by Jojo Moyes
'I'd say come with us. But I think Jason would like us to make a start by ourselves . . .'
'Don't fuss, Jan. He's right. You should try to be a family.' He put an arm round his sister's shoulders. He didn't like to think how much he would miss his niece, the casual chaos of their life together. 'It'll be good for Lily to have a dad around.'
'And you're all right now . . . aren't you? Now that everything's . . . well, you've got a clean slate.'
He sighed. 'It's fine. I can look after myself.'
'I know you can. I guess I just feel . . . responsible.'
'You were never responsible.' He met her gaze, but neither of them said what hung in the air between them.
'Well, come for Sunday lunch. I'll do us a proper roast every week. Okay?'
Whumph! He brought the metal cylinder down again, driving the post into the earth, squinting against the sun. He had thought about moving to a new area, somewhere the rents weren't going up so fast. But the classified ads in the farming magazines wanted qualified land managers, people who'd been to agricultural college. He had no chance against people like that, especially with his history. Besides, he understood the land here, still had a few contacts. And a job with Matt McCarthy was better than none.
Byron lifted the metal cylinder, and as he prepared to bring it down on the post, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a movement to his right. A boy was standing by the hedge. The sight distracted him and Byron caught his thumb between the cylinder and the post. As the pain shot through his hand he let out an expletive. The dogs jumped up, whining, and when Byron, his thumb shoved painfully between his knees, looked up, the boy was gone.
Isabel habitually walked with her head held high, her almost exaggeratedly erect posture her way of compensating for years of crooking her neck round her violin. But today her head was down as she strode through the mossy undergrowth on her way back down the woodland path to her house. What had possessed her to go to such an event? Why had she pretended that she and those women might have anything to say to each other? The rest of the morning had been spent in painfully stilted conversation. Laura had asked more about Isabel's children, but when she confessed how much she missed their nanny, and then that she couldn't cook and, no, she didn't have any domestic skills, they had seemed disappointed. And Isabel, instead of being cowed and silenced, had felt increasingly mutinous. She remarked, a little tactlessly, that she found caring for a house unfulfilling, and watched their jaws drop as if she had said her signature dish was human flesh. 'Oh, well,' said one woman, placing a hand on her arm, 'at least now you've stopped working, you'll really get to know your children.'
Isabel wrenched open the door, which she had forgotten to lock. She ran upstairs and pulled out her violin. Then she returned to the kitchen, the only room that retained any warmth, and flicked open a book of music. Eyes on the notes in front of her, she began to play, the notes harsh and angry, the bow scraping gracelessly across the strings. She forgot the damp kitchen, the washing hanging from the dryer, the dirty breakfast things. She forgot the women across the lane and their barely concealed distaste, Laura McCarthy's unreadable face. She focused only on the music, until she had lost herself, stretching out the notes until her body eased. Finally, several pages in, Isabel relaxed.
After some unknown length of time, she stopped. She pushed her shoulders back and let her neck roll first to the left and then to the right, lengthening the tendons, letting out a long, slow breath. When someone clapped behind her she jumped and spun round.
Matt McCarthy stepped forward. 'Sorry,' he said. 'You left the door open, and I didn't like to disturb you.'
Isabel felt exposed, as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't. Her spare hand went to her neck. 'Mr McCarthy.'
'Matt.' He nodded towards her instrument. 'You really do get stuck into that, don't you?'
She put it carefully on a chair. 'It's just . . . what I do,' she said.
'I've got those figures you asked for. Thought we could go over them if you've got five minutes.'
It was still cold outside, and chilly enough within for Isabel to have kept her coat on, but Matt McCarthy was wearing only a grey cotton T-shirt. Everything about his demeanour suggested that he was impervious to temperature. The solid outline of his upper body made her think of Laurent, and she was briefly disoriented. 'I'll make some tea,' she said.
'Not got your fridge working yet?' He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, and nodded towards the appliance, which still sat, unplugged and redundant, at the end of the room.
'There are no power points.'
She pulled up the sash window and took in one of the bottles of milk that stood on the windowsill.
