Cloudy with a Chance of Love (13 page)

He was still smiling at me quite intently – gosh his eyes were lovely and his eyelashes were really long. I really shouldn't be thinking it, but he was probably the most handsome man I'd ever met (if you discounted the cardboard cut-out of Brad Pitt, at the local cinema, that was…). A handsome platonic neighbour friend. Just what the doctor ordered.

‘So,' I continued. ‘We're going out. And I got him to make it nine o'clock so I'd have time to do the decorating first.'

‘Well, that doesn't give us too long, then,' said Will, still with that bright smile. ‘Time flies when you're decorating. We'd better crack on.' He looked around the hall again. ‘Have you got any dust sheets?'

‘Dust sheets? We won't be creating any dust, will we?'

‘No – they're for covering the floor. You've got these lovely wooden boards – looks like oak – you don't want paint on them, do you?'

‘As I said, I thought I'd just be really careful,' I replied.

Will shook his head. ‘I wouldn't risk it. Even Michelangelo needed dust sheets.'

‘Did he?' I asked.

‘I don't know,' Will laughed. ‘I don't think so.' Oh dear, I sounded like a fool. Will would think I was someone who had no sense of humour and took everything literally. ‘What about a stepladder? You'll need one to reach the top of the walls.'

‘I was planning to stand on one of my kitchen chairs,' I said.

‘So unprofessional,' said Will, shaking his head again. ‘Come with me. I've got both of those
essential
items in my summerhouse. You'll need to help me carry them.'

I grabbed my keys from their hook by the front door and followed Will out through it. We crossed his drive and walked along the front of his house to his little gate, virtually identical to mine, which led to his back garden. I exclaimed when I saw how pretty his garden was. The grass, although a little overgrown, what with it being autumn and permanently wet at the moment and everything, was lush and green, unlike my patchy, muddy excuse for a lawn next door. He had wide flower beds which were stuffed with greenery and pretty winter plants. And down the middle of his lovely lawn was a cute little path that led, at the end, to an even cuter vintage-y summerhouse, painted in the palest of pale greens. It was hexagonal, I guessed, and had gorgeous (if somewhat dirty), small paned windows and weather-boarded sides and a dinky little ornate spike on the top, with a weather vane.

‘Oh, how cute,' I said. ‘That's a gorgeous summerhouse.'

Will pulled a bit of a face.

‘It's not so cute inside, I'm afraid. It's in a bit of a state, these days. I really need to give it a good clear out.' We walked down the path – I had to resist the urge to skip – and Will fished a key out from under a nearby paint pot. After three somewhat rusty attempts, he opened the door.

It looked like it had been lovely in here, once, but it certainly wasn't now. My first impression was how incredibly dirty and dusty it was, with that really dusty, musty smell that old garages have. My second impression was: spiders! There were cobwebs everywhere – draping from each corner, slung from the edges of the piles and piles of
stuff
heaped up and rammed into this compact space – and spiders galore. Big ones perched and poised to scuttle; little ones merrily suspended on their trickling, silvery threads; and ones that had obviously died and gone to spider heaven many moons ago – rigor-mortised and desiccated in decaying webs. Luckily I wasn't scared of them. I'm thankfully not the sort of woman to start shrieking and carrying on when she sees a spider and I haven't been since Freya told me to ‘get a grip, Mum,' one September, at age six.

‘Sorry about all the spiders,' said Will.

‘It's okay. I don't mind them.'

He looked surprised.

‘And sorry about all the junk,

‘It's your junk – don't be sorry.'

He shrugged and went over to one corner of the summerhouse where he started unearthing what could be a stepladder, from behind some random panels of old wood. It was all a bit random in there, full stop. The Jenga pile of miscellaneous items piled to the roof included boxes, a rusty looking lawn-mower, some golf clubs, spades and garden tools. An old suitcase. An old antique-looking sewing machine. A box of old vinyl records. I spotted Cool and the Gang and Carly Simon. A toaster and a cat basket. To one side was what looked like a filthy table and chairs, all piled up.

I had a hoarder next door.

‘I know what you're thinking,' said Will, yanking the stepladder free and leaning it against the set of golf clubs. ‘Hoarder next door.'

