put the cover back on the Station Wagon and thought sourly that he might have least have had a Bentley. We continued down the garage and up a narrow set of stairs into the studio flat. Due to the pitched roof it wasn’t large. She walked to the end wall and touched a small lever causing a single bed to roll down from the wall. She stood like an estate agent.

  “Built-in bed, loo with shower cubicle at the other end, storage under the eaves and galley kitchen along the wall between this room and the loo.”

  I looked round, as she said it was livable, but why live here when there was that damn great house at the other end of the garden? I sauntered out of the flat and back into the garage, spotting another chamois leather cover, this time over a motorbike. I couldn’t resist temptation and took a peek before taking the whole cover off. There were two pieces of two wheeled motorised transport interleaved like a pair of mismatched lovers. The first was an ancient Mobylette moped, but as for the second I’d never seen anything like it. Bryony peered over my shoulder.

  “Forget to mention that. Apparently it’s an Aerial square four; that’s 1000cc with four cylinders.”

  I put the cover back on; I did have a motorbike licence and I might have a go at the Aerial, but as for the moped, I was not riding that - I still had some dignity.

  We walked back towards the house and Bryony gave an odd sort of cough.

  “I ought to warn you, the inside of the Rectory is a little bit chaotic.”

  Looking back that was the moment when warning bells should have rung loud and clear, but I was being gradually sucked in by Miss Bryony Carrington-Greeves, the large house and the thought of a million pounds.

  “What’s chaotic about it?”

  “You’ll see.” She replied dryly.

  She used her red key on the back door and we entered the kitchen. It was enormous, full of flagstones and a large scrubbed wooden table which stood full square in the centre. Bryony went into here estate agent routine, perhaps she had missed her vocation.

  “Roughly seventeen feet square, Aga solid fuel cooker – coal or wood - otherwise no mod cons to speak off. There used to be a dishwasher and washing machine over there,” she pointed vaguely, “but he had them taken out.”

  I surveyed the pair of QE2 sized sinks. “When was it extended?”

  “After the war, there’s a full history and set of floor plans in the file.”

  We walked through the kitchen into the hall, light disappeared and dimness took over. Bryony must have been here before as she walked down the hallway and pulled aside a curtain that covered the door. I won’t say that light flooded in, but at least I could see the hall space and the wide staircase that ran up one side to the landing on the first floor. I decided that the hall was long enough to play full length ten-pin bowling. I pointed to the door wedged under the stairs; “What’s in there?”

  “Basement, we’ll look at that later.”

  She shooed me back towards the kitchen doorway and walked passed me and through a another doorway to my right, I followed her into a dismal room. She pointed to the floor, “Dining room – there’s a hatch to the kitchen – used to be a polished wooden floor on top of the floorboards, he took it up.”

  She out and walked across the hallway pointing to her left just after the kitchen doorway, “Loo.”

  She walked on and into the lounge, once again it was dim. I turned on the light and was rewarded by a dim glow.” Bryony set off across the dark room talking all the time as if she was trying to sell me the house.

  “He didn’t believe it using too much electricity, all the light-bulbs are 7 watt, except the kitchen, that’s an extravagant 25.”

  She folded shutters back into their recesses and this time light did flood in to reveal a room that obviously ran the full length of the house from front to back. Bryony waved her arms vaguely, “Used to be two rooms, hence the two fireplaces.”

  I realised that the ceilings were high.

  “Central heating?”

  She sniggered.

  “No.”

  I walked to the rear of the lounge and peered into the conservatory, it was full of indefinable greenery. She led me out of the lounge by the door near the lane and straight across the hall past the front door and into a room about the same size as the dining room.

  “Study,” she announced.

  I was beginning to get bored of empty rooms and wondering why she had referred to the inside of the rectory as ‘chaotic’. Empty yes, chaotic no. She took me to the foot of the stairs, it was wide enough for us to walk up side by side, at the top she stopped and made that same odd cough.

  “You may need to watch your footing from here on.”

  I looked down at the floor to find that most of it was missing, at a rough guess only one floorboard in five was left.

  “Termites?” I suggested.

  She held onto the banister rail.

  “We guess that he used to burn the wood in the Aga; from here on all the doors, wainscoting, door-frames and most of the floorboards are missing. We’re not sure, but we also think that he’d already burnt his wardrobes, bedroom furniture and most of his clothing before he started on the house woodwork.”

  I stood at the top of the stairs and surveyed the landing , which run off to the right of the stairs in a ‘U’ shape round the top of the hall before it met another set of stairs that obviously rose over the set I was standing on.