'Yeah. I don't think this room has been updated since the 1930s.'
While she made tea, Matt got out a notepad and calculator, humming to himself as he ran through a series of figures with the stub of a pencil. When she sat down, he pushed the pad towards her. 'Okay - these are your initial works, as I see them. You should fix the roof. It really needs a complete overhaul, but until then you must make the place waterproof. With materials, patching it up will cost in the region of that . . .' He tapped the pad. 'Internally it gets a bit more complicated. You need a damp-proof course throughout. The drawing-room and dining-room floors have to come up because there may be dry rot underneath. At least eight windows want replacing, and the rest should have the rotten wood dug out and made good. And there's your electrics. To be on the safe side, you're looking at a complete rewiring job.'
Isabel stared at the figures.
'You've got a few structural problems too. It's possible there's some movement at the back of the house. If that's so it'll need underpinning, although we can take out some of the trees near the back wall and leave it a few months to see if it settles. That'll cost you . . .' He sucked his teeth. Then he smiled reassuringly. 'Tell you what, let's not talk about it just yet.'
Matt's voice had begun to recede. This couldn't be right. Isabel was willing the decimal points to swap places. 'There's nothing here about the hot water and central heating. We need a working bath.'
Matt leaned back in his chair. 'Ah, yes, the hot-water system. The piece de resistance. You've probably guessed that the whole lot wants ripping out. The range isn't powerful enough to do your heating and hot water long term. You need a new boiler, radiators, and half the pipework is shot. I'm afraid it's a big job in a house like this. Not something you can do half-heartedly.' Isabel's head swam. The hot-water system alone would eat up nearly all the money she had saved from the sale of Maida Vale.
'Look, get some other quotes if you want,' said Matt, apparently sensing her concern. 'Best you compare prices, and I'm not fussed either way. I've got other jobs to get on with.' He ran his hands through his hair. 'I don't think you'll get a lot cheaper than me, though.'
'No,' she said weakly. 'I wouldn't know where to find other people to do these things anyway. So . . . let's just do the urgent things, and worry about the rest later. We can live without proper heating for a bit longer.'
Matt gave her a half-smile. 'Mrs Delancey, these are all urgent works. I haven't even begun on the replastering, the wood replacement, the new ceilings, redecoration . . .' He shook his head. 'There's hardly a room in the place that doesn't need overhauling.'
For a few minutes they sat in silence, Isabel trying to make sense of the figures.
'Bit of a shock, eh?' Matt said eventually.
Isabel breathed out slowly. 'My husband always handled things like this,' she said quietly. She imagined Laurent beside her, running through the list of figures, questioning. He would have known how to handle this.
'It would be a huge project even if he was around,' Matt said. 'Can't tell you how many jobs we've done like this. When you buy a house that's been so neglected, it never ends. Like painting the Forth Bridge, I always say.'
Isabel closed her eyes, then opened them again. Every now and then she felt as if she had landed in someone else's lif
e.
'I've got to warn you. This house is as bad as they come. You need to think seriously about how much money you're willing to put into it.' He was squinting, as if he were telling her something he found painful. 'I mean, I don't know your financial circumstances,' he went on, 'but you should think, too, about how much energy you're prepared to give to it. I can take a lot of the weight off your shoulders, but you'll still have to be very much involved. And if you're not the practical sort . . .'
She could leave, Isabel thought. She could put the Spanish House on the market, and they could go. How bad would it be to live in a small flat in London? Would it matter if they couldn't live somewhere as nice as they'd been used to?
The tops of the trees were moving gently in the grey air. She had a sudden image of Thierry picking his way through the garden, stick swinging in his hand. Her violin lay on the chair beside her, glowing and expensive in the drab kitchen, her only link to her old life.
'No,' she said. 'I can't move the children again. They've had so much upheaval. We need to make this work.'
Matt shrugged.
Isabel's voice grew more determined. 'We'll do the most urgent things. The house has survived this long - it's not about to fall down around our ears, is it?' She braved a smile.
