Love Nest

by Julia Llewellyn

  ‘So…’ Sebastian said, climbing into the beaten-up old Land Rover which stank of Silvester, the spaniel, and Shackleton, the pug.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t change your minds? Stay the night?’ Grace turned on the ignition and backed out of the car park. Verity and the boys had arrived late last night and made a lot of fuss about how cold the house was and how frightened Basil was by creaking pipes in the night. She wasn’t surprised when Sebastian now shook his head.

  ‘We’ve got to get back. Alfie’s got a birthday party tomorrow.’ He cleared his throat as the car bumped along a winding country lane. ‘Now, listen, there’s something we need to talk about,’ he said hastily. ‘What are we going to do with Chadlicote?’

  Grace glanced at him as she negotiated the tight bend next to the entrance to Cudd’s Farm. ‘I know it needs a lot of work. But we’ll get there. I can devote myself to it now.’

  ‘Er… I’m sorry but I don’t think that’s an option.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Grace glanced at him sharply as she revved into fourth gear.

  It came out in a rush. ‘I’ve been looking at the accounts, as you know. And we have no choice but to sell.’

  ‘Sell Chadlicote?’ Grace couldn’t take her eyes off the road but her jaw dropped like a cartoon character’s.

  ‘I’ve looked at the figures. It’s unsustainable. We have a huge amount of inheritance tax to pay, and even without that we simply can’t afford the work needed. And besides… even if we did it what would be the point? I mean, what would become of Chadlicote in the long run?’

  ‘Well… I don’t know. I would live there, I thought. And then maybe… well, it would be up to our children to decide.’

  ‘Our children?’ Her brother looked puzzled. ‘Oh, you mean if you have any?’ His tone made it clear that was highly unlikely. ‘Well, yes, I suppose so. But what would they do? They couldn’t all live in it together, in some kind of commune. And besides… Vee and I need the money. We’re feeling the pinch like everyone else. Business hasn’t been good for me recently and she’s not going to get anything like her usual bonus. Everything has got so much more expensive, and Alfie’s really not thriving at the local school, so we’ve got to start thinking about going private.’ He sighed. ‘I’m really sorry, Grace, but it’s going to have to go.’

  ‘And where will I live?’ she asked, as the car turned the last curving bend and entered the tall metal gates, flanked by the derelict lodge, that marked the drive.

  ‘Vee and I discussed that. Of course you can’t be left homeless. I mean, you would be left with a decent sum of money from the sale of the house, plenty to allow you to buy a decent place of your own. But you did nurse Mummy for a long time and you’re not married and you don’t have anything even vaguely resembling a career. So we’ve agreed it would be only fair to let you have the village cottage when the tenant moves out.’

  ‘Oh!’ Grace’s head was swimming. They were pulling up in front of Chadlicote now: Chadlicote with its beautiful, red-brick Elizabethan façade choked with ivy. Mullioned windows glinting in the sun. Wide stone steps. Perfect proportions. All right, the stonework was crumbling, there were boards over a couple of the windows, but still… it was her home. Half hers, anyway. But Sebastian had a splendid home of his own in Wimbledon, near the Common.

  It had never occurred to her he wouldn’t let her stay.

  But there was no time for further discussion. The drive was full of cars, and people in black were standing around the dried-up fountain, wanting to let her know how sorry they were. Grace couldn’t face them. She needed time alone. She was still taking in this news, that her brother and sister-in-law were sending her to live in a run-down workman’s cottage on the edge of the village, which – as far as she recalled – had a patch of scrubby garden and no central heating.

  ‘Look, do we really have to…?’ she began, but Mrs Legan, the village’s chief nosy parker, was peering at her through the window. Reluctantly, Grace wound it down.

  ‘Grace. I’m so sorry I didn’t get the chance to say it before. But I am truly sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Grace. She glanced urgently at her brother.

  ‘Do we really have to?’ she said softly, winding up the window again.

  ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you earlier. I called the estate agents last night. They’re coming tomorrow for a valuation. They think we should have no problem with a quick sale.’

  ‘I…’ But guests were approaching. Grace gave up and got out of the car. She’d fight this battle later, she told herself, although if Sebby said they had no choice…

  Grace needed a sausage roll. That would help her think straight.

