Blowing It (15 page)

‘They’re selling it, Ilex, that’s what, selling the
family home
. And you know that perfectly well. Don’t you think it’s even a
bit
important?’

He blinked and glanced out of the window again. Wendy wasn’t in the car now – where’d she gone? Oh please, don’t let her be in the lift on the way up.
She
broke across boundaries every day. Soon, she’d be moving into the cleaner’s cupboard, along by the stairs, probably accompanied by a small cat, complete with litter tray and sundry other feline accessories. It would probably have kittens, and Wendy would hint that she too would love to have babies. His.

‘Yeah, yeah I know what they’re doing. Well, I don’t. I mean I know what they
said
,’ he told his sister.

‘Haven’t they talked to you about it? You’d think they would, you being in the property business and all that.’

Yes, Ilex considered, you’d think they would. That was pretty insulting, possibly, that they didn’t think their own son worth consulting about whether it was a good time to sell, who to sell
with
, all that.

‘No, I haven’t spoken to them since Dad called to say he was wondering about the chances of getting away in time for the
La Tomatina
fiesta in Spain.’

‘God, what’s that?’

‘A tomato fight, basically, so he said. People chuck them at each other for about four hours on some particular tomato-harvest day. Millions of them, apparently. Mad.’

‘And Dad wants to go and do
that
?’ Clover paused. ‘
Why?
’

‘He’s making a list of the world’s big festivals and traditions and they’re planning on doing the rounds, joining in.’

Clover hesitated again. ‘Worse than I thought. We really need to talk about this, Ilex – how are you fixed for Friday night? Can you come over to us in Richmond, and Manda too? I’ve got Sorrel coming as well – she and Gaz are staying over. What do you think?’

Think? He thought anything that got him out of being Wendy’s hunting target for a few hours would be hugely welcome. He wouldn’t even have to tell her a lie. He would simply tell her it was family stuff and trust that even she could work out he wasn’t yet so completely bagsied as a life-partner that she could expect to tag along.

‘Manda and I’ll be there,’ he told Clover. ‘Can’t wait.’

If only she knew how true that was.

TEN

OF COURSE, AS
it turned out, Mac had to be away from home for the first estate agent’s look-see at Holbrook House. He would be well into a session of remembrance of past rock festivals at the Wolseley restaurant with his music publisher while Lottie was bigging up the finer points of Holbrook’s flagstone-floored kitchen.

Lottie was a lot less than delighted at the prospect of showing it off on her own, being sure that defending its dingier corners from almost-certain professional sneering was going to need the two of them. Even though she and Mrs Howard whizzed round, cleaning, polishing and swooping as many superfluous items as possible into cupboards and drawers, tidying and generally sparkling up the place, she couldn’t help wishing the house would simply join in, smarten itself up and make an effort. Even on the outside there were things that let it down: everything that was good about the garden –
the
lupins, the self-seeded annuals, the poppies – was flourishing, but the weeds and the grass were more than keeping pace. Al should really have a team in to help him give the grounds a blitz. It might be worth running that past him, though she didn’t think he’d be too thrilled at the interference. He was a man who liked to work at his own ambling pace. Frankly, they didn’t pay him the kind of rate that justified extra-effort. While she was outside pulling surplus weeds from the terrace she crossed her fingers the blue tits wouldn’t show up the state of the weatherboarding on the end gables by flying in and out of their nests in the many holes.

‘It should be a doddle – just emphasize the good points,’ Mac told her breezily as he left for his meeting. ‘It’s a brilliant house. They’ll love it: and remember, the only thing the agents care about is the commission.’

And they probably would love it. Or at least see it in terms of a satisfying lot of desirable noughts on the price. From a decent distance, Holbrook House was a stunning arts and crafts masterpiece. Even inside, it would be hard not to be impressed by the large, square, light rooms. And perhaps it was, after all, an advantage having a kitchen that you could so definitely classify under the heading of ‘unfitted’ – according to
World of Interiors
that was right on the money as the current smart thing. All the same, Lottie considered that the house was very like a fabulously ornate dress that had wonderful appeal
when
seen on the hanger, but that once you tried it on you realized the hem was wonky and the zip kept getting stuck. She would have to do what she could, along with back-up from Clover, plenty of good humour and the hope that Charlie the cockerel wouldn’t wander in and crap on the hall floor.

