The Soulmate Agency

by Ivan B

  He became pensive before blurting out, “The house: it may not be quite what you expected.”

  “I’m sure it will be lovely.”

  He stroked her shoulder, “If you don’t like it we’ll buy another. I had it renovated a few years ago, but it is still basically a Victorian house even if it does have a Jacuzzi.”

  He sighed, “It’s also got a housekeeper, Mrs Wood, her and her husband live in the gatehouse.”

  “You’ve got a gatehouse?”

  “Don’t kid yourself, it’s a two bedroom cottage that used to be a farm-hand’s cottage.”

  He squirmed in his seat, “It’s also got neighbours. My sister-in-law lives next door.”

  He squirmed again, “She may not take too kindly to you.”

  Willow frowned, “Why not?”

  “Because she firmly believes that I should leave my ill-gotten gains to her children.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “He’s more phlegmatic, but then he’s so laid-back he probably doesn’t care.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Nothing.” Henry chuckled, “Well that’s not true, he works in PR and thinks up advertising slogans.”

  “Your advertising slogans?”

  “No.”

  The flat ‘no’ told her everything. He did not think his brother really worked at his job and he did not wish to give his sister-in-law any leverage to claim Henry owed his sales to his brother’s efforts. She rubbed his knee, “Let’s go and look.”

  He started the engine and pulled back into the stream of traffic. “Looks nice around here,” she said.

  He nodded, “Wonderful place to bring up children.”

  She smiled to herself; her future was set, up here in Suffolk raising his children. It made her feel very content, so content she temporarily forgot all about nicotine.

  As they passed a couple of slip-roads off to Bury St Edmunds she began to wonder how far out of the Town the house was. They drove about three miles and then there was another exit labelled ‘West Bury’, as Henry turned off on this slip road she admired a pink-painted farmhouse that appeared to stand in grand isolation across a couple of miles of fields. It dawned on her as Henry made progress down a country lane that this might be the house. They came to a T junction and Henry turned right, on the corner was a square brick-built house that could have been lifted of off any 1960s housing estate. Willow surveyed it as they passed, “How on earth did they get planning permission for that in the middle of the countryside?”

  He shrugged, “Don’t ask me, it was here when I arrived. It’s a 1960s house, built by a 1960s builder who was more concerned about profit than quality.”

  She made a guess, “It’s your brother’s?”

  He nodded, “They moved up two years after I did. He says that he can commute from anywhere, she says it’s good for the children.”

  They were still driving. “Just how far are you apart?”

  “1.1 statute miles and a yawning gulf.”

  “Yawning gulf?”

  “They’re agnostics. He’s renounced his faith and I doubt that she ever had any.”

  There was that tone in his voice again. A sort of muted tolerance mixed with a guilty intolerance.

  They turned right round a small farm cottage with a thatched roof and into a cobbled courtyard bounded by the farmhouse a stable block and a small wooden barn. He turned the engine off. She looked around at the buildings. He waved a careless hand, “Barn is used to store the cars and Bert, that’s Mrs Wood’s husband, uses it to repair odds and ends. Stable block has my office.”

  She wrinkled her nose, no office smelt like that. “But there are horses?”

  He nodded, “Two, they’re in the paddock at the moment. They’re not mine, one’s a pony that’s being reared by the Wood’s daughter and the other is a horse that’s used by a Disabled Riding School.”

  They climbed out and he made for the front door. At the door he fumbled for a key. “Normally go in the kitchen door, but today…” He opened the wide door, picked Willow up in a traditional bride-across-the threshold mode and staggered through the doorway. He almost made a comment about her weight, but diplomacy overcame rashness. Once inside he kissed her. “Welcome home,” he whispered in her ear and he kissed her again.

  The hallway was not huge, but it was inviting. Broad oak beams ran across the ceiling and mellow colours allowed the walls to be welcoming. She looked at the beams, “Thought you said this place is Victorian.”