  1

  It was the final viewing of the day and the client was late. As usual. Lucinda stood outside the heavy front door of the converted bottle factory, tapping her heel on the concrete and looking at photos on her mobile. How did people pass the time before they had phones? She smiled at the picture of herself last summer by the pool of the villa in Tobago, wearing a very flattering orange bikini. Mummy and Daddy at the lunch table, sheltered by an umbrella from the Caribbean sun. Ginevra and Wolfie, arms wrapped round each other. Benjie about to do a silly backwards dive into the pool.

  Happy memories. Looking up, Lucinda caught sight of herself grinning in the plate-glass doors leading into the lobby. It was the kind of thing you could never admit to anyone, but she knew she was looking beautiful that day. Her auburn hair shone, her green eyes sparkled, her skin glowed. Just lucky, she reminded herself, knowing she was in danger of tipping over from self-confident into smug. She came from a good gene pool. She was young. And going places. She couldn’t help it; she smiled again at her huge fortune in being her.

  ‘Lucinda?’

  At the sound of her name, she jumped. She swung round. A man – presumably the client – was grinning at her unnervingly, as if he’d read her thoughts. He was about her age. Lanky. Blond, slightly spiky hair. Very blue eyes. Skinny jeans, a Sex Pistols T-shirt and a slightly tattered navy blazer. Very different from the City boys she normally took on viewings. Intrigued, she held out her hand.

  ‘Mr Crex? I’m Lucinda Gresham. How do you do?’

  ‘Lucinda.’ He had a northern accent. Rather cute. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  She didn’t show it, but inwardly she winced. She couldn’t help it. Her upbringing might have been too sheltered but she had been taught manners. Mummy had trained her that the right response to ‘How do you do?’ was ‘How do you do?’ Ridiculous, but when anyone replied in any other way it made her think less of them and it was all she could do not to correct them. Not that she would have implied that Nick Crex was in the wrong, even if he’d pulled down his skinny jeans and mooned at her. One of the first rules of estate agency was that the customers were always right – at least when you were with them. Back at the office you could bitch about them to your heart’s content.

  But for now Lucinda would nod and smile if Nick Crex told her Princess Diana had been murdered by aliens. She had to prove Niall wrong. Though he’d never said it in as many words, he’d been understandably wary about taking her on at the Clerkenwell branch of Dunraven Mackie, not least at a time when so many agents were being made redundant.

  And quite right, Lucinda acknowledged – even though his behaviour pissed her off – because she had zero experience and owed her job to blatant nepotism. But Lucinda was determined to show her worth, and six months down the line Niall was having to admit that she was pretty good at this selling houses lark, even with the market in its direst straits in years.

  ‘Shall we take a look?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m all yours.’

  She punched in the code that opened the front door. They crossed the lobby and called the lift. Ping. Up to the first floor. Down a long red-linoed corridor. Lucinda knocked on the green front door of Flat 15. Gemma Meehan had told her she’d be out, but you never knew. She’d had a hideous, though hilarious, exp
erience last weekend when she’d ushered an uptight American couple into 12 Dorchester Place, a cute little Georgian house in a quiet terrace near the Barbican.

  Knowing that the owners, the Kitsons, were on holiday in Mallorca, Lucinda had opened the door and marched straight through the hallway to the living room to find Carlotta Kitson wearing nothing but a fuchsia G-string, while a man who was most definitely not Linus Kitson was thwacking her on the bottom with a tennis racquet.

  ‘Oh, whoopsie,’ Lucinda cried merrily. ‘So sorry!’ And she virtually dragged the Americans out of the front door and down the stairs flanked by fake bay trees in a pot. She thought it highly unlikely she’d come across Gemma Meehan in the same situation – she was far too prim. But they did always say the quiet ones were the worst.

  No one replied to the knock, so Lucinda unlocked the door and they stepped inside.

  ‘Wow,’ he said, before he could stop himself.

  ‘It’s a fantastic space, isn’t it?’ Mimicking his body language, Lucinda looked around the large room. To the left, a kitchen with Italian marble surfaces and a state-of-the-art range. In front of them the dining area. A sitting area furnished with vast zebra-striped sofas occupied the rest of the space. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, with views over the slanty roofs of Clerkenwell. It was glorious. Clients always got a great first impression. It reminded Lucinda of Fabio, her sister Ginevra’s ex: great on the surface, but a quick viewing immediately highlighted flaws. Still, Ginevra hadn’t minded – for a while at least – and maybe Nick Crex was the man who for whatever reason might be blind to the obvious problems of Flat 15 and instead focus on its plus points.

