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‘And boyfriends make you unhappy?’ he said with a quizzical smile.
‘God, I remember teenage angst over boys.’
Ollie nodded. ‘Yep, same over girls.’
Above them a flock of migrating swallows were heading south, passing high over the roof of the house. Heading to the sun. How nice that would be right now, Ollie thought, envying them the simplicity of their lives.
Caro stared at the house. ‘Strange just how different the front and rear look.’
He nodded. Compared to the handsome front, with its finely proportioned windows, the back of the house really was a mishmash. It seemed even more so than when he had last looked at it: partly red brick and partly grey rendering, with windows of different sizes seemingly placed here and there at random, and with an ugly single-storey garage block and assortment of dilapidated outbuildings, some brick, some breeze block and some wooden.
Caro pointed with her finger. ‘I still haven’t got the hang of the geography. Over to the left, those two windows are the scullery and that’s the scullery door. Then the two kitchen windows and the door into the atrium, and the dining room windows to the right.’
‘Yes.’
‘Going left to right on the first floor is Jade’s bedroom. Then the two back spare bedrooms, then our room at the right?’
Ollie nodded.
Then she pointed up at the row of dormers. ‘That one – that’s where we’re sleeping tonight, right?’
Ollie did a calculation. ‘It is.’
‘Then the three to the left?’
‘They’re the other side of the loft space. You get to them via the staircase next to Jade’s room. I think they’re all part of the old servants’ quarters. I’ll check.’
‘Incredible to be living in a house where we can’t even remember all the rooms!’
He gri
She smiled, then said a hesitant, ‘Yes.’
‘You sound dubious?’
She shrugged. ‘No – it’s just – it – it’s all still so daunting. I hope we haven’t taken on too much.’
‘We haven’t! In a couple of years we’ll be laughing that we even worried about it.’
‘I hope you’re right, darling.’
‘I’m right, trust me.’
She gave him a strange look and grimaced.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me?’
‘Nothing. You’re right. And we don’t have much option, do we?’
‘We could move.’
‘With our mortgage? The vendors had dropped the price three times because no one was mad enough to take it on. I don’t think we’d find a buyer very easily at all. Not until we have improved it one hell of a lot. So we don’t have an option. We’re here and we’ve just got to get on with it.’ Again she gave him a strange look and shrugged.
‘Don’t you love it, though, darling?’
‘Ask me in five years’ time,’ she replied.
27
Wednesday, 16 September
Caro prepared a simple supper for the three of them, of baked potato with tuna. She made her own version of a tuna salad filling with chopped spring onions and capers, which Ollie particularly loved – and always felt to be a healthy meal.
Ollie’s rule – that Caro totally agreed with – was that they turned the television off for meals and talked. They both made a particular effort to instil that in Jade.
‘So,’ Ollie said, ‘tell your mum and me a bit about your new friend, Charlie?’
‘New friend, darling?’ Caro said.
Jade nodded thoughtfully, as she mixed some tuna into her potato. ‘I don’t know if she’ll be a best friend yet, but she’s nice.’
‘Did she just join the school, too?’
‘Yes. Quite a lot of them have been there since they were eleven, so they can be a little bit cliquey.’
‘Do you want to invite her to your party?’
‘Well, I think so. There’s another girl I might ask also, called Holly.’
Ollie and Caro caught each other’s eye and smiled. This was a good sign that she was making new friends.
Afterwards, Jade went up to her room, and Ollie and Caro sat in front of the television, with a glass of white wine, watching an episode of Breaking Bad from the box set he had given her last Christmas – they were still less than halfway through the second season. Caro joked that they’d still be watching it well into their old age.
After the episode had finished, Caro stood up, yawning, then walked round the house on her obsessive tour of inspection, exactly as she had done when they lived in the city. She couldn’t sleep until she had checked that every door and downstairs window was secure. Then she went round for a second time, double-checking. Ollie let her get on with it. He knew from past experience that otherwise she would wake in the middle of the night in a panic and go downstairs to start checking.
Tonight he joined her, wanting to make sure none of the workmen had left any dangerous electrics on that might cause a fire. There was no sign of improvement in any room so far – wherever the workmen were at the moment looked in a considerably worse state than when they had moved in. They were still at the ripping out and stripping down stage.
‘I bloody love you!’ Ollie said, as they reached the top of the stairs to the attic bedroom, sliding his hands round Caro’s waist.
She turned towards him. ‘And I bloody love you, too!’
They kissed. Then kissed again, charged with sudden deep passion. He pushed her T-shirt up her back, then slid his fingers down inside the rear of her jeans.
‘Did I ever tell you that you have the most beautiful bum in the world?’ he whispered.
‘No, Mr Harcourt,’ she said, busily unzipping him. ‘No, Mr Harcourt, I don’t believe you did.’
He worked his hands around her front, then slowly down inside her thighs. As he did so she unbuckled his belt, popped the stud fastener of his trousers and pulled them down, sharply. Then his boxer shorts. She knelt in front of him and cupped him in her cool hands.
He gasped, delicious sensations rippling through him. Then he helped her back to her feet, tugged at the zip of her jeans, pulled them down, too, then her lacy underwear. They staggered through the bedroom door, in a clumsy manoeuvre that was part embrace, part dance, tripping over their trousers, then he eased her backwards on to the bed.
Afterwards, lying on top of her in the dark of the room, lit only by the weak yellow glow from the bare bulb hanging over the staircase, he gri
‘It’s not shit, is it?’ she gri
Ten minutes later, their teeth brushed and clothes discarded, they fell asleep, comfortably and happily spooned. ‘I love you, babes,’ Ollie whispered.
She murmured back, contentedly.
He woke from a nightmare some while later, his entire body pounding, disorientated. Where the hell was he? Something dark, undefined, a terrible dark dread, engulfed him. Then he had the sensation that the bed was moving. Jigging, very slightly. An intense pressure was pi
He tossed his head wildly from left to right in panic, unable to breathe. Terror spiralled through him. He fought to breathe. Sucking through his mouth, his nostrils. It was as if he was breathing in cloying soot.
Then everything was fine. He could breathe normally again. Beside him he heard the steady rhythm of Caro breathing. His heart hammering, he rolled over and looked down at the clock radio he had placed on the floor last night.
00.00.
He stared at the flashing green digits. That happened when there was a power cut. Were they having one now – or had there been one earlier?