  “How many bedrooms?”

  She shrugged.

  “Depends how you count them.”

  “Humour me.”

  She pointed to the left, as she moved her arm I could smell her expensive perfume.

  “I suppose you’d say that is bedroom four; that’s what it is called on the plans in your file.”

  I peered through the open doorway; if that was the fourth bedroom I wondered just how big the master bedroom was going to be. She nimbly stepped on the existing floorboards and disappeared through a door directly opposite the stairs, it turned out to be a huge bathroom of the size you see in interior design catalogues but never believe that anybody actually has a bathroom that big; well this house did. I gazed at the oversized Victorian bath.

  “This has
all it’s floorboards.”

  She nodded sending her hair into ripples of life.

  “We don’t think he’d reached here.”

  I wandered down the bathroom and opened another door into the largest airing cupboard I had ever seen. She spoke from the centre of the bathroom obviously not wanting to go into a cupboard with me.

  “Access the spiral staircase in there as well.”

  “What spiral staircase?”

  “It runs down into the kitchen – you probably thought it was the pantry – and up to the rooms above. It was probably put in for the servants, turn of the century house and all that.”

  We exited the bathroom, she changed her step pattern.

  “You’ll find it best to step on the floor beams when you go this way.” She suggested helpfully.

  I followed her hop-scotching along the landing. She pointed through an open doorway to our left, “loo directly above the one below.”

  I glanced inside, the room was bigger than a normal bathroom, but only contained a WC bowl, overhead cistern and porcelain sink. There were no floorboards at all so the WC bowl sat in splendid isolation. Bryony stood on the beams getting her balance and pointed in front, “Bedroom two – that has an en-suite bathroom.”

  “Any floor boards?”

  “No.”

  We turned the corner and now used floor-boards as our stepping stones. Just before we hit the front wall she indicated a door to the left of us, “Master bedroom, be careful no floor-boards.”

  I peered in, as expected it was huge; again she read my mind.

  “It is the largest room on this floor.”

  “En-suite?”

  “No.”

  We hop-scotched along the next bit of the landing and peered through another doorway. Bryony faithfully did her estate agent’s bit.

  “Bedroom three, same size as bedroom four.”

  She looked up the second set of stairs, “Mind your footing, every other tread is missing.”

  We went up the stairs like a pair of apes and stood on another, more poky, landing. This was again a ‘U’ shape, but also had a small three-door spur off of the end of the first transverse. She pointed to the left, “bedroom five, which sits over a bit of bedroom four; rooms up here are a bit smaller due to the pitched roof.”

  She stepped across the landing into yet another bathroom, this one of modest proportions by the standards of this house; even so it wouldn’t have fitted into most people’s homes – that is the homes of people I knew. I glanced around, “Spiral staircase?”

  “It’s behind the end wall, you get to it from bedroom five.”

  Back to the landing and along into the three door spur. She stood poised hands on hips like an Amazon waiting to argue and pointed to the doorway on her left.

  “Another loo over the two below,” she moved to point right, “Store-room.”

  I glanced in, the walls shown evidence of long-gone shelving, but at least it had a full set of floorboards. She licked her lips and opened the door in front. This room not only had a door and a floor, but also a concert sized Steinway Grand Piano. I looked up at the two skylights and then at the simple cross painted on the end wall. She gave her dodgy cough.

  “Originally a playroom, he used it as a chapel.”

  I lifted the lid of the piano and played a few chords from a Bach harpsichord concerto. Still not satisfied I tried a piece of Scott Joplin.

  “It’s in tune.”

  “According to our records he had it tuned every six months right up till he died.”

  She placed herself in front of the keyboard and played a fearsomely complicated piece of Chopin, the message was clear, ‘anything you can do I can do better!’ I shivered in the damp air, “Well it won’t stay tuned long in this atmosphere.”

  She straightened up, “We think he kept one of the fireplaces in here going all year.”

  I glanced at the end wall.

  “Why two?”

  She shrugged, obviously rapidly losing interest.

  “Two chimneys passing through I guess.”

  We went to exit and I stopped in the doorway and looked back, “So this must be the maximum possible width up here.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “

  If you don’t count the under-eaves storage this room it’s about a third of the area up here.”

  I mused on the fact that this was a play-room; it was bigger than my mother’s lounge. I nodded to the piano.

  “How did he get that up here?”

  She tossed her head causing tidal waves in her hair.