  So far, so good. He was turning round slowly. Taking it all in. Lucinda inhaled the scent of freshly baked bread. Everyone had latched on to that trick. Fresh flowers on the table. Yawn. Those property programmes had so much to answer for.

  ‘A fencer,’ he said, nodding at the left-hand wall where the exposed brick had been decorated with a collection of long, slim blades.

  ‘I guess so,’ Lucinda said, surprised. Again, she wasn’t being snobbish exactly, but fencing was a posh sort of sport and Nick Crex was certainly not posh.

  ‘I used to fence at school,’ he said. ‘A “Help Deprived Youth” programme.’ His tone was mocking, acknowledging that he’d sussed her and her prejudices. Lucinda blushed.

  ‘Oh, right. What fun.’ She twisted the Cartier pearl and diamond bracelet Daddy had given her for her eighteenth birthday round her wrist. She always fiddled with it when she was a bit nervous.

  ‘It was.’ Nick Crex turned to a table covered in silver-framed photos. ‘And she’s a dancer,’ he said, picking up a photo of Gemma Meehan in a tutu.

  ‘She used to be. She had to give up. Some injury.’ Gemma was attractive in a skinny, dark kind of way. Driving everyone at the agency crazy with all her nagging about why the place hadn’t sold, but fortunately the pictures didn’t reveal that.

  ‘They’ve travelled a lot,’ he said, picking up a photo of the Meehans grinning on what looked like a Thai beach.

  ‘It’s a real party flat,’ Lucinda said, eager to steer him back on track.

  ‘Yeah. Especially with that balcony thing.’ He nodded upwards.

  ‘The mezzanine,’ Lucinda corrected, unable to stop herself. ‘It’s great, isn’t it? Shall we go up?’

  He followed her up the spiral staircase, to the upper level. A TV area with a giant HDTV screen and squashy beanbags. A study area with a desk built into the wall, lit by a genuine Bestlite. Two bathrooms leading off it – this was the point when most people started realizing that there was a catch and asking questions like isn’t that a bit of an odd layout and wouldn’t it be better if the bathrooms were en suite? Lucinda was all ready with the spiel, that this was a converted warehouse, that the floorplan reflected the layout of the original, historic building, blah blah.

  But Nick Crex said nothing. Good man.

  While he was looking round, Lucinda stood back. For something to do, she scanned the wedding photos on the wall. Alex in black tie, skinnier than he was now. She didn’t like Gemma’s dress, far too meringuey. But the look of love in her eyes was very sweet, even someone like Lucinda who categorically did not get the whole bride thing had to admit it.

  ‘So is this a bedroom?’ Nick asked, nodding towards the three steps that led down to the master one.

  ‘Yes. It’s very… original!’ Code for blinking ridiculous. She followed him into the room. An empty space. To the right, a ladder leading to a bed perched on top of the – slightly ambitiously named – walk-in wardrobe. A clichéd scent of vanilla candles in the air. Poor Gemma, she wanted this sale so much there was nothing she wasn’t prepared to do.

  ‘Isn’t it great?’ Lucinda enthused. She couldn’t think of anything worse than sleeping on a sort of perch, she’d be up and down it all night, wanting to pee, and would inevitably fall off. But maybe Nick Crex had a stronger bladder than her. Or a catheter and bag. ‘Look, and here below it you’ve got your very own walk-in wardrobe. Isn’t it fabulous?’

  ‘Mmm.’ He definitely liked it. She could tell from the body language. What did he do that he could be in with even the vaguest chance of affording such a place? Even though prices had crashed, it should still have been beyond his league. All she knew about him was from the brief phone call they’d had that morning when she had randomly picked up the phone. He’d said he’d seen the flat on the internet and given a Belsize Park address. Which was smart enough to mark him out as a serious client, rather than a time-waster.

  ‘Would you like to see the other bedroom?’