I giggled. ‘I was, actually. Is your house the same?'

‘No! Of course it's not! I'm not one of those people that can't get into their own sitting room!' I knew it probably wasn't. I could sort of see into his kitchen, from the drive and I had the impression it was always clean and tidy. ‘No, only here. I've just been dumping random stuff in here,' said Will.

‘I can see that,' I said. ‘It would be gorgeous, you know, with a bit of a tidy up. The junk cleared out… that little table and chairs dusted down and put in the middle… you could even put some pictures up. It needs a
Calamity Jane
make-over.'

‘I have no idea what that means,' he said.

‘Girls' film, Doris Day,' I replied.

‘Oh yes,' he said, a slight flicker of something passing across his face. ‘I remember. And it
used
to be great in here,' he added, ‘but it's not any more. Right, let's get this stepladder outside.' He picked it up and propped it up outside, against one flank of the summerhouse. ‘And here…' he grabbed the corner of something thick and blanket-y. ‘… are the dust sheets.' He unearthed two enormous, folded woolly sheets from underneath a tinder box and an old cassette recorder. ‘We used old blankets. You'll need to help me shake them.'

‘No problem.'

We
. He said ‘We.' Did he used to be married? Was he divorced, like me?

We went into the garden, stood opposite each other and gave the first blanket a big shake. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction and a cloud of dust hit me in the face.

‘Oops, sorry,' said Will.

‘It's fine,' I said, brushing it off my face with my hand. ‘I'll probably have paint all over my face in a minute anyway.'

We shook the other one, then folded them both by doing that thing where two people keep stepping towards each other, closer each time, to make a new fold.

‘It's like doing some kind of Elizabethan dance,' I said.

Will laughed. ‘Hold your arms out,' he ordered. I held them out straight in front of me and he placed both folded dust sheets on top. Then he picked up the stepladder, hooked it under his arm and strode off ahead of me whilst I platonically checked out his bum. We carried everything back to my house, laid the dust sheets over my hall's wooden floor and set up the stepladder.

‘Much better,' said Will. ‘We don't have to worry now. So, do you want to cut in, or shall I?'

I put my foot up on the bottom rung on the ladder, like I'd seen tradespeople do.

‘I could tell you if I knew what on earth that meant,' I said, in a slightly amusing cowboy-type voice.

‘Hand me your thinnest paint brush.'

I'd bought a set of five and went to open the pack, which was in the kitchen. After wrestling with the bullet-proof plastic with a pair of kitchen scissors for ten minutes – accompanied by a lot of whispered swearing and Will calling out, ‘When you're ready! – I came back to the hall and gave the smallest paintbrush to him.

‘Sorry. Even Houdini wouldn't have broken into that. I'm exhausted now.' He'd opened one of my tins of paint and was stirring it with the special paint stirrer I was proud I'd thought to buy. ‘Shall we down tools for the day?'

‘Ha, no.' He took the paintbrush and the pot of paint, climbed to the top of the ladder and promptly started painting a perfect, straight line between the wall and the ceiling.

‘You've done this before,' I called up.

‘Just a couple of times. We did up our old house ourselves….'

‘We' again. Who was this ‘we'? I was too shy to ask, and what do you say? ‘So… tell me…. is there a
Mrs
Hamilton?' like they do in cheesy sitcoms, or a straight-to-it, ‘Are you married or have you got a girlfriend?' which was, frankly, just a bit rude. So I just let his comment hang in the air, until I could think of a subtle way of asking him.

‘I feel a bit redundant,' I said as Will continued expertly cutting in. ‘Shall I make us a coffee?'

‘Yes please. Three sugars.'

‘Three.
You've
got a sweet tooth?'

‘You could say that,' he said, concentrating on the corner of the wall. ‘I'm a bit of a sugar fiend – cakes, biscuits, whatever – I'm hooked, I'm afraid. They say sugar is the new crack cocaine, don't they? Well I'd be classed as an addict.' He didn't look like one – he looked lovely and healthy to me – and he certainly wasn't overweight. I had another amazing view of his bum, from where I was standing and his whole body looked, well,
fit
. If anyone looked like a sugar addict, it was me.

