A Merry Mistletoe Wedding (3 page)

‘I'm ruling out Willesden,' Anna said. ‘And possibly West Wittering. Isn't it all yachties in blazers? Not really our bag.'

‘Just the valuation then,' Belinda said, tapping out a note on the iPad with the end of her nail. ‘Though we do have some good listings for retirement … No, OK. So – um … shall I just wander round or would you prefer to come with me and show me over the premises?'

It felt so impersonal, having the home where they'd lived for over four decades, where they'd raised three children in a warm tumble of domestic chaos, described as ‘premises'. Mike was being no help, rabbiting on about totally irrelevant things. He was now staring out of the French doors, focused on a fat magpie gorging itself on the contents of the bird feeder hanging from the apple tree. Anna had planted that tree shortly after Jimi was born. There'd been a plum tree at Thea's birth, a pear for Emily. And then there were the younger trees for the first three grandchildren. Emily's new baby was due in a couple of weeks – if they really were selling up, would it be worth continuing the tradition here and putting in a little quince after it was born? Or should they do that at the new place? If it had a garden, that is. Suppose they opted for a flashy flat with a swanky terrace instead? Would a quince thrive in a big pot?

‘I think I'll come too,' Anna said, deciding that if this girl was going to be raising her prettily arched eyebrows at the undersea mural (complete with full-breasted mermaid) she had painted in the second bathroom and the embroidered crushed-velvet patchwork curtains which were getting a bit shredded but were still so beautiful, then she'd rather be there to see it and to defend her home instead of imagining the worst from downstairs.

‘I'll just have a quick look to start with,' Belinda explained as she made a couple more notes on her iPad about the kitchen, ‘and any measuring and so on will come later if you decide you really do want to sell. Today, I'll be able to come up with a very rough ballpark figure but I'll have to go back to the office and let you know from there, officially. Property round here is in huge demand,' she continued as they made a start in the sitting room. ‘A double-fronted place like this doesn't come on the market very often, especially not one with a view over the playing fields. Nice big back garden, perfect for a young family.'

‘Could a young family possibly afford it?' Anna asked, genuinely curious. She had a very vague idea of local property values. This corner of London had always been expensive. The house had previously belonged to Mike's parents and no way could he and Anna have afforded to buy it, even all those years ago.

‘You'd be surprised.' Belinda continued to make notes as she prodded at Anna's terracotta-painted wall of built-in bookshelves. ‘The area has a lot of media people, a lot of bankers. They're all the ones who want easy access to central London and as much green open space as possible. It's all here.' She flicked at the curtains, checking how far the old double doors to the garden went back, and she pulled up the rug to look at the broad oak floorboards beneath. ‘Nice,' she commented but said little else and Anna could only guess at what she'd written on her iPad.

‘There's lots of potential with a house like this,' she announced as they went up the stairs to inspect the bedrooms. She looked pleased by the scale of the rooms but grimaced at the emerald-green fittings in the second bathroom. Anna was glad Belinda managed to control her self-confessed tendency to blurt: the bath and basin had been a fabulous find, from the 1930s with art deco squared-off corners; she and Mike had been so delighted to get them.

‘Terrific!' she exclaimed, looking at the ornate coving in the second of the two back bedrooms. ‘You see, we emphasize the wealth of original features but the buyers like to know there's room for making their own mark. There are walls that can come down and space to extend the kitchen way out into the garden. The attic is ripe for conversion and this little space here' – Belinda opened a door and peered into the room where Anna put anything that needed ironing and then removed it when it had been there long enough to flatten itself under the heap – ‘this could make a lovely ensuite wet room … just about, with a knock-through to the next room.'

Anna felt sorry for her house. If it were a person, it would be crying out for a reassuring hug by now. It must be like sitting in front of a famous cosmetic surgeon having your face tweaked this way and that as the face-changer to the stars decided that you were way too old and baggy to continue to present yourself to the wider world – and that, unless you accepted his offer to charge you a million dollars to be fixed, you should consider a life under a big balaclava.