Mac, meanwhile, had the excuse of an urgent meeting with Doug at Charisma’s management office in Soho. It was an appointment that apparently required an entire day if it was also to accommodate the lunch at the Wolseley, a lot of good claret and enough music business insider gossip to send him home feeling that a chair was still kept for him at the table of rock music’s dysfunctional family.

And to be fair, he did have a genuine reason for his absence. It seemed the Charisma website gossip had been pretty much accurate.

‘There’s a possible cover version of “Target Practice” on the cards,’ he’d told Lottie. ‘Movie rumours; they’re talking Keanu Reeves, possibly Angelina Jolie.’ He was careful not to sound excited by the prospect – the moment you started thinking about what might happen, the faster the mists of possibility wafted away again.

Lottie could hardly object to such a heady mix, although versions of it had surfaced a few times before only to vanish the way of distant dreams. Whether anything came of this one or not, in terms of whether to stay at home or go to the meeting, it was game, set and match, no question. Who, in their
right
minds and in sight of the need for a pension fund, would – for no more personal effort than a signature on a contract – swap the possibility of a song they’d written years previously being used to play out the end-titles of a film that was odds-on for a dozen Oscar nominations? At the very least it meant a hefty fee plus performance royalties for years to come from every country in the reasonably civilized world. Only a demented fool would say, ‘No thanks, I haven’t got time to talk terms, rights and royalties. I’ve got to point out the finer aspects of our antiquated electrics to a smooth-talking bloke from Digby, James and Humphreys.’

The initial walking-round-the-house bit was now over, fairly painlessly as the sleek young estate agent (‘Harry-delighted-to-meet-you’) had a fine and tactful line in saying ‘Mmm’ in a way that didn’t sound too damning and in reasonably positive nodding, entirely in the direction of a stubbornly uncommunicative Clover who had stamped about with a face like fury. Now that they’d reached the tea-in-the-kitchen stage and Lottie no longer had to concern herself with dreading an outburst of horror on Harry’s first impression of Sorrel’s burglary-ransack of a room, she had a moment to wonder why Clover had volunteered to come all the way down from Richmond at all (and by train too – her car being in for a service) if what she’d intended to do was be appallingly rude and unhelpful. She thought she’d got over that one after the morning
with
Susie. For once, when it would have been most welcome, she hadn’t even brought one of her cakes – certainly to underline her protest that this whole house-sale thing was a vast mistake. Lottie, embarrassed, considered it a dire shame her daughter was too old to be sent out to sit on the stairs until her sulk was over.

Clover, across the heaps of travel books that covered the kitchen table, now stared sullenly down at the back page of that day’s
Guardian
on which she’d doodled a child-like square house, thick squiggles of smoke billowing dangerously from its chimney. What, exactly, Lottie considered, had been the point of Harry-delighted-to-meet-you trying so hard to get Clover on-side? Perhaps he fancied her. Perhaps he had a genuine passion for moodily pouting blondes who could barely be bothered to say hello. If so, he wasn’t making much progress, though Lottie couldn’t fault his efforts. So far, in the hour he’d been looking round the house with the two women, all his remarks on the house’s many good selling points had been addressed to Clover, as if she had personally been responsible for the quality of the oak floorboards or the intricacies of the carved panelling on the stairwell. Lottie had once or twice been close to reminding him that Holbrook House wasn’t actually Clover’s to sell and that Lottie was the one who needed to be cajoled, smiled at and persuaded of Digby, James and Humphreys’ success at flogging choice Surrey
properties
. But she felt rather sorry for him. What must the poor man have thought of Clover, trailing round after him and Lottie in a silent fury while they went from room to room, discussing en suites and favourable vistas? Clover’s only contribution to the afternoon had been a savage pillow-straightening after Harry had sat for a moment on Sorrel’s bed to make a note about the strange dark stain on the ceiling.

