Walking Back to Happiness (11 page)

She started to smile at Minton’s stern supervision, then stopped. A lump had forced its way up her throat. This was what she didn’t want – to see the dream house taking shape.

‘Maybe you should just quote on the basics,’ she said, in a voice that sounded high even to her. ‘One option is to make it saleable and just . . .’ Juliet made herself say it as if it was her own idea, not her dad’s, ‘put it back on the market.’

‘Not a bad idea,’ said Lorcan, nodding encouragingly. ‘I’ve seen a good few houses make money still round here. And if Alec’s investing . . . Is that my tea? Milk, three sugars, if you don’t mind.’

Juliet poured two cups, spooned masses of sugar into both and pushed his over the counter, clutching hers in hands that barely registered the scalding heat.

Lorcan took a sip and sighed appreciatively. ‘Ah, you’ve had builders before.’

‘No, gardeners,’ said Juliet, and he gave her a quick, grateful smile.

Lorcan was being nice, but she could tell he was treading carefully, not wanting to overstep whatever invisible mark she’d laid down by overdoing the charm.

‘Do you want to see the rest of the house?’ asked Juliet.

They started at the top, on the landing that looked down over the long back garden.

In next door’s garden, they could see two red-haired girls bouncing energetically on the trampoline, surrounded by toys and garden furniture. The shrieks seeped through the window frames, which rattled as they walked up the stairs.

‘I think the windows need replacing,’ she said, noticing the peeling white paint on the outside sill. It had got worse over the winter and now curled back, like the tongue of an old shoe, exposing the pale wood beneath. ‘We were thinking about double glazing too. Keep the . . .’ She was about to say, ‘Keep the noise out,’ but managed to change it to ‘draught out’.

Lorcan gave her a knowing look. ‘Keep Roisin and Florrie out, more like. I’d like to soundproof them myself.’ He ripped a page out of his notebook and started to fold it into squares. ‘I think Alec deliberately stands next to speakers before he comes home, deafens himself up a bit. There.’

He wedged the paper between the frames. ‘That should stop it rattling for the time being. I’ll put it on the list. You’ve got, what, four bedrooms up here?’

He stood on the threshold of Juliet and Ben’s room and peered in. ‘Master bedroom?’

Juliet was struck with protectiveness. ‘Yes, but this room’s fine . . .’

No one had ever been in that room apart from her and Ben. Not even her mother. After he died, it had been the one place she’d been able to close the door and be alone with him, when the house was full of other people and their concern.

Lorcan stood at the door and scribbled, and Juliet saw it for the first time through someone else’s eyes: the chair draped with the three outfits she wore in rotation, the previous owner-but-one’s salmon-pink walls with tester-pot stripes by the fireplace where she and Ben had argued over sage versus cream, and the short wall covered in framed photographs of the two of them.

Well, it was, under the sheet that she’d pinned over it one sleepless night. Juliet couldn’t bear to take down the photographs and see the ghostly spaces left where the wallpaper had faded beneath, but she couldn’t bear to look at them either, so she’d covered them up. It looked like a shroud.

‘What’s under here?’ asked Lorcan, lifting one edge of the sheet. ‘That’s one way to ignore cracks in the . . . Oh. Sorry.’

‘Take it down,’ said Juliet bravely. ‘It’s got to come off sometime.’

‘Are you sure?’ Lorcan looked at her, checking her reaction. ‘I feel like I’m coming here in hobnailed boots.’

She nodded, and slowly, he pulled out the drawing pins she’d hammered in with a book, and the sheet fell away to reveal the jumbled frames, grouped into a haphazard mass of memories, the quick heads-squeezed-together, arm’s-length snaps formalised in gilt frames like butterflies. Ben’s easy-going smile never changing, though his blond mop of hair went from streaky surfer to cropped to the last, almost grown-up style. Juliet never really looked at herself, but now she saw herself through Lorcan’s eyes; she started off as a baby-faced teenager, all apple cheeks and home henna jobs, but by the end her face had sharpened into adulthood, and her mousey curls were more or less tamed.

What didn’t change was the connection between her and Ben in every shot, even when they weren’t looking at each other. They were always touching – their hands, their foreheads, their shoulders.

‘That’s a grand wall of photographs,’ said Lorcan. ‘They must go back a bit. Is that Glastonbury you’re at there?’ He pointed to the top one: her and Ben with stupid jester hats and blissed-out expressions.

