Fandango in the Apse! (16 page)

‘I don’t want ghosts,’ whimpered Sam.

 Poor old Sam, he was always more timid than his older brother.  I put my
arm around his shoulders to reassure him.

‘There are no ghosts, Sam.  Toby stop being so silly,’ I said, giving him
my best glare.

‘Well there might
be,’ he persisted quietly.

‘Toby!’ 

Upstairs proved to be a pleasant surprise.  The two bedrooms retained all
their original features.  Both had small cast-iron fireplaces and being
situated in the eves, the sloping ceilings gave them a cosy feel.  The windows
weren’t any bigger up here, but it still had a lighter feel than below.

‘What do you think?’ Alison asked. ‘Could you live here?’

‘I’m thinking I haven’t got a lot of choice, it’s the best we’ve seen so
far. Up here is not too bad though.’

‘That’s what I was thinking; if you got rid of the awful paper and
painted the rooms in pastel colours, they could look quite pretty.’

Standing with Alison in the overgrown back garden a little later, I had
to admit the place was growing on me; it had an appealing quaintness if you
could look past the dilapidation.  Darren and the boys were still in the house,
so we could talk privately.

‘The trouble is, Ali, it needs so much doing to it, and I’m not sure I
could afford it.  I mean central heating costs a bomb, I should think.  It’ll
need new windows, and the living room needs plastering. The kitchen would have
to be extended – I don’t know, it’s a daunting prospect.’

‘It’s in a lovely position though,’ said Alison, ever the optimist, ‘and
the school bus can pick the boys up from the bottom of the lane.’

She turned and pointed down the vast back garden. ‘Look! It even has an
orchard.’

‘Oh well, that settles it, if it has an orchard…’ I joked.

 ‘Do you know what I would do if I were you, Katie?  I’d have a survey
done, and if the building is sound, I’d make a really low offer and see what
happens.  You never know it, might be accepted, and it would solve your cash
problems.’

We were back at home in Exeter when the results of the survey came
through.  The house was structurally sound, but the roof needed some
attention.  However, wonder of wonders, there was no serious rot.  Apart from a
few recommendations about the wiring and guttering, it all seemed fine.   I was
amazed.

Not giving myself time to think as usual (dangerous when buying
property!), I got straight on the phone and put in an offer twenty thousand
below the asking price for Lilac Cottage.  I concealed my embarrassment over
the cheek of it, and held onto the phone anxiously. 

‘Let me put you through to Mr Beaufort, the manager,’ Darren replied
after a thirty-second pause.

Mr Beaufort’s bored drawl a few moments later gave the impression he
thought I was a time waster.

‘I shouldn’t think the owner will entertain such a low offer, Mrs
Roberts, after all, the property does have a lot of land attached.’

His dismissive attitude made my hackles rise and I answered more abruptly
than I intended. 

‘Well, with respect, it’s not your opinion I’m interested in, Mr
Beaufort.  I have made an offer based on what
I
think the property is
worth and would be obliged if you would pass it on to the owner.’

‘Very well,’ he sniffed.

‘Insufferable prig!’ I said aloud, once I’d rammed the phone down.

There followed two hours where I alternated between castigating myself
for my stupidity in making such a low offer and nursing a small hope that it
would be the stroke of luck I needed.  Then the phone rang.  Out of sheer pigheadedness,
I let it ring half a dozen times.  No way was I going to let Mr Beaufort know
I’d been practically sitting on the damn thing since I’d last spoken to him.

‘Ah! Mrs Roberts…’

Did I detect a softening in his attitude?

‘I’ve had a word with the vendor.  He is of the opinion that if you were
to increase your offer by say, ten thousand, you would have a deal.’

‘Out of the question, Mr Beaufort.’ Ooh!  I was getting good at this.
‘The property needs a lot doing to it, which is probably why it’s been on the
market for three years.  I’m afraid my offer stands.’

‘Very well, I’ll let the vendor know your position, Mrs Roberts.’  The
haste by which he ended the call was completely unprofessional in my opinion.

