*
‘Take with us, or box for charity?’ Jack said, holding up a grey Manchester University hoodie.
‘Don’t you dare put that in the charity bag,’ I said, smiling and taking it from him. I felt the soft cotton against my face and put it on over my pyjamas. ‘Look, it fits perfectly still.’
‘It looks cute on you, actually,’ he said, drawing me into his arms and kissing me. ‘Although I don’t feel we’re making a whole lot of progress on this decluttering mission.’
I glanced around the living room, where we were boxing up our belongings ready for the move to Hazelton. After a couple of hiccups, where our solicitor said they’d had trouble getting the vendor’s signature, we were finally ready to exchange. In two weeks another couple would be making this flat in Addison Road their new home, and we’d be moving to Hazelton. My mum couldn’t have been more excited at the news that Jack and I would be living so close to her.
But trying to reduce our belongings and ensure we were only taking things with us that we would really use wasn’t proving easy.
‘Not even one teapot?’ Jack said, holding up one of my collection. Admittedly it wasn’t the prettiest – a souvenir from Scarborough, with a tacky picture on the side. But it had been one of my first, and a reminder of a trip I’d taken there with my grandparents. It wasn’t going anywhere.
‘No way,’ I said firmly. ‘Don’t even think it. All the teapots are coming with us. We have space. It’s your comic book collection that needs reducing, if you ask me.’
‘Comic books?’ he said, holding up an early edition of Sin City from a towering pile we’d taken out of one of the cupboards. ‘I swear you only do it to wind me up. They’re graphic novels, Amelia.’ He smiled. ‘And they are most definitely not going anywhere.’
Dexter leapt out of an empty box he’d been hiding in and balanced for a moment on the side, then, as the box tipped, the flap made a little ramp for him to descend on to the carpet. He came over to us, and wound his way round Jack’s legs.
‘Don’t worry, Dexter,’ he said, bending to pick him up. ‘I’m fairly confident you’ll make the cut.’
‘We’re really doing it, aren’t we?’ I said, grinning.
‘We certainly are.’
PART TWO
Autumn
Chapter 6
Brambledown Cottage
Welcome to Hazelton
Population: 3,000
Twinned with Chinon, France
Winner of best kept British village 1999
Saturday, 7 September
‘What time are the removal men coming again?’ I asked Jack, peering out of the window at the street below. The leaves on the plane trees that lined the road had changed from green to yellow and gold, a few gently fluttering down to the pavement. A light rain was falling.
‘Midday, so any time now.’ Jack joined me. ‘Actually, look.’ He pointed to a large lorry parking up outside the betting shop. ‘That’s probably them.’
‘Right, so this is it,’ I said, taking a deep breath.
‘All set for our new life,’ Jack said, squeezing my hand. ‘No second thoughts?’
‘None. I can’t wait.’
We let the removal men in, and all four of us went up and down the stairs of our block with the boxes. When the lorry was full, Jack and I went back up to the flat to do a final check. We dipped in and out of the rooms that we’d spent the first two years of our married life in, and met again at the front door, the same sorrowful expression on both our faces.
‘I guess this is the last time we’ll ever walk out of this place,’ Jack said.
I thought of our first day in the flat …
*
‘Welcome to our castle,’ Jack had said, throwing open the front door to Addison Road and leading me through into the flat.
It was bare – but I loved it. I scurried, full of excitement, through each room, reminding myself where everything was. It didn’t take long – in around three minutes I was back in Jack’s arms. ‘Our own place,’ I said, kissing him. ‘We’re here, Jack.’
He smiled, a flicker of light in his brown eyes. ‘Next step – furniture.’ He laughed.
‘We’ve got a bed; what more could you possibly want?’ I said cheekily. The bed, which the removal men would be delivering later that day along with the other things from our old rented flat, was a cheap futon, but it would do for now.
Jack squeezed my hand tight. ‘I can’t wait to marry you,’ he said.
‘Me neither.’
*
Dexter wove between my legs, bringing me back to the present.