‘Yes, our first holiday away, after our A-levels.’ First holiday, first camping, first serious bout of cystitis. Trampled grass, Jack Daniel’s and supermarket cola, early-morning hangover sex, all leaping out at her from their heavy-lidded eyes.

Juliet ran a hand over her mouth. She’d told the same stories to so many people – how they met, how he’d proposed – that it had stopped meaning very much. But now, in this room, telling them to a stranger who’d only know what she described, she felt weak. How could you sum up a marriage in a few words?

You couldn’t, she decided.

‘Um, basically, I don’t think there’s anything wrong in here. It just needs sloshing with new paint.’

‘Well . . .’ Lorcan pulled a face, his wide mouth stretching in apology, and pointed to the wall behind the fireplace.

‘What?’ She was already turning to show him the main spare room.

‘There’s that crack?’

Juliet had to step into the room to see what he was talking about, but when she looked, she could see it: a crack running from the side of the fireplace, up the flue and across the ceiling. Why hadn’t she seen that before? Had it always been there? Had it happened recently?

‘Oh . . . shit.’

‘Might be nothing,’ said Lorcan. ‘Old houses are full of cracked plaster. They shift about in cold weather, you know. But you should get it checked out – wouldn’t want to find out it’s something serious.’

‘Like?’

He paused. ‘Well, subsidence? Damp?’

Juliet’s heart sank. That was something
else
she didn’t need, discovering that the surveyor had missed some mineshaft under the house, or something.

‘I’m sure it’s just cosmetic,’ said Lorcan, reassuringly. ‘Only it’s best not to ignore cracks and hope they’ll go away. In my experience, at least.’

Juliet raised her chin at him. ‘Still think this is a happy house, or are you changing your mind?’

‘Course not,’ said Lorcan, retreating to the landing. ‘It’s a good family house – look at all this space . . .’

She winced. ‘Not that I need it now.’

‘That doesn’t change the house,’ he said evenly.

‘Spare room,’ said Juliet, flicking her hand towards the bedroom opposite. ‘Spare spare room over there. And . . .’ The little room tucked in between the bathroom and the airing cupboard was going to be the nursery, though she and Ben hadn’t actually said that aloud. Warm and cosy, more like a nest than a room.

‘Dressing room?’ offered Lorcan. ‘You could knock through and make an en suite if you wanted. A wet room? Emer’s desperate for a wet room. Although the state Salvador leaves the bathroom in, you’d think she had one already.’

‘I might think about that,’ said Juliet. She peered at his notebook, now several pages in, all covered with his neat handwriting and sketches. For some reason she hadn’t expected a builder’s notes to be so precise. ‘God, it’s mounting up.’

‘Sure, it’s not.’ Lorcan paused. ‘OK, it is. But that’s what you get for buying a four-bed Victorian house. It’s not an overnighter.’

‘How long?’

‘I’ve barely looked at the downstairs yet . . .’

‘How long? Be honest.’

Lorcan gave her a level look, and his eyes weren’t flirtatious now. They were serious, as if he understood the vulnerable position she was in. ‘Six months? That’s if you can keep your eye on what’s going on, or not. Builders have a habit of taking on a couple of jobs at once and overlapping them.’

Juliet’s heart sank. That would take until Christmas, if she started it tomorrow. Way beyond the one year deadline that dominated her thoughts like a finishing line.

The thought of having anyone in her house for more than an hour made her feel crotchety. Six months would drive her absolutely insane. For one mad second she fantasised about handing her mum the keys and what was left of Ben’s life insurance to pay the builders, then buying one of those round-the-world tickets, but that would mean leaving Ben. And Minton. And
Time Team
. And all the other tiny anchors keeping her from whirling off into the darkness.

‘Were you hoping I’d say three weeks?’ he enquired. ‘Because I think you’ve been watching a bit too much daytime telly.’

‘Why do you keep going on about daytime telly?’ demanded Juliet defensively. ‘I don’t spend my whole life watching daytime bloody television.’

‘That’s not what your mam says.’ He was smiling gently, but the words cut Juliet with an unexpected sharpness. ‘She says you can predict the actual sale prices on
Bargain Hunt
before the auctioneer comes on.’

‘That was one programme. One lucky guess. And my mother has
no
idea
what I need to do to get through the . . .’ Juliet heard her voice rising, along with the pounding in her chest.