There was so little expression in his face that it was hard to tell what he thought.
'Up to you,' he said, tapping his pen on the table. 'I'll cut costs where I can.'
He spent another twenty minutes going round the house, wielding his tape measure, making notes. Isabel tried to go on practising in the kitchen but his presence made concentration impossible. The sound of his footsteps and his whistling made her oddly self-conscious, her playing halting and erratic. In the end, she went up the steps to the ground floor and found him peering up the dining-room chimney.
'I'll need to get up a ladder and have a look at that,' he said. 'Think one of the pots may have collapsed on itself. It's okay,' he added, 'it's not a big job. We can just cap it off. I won't charge you for that.'
'How very kind. Thank you,' said Isabel.
'Right,' he said. 'I'd better be off and pick up some of the materials.' He nodded towards the window. 'How'd you get on at ours this morning?'
Isabel had forgotten that Laura was Matt's wife. 'Oh . . .' she said, twisting her hands behind her back. 'Oh . . . it was very kind of Laura to invite me.' She realised, too late, that she had failed to imbue her voice with any enthusiasm.
'Trial by housewife, eh?'
Isabel blushed. 'It . . . I don't think I was what they were expecting.'
'Don't let that lot worry you. Got nothing better to do than natter about each other's soft furnishings. Bunch of curtain-twitchers. I tell Laura she spends too much time with them.' He had reached the door. 'Don't worry about all of this. I'll be back first thing tomorrow. If you can clear your stuff out of the dining room we'll start with the floorboards in there. See what's going on underneath.'
'Thank you,' said Isabel. She felt unaccountably grateful. She had found his presence a little nerve-racking at first. Now she was reassured by it.
'Hey,' he said, saluting as he went down the steps, 'what are neighbours for?'
There was no place on earth lonelier than an empty double bed. The moonlight slanted through the window on to the ceiling as Isabel listened to the panes rumble peacefully in their frames, the distant calls of wild creatures. They did not frighten her now, but neither did they alleviate her sense that she was the only person awake in the whole world.
Earlier that evening, when she had first climbed into bed, she had heard weeping. She had got up again, pulled on her dressing-gown and hurried to Thierry's room. The covers were over his head and he wouldn't come out, despite her pleading. 'Talk to me, darling,' she had whispered. 'Please talk to me.' But he wouldn't. But, then, he didn't have to. She had laid a hand on him, feeling the muffled shudder of his crying, until his tears became her own. In the end, she had lain next to him and curled her body round his. When, at last, he slept, she had peeled the covers off his face, kissed his cheek, and almost reluctantly padded back up the rickety stairs to her own room.
She stood barefoot in it now, the rough boards against her soles, gazing at the curiously illuminated landscape. The trees in the distance had become a deep purple abyss. The shadows, the walls and pillars round the house shifted in the half-light. Something dark and swift ran across a path and disappeared into the black. She saw him suddenly, walking towards her from the trees, his jacket slung over his shoulder. But then he was gone, a spectral trick of her imagination.
'Laurent,' she whispered, pulling her robe round her as she climbed into the cold bed. 'Come back to me.'
She tried to picture him getting in beside her, his weight depressing the mattress, the creak of the springs, the comforting heaviness of his arm draped over her waist. Her own hands on the silk of her robe were too small, too fine. There was no weight, no meaning behind her touch. She felt the empty expanse of linen beside her, the unwarmed pillow. She heard the silence of a room with no one else breathing. She imagined Matt, across the lane, his strong body enclosing his wife's, his arms wrapped round her, Laura smiling in her half-sleep. She saw all the couples out there breathing, murmuring to each other, their hands entwined, skin meeting skin. No one will ever touch mine again, she thought. No one will ever take pleasure in me like he did. And a wave of longing so powerful swept over her that she thought she would choke.
'Laurent,' she whispered into the darkness, tears leaking from her closed eyes, and began to move against the silk. 'Laurent,' she cried, her hands trying to conjure music from a body that refused to listen.