  “He bought it with the house and the records of the army in here during the first world war refer to a Steinway, so it was probably here then.”

  We continued our hopscotch round the rest of the landing until I could peer into the final room; Bryony spoke from behind. “Bedroom six, smallest in the house, but it does have that enormous skylight.”

  We made our way back downstairs and Bryony made a point of looking at her watch, I felt manipulation in the air and rebelled. “Can I see the basement?”

  “Help yourself, but watch the steps.”

  This time the danger was not missing steps, but the sheer angle of the iron staircase. At the bottom it had a eerie feel. It was no where near as large as I imagined and had what I can only describe as two free-standing U-shaped concrete tunnels taking up most of the floor space. I went back upstairs and Bryony dutifully finished her tour guide.

  “Dug during the second world war, the two concrete thingamajigs are air-raid tunnels, one of them has an escape hatch out to the front of the house.”

  “Army?”

  “Navy.”

  She led me back into the kitchen where old Sourpuss was installed at the kitchen table and I knew then that this was a pre-planned operation, but the significance of the manoeuvre eluded me.

  Bryony and I sat down on two of the kitchen stools, I decided to try and take the upper hand.

  “So what’s this place worth?”

  Sourpuss fixed me with a ‘what is money’ stare.

  “In excess of three-quarters of a million if it was liveable, might even make a million the way the property market is.”

  “Could I sell the paddock to a property developer?”

  “Garden and paddock are part of the green belt between Eastburgh and Felburgh, in any case we’re told that the paddock is marshy in winter.”

  I groped around for another question.

  “Who stipulates to what extent it has to be restored?”

  Sourpuss almost smiled, “Mr Grant produced a general specification, basically re-wiring, plumbing alterations to remove the lead piping, replacing the missing woodwork and any window-frames that are rotten.”

  That didn’t sound too hard, not for the sale of a house worth over seven-hundred grand.

  “How many windows is that?”

  “Probably all of them, “ he answered drolly.

  I ran out of reasonable questions and asked the one they were waiting for; the final, fatal, question.

  “So, what’s the deal?”

  Sourpuss did smile and I should have taken it as a warning. He passed over a single sheet of paper.

  “You sign, stating that it is your intention to renovate this place, that you are under thirty-five and the nearest next of kin to Rev G Evans and it’s all yours.”

  I was confused.

  “I only have to say that I intend to renovate?”

  He smiled again and I felt a tingle down my spine.

  “Mr Grant believed in moral obligations, if you say you intend to it is assumed that you will.”

  “But if I didn’t?”

  He raised his hands and offered me the open palms.

  “There’s no-one to take you to court over the matter, as I said it’s merely a concern for your conscience.”

  It all seemed too easy, my grandfather’s warning about gift horses floated into my mind again; I swatted it away.

  “So can you give me a quick
run down of what I inherit again?”

  He gave me a bored look and recited in a dull voice.

  “This house, the paddock, the surrounding grounds, a couple of paintings, a car, a portfolio of shares, the contents of the garage and seventeen Grant radios that are lent to a radio museum near Waterloo Station in London.”

  My ears pricked up, he’d listed the car separately from the garage contents, but before I could interrupt he continued as if reciting his own last will and testament.

  “I’ve checked the bank account since our previous conversation, I am informed that there is £16,087.02 in the bank as of today and the portfolio of shares is worth £189,000 at current prices.”

  I mentally ran through the list in my exited brain.

  “You mention the surrounding grounds as separate from the paddock.”

  He sat still and I got the distinct impression that he was formulating an evasive argument. He nodded in the direction of the paddock.

  “Field beyond the paddock and the three fields to the West of the rectory plus the fields on the other side of the lane on either side of the church.”

  I was surprised at the extent of this.

  “They look farmed to me.”

  He smiled as if he’d succeeded in his diversion, but I couldn’t see what I had missed.

  “Some of the fields are rented to a local farmer, it’s all in the file.”

  I tried a different tack;

  “What are the paintings?”

  “Three landscapes and two portraits by his wife, in monetary terms they are not worth valuing.”

  I looked at the sheet of paper in from of me, the dotted line seemed to scream, ‘Sign here! Sign here!’

  I picked up the pen and signed the sheet of paper, he and Bryony duly witnessed it. He flicked over a standard bank signature form

  “Sign this as well please, three times.”

  I signed and he took the form from me and pushed a portable fingerprint scanner across the table and I duly gave him the prints of my two index fingers. He suddenly became business like and acted as if he wanted to leave as soon as possible and wash his hands of the whole affair.