  “It is, they used more than red bricks you know. This was built in the fifth year of the reign of Queen Victoria; there’s an engraved stone over the kitchen door.”

  To the left of the hall there was a huge lounge, it ran from front to back and was so large the three triple seated settees that were grouped around the magnificent fireplace at the far end looked lost. He gave a knowing smile, “Probably was originally a stone barn attached to the house, at sometime it’s been turned into part of the dwelling.”

  She went back into the hall and out the other side into the kitchen. It was laid out like a traditional farmhouse kitchen with a large ceramic sink under the window and a scrubbed table in the middle. However, all similarities to basic farm kitchens ended there. The ceramic sink had two large bowls with a small preparation bowl in-between and an expensive looking swinging tap. The cupboards were all modern and made out of light-oak, the appliances all stainless steel and the cooker a double oven affair with a built-in dual-fuel hob next to it. The kitchen was also unusual in that it had a door in the middle of ever wall. Henry murmured in her ear, “Door to right leads into the courtyard. Door opposite leads into the old lobby and there’s the old front door on the other side. Used to be a utility room off to the right, but I turned it into a walk-in WC/shower; you can then come into the house without making things dirty.”

  Willow realised that the whole place was spotless. “Mrs Wood cleans this?”

  “She currently cleans everything and does my food shopping. I usually cook myself, when I’m here.”

  She walked through the door to the left and into a large dining room with an oblong light-oak table with eight matching chairs and a Welsh-dresser of the same wood that was laden with Spode china. By the look of the room it was never used. She was getting the feel of the house now, it was an L shape with the kitchen in the crook of the L. She walked through the kitchen and into the final downstairs’ room. This was painted a pale shade of blue and had a TV surround sound system emanating from a large plasma screen that hung on the wall. Set before it was an old leather armchair and a small coffee table. The whole place extruded loneliness and desolation, she should know she had a room exactly like it in her flat. “How many bedrooms?”

  “Four and a box-room.”

  He took her back to the hall and up the wide staircase. “There’s stairs from the old lobby as well, but their mighty steep.”

  He paused by the door to the room over the large lounge. He stepped back, “Master bedroom.” He announced solemnly. She took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped inside. She stopped dead. Many things she had expected, this she had not. The room was bare, completely bare. Bare floorboards, bare plaster walls with a magnolia wash, unvarnished beams, high unpainted ceiling and curtainless windows. The room seemed equally as enormous as the lounge beneath, particularly as the only flat ceiling was no more than a metre wide and high up in the semi-pointed roof of the old stone barn. The only piece of furniture was a small prayer desk and the only splash of colour came from an Icon of Mary propped up against the far wall. She turned and raised an eyebrow, he shuffled from foot to foot and became hesitant. “I didn’t know how to furnish it, I’m not sure I wanted to use it, alone that is, and it seemed a sort of waste.”

  He glanced down the room, “There’s an en-suite and a walk in wardrobe at the end, both never used.”

  She kissed him on the cheek, “At least it saves me the trouble of reorganising your bedroom.”

  His
bedroom turned out to be a small single room with minimal furniture, the next-door single bedroom he’d converted into a walk-in wardrobe complete with a pigeon-hole type clothes rack that had a Perspex door on ever storage slot. She also noticed that every piece of clothing that was hanging up on the moveable clothes rails was covered with the sort of thin plastic dry cleaners use. The third bedroom was equipped as a spare double room, it had obviously been the master bedroom of the old house and was suitable large. The bathroom was a palace of luxury and the final box-room had a locked door. She frowned, “Box room,” he said. “Now want to see my study?”

  His whole manner had become evasive, so evasive that she began to worry. What did a man keep in a locked room? Why did a man keep a room locked in his own house? She swallowed and said huskily, “I’d rather like to see in here.”

  His eyes said it all, they were full of apprehension. He fished out a key and he held in near the barrel lock, “Promise you won’t laugh.”

