Renovation, Renovation, Renovation

by Nell Dixon

  “Do you think it’ll work out?” I plucked a stray ear of grass from a clump next to the skip and began to peel the seeds from its head. It gave me something to do so I didn’t have to look at him.

  “Who knows? Your mum seems head-over-heels for him although I think we should keep an eye on him, just in case he’s up to no good.”

  His answer didn’t make me feel reassured.

  “This Mike bloke, is there something going on between you and him?” Steve’s gaze met mine and I swallowed hard.

  “Not yet.” I didn’t know how else to respond. I wished I knew what he was thinking. I wished I knew what I wanted him to think. Did I want him to feel jealous?

  Or angry? Or did I want him to feel some of the hurt that I’d felt when I’d first heard about her?

  “But you want there to be something more?” he persisted.

  His eyes didn’t leave my face and his tone held a cold, remote edge that scared me just a little.

  If he’d sounded jealous or upset then I could have understood but instead there was a chill, a closing off that made me ache deep inside my heart.

  “I don’t know.” My answer came out as a whisper.

  The world narrowed. The sound of the bees droning lazily in the wildflowers and the noisy blackbird’s chirps from the top of the walnut tree faded.

  Steve continued to look at me, his dark brown eyes betraying nothing of his emotions. Goosebumps prickled the bare skin of my arms and I rubbed at the flesh to try and dispel them.

  “Is it really too late for us, Kate?” His voice was slightly ragged and I gazed back at him wondering if he had been as unaffected by everything that had happened between us as I’d thought.

  The words to answer him seemed to stick in my throat. Was it too late? My head told me it was but the horrible sickening ache in my chest told a different story.

  He appeared to take my silence as a reply. His mouth set into a thin line.

  He brushed past me on the narrow path, leaving me alone with the butterflies and the faint scent of lavender.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nasreen was in the staff room waiting for me when I arrived at work the next day. She loitered with intent near the kettle while I hung up my coat and checked my hair in the mirror.

  “I was surprised to see you at the Coach and Horses. I would have thought it was the last place on earth you would want to go to.” She gave me a sly sideways glance from beneath her false lashes.

  “Oh?” I concentrated on checking the contents of my handbag looking for my hairbrush.

  “You know, with it being where she works.”

  “Really.” I tried to sound as if I neither knew nor cared about where Steve’s girlfriend might hang out. Although Nas knew I was aware of where Chloe worked since she’d been the one to tell me she’d seen Steve in there with her. I decided my hair wasn’t so bad and abandoned the search for my brush. The sooner I was installed at my customer service point the sooner I could escape from Nas.

  “When I saw you together I thought perhaps he’d broken things off with her and you two were back together again.” She carefully prised off the lid from the communal biscuit tin and helped herself to a custard cream.

  “No, I told you I’ve got someone else and so has he.” I fished my mobile out and made sure I’d switched it over to silent mode. Mike calling at the cottage, holding my hand for a few minutes and a brief kiss on the lips wasn’t exactly having someone else but I figured it was close enough.

  “Do you know if he’s still seeing that barmaid though?”

  “Nas, I don’t know! If you’re so interested ask him yourself.”

  “So, then you wouldn’t be too upset if say he got together with someone else?” She toyed with the biscuit in her hand.

  “Oh for heavens’s sake, give Kate a break.” Jo, the assistant branch manager, walked in and broke into the conversation. “Kate doesn’t want to discuss her ex’s love life with you at nine o’clock on a Monday morning. Have a bit of tact.”

  Colour flamed into Nasreen’s cheeks and she stuffed the biscuit in her mouth and scuttled away.

  “Thanks Jo.” I replaced my phone in my bag, and tried to control the faint tremor in my hand.

  “She’s so tactless, that one. It’s only because she fancies your Steve and thinks she’s in with a chance now you’ve split up. She’s always been a bit mental where Danger Line are concerned.” Jo shook her head and collected her bottle of apple and banana smoothie from the fridge. “Take no notice of her, she’s no idea whatsoever. I don’t think she’s ever been out on a date.”