‘We won’t forget you, Dex. Don’t worry,’ I said, scooping him up into my arms.
Jack passed me the plastic box we used to take him to the vet, and together we persuaded him to go inside.
‘We’re going to make new memories, you know,’ Jack said, reading my mind. ‘Even better ones.’
I kissed him, and smiled, ready now to leave our London life behind.
‘Come on, sweetheart,’ Jack said, ruffling my hair. ‘It’s time to go.’
We drove behind the lorry, stopping off at our rented garage to pick up the antique furniture Grandma Niki and Grandpa had left me. We loaded the side table, drinks cabinet and wardrobes into the van – I was happy we’d finally have somewhere to put them.
As we drew closer to the cottage, the busy streets of East London seemed no more than a distant memory. I gazed out of the car window, thinking about what the cottage would be like inside, and how we’d settle into the village. By the time we arrived in Hazelton, I was chewing my nails at the prospect of our new start.
The agent, Shannon, met us by the front door and passed us the keys. ‘Hi,’ she said, with a smile she was clearly forcing. ‘Here are the keys. Welcome to your new home.’
‘Thank you,’ Jack said.
‘Is everything OK?’ I asked.
‘I’m sorry about all the stuff still in there,’ Shannon said, ‘but I’m sure you can work around it. The living room and bedroom are full of Mrs McGuire’s furniture, so only part of the house has been professionally cleaned. Her family have been trying to reason with her, but she hasn’t been exactly cooperative about moving out.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘Is there nothing you can do? We need to move in today.’
‘It’s been a bit of a nightmare, I’m afraid,’ Shannon s aid, tugging at her highlighted hair distractedly. ‘Believe me, I’ve been trying. But the owner’s refusing to listen to anyone.’
I turned to look at our removal men, who were already unloading boxes from the back of the lorry.
‘We need the cottage cleared,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that usually the deal?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Shannon said feebly.
‘When will it be sorted?’ Jack asked.
‘They’ve promised me her things will be gone by the end of the week. The house is yours now, and you can move your things in but, as I say, you may just have to work around what’s in there.’
‘We’ll make do,’ I said to Jack. ‘At least we can move in.’
‘You haven’t seen inside yet, have you?’ Shannon said, turning to me. ‘After all that palaver at the viewing. Well, with a bit of vision, I’m sure you’ll be very happy living here.’
Shannon left, and got into her car.
‘Vision?’ I asked Jack nervously, once we were inside the porch. A feeling of dread built up inside me. ‘Jack, what did she mean by that?’
‘We said we were willing to do some work, Amelia, didn’t we?’
*
In the cottage hallway, the early evening sunlight was filtering through windows that were thick with dirt. To our right was a wooden staircase with dark wood banisters, some spindles missing, some broken. The removal men were putting most of our things in the garage – just a few essential boxes and the bed would be moving in with us today.
The dust, the grime, I thought, as I ran my finger over the dado rail – it was all superficia
l. A few days and it would be clean – hopefully sorted by the owner, but if not, then with some work from us. The hallway whispered from the past through original flooring, tiles and skirting boards.
‘Let’s look at the living room first,’ Jack said, leading me through to a room on the left. ‘We can put Dexter in there while we get settled.’ He carried the cat box with him. ‘Like I told you, the owner has been living here since the nineteen sixties. For the past few years she wasn’t able to get up the stairs on her own, so she was using the living room as a bedroom. The layout’s a bit weird at the moment but we can change that easily enough.’
I peeked round the doorway, my heart in my throat, hoping to see a reception room as cosy and welcoming as the one we’d fallen for in Arcadia Cottage. But despite the dark timber beams and posts, and the original windows, my hopes were dashed – with a bed in the middle of it, and clothes on rails all around, the room was dingy.
‘Look, I know what you’re thinking,’ Jack said, putting his arm around my waist. ‘But honestly, there’s so much potential here – have you seen the windows?’ He pointed to the windows at the front of the house, criss-crossed with iron latticework, but it was hard to make them out, obscured as they were by someone else’s belongings.
