by Suzie Twine
“It’s Rothschild’s fault. Old Walter, released six onto his estate in Tring, just over a hundred years ago and their descendents are doing very well!” said Dave, “Also called edible dormice, although I haven’t eaten one yet. Well not to my knowledge anyway.” He winked at Annie, “What have you done with the little blighter?”
“It’s in the bath,” said Tom.
“I’ll sort it for you if you like,” said Dave, “it’s illegal of course, supposed to get pest control in. The little buggers are protected. You’re meant to have a license to cull them, but that’s an expensive business. I usually drown them and put them out for the kites.”
Tom looked agog. “You put them out for the kites?” he asked, still feeling somewhat dopey. He was imagining the kites he often saw flying on Primrose Hill and a dead glis glis and trying to make a connection.
“The red kites,” said Dave, seeing the mystified expression on Tom’s face, “birds of prey, they’re quite prolific round here, clear up anything dead in a trice. I’ve been thinking of knocking off old Mr. Black and putting him out for them, but I’m not sure they’d get through him quickly enough to keep me out of trouble. Might need to get some pigs to do that!” Dave chortled at his own joke.
“Oh yes, the red kites,” repeated Tom; starting to laugh despite the pain it caused him. “We’ve got a lot to adjust to, living in the country. Red kites, glis glis living in the toilet. But Mr. Black, who’s he?”
“Oh, didn’t Lois tell you?” laughed Annie. Lois gave a sheepish shrug.
“Plenty of time for you to find out about the neighbours,” said Dave, giving Tom a friendly pat on the back, while Tom suppressed a grimace, “anyway he’s all right really, you’ve just got to know how to deal with him. Come on, let’s go and sort out this creature of yours!”
Tom and Dave went upstairs to ‘deal’ with the glis glis. Lois felt very upset by the idea of it being killed but Annie took her next door for a cup of tea and explained what it was like having the little vermin living in your loft. The noise, the fact that nothing can be stored there as they will chew it up and make a nest out of almost anything, and most importantly, the fire risk created by them chewing through wires. With all this information, Lois felt more at ease with what Dave and Tom were going to do.
“For God’s sake, don’t tell Black about the glis glis or how it was disposed of, he’ll be forcing the council to prosecute you before you know where you are!” said Annie.
“Is he really that bad?”
“He’s an evil old bastard!” Annie said with feeling, giving Lois the impression that she’d had personal experience of Mr. Black’s nasty side. “Anyway, enough of him for now. Look Lois, it’s really late. You and Tom are very welcome to come and sleep here, the bed’s all made up ready for tomorrow night. I didn’t realise you were coming tonight.”
Lois explained how it had been Tom’s surprise for her when she’d come home from work and said that she would go and talk over the spare room offer with him.
Tom was delighted with the idea of sleeping in a proper bed for the night. He knew the blow-up mattress would play havoc with his ribs. It had seemed such a good idea to ‘camp out’ at the house, but the reality hadn’t really been living up to his expectations. He thought Annie and Dave seemed like a really nice couple and he jumped at the offer.
The next morning Tom was woken early by Lois hugging him as she slept, which created enough pain for him not to get off to sleep again. He could hear an unusual bird cry, a screeching outside and decided that now he was a ‘country man’ he should investigate. He drew the curtains back halfway and, as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, he was astonished by what he saw. There were two very large birds of prey dive-bombing each other. One had food in its talons and the other clearly wanted to ‘share’. The flying display was unbelievable; the wonderful, graceful birds were twisting and turning, sometimes as one, occasionally looking like the pair of them would crash to the ground. At one point, the bird with the food dropped it and flew vertically, full pelt, re-catching it before it hit the floor. When they had stopped scrapping they used their great wings slowly and gracefully to gain height, then they glided on the air currents, subtly twisting their tails to help them manoeuvre, turning their heads from one side to the other, looking for food.