  I smiled back at Jo, grateful for her humour and stowed my bag inside my locker.

  Fortunately, Jo kept Nasreen busy and out of my hair all morning so I didn’t have to listen to any more of her crap.

  I decided to spend my lunch break at the municipal art gallery to see if I could find out something more about the print in Mike’s book. The gallery shared space with the town museum, just off the high street in a shabby unassuming former townhouse. I vaguely remembered having been there once, many years ago, on some kind of school trip. On entering the bland pale green lobby I reckoned it didn’t appear to have changed much since then.

  I paused in the doorway wondering if I was doing the right thing by probing into the past. Sucking in a deep breath I walked towards the entrance booth, my heels echoing on the black and white marble tiled floor.

  “I’d like to look around the art gallery, please.”

  The elderly man in the booth smiled at me. “Entrance is free but you might like to purchase a guide book. Is there any particular kind of art that you wanted to see?”

  “A friend showed me a print in a book yesterday. It was a watercolour of my cottage done in the eighteen-eighties by a local artist. I wanted to find out some more about it and he thought the original picture was here.” My face grew hot and flustered as I tried to explain. I should have taken the book with me.

  “Watercolour, hmm sounds as if it might be one of the pictures on the second floor. If you try up there and see if you can spot it, I’ll give Mrs Barlow a ring. She’s our expert on local artists. She should be finished with her lunch by now; she’ll come up and meet you.”

  I handed over two pounds fifty for the guidebook and made my way slowly up the elegant, curved wooden staircase, with its polished mahogany balustrades. The walls of the stairwell were hung with art provided by the local college, the vibrancy of the neon colours in the works jarring against the elderly surroundings of the building.

  I made my way past the first floor landing, sculptures and modern art according to the sign, and continued up to the second floor. The building appeared to be deserted as I turned at the head of the stairs into the watercolour gallery. The paintings were hung in groups and I wandered along searching for the picture of Myrtle Cottage. To my surprise my heart rate had speeded up and I felt curiously excited as I scanned the walls.

  I was almost at the end, in the very last of the interlinked rooms when I spotted it. The picture was much smaller than I’d expected and had been hung slightly lower on the wall than some of the other works.

  A small brass plaque announced it was the work of Francis Rafferty, born in1850 and died in1892 and featured Myrtle Cottage. I flipped through the guide book to see what it said.

  ‘Francis Rafferty R.A, born in Edinburgh in 1850 and resident locally from 1871 on his marriage to Isabella Morris, daughter of the noted equestrian artist, Joseph Morris. This picture of his home, Myrtle Cottage, was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art in 1881.’

  There was a little more about his career but I had my answer. He’d lived in my cottage and the chances were that the woman in the picture was Isabella, his wife. I bent lower to scrutinise the picture more carefully.

  A polite, feminine cough behind me broke my concentration and I straightened to find a plump lady in a flowing green skirt and top standing next to me.

  “Are you the young lady looking for informat
ion about a watercolour?”

  This must be Mrs Barlow. “Yes, this is my cottage in the picture. I’ve recently started researching the history of the house and it says in the guidebook that the artist, this Francis Rafferty, lived there.” I showed her the entry in the guide.

  She glanced at the page. “Yes, we have some more of Francis Rafferty’s works here in the gallery. He was only forty two when he died, so he had a relatively short career. You say you’re living in the property in the picture?”

  “Yes, Myrtle Cottage, it’s in quite a bad state so we’re renovating it. I wanted to trace the history of the house.”

  Mrs Barlow gave me a kindly smile. “I think that the cottage was originally called Walnut Cottage but Mr Rafferty and his wife changed the name when they moved there after their marriage.”

  “Oh, the tree is still there.” I wondered why they had changed the name.

  “I believe walnut trees live for hundreds of years or so I’ve been told, my husband is a keen gardener.” Her eyes twinkled behind her glasses. “There is another picture you might like to see. Mr Rafferty preferred landscapes but he painted a portrait of his wife shortly after their wedding.”