‘They look original,’ I said, stepping into the room to get a better look. ‘Cleaned up they should be nice – although,’ I tapped the wood round the edge, and a piece fell away, ‘we’re going to have to replace these frames, don’t you think?’
‘Maybe, yes. Here, check this out – the fireplace.’ Jack crossed the room and touched it. ‘Beautiful tiles,’ he added. The ceramic tiles, in dark red and blue, did look pretty underneath their coating of soot. ‘And it works, apparently.’ He pulled out the tray under the fire, letting loose a cloud of black dust.
‘Nice,’ I said, but I felt as if I was clutching at straws. Some appealing tiles in a room that would need to be all but gutted before it was inhabitable. I silently prayed things would improve when we saw the other rooms.
‘What do you think, Dex?’ Jack asked, opening his box. Dexter cowered towards the back of the box and refused to come out. ‘He’ll get used to it soon enough.
‘Come and look at the kitchen – you’ll love it,’ Jack said confidently.
Whatever it was like, it couldn’t be worse than our cramped space in Addison Road, I reasoned. But one glance inside told me otherwise – the 1970s units, the peeling lino on the floor, every surface covered in old plates and clutter. The one saving grace was a dark red Aga tucked away in an alcove, an authentic rural touch in what otherwise looked like a bric-a-brac sale.
‘I mean, we’ll probably need to change the cabinets,’ Jack said.
‘Probably? They’re awful.’
I looked from the china ornaments of owls, to boxes overflowing with pans and crockery, and paintings stacked up against the walls.
The floor was covered with dark green lino panels, curling up at the edges as it reached the cabinets – seventies-style pale green units that no longer stood exactly in line with each other so that there were gaps between some of them. The covering on the doors had started to peel up and bubble in places, and the large fridge, once white, presumably, was now a nicotine yellow.
‘Definitely time for an upgrade,’ Jack said, opening one of the cabinets and peering in, then stepping back as if a smell had put him off.
The counters, thick with grime, were cluttered with notebook pages and recipe books. I saw a loose handwritten sheet and picked it up to take a closer look.
Ellie’s Extraordinary Apple and
Blackberry Crumble
INGREDIENTS:
Five apples from our tree
Blackberries from the garden
I put it to one side, under a mug with owls on it, next to one that said ‘World’s Best Mum’. I was finding it difficult to see past all the stuff. Being stuck inside with it was making me feel claustrophobic.
We continued round the ground floor. The downstairs toilet had a tiny shower room installed in the corner with a seat in it and ageing pipework hanging off the wall. ‘It looks like this hasn’t been touched for years,’ I said. ‘We’ll need plumbers in to replace a lot of this pipework.’ I remembered the notes on the survey that I’d read – the surveyor had mentioned that a lot of things were in need of updating, but I hadn’t expected it to be quite this bad.
‘Come and see the cellar.’ Jack led me down the stairs. ‘This’ll be great for storage,’ he said, apparently oblivious to the smell of damp that I found overwhelming.
‘Maybe we could take a look at the garden?’ I said, pausing midway on the staircase. Getting outside for a bit would help me get things in perspective. We walked through the kitchen towards the back door – the area by the door was clear, at least.
Jack found the key on our new key ring, and opened the back door on to the garden. ‘Let’s go outside and get some fresh air.’
‘Good idea.’ I was longing to leave the stuffy, claustrophobic atmosphere. I’d sometimes teased Mum for the way she liked to hang on to mementoes and souvenirs – but I’d never seen the home of a real hoarder before. It was starting to look very much like we’d managed to buy one.
Once outside though, I was able to forget the chaos of the house. Summer had faded, and with it had gone the brightest greens and the red sprinkling of poppies, so the garden looked different from the last time I’d seen it. But the leaves on the oak tree had turned a pale burnt umber and gold. Even though dead leaves had formed a mulch on the patio, there was something beautiful in the light that fell on the overgrown grass.