  She promised and he turned the key and threw the door back. Willow did not know what to expect, but what she saw was nothing like fears she had imagined. The room was lined with bookshelves and on them were children’s annuals. She cast her eyes round the room: Beano, Dandy, Dennis the Menace, Eagle, Noddy and Blue Peter all caught her eye. Henry sort of shrugged, I started collecting them when I was at school and somehow…”

  Willow ran her fingers along the spines of the books, “Are the collections complete?”

  “Not quite, some are easier than others. I’m still missing a 1954 Beano and the 1965 is almost impossible to find.”

  “Tried the Internet?”

  Henry shook his head, “Definitely not. The fun is not just in having them, but also in seeking them out. It wouldn’t be the same if I could do it from an armchair.”

  Willow was mystified, but didn’t say so. What possible pleasure could a grown man get from owning children’s books? She leant on the armchair to read some more titles and then stopped having realised what she was doing. “This armchair matches the one in your TV room – you don’t sit up here and read them do you?

  Henry looked like a man caught in a rat-trap. “Well it seems pointless to have them and then not…”

  Willow went and put her arms round his waist, “My mum always said that men were little boys grown tall, and now I know what she meant.”

  Their conversation was cut short by the ring of the doorbell and Henry rolled his eyes, “Thought it wouldn’t take her long.”

  “Mrs Wood?”

  “No my sister, Mrs Woods got a key and she comes when I’m not here.”

  They went downstairs and Henry opened the front door to reveal a short thin mean looking woman with a hard face, thin orange painted lips, heavily shadowed blue eyelids and thick black eyebrows that were at odds with her absurdly short blonde hair that was cut back to a mere fuzz. She was wearing some sort of thin white cotton dress that revealed too much of a pert bosom while not revealing what must have been a true hour-glass figure as her hips were wide and bony. She entered without being invited to do so and looked at Willow as if to ask what she was doing in Henry’s house. Henry didn’t smile. “Susie, would you like to meet Mrs Aspen.”

  Willow noted that to Jakob she’d been his fiancée, to Susie she was Mrs Aspen with the plain implication that they were already married as he could have introduced her as Willow, or his partner, or something else. Susie’s mouth became thinner and meaner as she compressed her lips. “Mrs Aspen?” She barked in a pure Essex accent

  “Yes,” replied Henry without any further explanation about marital status. “I was just showing her round our house.”

  Her eyes went up and down Willow as if she’d just crawled out from under a loathsome slimy stone. “You going to live here?”

  Willow tried for a smile, but the woman’s aggressive attitude was beginning to irritate her. “Yes, seems a nice place to bring up children.”

  Her eyebrows rose and curled at the ends, “You have children?” The question was spat out as if any children she might have had were unworthy brats.

  “Not yet.” Willow hoped she’d judged the delivery with just enough ire to warn her off.

  Henry retreated into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Willow didn’t open the lounge door. “So,” Willow asked silkily, “What brings you here apart from insatiable curiosity.”

  Susie’s eyes narrowed dangerously, “After his money are you?”

  Willow put on her best double-edged tongue. “Actually my dear I love him and if he gives away all his money to a dog’s home and we have to live in a cardboard box I wouldn’t really care, which is more than can be said for you.”

  Susie took a step forward, “Don’t think you can come here and deny my children their inheritance. I’ve seen your sort before. Marry the guy then take all the money and run.”

  Willow inspected her fingernails, she could choose to verbally shred this woman or try, for Henry’s sake, to build bridges. To her own surprise she chose the latter course of action. She said quietly, “Let’s not go down this road she we? We are going to be neighbours and it would be silly to have a family rift before we even start.”

  She hoped her tone of voice was conciliatory and reconciling, she needn’t have bothered. Susie scowled, “Won’t be a family rift because you’re not family.”

  Willow internally seethed, “Well you we’re exactly born into it either.”

  She snarled back, “But I was here first.”