‘I put my fingers in my ears when they say that,' I said. ‘I simply refuse to believe it.' He laughed. He
really
didn't look like a sugar addict. He must exercise strict portion control. Not like me. My portions knew no limits. ‘You made that lemon drizzle, didn't you?' I said.

‘Yes, I did.'

‘It was amazing. When do you find the time? In between being a busy doctor consultant type making a difference to people's lives each and every day, and everything..?'

‘I'm an insomniac baker,' he said, coming down the ladder to shift it to a new position. ‘Sometimes I can't sleep so I get up in the middle of the night and make cakes.'

‘Oh, right.' This image, as lovely as it was, made me feel a little sad and (oh, the horror!) somewhat turned on (oh dear, oh dear…). I imagined him, all lonely and with a pinny on over his pjs (and that was a conservative image, believe me), whipping up a batter and listening to Radio 4 whilst his sponges rose… I shook my head. This was not right. I had to dispel this image from my brain immediately. A recent divorcee having a crush on her ever-so-helpful and hunky neighbour was
definitely
too much of a cliché. Next I'd be donning a baby doll nightie and fluffy mules and hovering outside on the doorstep all the time, whilst leaning over to pick up bottles of full-fat milk left by the milkman… Not that we
had
a milkman; we barely had a postman, if his current standard of service was anything to go by…

‘Are you okay? You're miles away.'

Sorry, I was in the fluffy mules shop, browsing.

‘Sorry! Coffee.'

I made and brought the coffees and we sipped them sitting crossed legged on the floor like a couple of workmen.

‘All we need now are doorstep corned beef butties and some Wotsits.' said Will.

‘And you need a pencil behind your ear.'

‘I can oblige,' said Will, pretending to extract one from his jeans pocket.

We sat in silence for a moment, sipping. I felt calm and content; this was nice.

‘So, a date tonight.'

‘Yep,' I said. Not that I really felt like going now. I couldn't really be bothered. I was quite happy just sitting here with Will and could easily do so all night. He was good, easy company. But I couldn't back out of the date now; Ben would be waiting for me at that pub in Richmond at nine. ‘Well, I thought it was time to get back in the saddle again, you know. Although it's been so long I'm not sure if I can
locate
the saddle. It's probably in your summerhouse, under a load of junk.'

‘Ha, ha. Good one.'

‘So I'm single and ready to mingle,' I sighed. ‘I think. Well, I'm not entirely sure but I'll give it a go.
Single and ready to mingle
… That's an awful expression, if ever there was one.'

‘It sure is. It should be banned.'

I grinned. ‘A better phrase in my case would be “I'm sort of willing to put my toe back in the water but only if it's warm enough, otherwise I'm going to run off screaming”'

‘Yes, that sounds more like it.' I looked at him. Did it? Did he think that too? What
was
his relationship status? Was he single? Was he scared of dating, just like me?

I had no clue, but I felt I could tell him stuff so I kept on talking.

‘That post you had of mine, it was my divorce papers. I'm now divorced. As of Sunday, I am a free woman.'

‘Ah, I see.'

‘This house is a new start for me.'

‘I get you.' He nodded and smiled at me. ‘That's fantastic. Well, I wish you many happy times in your new house.'

‘Thank you.' Okay, I was biting the bullet; I was going to ask him something. He knew quite a bit about me now; I knew nothing about him. It was time to do some neighbourly prying.

‘So, the insomnia,' I braved. ‘I don't want to be nosey,' – I
so
did – ‘… but is there a reason for it… or just one of those things?'

Will just sat for a moment, sipping his coffee. Then he took a deep breath.

‘I've had insomnia since my wife died, five years ago.'

You know when you get a kind of clang in your heart and everything stops? That's how I felt. I felt awful.

‘Oh Will, I'm so, so sorry.' I meant it; I was really, really sorry.

‘Me too. She was wonderful.' He gave a great big sigh. ‘Bloody breast cancer.'

There was nothing to say to that. We sat in silence for a while, until our coffees were drunk, the ticking of my clock in the kitchen counting down the minutes.

‘Right,' said Will, hauling himself up onto his feet and holding out his hand for my empty mug. ‘Let's get back to it.'