  I followed her into the next room where she stopped in front of a small pencil and paint washed picture.

  “This is Isabella Rafferty.”

  Disappointment flooded through me, the picture showed a young woman dressed in typical Victorian style. She had fair hair under an elaborate hat and wide, blue eyes. She certainly wasn’t the face I’d seen at my window. I don’t why I’d thought she would be. I suppose that somewhere in the back of my mind I’d thought that if there was a ghost in the cottage then it would be Isabella. The girl I’d seen in the window though had dark hair and dressed in a different style.

  “Do you know much about her?” I was curious to know more, nonetheless.

  Mrs Barlow shook her head. “Very little I’m afraid. They had two children before Francis died and then Isabella moved away. That’s as much as I know.” She gazed fondly at the portrait.

  “You’ve been very helpful, thank you.” I glanced at my watch. My lunch hour was almost up and I needed to get back to the bank.

  I couldn’t get Isabella and Francis off my mind all afternoon and it took me all my time not to make errors while I handled the day’s deposits and withdrawals. If my ghost wasn’t Isabella then who was she? I was still deep in thought as I made my way across the car park to my car at the end of the day.

  “Kate!”

  I turned around to see who’d called me and saw Gormless Gary panting his way across the tarmac towards me. There was no real harm in Gary, he was just…

  Gary. He finally drew level with me and stopped to recover his breath.

  “Phew, I could do with going back to the gym.” His handsome face was flushed with exertion.

  “Hi Gary, I haven’t seen you around for ages.”

  “Been working at the new warehouse across town.”

  It sounded promising if he’d finally obtained a job. I wondered if Lou had mentioned the possibility of impending fatherhood to him. “That’s great.”

  “Yeah, well it was okay. I got let go on Friday.”

  “Oh.” Same old Gary. I wondered what he’d done to get fired this time.

  He shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I um, wondered if you’d seen Lou? It’s just I haven’t seen her out for a while and I wondered if she was okay.”

  I guess that answered my question about whether my sister had mentioned her pregnancy to him. “She’s okay. Haven’t you called her or texted her?”

  A dull flush of embarrassment stained his cheeks. “I don’t seem to have her latest number. I don’t suppose…?” He looked at me hopefully.

  “I’d better not. I’m sure she’ll give you her number herself when you next see her.” Lou had made me swear not to give Gary her new number when she’d changed her mobile a few weeks ago. This had been before she’d discovered she was pregnant though. She’d been on a mission to finally get Gary out of her life so she could move on. But I’d heard Lou say she wasn’t going to give Gary her number or answer his texts a million times before and yet somehow he always managed to get her number.

  “Yeah, I expect she will.” He didn’t seem put off by my refusal, his natural optimistic nature blithely taking no notice of the fact that my sister had been deliberately ignoring him. Something that might well have to alter if the dating scan put Gary in the frame as the baby’s father.

  “I have to go, lots to do back at the cottage.” I zapped the lock open on my car door and hoped he would take the hint.

  “Tell Lou I asked about her, and if she wants to give me a call?”

  I opened the car door and threw my handbag across onto the passenger seat.

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “Thanks Kate. I, erm don’t suppose you and Steve have any odd jobs going at the cottage do you? Only I’m a bit short of cash at the moment.”

  Gary had done some work for us before, helping Steve with some of the heavy labouring. He was good at barrowing rubbish to the skip, knocking out walls and anything that required a sledgehammer and not much thought.

  “I’ll talk to Steve when I get back and see if there’s anything you could do. I can’t promise though, our funds are rather tight.” I slid inside my car flinching a little at the accumulated heat from where it had stood in the sun all day.

  “Cheers, appreciate it.” Gary stepped back to allow me to close the door and back out of the space.

  I drove away with a sigh of relief. I really wasn’t sure it would be a good idea for Gary to help out at the cottage. At least, not while the question of the paternity of Lou’s baby hung in the air. Steve might well stuff him in the skip if it turned out Gary was the father.