But then, Lottie conceded, if he’d flannelled her like that (‘
Lovely
newel post,
silky
quality, don’t you think?’, addressed to Clover as he stroked the knobbly carved wood in a manner queasily close to suggestive), she’d take against him too. It wasn’t really his fault: Lottie just wasn’t keen on his
type
. She didn’t trust people who felt they had to smarm themselves up to look professional. He had over-whitened teeth. He carried a distinctly cosmetic aroma and had clearly spent about the same amount as Clover on having his highlights done. His dark grey suit had a sky-blue and white polka-dot lining that the firm’s senior partners would probably think was pretty racy and bordering on the Jonathan Ross. She imagined him at night, peeling off his house-sales persona along with his clothes. Perhaps what he really liked was to sprawl on the sofa in a wife-beater vest, slobbed out with boxed pizza, belching into cans of lager to a background of heavy metal. Unlikely.

‘Of course we shall be describing the house as “important”.’ Harry tapped another note (presumably
also
‘important’) into his Blackberry and smiled hopefully across the table at Clover, who continued to ignore him.

‘Important,’ Lottie now repeated, stifling giggles at the term. ‘Is that an example of estate-agent speak? It seems an odd word for a house. Wouldn’t “comfortable, lived-in, secure, airy, light”, simple terms like that, be rather more descriptive, less abstract?’

Or in this case, she thought to herself, dampish, dated, decaying, if anyone was looking for the truth. Either way, whoever would feel encouraged to buy a house based on it being described as ‘important’?

‘No, believe me, we’d definitely class this as “important”, Mrs MacIntyre.’ Harry leaned forward a little, looking serious, and Lottie felt a moment of alarm that he might be about to pat her hand as if she was his slightly doolally grandmother.

‘Important is
absolutely
the word,’ he emphasized. ‘It covers both the quality of the building and the scarcity of this type of property. Of course it varies. A century older and we’d use “distinguished” or possibly even “imposing”; two centuries or more comes under “historic”.’

‘Right. I get it.’ Lottie was impressed at his seriousness (she’d bet he earned zillions in sale commission) but couldn’t resist a tease, even though Clover, beside her, was now huffing with impatience. ‘So where does “stately” come in?’

Harry gave a small, dismissive laugh. ‘Actually, it
simply
doesn’t,’ he explained patiently. ‘That, frankly …’ and here he twinkled at her in a way that seemed far too avuncular for his early thirties years, ‘… would be considered rather … er …
coach party
.’

That was it, Lottie thought. She
definitely
didn’t like him. She thought tenderly of her mother and her much-loved Friday trips to the great – presumably ‘historic’ – houses of the nation. She wasn’t having her memory put down, albeit unwittingly, by this oily young fool. Now, time-wasting as it may be, she’d have to choose another agent. It would involve going through all this again, through pointing out that the turquoise and green glass tiles in the emerald bathroom might be cracked and dulled but they were original; that all the fireplaces were fully functioning ones (so long as the rooks weren’t currently nesting) and that the panelling in the hall was actually fir wood, not the more traditional oak. Mac could take the next turn, Angelina Jolie or not.

Clover spoke at last, challenging Harry. ‘But it’ll be ages till the house is actually sold, won’t it? Big places like this, well, they don’t exactly shift in days, do they? Could be months … years even?’

She gazed unblinking at him and he smiled back in a way that made Lottie sure he’d spent his entire career being tactful with the hopelessly ignorant.

‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘Houses like this don’t come up every day of the week. You’ll find there are people out there willing to trade their souls for a
genuine
Lutyens. Even …’ Lottie, amused, watched him hesitate, daring him to add what he’d so obviously been about to blurt out: ‘even one in as dire a condition as this’.

‘… I mean,
especially
, one with potential for a certain amount of
updating
, if you don’t mind me saying, Mrs MacIntyre. Planning consents notwithstanding, of course.’

‘No, I don’t mind at all,’ Lottie reassured him. ‘I’m sure anyone would want to tweak a place to make it feel like their own. We did.’

Notwithstanding?
Whoever, under sixty and not conducting a court case, used terms like that?

The house would take more than a tweak these days, she now considered; more like a huge shove. Why had she never before noticed the way the east-wing chimney leaned? Was it something recent? One good storm and they could all be killed. The chimneys on this house were massive things.