The Emerald Comb (4 page)

Simon put down the book he was reading and peered over his glasses at me. ‘OK, and maybe your dad will want to pay…’

I threw a cushion at him. ‘No, we’ll pay, you tight git. It’s supposed to be Dad’s birthday dinner, after all. Anyway, we can easily afford to since your promotion and pay rise.’

He hugged the cushion and threw his feet up onto the sofa. It was a cold, dark evening – one of those where you wish you had an open fireplace instead of a gas fire, when you just want to cuddle up with a blanket and a good book. And maybe a glass of wine.

‘Fancy a glass of wine?’ I said.

‘Yeah, go on then.’ Simon swung his legs off the sofa and stood up to fetch a bottle. ‘Arrgh, what did I tread on?’ He hopped around then sat back down to investigate the damage to his foot.

‘Lego, I expect. Lewis had some in here earlier.’

‘When’s he going to grow out of Lego?’ grumbled Simon, kicking the offending piece under the Christmas tree.

‘About the same time as Thomas grows into it,’ I replied. ‘I’ll get the wine, seeing as you’re incapacitated.’

‘Thanks. What we really need is a bigger house. One with a playroom, so we can keep the lounge clear of toys and the kids can injure themselves on their own Lego without involving us.’

I went to fetch a couple of glasses and a bottle of Pinot Noir from the kitchen. Simon was right – we had outgrown this house. The two boys had to share a room, which didn’t work very well because of the difference in their ages. The kitchen was a reasonable size but had to double as a dining room. Just about OK for the five of us but hopeless if we had visitors. And the garage was stuffed to bursting with bikes, gardening tools and DIY debris.

‘Do you mean it?’ I asked, as I returned with the wine.

‘Mean what?’

‘What you said about wanting a bigger house.’

He frowned, stared at the ceiling as though looking for an answer written on it, then sat upright. ‘Yeah, I think I do. How do you feel about moving?’

‘Well, I love this house, but we do need more space.’

‘Right then, let’s start house-hunting.’ He grabbed my laptop from the side table which doubled as a desk, and started tapping the keys.

‘Really? Right now?’ Was he serious or just fooling? Sometimes it was hard to tell with Simon.

‘No time like the present, eh? And no harm in looking.’ He grinned and patted the seat beside him. I sat down, and a moment later we were browsing a list of houses in Southampton which matched our criteria: four bedrooms, garden, two reception rooms. It was nice to do something together, as well.

I pointed to a Victorian three-storey semi. ‘That one looks good.’

‘Bit pricey.’

‘What can we afford?’

‘Dunno, I’d have to do the figures. Say four hundred thousand maximum – that’ll give us an idea of what’s available. Good job I got that promotion.’

They all looked nearer the half-million mark. I began to get despondent as Simon scrolled through. There was no point compromising on size – might as well stay where we were. We wanted to stay in Hampshire near our parents. Mine helped out with childcare occasionally and Simon’s mum – adoptive mum – was suffering from dementia and needed support. And there needed to be good schools nearby.

‘Winchester would be good. That’d cut fifteen minutes off my commute to London,’ said Simon.

‘Yes, I like Winchester too.’ I reached over and selected Winchester from a dropdown list of areas, and we began browsing a new set of houses.

‘Period or modern?’ Simon asked.

‘Period, definitely. Something with character. More wine?’

‘Why not? Period for me, too. Cor, look at this one!’ He clicked on a thumbnail image to expand it. I gasped – I’d seen that house before. Kingsley House, up for sale! Simon would click onto the next house instantly if he knew, so I quickly covered my gasp with an exclamation.

‘Wow, gorgeous! What’s the asking price?’

‘Hmm, four-four-five. Bit out of our price range. Looks a bit run down. Could be worth a look, though.’

‘Really? You want to go and see it?’ My heart beat a little faster at the idea of having another look at that house. I wondered whether anything had happened to Vera and Harold Delamere to make them put it up for sale. They’d mentioned feeling they ought to move somewhere smaller but had seemed reluctant to put the house on the market. I hoped they were OK. I’d thought of them and the house many times since my visit.

Simon frowned at me. ‘Well, that’s how house-hunting works, isn’t it? You find something you like the look of, then go to see it.’

‘It’s just all a bit sudden. Have we actually decided we want to move?’

‘Do
you
want to?’