Tom was completely mesmerised by these fantastic birds. Above the two who had been feuding, he counted a further seven. He thought how amazing it was that creatures like these could be living and indeed flourishing, so close to London. He had a quick look along the shelves of the small bookcase that was in the room and lo and behold there was an old Observer Book of Birds. Tom looked up Red Kite, but only found a description for Kite. Despite the opening phrase, ‘The kite is now only found in part of Wales, except for stray appearances elsewhere,’ the description was enough to leave Tom in no doubt that these magnificent and thoroughly entertaining birds were the red kites that Annie and Dave had been talking about. Tom put the book back on the shelf and quietly opened the curtains right up to enable him to lie back down in bed and still watch them.
By the time Lois woke up, Tom had drifted back to sleep. She went downstairs to find a note on the kitchen table from Annie, saying she had taken the dogs for a walk and for Lois and Tom to help themselves to whatever they fancied. She’d left all that they needed for a perfect breakfast on the kitchen table. Lois made tea and fresh, granary toast with ‘real’ butter and Marmite for her and Tom, and carried it upstairs. Tom took it from her sleepily. The toast tasted fantastic. He told Lois all about the kites he’d seen earlier. Lois couldn’t think of the last time she had seen him looking so relaxed and happy. “I’ve got a feeling I’m going to love this place Lo!” he said. Lois snuggled up to him and started to feel the anxieties conjured up in the first days at the house, beginning to ebb away.
It was a beautiful sunny day. When Annie and Dave got back, the four of them sat out in the garden and had coffee and biscuits.
“That’ll set Pumpkin up for the day,” said Lois, gently rubbing her bulging tummy, “he loves a good, strong cup of coffee!” Dave looked a little bewildered.
“Ah yes, he, or she, started off as Peanut, then Orange, Melon and now Pumpkin and since pumpkins can get quite large, I think we’ll be able to stop there. Until we actually meet him or her!” laughed Tom. “Actually,” he said thoughtfully, “it’s not a bad name.”
“NO!” cried Lois and Annie in unison, before he had time to give the idea any more thought.
Lois and Annie started discussing babies. Tom and Dave talked about business. Dave told Tom about their plans to sell the paddock and convert the garage loft to enable them to rent it out. They went and looked at the loft and discussed possible designs that would make best use of the space. Tom told Dave about a computer program that a friend of his had used to plan his extension, avoiding the use of an architect to get planning permission. That conversation led Tom and Dave to the computer to start researching architectural design programs.
Over a snack lunch, Tom told, for the first time in front of Lois, what had happened on his cycling trip the previous weekend. Lois, much to his amazement, found the story incredibly funny. When Tom got to the bit about him trying to eat his roast meal with his hands, Lois rushed off to the loo for fear of wetting herself.
Seeing how much pain Tom was in when he laughed, Dave said, “One of the neighbours, Richard, is a GP who practices alternative therapies. He’s about to set up a private practice at home for acupuncture and homeopathy patients. He may be able to help you make a speedy recovery Tom. He’s a really nice bloke. Would you like me to give him a ring and see if he’d see you later?”
“That would be great!” said Tom emphatically. He had a very busy week ahead work-wise and was eager to get as much help as possible to enable him to cope.
Dave returned from making the call. “Richard would be delighted to see you Tom,” he said, “he’s eager to test the sharpness of his new acupuncture needles!” N
either Tom nor Lois was sure who had the sense of humour, Richard, Dave, or both.
After lunch, Dave took Tom up the lane to Richard’s, Annie went shopping for the dinner she was to prepare that evening, and Lois, who was completely exhausted by the week’s events, fell asleep on the sofa.
She was awoken some hours later; by Tom giving her a gentle kiss on the cheek and telling her there was a cup of tea for her. She sat up sleepily and asked Tom how he had got on with Richard.
“Yeah, nice guy,” said Tom, “his wife seams very likeable too, maybe a bit scatty? I bet you’ll get on with her.”
“Are you insinuating that I’m a bit scatty?” laughed Lois.
“A bit? No, not at all Petal. Anyway, he gave me a thorough examination and an acupuncture treatment around my spine, apparently where the nerves to the ribs run, and funnily enough I’m feeling remarkably good, considering it is almost time for my painkillers. He also gave me a couple of homeopathic remedies to take, to help the bones to heal fast, oh and something for the bruising. I’ll be really interested to see what a difference it makes. He didn’t even charge me.”