  Then again, we could use an extra pair of hands. We could get the work finished faster and get the house on the market for the Autumn. Seeing the painting at the gallery had set me thinking about starting the work on the garden. It would be good to at least keep it under control until the skips were gone and I could landscape it properly. The orchard area at the side of the house wasn’t too bad, some strimming would take care of the grassed area beneath the fruit trees. It was Isabella’s overgrown flower, herb and vegetable plots that needed most attention.

  As I rounded the corner leading to the rear of the cottage my spirits dipped.

  The space near to where Steve’s dilapidated van usually stood was now occupied by an even more decrepit caravan. A tiny two-berth, it stood on jacks amongst the weeds and the rampant wild flowers.

  This was it. Steve had moved out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Steve sat at the patio table, an open bottle of lager in front of him. He’d stripped down to an old pair of heavy dark green canvas work shorts and his steel toe-capped boots.

  The lightly tanned muscles of his chest and arms gleamed with faint traces of sweat in the late afternoon heat.

  “I see the caravan's arrived.” My lips had dried and suddenly I felt awkward. I paused a few feet from where he was seated.

  “Yeah, my mate pitched it up for me this afternoon.”

  I licked my lips trying to get some moisture into my skin. “How was today?”

  Steve took a long pull from his drink before answering me. “Pencil-neck Poole from the council came again, quibbling about the material I’d used to make the repair to that leak in the bathroom ceiling.”

  “Is it a problem?” If the council weren’t happy with any of the work we did they could demand we undo it all and start over, causing expense and delay. Our schedule had already suffered over various issues to do with the materials. That was the problem with listed properties. It varied from council to council, and some officials were more understanding than others. This time it sounded as if we’d got one of the others.

  “No, it's okay, I think. He’s made a load of stipulations about the other things though.” Steve rubbed his hand across his brow.


  Tired lines around his eyes were accentuated where the dust had settled in the creases. My heart gave a funny little flip-flop of desire. In earlier times I would have accompanied him into the shower and massaged his shoulders and back under the spray, then we would have made love. I pushed the images to the back of my mind and forced myself to concentrate.

  “You’ll have to let me know if I need to alter anything on the spreadsheets.” I tried to sound brisk and efficient so he wouldn’t be able to guess at the pictures which had rushed through my head.

  “Have you got time to run through the budgets tonight? I’ve got a list of things we need to order.”

  My face heated, and I could tell from the look in his eyes that he knew what I’d been thinking. “Sure.”

  “Great, I wasn’t sure if you planned to go out with your friend.” His tone implied he was curious. Could he be jealous?

  Tension tugged at my jaw. I could see whoever I liked. “No, I thought I might start planning the garden landscaping before it turns into too much of a jungle. That print in Mike’s book made me feel bad that I hadn’t started planning the garden.”

  His gaze locked with mine and my pulse speeded.

  “I’ll go take a shower then. We can go through the figures when I'm done, and see how much is going to be left in the kitty for plants.” He took a long pull from his bottle and stood ready to go inside.

  “I saw Gary when I was on my way home. He’s out of work again and wanted to know if we had anything here he could do.”

  Steve’s eyes narrowed. “Did he mention Lou?”

  “Only to say he hadn’t seen her and he hadn’t got her new phone number.” I waited to for Steve’s response.

  He shrugged. “It’s up to you. There isn’t much indoors yet but if you start the garden then you’ll need help to get this lot cleared.” He looked around at the overgrown plot.

  “I’ll fire up Demon and we can check the cash flow.” Demon was my aged laptop which held all the important information, spreadsheets, salvage sites, suppliers and notes for the renovation. Steve had named it Demon after a particularly nasty software glitch on the last job had crashed all our records. Fortunately I was conscientious about backing up data but it had given us a nasty moment. It had been even more unreliable since we’d moved into the cottage, as had all our electrical equipment. Even my mobile had taken to acting up.