Somewhere below, Byron called Elsie, his terrier, to heel, hearing her excited scurryings in the undergrowth. He lifted his torch, swinging its beam in front of his feet, watching the shadows move as creatures fled into the dark woodland. The lads in the pub had told him poachers had been laying traps up this end of the woods, and while he knew his little dog was too smart to get caught in one, he wanted to lift them before anything else did. You didn't forget your first sight of a fox or a badger that had been stuck in one for a few days, gnawing at its limb to free itself. And besides, being out with the dogs was better than sitting in an empty cottage brooding about his future.
His phone rang, and he retrieved it from his pocket, whistling Elsie back as he did so. She sat down, half on his boot.
'Byron.'
'Yes?' Matt didn't bother to introduce himself now. It was as if he thought he owned him, even at this hour.
'You finish sinking those posts?'
Byron adjusted his neck. 'Yes.'
'Good. Tomorrow I need you to help me pull up the floorboards in the dining room at the Spanish House.'
Byron thought for a minute. 'The dining room? Surely that's the only good room in the house.' It had been a joke among the locals - Pottisworth's only sound room was the one he hadn't used for decades.
There was a brief silence. 'Who says it is?'
'Well, whenever I've been in--'
'Who's the builder here, Byron? You or me? Know much about wet and dry rot, do you? Learn that while you were inside?'
'No.'
'I'll meet you there at eight thirty. And the next time I want your opinion on building work, I'll ask for it.'
The space in front of the narrow beam of his torch was pitch black, the terrain unreadable. 'You're the boss,' Byron said.
He flipped his telephone shut, thrust it deep into his pocket and tramped wearily on into the wilderness.
Nine
Kitty sat in the tin tub, drew her knees up to her chest and laid her neck on the hand-towel she had folded and placed behind her. The towel got sopping wet, but it was the only way you could relax in a tin bath without severing your head. That, and tucking your knees up so your calves didn't have to hang over the top, cutting off your circulation. She had the electric heater on nearby so that when the water cooled, as it did really quickly, she didn't shiv
er for a full twenty minutes when it was time to get out. Her mum swore Kitty was going to electrocute herself but, given the state of the house, she thought she'd take her chances here as well as anywhere else.
She heard a vehicle outside, and decided it was time to begin the laborious process of emptying the bath, which she had, of course, overfilled. She thought she would never again take a plughole for granted: the sheer backbreaking tedium of endlessly lowering a bucket into the bath until it was empty enough to lift made it not worth filling in the first place. She heard Matt's voice downstairs as she wrapped herself in her towel. He was saying something about breakfast, telling Mum to put the coffee on, laughing at some joke she hadn't heard.
Most people complained about having builders in. Kitty remembered the mothers at her old school exclaiming about the dust and dirt, the cost and upheaval. They talked as if it were an ordeal that had to be endured. Like surgery.
It had been almost ten days now, and despite the chaos, the fact that she couldn't walk in a straight line downstairs without watching for missing floorboards or hold a conversation without being interrupted by the tearing sound of planks being wrenched from joists or hammering, she was enjoying it. It was nice to have other people around, and not just her and Mum, who always had her mind somewhere else, and Thierry, who never said anything any more anyway.
Matt McCarthy always chatted to her as if she was older than she was, and she recognised his son from school. She found it difficult to go into a room when Anthony was there because somehow his presence made her blush and go a bit tongue-tied. She wished one of her friends was around so they could tell her whether he was actually lush, or whether she was imagining it.
When Matt and his son had turned up that first morning she had been embarrassed that Anthony had seen their house looking as it did, that he must think this was how they had always lived. She wanted to say, 'We used to live in a normal house, you know. With a fridge.' Mum had begun to put the stuff that had to be kept cold in little baskets that she hung from the masonry outside the kitchen windows where foxes couldn't get it, and their fruit in orange nets, protection from the mice, and half of Kitty loved that because from outside it made their home look a bit like a gingerbread house, or something out of a fairytale, but the other half was humiliated. Who else had to leave their food hanging outside? She was terrified that Anthony would say something at school and everyone would laugh at her, but so far he hadn't.