‘It's always worked fine for us as it is,' she said, by way of defence.

Belinda laughed. ‘Oh, but the kind of family who'd afford this would want to
extend.
Everyone does. Ideally, they'll want a separate floor for the children, and of course proper live-in accommodation for a nanny. That, at a push, could go over the garage. And there's space at the end of the garden, if you knock down that big tatty old hut, space for a good-sized home office, which is so much a
thing
. Oh yes, I am certain this house will go for a jolly good sum.' Anna noted that she actually licked her lips as she wrote down another note on her iPad and the two of them went back to the kitchen. Mike wasn't there. Anna wondered if it was worth telling Belinda that he was probably in the ‘tatty old hut' that had worked so brilliantly as their joint painting studio for the past forty years. Belinda had probably had posters on her wall at university that they'd designed. But it was true the hut was mostly held together by a crust of old oil paint and might well fall down with a good push. She thought of what could replace it: a stylish pod structure maybe, or a chichi shepherd's hut, decked out in Cath Kidston and bunting? Perhaps a small wooden pavilion with a verandah, which wouldn't look out of place on a village cricket green? She'd quite like one of those.

‘So.' Belinda tip-tapped again on her iPad. ‘I can tell you now, very rough ball-park-wise, that – given the fact so much
work
would be needed – I'm afraid we're actually looking at rather under the magic
three
. And also, timing … A lot of people are keen to get moving between now and Christmas. So, how soon would you want to move?' she asked.

‘Er, not sure. And what do you mean, “just under the three”? Three what?'

‘Oh, three mill. Million,' Belinda said breezily. ‘Two point nine five, for asking, I'd say, though I'd have to confirm and you might have to be flexible on the final … Are you OK?'

Anna had sat down heavily in Mike's peacock chair. She pulled at a bit of loose wicker. So it looked like they were really going to move. They would be able to afford somewhere cheaper and smaller but still lovely and have plenty of ‘change'. Like most artists, they hadn't managed to equip themselves with fancy pension schemes so the house would have to provide it. And oh, what a wrench it would be, how much clearing and sorting – and then the finding somewhere else. It was going to be a massive upheaval. But it was time. She was still in terrific energetic health but her sixty-eighth birthday wasn't far off and she'd quite like somewhere to live that was easier to care for. Five bedrooms, three bathrooms and a massive garden were far more than two people could possibly need and the expense of keeping it all going – the council tax, the ongoing maintenance – it was all becoming way too much.

‘Um, I think so,' she said. ‘Just a bit surprised, that's all.'

Belinda looked worried, clearly nervous that she'd got a potential fainting on her hands.

‘Is it a disappointment?' she murmured, eyeing the kettle. ‘I'm so sorry …' The slim hand was back on Anna's wrist. Anna let it stay there this time.

‘No. Good grief no. It's not a disappointment. Not at all.'

They weren't real contractions, just the Braxton Hicks sort that nature sends to give you a rough idea of what to expect. Emily was certain of this because the baby wouldn't be born for another eight days, on a Friday, preferably early in the evening when Thea would be home from work and could collect Milly and Alfie and take them to hers for the weekend. That way Sam wouldn't have to worry about them and could immerse himself in the birth experience. He'd been drunk when Milly was born and had sneaked out for a quick cigarette just in time to miss Alfie's arrival, but this time she was determined he'd be there, doing back-rubbing and forehead-moistening and being the one who cut the cord, like a proper hands-on father.