I wondered if I’d just played a masterstroke or made a huge mistake as I
replaced my phone.  It was unbearable to think I might not get the house.  OK,
it was a wreck, but I’d just got round to thinking it was my
wreck.  I
tried to keep my eyes off the clock, the time was ticking on, there was only
half an hour left before I had to pick the boys up from football.  I eyed the
phone, willing it to ring.  When nothing happened in five minutes, I went to
make a quick cup of tea.  I would be philosophical about it, I decided in the
kitchen, there was no point in buying a doer-upper, if I didn’t have the wherewithal
to do it up.

I was less philosophical en route to the boys’ school.  Shit! Why hadn’t
I offered another five thousand?  It would have made things tight, but still
manageable. I was an idiot.

You know when you do something that at the time you think is clever, and
then when it backfires you want to poke yourself in the eye with a blunt
stick?  That’s how I was feeling.  I’d temporarily developed an inflated
opinion of my negotiating skills.  Now, I was about to suffer the
consequences.  I wasn’t in the mood to think everything happens for a reason. 
Why do people insist on saying that?  Trying to make out whatever happened was
for the best.  Bollocks!  Cause and effect: you do something stupid and the
effect is bad,
because
you did the something stupid.  

The call came through at twenty-five past five; my stomach lurched on the
first ring.  I took a deep breath and lifted the receiver.  A couple of minutes
later, I was whooping and hollering round the living room, scaring the kids to
death.  Both were looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.

‘We got it! We got it!’ I sang, while hugging my unresponsive sons.

‘We got what?  Toby was the first to ask.

‘The house, we got the house!
’

‘The last one we looked at?’

‘Yes!’ I beamed.

The less than enthusiastic ‘Oh.’ from Sam, made me think that perhaps my
boys didn’t share my vision of the future.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, even though I knew the answer.

‘Um, nothing… well… it’s a bit dodgy, Mum,’ said Toby.

‘And it might have a ghost,’ Sam piped up.

Hmm…I needed to do some quick thinking here.  The house was ours, we
would be living in it, but I sensed the need for caution.  And the damned telly
blaring in the background wasn’t helping.  I asked Sam to switch it off, which
he did under protest, and then I patted the seats beside me on the sofa. 

‘Right, listen to me, Sam, there are no ghosts in Lilac Cottage, OK?’

‘But Toby said there was.’

I could have thumped Toby for his stupidity, but had to be contented with
what I hoped was a ferocious scowl.  He got the greatest of pleasure out of
winding up his brother and it irritated the hell out of me. 

‘Toby doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s never seen a ghost in
his life!’

‘But you said there weren’t any ghosts!’

Damn, I walked right into that one and judging by Toby’s grin, he knew it
too.

‘
That
is exactly why he’s never seen one.’ 

Sam didn’t look convinced.  There was nothing for it; it was time to
resort to bribery. 

‘Tell you what, boys, when we get there, you can do whatever you like to
your room.  You can choose the wallpaper and carpet, and have your room exactly
the way you want. How does that sound?’

A vision of two walls covered in Spiderman wallpaper and the other two
with Manchester United flashed in my mind, but I ignored it.  Desperate
measures were required if I was to convince my boys they could be happy in the
new house.  Ignoring the ethics of the situation, I added a little icing – just
to make sure.

‘You could even have those bunk beds that you liked.’

Bingo! That was the deal clincher.  The ensuing argument over who was
having the top bunk meant I’d scored a decisive win.  They’d once seen the beds
in a shop and plagued me about them for months, but as they each had their own
room there wasn’t any point in buying them.  Now they needed bunk beds and if
that was all it took to make the boys happier about living in Lilac Cottage,
then I would consider it money well spent.

It was a little trickier a few days later when I asked them to sort
through their toys.  They refused to believe there wouldn’t be enough room to
fit a playroom and two bedrooms’ worth of toys into the new house.  I knew how
they felt when I wandered round myself. The whole of the ground floor in the
new house wasn’t as big as the living room in this house.  It was heart-breaking,
but there was nothing for it – I would have to get rid of most of the furniture
– very little of it would fit the new house.

The sale went through without a hitch and seven weeks later, I closed the
door on my old life.  The new owners of the house bought quite a lot of the
furniture, which we agreed as a private sale separate from the house purchase. 
The rest I sent to auction; there was one thing I was sure of though, Eddie
would be getting nothing. 