“Wow, that’s generous of him!”
“He said it was all part of the Harewood Park Welcoming Committee’s policy. As soon as we’re sufficiently settled I’d like to invite Richard and Debbie for dinner, what do you think?”
“That would be great and Annie and Dave, and Adam and Sicily.”
“Sounds good to me, even though I’ve no idea who Adam and Sicily are.”
Lois went on to tell Tom what she knew about Adam and Sicily, explaining that Adam was the one whom Mel fancied and that they were both coming to dinner at Annie and Dave’s that evening.
“You know I’ve been thinking, I’m not sure I want to wait until the house is done-up to move in. I know we’ve got to pay the rent on the flat for the next couple of months, but we don’t have to live there if we don’t want to, we could consider it a sunk cost. How would you feel about moving in a couple of weeks, when I’m feeling a bit better?”
Lois was delighted with the idea. “We’d have to get movers to pack for us, we’ll both be working and we’re usually pooped in the evenings. Actually, would it be better to wait ‘till I’ve worked out my notice?”
“Oh yes, I’ve been thinking about that too. You must be owed some annual leave which would shorten your period of notice.”
Lois considered this idea for a moment as she sipped her tea. “Gosh Tom, you’re right, I am. I’ll have to look it up, but yes, I might even be owed two weeks. Maybe even more, I’ve only taken two days this year and I think I may be owed some from last year. Oh that’s really exciting, that would mean we could move in, what? Two weeks time? Dean the decorator said he’d start work on Monday. If we got him to sort the bathroom out first, and get the electricians in, that would all be done before we moved.”
“Dean the decorator, don’t we need a plumber for the bathroom?”
“Oh he can do it all, except the electrics, he calls himself a “jobbing builder”, whatever that means. I just thought Dean the decorator scanned rather well!”
“Come on, finish your tea, let’s go next door and start making to-do lists.”
Lois checked with Annie that she didn’t need help with preparing dinner. Annie said she was fine, it wasn’t going to be a complicated meal, that they should enjoy investigating their new home and to say hello to the remaining glis glis for her.
“Ah, talking of glis glis,” said Dave, who had been drinking his cup of tea at the kitchen table, while leafing through the DIY catalogue, trying to put together an estimate for converting the garage loft, “I’ve got a couple of ‘humane’ rat traps in the garage Tom, I’ll put them up in your loft for you if you like. Put in a bit of fruit. If you leave me with a key to the house, I can check them each day for you and then having humanely trapped them, I’ll drown the little buggers!” Dave laughed to himself.
“Oh yuck,” said Lois.
“That would be great, thanks,” said Tom.
Dave brought the traps round to the house, along with a small stepladder. The access hatch to the loft was so small, about half the width of a standard one, that there was no way that Dave would have got his belly through it. Fortunately he didn’t need to get right into the loft, he set the traps close to the door, so they were easily accessible to check and retrieve when they had successfully caught a glis glis.
Meanwhile Tom and Lois got on with writing a to-do list. “We’re going to have to choose and order the new bathroom pretty quickly if we want Dean to do that as one of his first jobs. Perhaps we’d better go DIY store visiting tomorrow,” said Lois.
“I know how to help solve the time problem,” said Tom, smiling, “Where’s your diary. Lets see how much leave you’re owed, I’ve got a feeling it’s quite a lot.”
As soon as they’d found out she was pregnant, Tom and Lois had decided to save up her holiday entitlement, to extend the maternity leave period. Justin had been very pleased, as Lois was in the middle of a major project with an important client, and her not taking leave would wrap that up all the sooner. The HR department quibbled with Justin over her carrying leave over from one financial year to the next, but eventually they’d agreed to it.
Lois and Tom calculated that Lois had enough annual leave outstanding, to practically cover her notice period. “That’s great,” beamed Lois, “that means I only really need to go in for a day to hand over! Wow, how exciting!”