‘Well, it makes sense, so I guess I do…’

‘Great! So do I.’ He clinked glasses with me. ‘So if we’ve made the decision to move, we might as well start looking at properties sooner rather than later. Don’t you think?’

And so it was that on Saturday I found myself standing outside Kingsley House again, grinning from ear to ear, with a slightly grizzly Thomas who’d just woken up holding my hand. Simon had dropped us off and was busy parking the car further up the lane. The older children and the estate agent were with him. I tugged on the bell-rope and heard a distant jangling inside.

Vera opened the door and broke into a wide smile when she saw me on the doorstep. ‘Katie, how lovely to see you! But, I’m afraid we’re expecting visitors in a moment. The house is up for sale, you see.’

‘I know – it’s us who’ve come to see it,’ I said, shaking her hand.

‘You? Oh, how lovely! When the estate agent said a Mr and Mrs Smith wanted to see the house I didn’t think for a moment it’d be you!’

‘I know, it’s such a common name, not like St Clair. Listen.’ I spoke hurriedly, seeing Simon, Lewis, Lauren and the estate agent walking up the lane ‘My husband doesn’t know I was here before. I’d be obliged if you didn’t mention it. He’s not…well…he doesn’t get the whole ancestry thing, you know? I think it would put him off the house.’

Vera raised her eyebrows, but nodded. ‘All right. Mum’s the word. And who’s this?’ She crouched down to Thomas’s level, but he became suddenly shy and buried his face against my leg. She stood up again as Simon and the others crunched across the gravel driveway. ‘Come in, everyone. Would you like to take the little one into the study? I’m sure I can find something to amuse him while the rest of you look around the house.’

The estate agent, Martin, a skinny youth in a shiny suit, introduced everyone as Vera ushered us all inside. Martin set off on a tour with Simon, Lewis and Lauren, while I followed Vera into the study with Thomas.

Harold was dozing beside the fire, in much the same place I’d left him on my last visit. ‘He’s not been so good,’ Vera whispered to me. ‘That’s why we’re having to move. We’re going into one of those little retirement flats, in a new development near our son in Bournemouth.’ She sighed. ‘It’ll break our hearts to leave this place, but the time has come.’

She gently shook Harold’s arm to wake him up. ‘Harold, look who’s here to view the house.’

He blinked twice at me, then smiled. ‘Katie St Clair! So are you going to buy our house, then?’

I laughed. ‘Well, I’ll have to see what my husband Simon thinks. He’s having a look around now, with the kids.’

‘And you’d better go to join him, or it’ll look odd,’ said Vera. ‘Now, Thomas, shall I fetch you something to play with? I’ve got a box of old Matchbox cars somewhere. I used to keep them for our grandchildren. But they’re all grown up now.’ She opened a low cupboard in the old shelving unit and pulled out a Tupperware container. Thomas trotted over and started rummaging through it happily, pulling out diggers and police cars, tractors and racing cars. Harold pulled out one and showed him how the doors opened.

‘Look, Thomas. It’s an old Ford Anglia. Like the first car I ever owned!’

Thomas inspected the battered toy. ‘Daddy’s got a Galaxy. We came in it today. It’s red.’

‘Oh, I like Galaxies,’ said Harold. ‘Lovely big cars.’

Behind him, Vera gestured to me to follow her out to the hallway, leaving the ‘boys’ to discuss cars.

‘It’s lovely to see him playing with a child,’ said Vera. ‘Does him good.’

‘Thomas loves cars. Your Tupperware box is the perfect thing to keep him happy.’

‘You’d better go and join the tour. I believe they’re upstairs now. I’ll make us some tea, and squash for the children?’

‘Perfect,’ I said, and trotted upstairs to find Simon and the kids who’d reached the two attic bedrooms.

‘Mum, I want to have
this
room,’ said Lauren. ‘I love the slopey ceilings. But I don’t want Lewis in the other room up here. I want this floor all to myself. Can I?’

‘Sweetheart, we haven’t even decided whether to buy this house or not. It’s a bit over our price range.’ I looked at Simon as I said this. He was chewing his lip, a sign that he was deep in thought. ‘What do you think, Simon?’

‘Got loads of potential. And I’ve always quite fancied a project house. Do you like it?’

‘I love it. Absolutely love it,’ I said. Martin grinned, no doubt seeing pound signs spinning in front of his eyes.

‘You can’t have seen much of it yet,’ said Simon. ‘But it is the kind of place which grabs you, isn’t it?’