As I dismantled my life, a deep-set anger towards him settled in the pit
of my stomach.  On ringing round “our” friends – actually, they were primarily
Eddie’s friends, but I still felt it was polite to say goodbye – I found he had
been there first. 

It became increasingly obvious that he had been positively demagogic in
his desperation not to be found at fault for the demise of our marriage, and he
had shamelessly manipulated our friends.  The general opinion, from reading
between the lines, was that I was a bit of a nutcase.  He had managed to do a
nice job in assassinating my character, the bastard!  He had felt it necessary
to mention my need for anti-depressants and counselling. He had told them how
hard he had tried to stand by me, but once I was on the mend, I had changed
from the woman he had loved.  It had all been too much for him, so he’d decided
on a fresh start to get his life back together.  No mention of his male lover,
of course, so in the end, I had felt duty bound to let that bit of juicy
information slip.  But in hindsight, they probably thought it was a figment of
my less than “normal” state of mind.

 Eddie had now gone off to live in his “fantastic” new apartment with
Ethan, according to the boys.  Apparently, you had to use a private lift to get
to it and the building had a swimming pool in the basement, according to the
boys after their first visit. It seemed Eddie was exactly where he wanted to
be.  Me?  Well, I was on my way to a tumbled down cottage with a van full of
flat-pack furniture and the smallest sofas I could find.  I would not feel
sorry for myself; I would look on it as an adventure.  Yeah, right!

Alison and
Mark were waiting when I followed the removal van up the narrow lane towards
Lilac Cottage.  Because of the distance involved, everything to do with the
sale had been done by post, so they had offered to collect the keys for me. I
had a bit of a crisis when I got my second look at the house.  In the two
months since I’d seen it, I think I’d romanticised the place in my head.  Now,
looking with renewed eyes, it was just as bad as the first time I’d seen it, and
my heart sank. 

The men had everything unloaded into the house within an hour.  I had a
sticky time backing my Volvo Estate down the narrow lane in order for them be
on their way, but apart from a small scratch where I’d driven too close to the
hedge, I managed.  Late into the evening, Mark was upstairs putting together
the bedroom furniture with what I hoped was helpful assistance from Toby, and
Sam was exploring the wilderness out the back.  I was plugging in the second of
two lamps when Alison came in from the kitchen with two mugs of tea.  She
stopped in the doorway.

‘Wow, what a difference!’ she exclaimed.  ‘It looks cosy now; you can
really see how it’s going to look once you’ve decorated.’

I had to admit, with the furniture in, the room did look different.  The
brown leather sofas were a far cry from the ones I’d left behind, both in
comfort and style, but they suited the room.  A couple of occasional tables
complete with lamps and the TV were the only other furniture the room could
take.  However, the addition of some cushions, a brightly coloured rug and a
few carefully selected ornaments on the mantelpiece gave the dilapidated room a
homely feel.  My spirits lightened considerably.  Maybe, just maybe, everything
would be OK.

Then again, maybe not.  Sam stood in the living room when Alison and Mark
had gone, adamantly refusing to go to bed.  Bunkbeds or not, there was no way
he was sleeping in what might be a haunted house.  He was the quieter of the
boys, but could be fiercely stubborn when it suited him.  His mutinous
expression now signalled trouble I was too tired to cope with.

‘How many times do I have to tell you, Sam?  This house is not haunted,
it’s old and in need of some love and attention, but that doesn’t mean it’s
haunted,’ I sighed, my patience evaporating rapidly.  ‘I’ve had enough of this
now, you’re being silly.  Go and wash your face and hands and get to bed.’

While Sam sloped off to the bathroom, I rushed upstairs to have a quiet
word with Toby, who had happily grabbed the top bunk in his brother’s absence. 
I warned him on pain of having his bike and pocket money revoked for a month,
not to tell Sam ghost stories.  With his solemn promise in place, I tucked them
in and hoped for the best.

The boys only had two weeks at their new schools before the summer
holidays.  Then they would be spending a week with Jean and Arthur, and three
weeks with their father and Ethan.  The first week they would be in London, followed by two weeks in Portugal.  They were beside themselves with excitement as
we shopped for new holiday clothes.  I didn’t intend to kit them out
completely, I would provide the basics and their father could do the rest.