‘It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Jack said. ‘So much space.’
‘Oh dear, there’s going to be a lot for Dexter to kill out here, isn’t there?’ I said, with a wry smile. Our tabby was an expert bird and mouse killer, and even in the urban sprawl he’d managed to bring in some grotesquely beheaded prey most weeks.
‘He’s going to be a proper country cat,’ Jack said. ‘But while he gets his bearings, we should do that butter on the paws trick, shouldn’t we? Make sure he doesn’t head up the motorway trying to get back to our flat.’
‘Do you think? He doesn’t even seem to want to leave his box at the moment.’
‘He’ll adjust. Let’s go upstairs. We’ll have plenty of time to explore the garden over the next few weeks.’
I didn’t want to go back indoors. I wanted to stride out into the long grass and feel it against my hands, lose myself out there in the undergrowth and trees. Forget about the stress of moving for a moment.
‘Come on,’ Jack said.
I followed him and we closed the kitchen door behind us. The steps up to the second floor were tired and rickety, the wood wearing thin in places. ‘Some of these steps probably need replacing,’ Jack said. ‘We might even want to take the whole staircase out. It’ll be fine, though. We just need to find someone who does really authentic restoration.’
‘We’ve factored all this into the fifteen thousand pounds we put aside, right?’ I said. The pots of money I’d thought we were going to make on buying a cheaper place seemed to be disappearing before my eyes – a new fitted kitchen, a revamped downstairs bathroom, restored window frames …
‘Yes,’ Jack said, ‘and the five thousand your dad owes us.’
‘Yes,’ I replied, feeling slightly guilty about it. ‘I’m sure that will come through soon.’ I’d persuaded Jack it would be fine to take the money out of our joint account, that Dad would pay us back before the summer.
‘OK.’ Jack took my hand and led me along the upstairs corridor. I flicked a switch on the wall, but no light came on. With the doors closed, blocking the daylight, it was difficult to see our way around. I found another switch, pressed it, and this time the corridor lit up in pale golden light. Framed black and white photos hung on the walls, and wooden shelves spilled over with glass jars filled with embroidery thread in every conceivable colour.
‘Do you remember me saying that she used to be a dress-maker?’ Jack said. ‘Apparently she collected sheep’s wool from the barbed wire fence down by the stream, and dyed and spun it.’
‘That’s nice, and I’d probably appreciate it more in another situation. But right now, I’d rather she’d taken her stuff with her. It’s as if she’s still living here. It’s creepy.’
‘It won’t be for long, Amelia,’ Jack said. ‘I’m sure they’ll sort it out soon enough.’
But the truth was, I wasn’t frustrated with the owner, I was annoyed with myself, and perhaps also, just a little bit, with Jack.
‘And the master bedroom,’ he said, opening the door directly in front of us. ‘Ta-da!’ In Jack’s blurry iPhone photos, it had looked OK. As with most of the rooms in the house, there were timber beams, painted black, above us. The ceiling sloped down at the side, and there were two windows, low down, with heavy dark blue velvet drapes that hung to the floor. Beneath the boxes and bags that lay cluttering the floor was a tatty navy-blue carpet, and the magnolia paintwork looked nicotine-stained in places. Even with the heavy old-fashioned drapes, the two windows made this one of the lightest rooms in the house. But I didn’t want to sleep here tonight, or any night.
‘Come over here – there’s a great view of the garden.’ We went to the window, and I tried to pull myself together. Jack and I were a team, and we had to stand united on this, one of the biggest moves we’d ever made. He pulled back the curtains and I looked out on to the wild garden below, and saw that at the foot of it there was a wide stream, glinting in the sunlight. A field with sheep in it lay just beyond. ‘This is what we’ll be waking up to,’ he said. ‘No noisy neighbours, no trains rattling by, no late-night fights in the street waking us up.’
I smiled, and squeezed his hand. ‘It’s quite a view, isn’t it?’
Amelia Grey's Fireside Dream Page 9