He had no idea just how much it had grabbed me. I nodded, as we went back down the narrow stairs to the first floor.

A few minutes later, our tour was over. Lewis and Lauren went out to explore the garden, while Martin watched them nervously from the kitchen. Simon and I returned to the study where Thomas was parking cars along the edge of the hearth rug. Harold looked up as we entered.

‘Mrs Smith, do please sit down.’ He gestured to the chair opposite him, beside the fire. ‘We’ve been thinking. Are you serious about wanting to buy this house?’

I sat, and glanced at Simon standing beside me, wondering how we should reply. I loved the house and could think of nowhere I’d rather live, but it was out of our price range. How could we say we were serious about it when we knew we couldn’t possibly afford it? Simon looked lost for words too. Before either of us had chance to frame an answer, Harold continued.

‘Because if you are, I think we would be very happy to sell the house to you. Vera and I always hoped another family would buy the house, rather than a developer. We’d hate it to be mucked about with and turned into flats. We’ve had plenty of offers from developers, but have turned them all down, hoping a family would come and look at it. And we decided,’ here he looked at Vera who nodded encouragingly, ‘that if a family we liked came to see the house, we would reduce the price for them.’

I stared at him, and then at Simon. Was I hearing this right? They’d reduce the price if we wanted to buy? I blinked, and opened my mouth to speak, but again, Harold got in there first.

‘I think four hundred thousand would be plenty for us. The retirement flat we want to buy is much less than that. No sense in us being greedy. Would you like to discuss it?’

I nodded, dumbly. Simon looked stunned.

Harold smiled and reached across to pat my hand. ‘You mustn’t feel you’re cheating us, you know. We don’t need the full asking price. You’d be doing us a favour by keeping it out of the developers’ hands. Isn’t that right, Vera?’

Her eyes were bright as she answered. ‘Oh, yes. We’d love you to buy this house. Especially as –’ She stopped herself in time, and put a hand to her mouth.

‘Can we have a minute to talk about this?’ said Simon. He went out to the hallway and nodded at me to follow him.

Vera called to the estate agent. ‘Martin, could you come in here a moment, please, Harold would like a word. Leave Mr and Mrs Smith to have another poke around by themselves, perhaps.’

Simon pulled me into the kitchen and stared at me. ‘Four hundred? Wow! I was working out whether we could stretch to four twenty as a cheeky offer but if they’ll come down that much – we’d be stupid not to go for it! We could sell it straight on and make a profit if nothing else.’

I felt my heart sink. Is that all he was thinking about – making a quick buck? ‘We couldn’t sell it on – they want a family to live here. Anyway I want to live here, don’t you?’

‘It needs a lot of work…’

‘We could do it! I could project-manage it – Thomas will be starting reception class in school after Easter and I’ll have time. I know I was going to go back to work part time, but I could do up the house first… Oh, Simon, I adore this house, and would absolutely love to live here and do it up! The kids seem to like it too…’ Lewis and Lauren were investigating the beech tree. As we watched, Lauren gave her brother a leg up to the first branch.

Simon turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders. ‘Calm down, Katie! I love the house too. And we could add value to it by doing it up. Look at this kitchen – hasn’t been touched in thirty years! But we’d be living in a building site for ages bringing this place up to scratch. Have you any idea how stressful that would be?’

‘We can do it bit by bit. I don’t mind the mess. Anyway the house is big enough that we could live in some rooms while we do up others. There are
six
bedrooms, Simon! Oh, let’s go and tell them yes, please!’

He gazed into my eyes, then pulled me into a crushing hug. ‘All right, let’s do it. But remember, we still have to find a buyer for our place.’

I kissed him. At some stage I supposed I would have to tell him about the history of this house, but that could wait. If he’d known about my ancestors living here, he’d never even have come to see it. I’d come clean later. When it was too late to back out.

We called to the kids to come inside. Their cheeks were flushed from the crisp winter air, and Lewis had grass stains on both knees.

‘Awesome garden, Mum! I love that tree. Are we going to buy this house?’ He glanced at his filthy hands and wiped them on the back of his jeans.

‘When we move in, I want
both
of the rooms at the top. One for a bedroom and one for a playing room, Mum, can I?’ Lauren clung onto my arm, jumping up and down.

‘Steady on! There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge before we move in. But, yes, I would think you can have
one
room at the top if that’s what you want. And
share
the other as a playroom.’