She closed her eyes and tried to find Ben’s voice. Deep breath. One thing at a time.

That’s what had got her through the funeral, the floating weeks after: fixing on one thing at a time. If everyone was going to be on her case now about the unfinished house, then fine. It could be another handrail to lead her through these weird, empty days until she felt ready to face the world again. She’d just have to do it
exactly
the way Ben would have wanted, right down to the old brass door handles he’d got so excited about.

When she opened her eyes, Lorcan was rubbing his forehead with his long fingers. ‘I just keep saying the wrong thing to you,’ he groaned.

Juliet considered playing her widow card and flouncing downstairs, but she felt unexpectedly sorry for him. He’d only repeated what her mother had said, probably thinking it was a family joke. Her mum had been right; the fuses incident aside, he was a nice guy. He hadn’t sucked his teeth once, and when his phone had rung, he’d left it in his back pocket.

‘Sorry,’ she said, with a burst of honesty. ‘Sometimes I think I’m fine, and then I realise I’m not.’

‘I know,’ he said, as if he understood. ‘It’s not easy.’

Juliet didn’t want the conversation to go any further in that direction. The prospect of digging into the house was more than enough to deal with. ‘OK, so that’s upstairs. Downstairs is a bit more complicated . . .’

Lorcan and Juliet made their way around the ground floor as he talked her through the options she had, and she nodded and concentrated, forcing herself to ask questions at first, but then realising they were coming of their own accord.

The more Lorcan talked, sweeping his hand around to describe hidden lighting or paint effects, the easier he made it sound, and Juliet was surprised to find herself wishing some of it was done already.

‘. . . Yeah, sure we can put blinds in here,’ he was saying, then cocked his head. ‘Is that your doorbell?’

‘I can’t hear anything.’

Minton could. He’d stopped following them and was staring towards the front door, his white ears cocked.

Then the doorbell rang, a long peal like someone leaning on it.

‘Excuse me,’ said Juliet, and went down the hall.

When she opened the front door, the two little girls from next door stood on the step, grass seeds and dead petals in their tangled mops of copper hair.

It was the first time Juliet had seen the twins up close; she had no idea how old they were – seven? Eight? How could you tell if you didn’t have kids? – but they looked practically identical, only one had a Led Zeppelin T-shirt over her gypsy skirt, and the other had Bad Company. Both had round blue eyes that blinked from behind gold-rimmed glasses.

‘Is Lorcan there, please?’ said one in a pretty sing-song accent that was half Irish, half London.

‘Yes, he’s . . .’ Juliet found herself in the unfamiliar position of being unsettled by someone who only came up to her waist. ‘I’ll just . . .’

Lorcan appeared behind her. ‘What do you two holy terrors want now?’

‘Mum says can you come home, please – she’s a jar she needs opening,’ said the Led Zeppelin girl.

‘Tell her to bang it on the side of the counter,’ said Lorcan.

‘She’s done that. She says she fecking nearly broke the counter.’

Lorcan turned to Juliet and looked apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, would you excuse me for—’ Then he frowned and turned back to the girls. ‘Roisin! Don’t say “fecking”!’

Roisin’s porcelain brow wrinkled. ‘I could say worse. I could say—’

Lorcan waggled a finger and made a scary face. Roisin didn’t seem very scared.

‘She could say “bleeding”,’ said the other.

Roisin looked at her sister, as scandalised as a Mother Superior, but not as convincing. ‘Florrie!’

She turned back to Lorcan with a coy look that seemed to have been learned from someone much older. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’

‘Juliet, I can only apologise.’ Lorcan raised his hands. ‘This is Roisin Kelly, the one with the
language
, and this is Florrie Kelly, with the . . . What is that, Florrie?’

‘A mouse.’ Florrie held up the furry object she’d got out of her skirt pocket and showed its pink nose to Lorcan. ‘I found him in the garden.’

Minton let out a sharp bark and would have jerked forward if Juliet hadn’t grabbed on to his collar and lifted him off the ground. Tucked under her arm, he wriggled crossly.

‘Put that away,’ said Lorcan. ‘Before he gets eaten.’

‘Will you come and open this fecking jar, Lorcan?’ repeated Roisin. ‘Because we won’t get any lunch if you don’t. It’s pesto.’

Juliet checked her watch. Half twelve. She’d missed everything up to
Bargain Hunt
. The morning had gone by really quickly.