  ‘Rock ‘n’ roll swin-dle, rock ‘n’ roll swin…’

  The sudden noise made Lucinda shriek. Then she realized that it was his ring tone. Impatiently, he pulled his phone from his jeans pocket.

  ‘Hello? Yeah. Hiya.’ He looked annoyed. She could just hear a woman’s voice.

  ‘Yeah. I’m a bit busy right now… Can I call you back?… Yeah, I won’t be that long… I’ll call you back… I’ll call you back, all right?… I love you too,’ he mumbled like a teenager asked to kiss his mum in front of the school football team. ‘Yeah. See ya.’ Hanging up, he shoved the phone back in his pocket.

  ‘So, the other bedroom?’ Lucinda smiled. It was up a small flight of stairs. Again, a funny shape with another raised bed stuck on a shelf in the corner. But different. Definitely different.

  ‘It’s such a great location,’ Lucinda said. ‘The area just gets cooler by the day. So many bars and restaurants and shops and great for transport links. St Pancras just up the road for the Eurostar…’

  ‘Why do they want to sell?’

  ‘They’re a couple. I think they want a baby. And…’ Lucinda gestured towards the mezzanine with its wide-spaced railings and the fifteen-foot drop on to the stone tiles below. No point lying. Anyway, she was pretty sure Nick Crex wasn’t into the whole baby thing yet. ‘Well, it’s no place for a baby, is it?’

  ‘Guess not.’ A smile broke over his face, but then suddenly he seemed awkward. ‘Well, thanks for that. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘You’ve got the details, haven’t you? No? I’ll give them to you.’ She rummaged in the lime green Smythson’s briefcase which her mother had bought her to congratulate her on her first job. ‘Here you are.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, not glancing at the laminated A4.

  ‘Thanks so much,’ she said when they were back out on the pavement. Held out her hand again. He shook it limply. Such gestures obviously weren’t the done thing where he came from, Lucinda thought. Snobbish. But true.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said, and turned abruptly up the narrow cobbled street. Lucinda watched him for a second and then turned in the opposite direction. It was late enough for her to call the office and say she was clocking off, but she decided to go back and put in at least another hour’s work. No one was going to call Lucinda Gresham a slacker.

  2

  Even thoug
h her reflexology appointment had run over, making her slightly late, Gemma Meehan was first to arrive at the café where she was meeting her younger sister Bridget. No surprise there, Gemma thought as she took a corner seat and ordered a cup of peppermint tea.

  She’d have loved a cappuccino, but caffeine was banned until her future baby, Chudney, as Alex, her husband, insisted on calling it (he’d laughed for about an hour when he’d heard that Diana Ross had cruelly named her daughter that), was safely in her arms. Although then Gemma would be breastfeeding, so caffeine would be off limits too. And then – who knew – but with luck there’d be another Chudney. In other words, no coffee for another – what? – three, four years? Never mind. For her unborn children she would do anything.

  ‘Stop it,’ Gemma said, almost out loud. She was getting ahead of herself again. There were no children. And whether there ever would be or not was all down to what happened in the next hour or so. At the thought of the conversation she was about to have, her heart began to pitter like rain on a tin roof. Calm down, she told herself. And by the same token, no negative vibes at Bridget’s lateness. Though she could have texted to let her know.

  Gemma sighed. She’d spent twenty-one long years making allowances for Bridget. From the moment their mother had returned from the hospital jiggling a screaming bundle, all Gemma could remember was Bridget being a nuisance, albeit a cute one. As soon as she could crawl she snatched Gemma’s toys away. Ripped up her drawings. She blew out the candles on Gemma’s eighth birthday cake. Every time Gemma cried or complained, her parents told her not to be so silly, that she had to make allowances. That babies couldn’t be expected to understand the rules.

  But the day never came when Bridget did start understanding the rules. Gemma loved Bridget – the maternal feelings that had always been at her core ensured that – but she couldn’t help feeling frustrated at times. While Gemma worked hard at school and even harder at her ballet, Bridget was always bottom of the class. What was worse was she never seemed to care. Gemma was mortified if she came home with an even vaguely bad report for anything, but Bridget didn’t give a damn. Mum and Dad would shake their heads and sigh and say, ‘Darling, you really must try harder,’ but she’d just giggle and the subject would get dropped.