  Willow smiled down from her superior height, “I wasn’t aware it was a competition.”

  Henry appeared holding a teapot. Willow smiled and her voice became warm, “Why thank you dear, we’ll take tea in the lounge.” Her voice hardened into a cold as ice delivery, “Susie isn’t staying.”

  She reached over Susie’s head and opened the front door. Susie glowered fit to bust and walked out. Willow gave her a show-business smile, “Goodbye. Thanks for the welcome. Come again when you’ve got a civil tongue in your head.”

  She closed the door before Susie could reply. Henry stood in the doorway opened mouthed.

  They took tea in the lounge. “What now?” Asked Henry.

  Willow mentally decided that whatever tea Henry used it would not stay in the pantry for much longer. “Shopping. Shopping after you’ve shown me around the rest of the place. If I’m going to move in we’d better make the current double room acceptable and I am definitely not sleeping under blankets.”

  His eyes moved upwards, “What about…”

  “Too large, a bedroom needs to feel cosy, not as if you’re sleeping in a barn.” She flashed him a smile, “Make a wonderful children’s playroom though.”

  Henry relaxed, he’d tried sleeping in the large bedroom and she was right, it had been horrid. He watched her sipping her tea and felt almost at ease. She’d seen the house and not thrown a wobbly at its peculiar design. She’d met Susie and had not been frightened off, indeed he had no doubt she could manage Susie with ease. She had yet to meet his brother, but he was sure she’d take that in her stride. That left just one thing he had to reveal, but now was definitely not the time. She needed to enjoy making her plans for the house and buying whatever she wanted to buy. On the other hand he knew he should disclose all to her before they were married. He knew he had to disclose it before then, but when and how he had yet to work out. She put her cup down and he lifted the teapot, “More tea?”

  Chapter 28

  Excursion: Ben & Roberta

  Ben and Roberta drove to the nearest city – Norwich. Throughout the journey neither talked very much, it was if they both feared that by speaking they might not go through with what they had decided on the in the early hours of the morning. After visiting a couple of jewellers and buying two chunky bands of gold and an engagement ring that had a single small diamond they discovered at first-hand why Swifties were universally unpopular. The ceremony, if you could even call it that, was conducted in a bare room with nothing but a few chairs, a desk and
a computer terminal. They sat down. The registrar plugged their ID cards into two small purpose built holders, took £300 from Ben and announced then married. The actual process took less than three minutes of which two were spent with the registrar tapping the keyboard to boot up the computer. Ben wrinkled his brow at the registrar’s statement. “I’d rather like a marriage certificate if you don’t mind, and a couple of copies.”

  The registrar, a woman from the Brunhilda School of looks and diplomatic skills, tapped her finger on the table in displeasure, “What do you need one of them for?” She demanded. “Your new ID cards show that you are married and the various agency computers will be updated overnight.”

  Ben leant forward, “Nevertheless I would like one.”

  “Cost you extra.”

  “How much?”

  “£30 pounds for a certificate on watermarked paper and £10 for each certified copy.”

  “Then I’ll take a certificate and two copies.”

  Roberta sprang into sudden life, “Three copies, and while I’m here I’d like my card altered to show that I am now not normally called Bobbie, but use my first name.”

  The registrar glanced at the clock, “That’ll be another £10 as it’s what’s called extraneous data, you can call yourself what you like you don’t have to get your card altered for such a trivial thing.”

  Roberta slapped down her card, “It’s not trivial to me.”

  Ben offered his bank card and the Registrar snapped, “I’ve got your bank details already,” at him.

  She glowered at Roberta, “Would you like your name altered before I print the certificate?”

  “Yes please.”

  She plugged their cards back in, printed off the certificates and then shut down her computer to show that she’d tolerate nothing else.

  They emerged into the sunlight and Ben groaned, “That was awful.”

  Roberta looked at him, “Marrying me or the ceremony.”

  He put his hand through her arm, “The ceremony of course.”