“So, have Monday off to organize what’s going on here, as you’d planned and you’d better call work and let them know. Best ask Annie and Dave how they would feel about having one or two house guests for the occasional night over the next two weeks?” Tom whispered to Lois as Dave started walking down the stairs.
“Incidentally how were you planning for Dean the Decorator to get into the house on Monday? Did he take a template of your giant key to craft over the weekend?” said Tom, smirking.
“Oh ha ha!” Lois said, sarcastically, “if you’re not careful I’ll tickle you!” she reached across towards his ribs.
“Actually my ribs are feeling quite a lot better.”
“Well that’s good. Tomorrow we’ll pull the rest of these lovely carpets out of the house then shall we?”
“I doubt we’ll have time for that Lois. Not if we’ve got to choose a new bathroom suite, that’ll probably take all day.”
“Well if you do have time and need a hand let me know,” offered Dave, “I’m going to need help, at some point, with some of the heavy work in the garage loft. We’re all for helping each other out around here. Well most of us are anyway!” Dave winked at Lois, said he’d best get home and give Annie a hand and disappeared.
Tom and Lois spent another hour at the house, extending their original list, then making a couple more. One for the DIY store the next day and another for what Tom needed to order on-line when he was at work on Monday. The first item on Lois’s list was to get the landline reconnected and a broadband connection up and running as soon as possible. Their mobile signal was more ‘miss’ than ‘hit’ in the house and Lois would be reliant on the Internet to source materials economically.
Just as they were drawing their list composing to a close, a face appeared at the living room window, nose pressed up against the glass. It was Mel. “Hey, cracking door!” she laughed as they let her in. “Good God Tom, look at the state of you!” Mel blew him a kiss, not wanting to get close to any of his injuries. The look of him sent shivers down her spine. She gave Lois a brief hug. “Come on, no time to waste. We need to be next door celebrating your arrival!”
9
Lois returned to Annie and Dave’s with Tom and Mel. She quickly got changed, then, having checked with Annie that no help was required in the kitchen, dragged Mel out into the garden, to bring her up to speed on the goings on of the previous two days. Mel was astonished by Lois’s decision to stop working. She had never pictured Lois as a housewife or stay-at-home mum type. She’d al
ways been so dynamic at work. Harewood Park was apparently having quite an effect.
Mel found the story of Adrienne and ‘the finger in the dyke’ hysterically funny, her laughter luring the rest of the party outside. Mel blushed slightly as Adam came up and gave her a kiss on both cheeks and Lois found herself repeating the story again.
Tom opened the bottle of champagne, which the estate agent had given them in their good luck hamper and poured it into six glasses. “Just enough for a toast,” announced Dave, “To happiness in Harewood Park!”
“To happiness in Harewood Park!” everyone repeated.
The next topic of conversation was Tom’s injuries, difficult to ignore as they were. Lois noticed that the description of his accident was somewhat elaborated on re-telling, but it provided good entertainment.
Before long Annie beckoned the group in through the French windows, across the lounge and into the dining room. As Lois made her way to her seat, she was slightly taken aback to see three stuffed animals sitting in a row on the windowsill. A stoat or a weasel, Lois wasn’t sure, an owl and a green woodpecker.
Annie saw the expression on Lois’s face and jumped straight in to a slightly embarrassed explanation. “They’re there for diplomatic reasons,” she said. “They were gifts, from Richard. You know, Tom went for a treatment with him this afternoon? It’s his hobby. He’s an amateur taxidermist.”
Tom, who was taking a sip of his champagne almost choked on hearing this news. “He’s a what?”
“An amateur taxidermist,” said Dave, “Really, it’s no joke. He picks up road kill, takes it home and stores it in the freezer. Then, when he has a bit of spare time on his hands, he thaws it out and, well, stuffs it, in his garage. Debbie won’t let him do it in the kitchen.” There was raucous laughter from around the room.
“That’s gross!” laughed Lois. “Remind me never to go to dinner at their house.”
“Yes, good plan,” said Dave, “never have been too sure what I’ve been eating at theirs.”