She'd written the due date in pen in her diary: 5 September, and there'd never been anything in that diary in ink that didn't happen as and when it was supposed to – and thank goodness for that. Emily needed precision in her world because without it, all would free-fall into chaos. You couldn't run a home, two (soon three) young children and an accountancy practice on vagueness. If she wanted vague and unreliable she'd got Sam for the role and, since she'd reluctantly started her maternity leave two weeks before, she'd been appalled at how much he left to chance, domestically speaking. Why, for one thing, did he do the food shopping so haphazardly, lugging home bags of random items on the way from collecting the children from their various summer activities? It was terrifying knowing this didn't leave him both hands free to steer them safely across the road – in fact, she could make a case for that being actually illegal. If it wasn't, it should be. After all, you couldn't trust two under-eights with micro-scooters to wait for the green man at the lights, still less anticipate the murderous idiot who's gone hurtling through on red. Also, she'd so often suggested planning the week's menus in advance so he could order online and not have to keep popping up to Waitrose, but no. He claimed it gave him ‘thinking time' and that he couldn't bang out his humorous column for the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper on being a feckless father
every single week
if he never left his writing hut. That was the trouble with him being a journalist – he could find an excuse for anything, in the interests of ‘research'. ‘Besides,' he'd over-argued, ‘Milly and Alfie have to learn that food doesn't just come in boxes from a delivery van. They need to see shelves being stacked, money changing hands, pleasantries exchanged. They must experience the joys of handling fruit, learning what's in season and so on.'

Her response (that Waitrose was a long way from being a jolly French
marché
, that availability of mangetout from Peru in November was not exactly ‘seasonal' and that the only likely pleasantries were a curt ‘Do you need a bag?' followed by a ‘No, thanks') seemed to make her – as too often – sound peevish and controlling. She didn't mean to; she just didn't see why everything couldn't be properly organized.

Emily leaned back on the sofa and put her hand on her stomach, feeling the muscles grow hard and the taut-stretched skin tighten. Definitely Braxton Hicks. Just a practice run for her muscles but all the same she was glad she'd thought to put the big stripy throw across the seat cushions. These contractions had been coming and going all morning and she was sensing that a bit of leakage might be going on. Nothing to worry about, just a
feeling
.

‘Helloooo! Anyone home?'

Emily sat up abruptly, startled. That bloody Charlotte. Why did she always turn up by way of the kitchen and never just ring the front doorbell like a proper visitor? Since she'd turned up in Cornwall the previous Christmas as ‘a friend' of Emily's father, and then been unable to leave because of the endless snow, she'd almost made herself an extra family member. She reminded Emily of a cat that has several owners and makes itself at home with all of them.

Awkwardly, she hauled herself off the sofa and went through to the kitchen, conscious she was actually waddling like a comedy pregnant woman, hand on her aching back. Just you dare bloody laugh, Charlotte, she thought, seeing her waiting by the door. Just you dare.

‘Hi, Emily! I just popped in to see—'

‘Sam's not here.' Emily stood aside as Charlotte, not to be put off, clattered in past her with a selection of carrier bags, which she dropped on to the table. A couple of cans of lager spilled out and Emily caught them as they rolled to the edge. ‘He can't come out to play with you because he's taken the children for a playdate with one of Milly's friends.'

‘Oh, that's all right,' Charlotte said, unabashed by Emily's lack of welcome. ‘I'm not just
his
friend you know. I'm a whole-family bargain bucket, me.' She laughed, but Emily didn't. Charlotte glanced at her distended front, ‘God, look at you, you poor sod. No wonder you've got a face like a slapped arse. You're about ready to burst. Sit down, I'll make us a pot of tea. Shame you're not allowed anything stronger; you look like you could murder a glass of medicinal Merlot.'

She practically pushed Emily into a chair and started bustling round the kitchen. Emily told herself to loosen up – Charlotte was only being kind. But seeing her making free with her kitchen, opening and closing her cupboards, being familiar with where everything was, made it clear how often she'd been here in the house just hanging out, laughing, smoking in the garden, having lunchtime beers with Sam while she – Emily – had been up to her eyes in other people's tax returns and phone calls to HMRC. She loved her job, loved figures and finance and putting everyone else's fiscal houses in order, but she didn't do it so Sam could slack about at home with his father-in-law's ex-mistress.

‘So you've finished with work then? Are you taking the whole year off or splitting it with Sam?' Charlotte asked as she plonked one of Emily's favourite mugs in front of her. A couple of drops spilled over the side. Emily scooped them up with her finger and licked it.