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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: Peppercorn
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
Nell has come to feel very at home in her beautiful corner of Wiltshire with her partner Angus. What she could do with, however, is a challenge, and the prospect of bringing life back to an abandoned row of houses, Saffron Lane, is just what she's looking for. Stacy, lost and alone after a divorce she didn't see coming, is trying her best to start over. And Elise, battling her nieces who would force her into residential care, longs for a home where she can get back to her painting. When their paths cross, the future starts to look brighter although not all goes according to plan.
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Saffron Lane
ANNA JACOBS
This book is dedicated to the memory of Harry Meageen (1937–2017), a dear friend whom my husband and I will miss greatly. I’ll also miss his astute comments as a reader. We’re both so glad to have known him.
Contents
Part One
Chapter One
Wiltshire, October
Just after midnight thunder boomed so loudly that Nell woke with a start. Lightning flashed and another clap of thunder seemed to shake the big old house.
She lay for a few moments listening to the storm then felt her partner jerk awake.
Angus didn’t try to speak till another clap of thunder had rumbled away into the distance. ‘Damn! The weather forecast didn’t say it’d be such a heavy storm; they just predicted rain.’
She flung aside the covers and went to draw back a curtain and peer out across the formal gardens at the rear. ‘It must have been raining for a while. There are puddles everywhere.’
As he joined her, a sudden squall pounded heavily against the windows, blurring the world outside. Once again conversation became difficult because of loud thunder.
‘It couldn’t have come at a worse time.’ He thumped one clenched fist on the windowsill.
She knew why. The roof at the north end of this big house had been leaking and he was juggling his finances so that it could be fixed properly, not merely patched up. The last two owners, distant relatives of his, had done a lot of skimpy patching. You didn’t always know where problems still lay until the weak spots began to fall apart.
Angus sighed and dragged on his tatty winter dressing gown, thrusting his feet into equally shabby trainers. ‘I’d better go and check the attics. The leak bucket will probably need emptying. You might as well stay in bed.’
‘No way! I’m awake now so I’m coming with you. You may need my help.’
They heard it before they got to the open space at the north end of the attic: water splashing almost continuously, a lot more of it than the occasional drip there had been formerly.
He switched on the single light bulb that dangled forlornly from the middle of the ceiling at that end. ‘Oh, hell!’
As thunder rumbled, lightning lit up the attic like a scene from an old horror film, the flickering black and white causing eerie shadows to jump around the walls. The sound of the rain beating down on the roof tiles in another heavy downpour drowned out the splashing for a few moments, then the rain eased off and they could hear the water coming down inside the attic again.
The bucket normally coped adequately with the small leak but the fault must have worsened because water was now trickling steadily over the top edge and spreading out across the floorboards.
He looked up. ‘I bet the wind has dislodged some tiles.’
She bent to study the wooden floor around the bucket. It was dark with moisture and more was overflowing every minute. ‘I know where there’s an old baby bath. I’ll go and fetch it.’
‘Thanks.’
When she got back, he’d moved the bucket and put an old tin tray in its place. The tray was already covered by a shallow film of water. She put the baby bath down and he tipped the water from the tray into it at the same time as he used his foot to edge the bath into place under the leak. ‘I’ll go and empty the bucket in the bathroom up here.’
When he got back, he looked glumly at the baby bath. ‘You might as well go back to bed, love. I’ll have to stay up to keep emptying the water. I won’t be able to do anything about fixing the leak till it’s light.’
‘I’ll never get back to sleep. The storm sounds to be right overhead. How about I bring you up a cup of cocoa?’
‘I’d murder for a hot drink. And could you bring my old sweater up with you as well? It’s going to be a long, cold night.’
‘We’ll keep each other company, then.’
‘Whatever did I do to deserve a helpmeet like you?’ he said softly.
‘Same goes for me. You make my ex seem like an alien from Planet Zog.’
It seemed ages till the storm passed and the rain eased. As soon as dawn lightened the sky, Angus went outside, squelching across the sodden lawn till he was far enough away from the house to peer up at the roof through his binoculars.
When he came back, he said, ‘A few tiles have been dislodged. They still look intact, though. I’ll go up and see if I can push them back into place. Then I really will have to do something about the roof.’
‘Can’t you get someone else to sort out the tiles? It’s three storeys above the ground.’
‘I rather like climbing. I’ve been up on that roof several times.’ He gave her one of his quick hugs. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t take any risks. I always wear a safety harness and line. I fitted the necessary anchor points years ago when I had to go up and repoint the ridge tiles.’
She nodded, but she stayed outside to keep an eye on him as he worked, and she didn’t stop worrying till he came down and put the ladder away.
‘Done. For the moment.’ He pretended to take a bow. ‘Oh ye of little faith.’
‘For a geek you’re surprisingly good at the practical stuff.’
‘Blame it on my dad’s training and all the holiday jobs I did as a student.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better get back to my computer.’
‘And I’ve got some grocery shopping to do. You will insist on eating every single day.’
For all their joking, she was concerned about their financial situation. They had to find some way of increasing their income. Since she moved in she had taken over looking after the accounts and had been horrified at how expensive a two-hundred-year-old house was to maintain. It might be heritage-listed but it had been neglected for decades and restoring it properly wasn’t for the faint-hearted.
Angus worked in IT and was capable of earning good money, but that wasn’t nearly enough for the urgent major repairs the house still needed. He’d had a small app he’d designed take off recently, which was bringing in some useful money, but not a fortune, since it had a limited target group. He’d warned her that his app would probably be superseded within a couple of years, so they couldn’t count on it long term.
What could they count on to keep this beloved monster of a house well tended, she wondered? There had to be some way of it bringing in a regular, steady income.
Two mornings later Angus came down late for breakfast then sat lost in thought, forgetting the piece of half-eaten toast in his hand.
‘Not hungry today, darling?’ Nell asked.
He jumped in shock and stared at her blankly for a few seconds, then cocked his head to one side and grinned. ‘Sorry. I woke up thinking about our financial needs. You know that scrubby bit of land down at the rear of our grounds, the one with the dilapidated old buildings on it? I’m wondering if we can do something with that?’
That really caught her interest. ‘I keep meaning to stroll down and have a closer look at it, but I haven’t been in a hurry because you said it was in ruins.’
‘You promised you’d not go there without me,’ he reminded her sharply.
‘I was planning to ask you, only you’ve been a bit busy lately on that project.’
‘I finished it late last night, Nell, and good riddance. Whoever wrote the original program was an idiot and it was a tedious job unpicking it. Did I ever tell you that part of the grounds has actually got an official street name?’
‘No. You just waved a hand in its direction and said it was rather dilapidated so to stay well away. What’s its official name?’
‘Saffron Lane.’
‘That’s pretty.’
‘Yes. Unlike the street. I took a quick look at the outside when I first inherited Dennings, but I had enough on my plate making sure the main house was weatherproof to do anything about those cottages. I did check that they hadn’t been damaged after one particularly bad storm and thank goodness they were all right. Actually, they look very sturdily built. But don’t go into them on your own. I don’t want you getting hurt.’
He gave her a loving smile as he said that, seeming unaware of the toast still in his hand. Her heart gave its usual happy little skip as she smiled back. The man she now thought of as her second husband was so cute when he grew forgetful!
Before she could remind him to finish his toast, he said suddenly, ‘I don’t think my predecessor went inside them, either.’
She gaped at him. ‘But they’ve been in your family for ever, and you’ve owned them for years!’
He shrugged. ‘Well, no one expected me to inherit, even though I came here several times as a child. And after Dennings became mine, Joanna and I had enough on our plates bringing up the kids and dealing with the interior of the big house.’
He looked sad as he added quietly, ‘We were discussing turning our attention to Saffron Lane when she was killed. I—didn’t feel ready to follow through on that afterwards.’
Nell reached out to give his hand a squeeze. It was lovely to hear how he spoke about his first wife, who’d been killed by a drunken driver. He had a huge capacity for love, her Angus did. She’d never expected to marry again after an abusive first husband, but she’d tumbled headlong into love with this man.
She watched with a fond smile as he continued to think aloud, still waving the piece of uneaten toast to emphasise what he was saying.
‘I don’t even know who used to live in Saffron Lane or why it was abandoned. I’m still going through the various records but I haven’t come across the ones dealing with it yet.’
‘What made you think of it now?’
‘I was wondering whether the buildings could be renovated and rented out. They aren’t Grade I listed like this house, so we could even knock them down if we wanted without seeking permission and jumping through heritage hoops.’
‘And put what in their place?’
‘I don’t know. Workshops to rent, perhaps, or offices. Commercial properties are in short supply in Sexton Bassett.’
She frowned. ‘It’d cost a lot to erect new buildings. It’d be better if we could convert the present ones, surely? But I don’t think we have the money for that, either.’
He suddenly noticed the toast and put it in his mouth, but she doubted he’d tasted it, because he was still frowning in thought as he chomped.
She loved her new home and was planning to help him in every way she could, but he didn’t want her to put her Australian house sale money into it, because he wanted her to have a nest egg to fall back on if anything happened to him.
Nell agreed that was wise because if anything happened to Angus she’d have to leave. The previous owner, Miss Henrietta Denning, had been obsessed by making sure the old house was kept in the hands of the family who’d built it, and the trust she’d set up stipulated that Denningshad to be passed to the next ‘Denning by birth’ in line. After Angus, this would be his son Oliver, currently working his way round the world.
‘Um. I got an email yesterday. Another quarter’s money has come in, not a fortune, though quite a nice amount. We could spend it on renovating the houses in Saffron Lane, as a sort of investment to bring in money steadily. What do you think?’
‘I think maybe the roof of the big house has priority.’
‘I think we can make the roof last a bit longer.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Hmm.’
‘How much did the app bring in?’
When he told her she was pleasantly surprised. ‘I think you could be right. But let’s go and explore Saffron Lane now. We can’t make a final decision until we know exactly what we’ve got there.’
‘I want to get someone in to make sure the buildings are safe first.’
‘Oh, pooh to that! We’re not stupid enough to go inside a building if there are holes in the floor and the walls are crumbling, but we can at least stand in doorways and look inside rooms. Actually, it’s a wonder someone hasn’t broken in, if they’ve been empty for half a century.’
‘An old tramp did try to break into the end house two or three years ago, but he didn’t even get any of the front doors open. He ran away down the street at the back screaming that the place was haunted. The police thought he was drunk and picked him up. When he told them what he’d been doing, they didn’t bother to prosecute, he was still so freaked out. They just gave him a warning and sent him on his way. I didn’t contradict his tale of the ghosts. Rumours like that are much cheaper than putting in a security system.’
She wasn’t giving in. ‘I’m not afraid of your family ghosts and I’m dying to look at Saffron Lane. Let’s do it.’
She’d dreamt about his family ghosts even before she’d come to England, only she hadn’t known who they were then. She’d heard their voices again soon after her arrival. They’d seemed friendly to her, not threatening. She’d never been certain before this happened whether there were any such things as ghosts, but everything the women’s voices had predicted had come true. They’d told her exactly when she’d sell her Australian house and that she’d find love here in England.
He put his arm round her shoulders. ‘OK. You’re on. I must admit I’d like to see inside the buildings now that I’ve got a bit of spare time, but we won’t take any risks. We ought to wear our scruffiest clothes and safety helmets.’
‘Most of your clothes are scruffy. You’re as much in need of renovation as your house.’
He chuckled. ‘My computer doesn’t care what I wear and you fell in love with me in spite of my sartorial faults.’
‘I didn’t realise then that you were allergic to buying new clothes.’
‘Shopping is a total bore.’
‘Well, we’re going out to buy you some new clothes tomorrow, so get used to it. I’m not having my new English relatives seeing me walk around with a scarecrow.’
‘You’re such a nag.’ He plonked a big, sloppy kiss on her cheek.
For a moment she had difficulty breathing, then she realised from his poorly concealed smirk that he was distracting her, changing the subject. He always did when clothes were mentioned. She gave him a mock slap. ‘Yes, and I intend to spend the next few decades nagging you. Get used to that as well, and gird up your loins, because you’re definitely going to face the horrors of shopping for new clothes tomorrow.’
She looked round and smiled involuntarily. ‘But today the storm has passed and we’ll go exploring, eh? I fell in love with your house as well as you, Angus. Dennings is beautiful and living here is exciting, so very different from being an office manager in Australia, not to mention my difficulties as a divorced woman raising three lively sons on a pittance.’
‘One of them has just produced a son himself, Grandma Nell.’
‘I still can’t believe I’m a grandma.’
‘You’re a step-grandma as well. I think it’s great being a grandfather. I just wish Ashleigh lived closer, but her husband’s farm is non-negotiable as a place to live. Now, hurry up and change into some old clothes. I’m starting to feel excited about what we might find in Saffron Lane.’
They strolled through the rear gardens hand in hand and down towards the left corner of the property. The buildings were behind some huge old trees and overgrown bushes, so hardly anything showed from the rear drive except an entrance that really did look like a lane, only just wide enough for two cars to pass.
She paused to stare round. ‘It’s as if this corner of the grounds has been asleep and is waiting to be woken up again.’
‘Well, don’t move forward till I’ve cleared a path. I’ll get the gardener to clear the connection between Saffron Lane and the street. It won’t take him long with our small tractor. Good thing it’s not a made-up road with asphalt, just a dirt track. The weeds grow quickly but are easy to clear and then the road can be levelled.’
Angus stopped to pick up a stick-sized piece of dead branch and whacked a few of the nettles out of their way on the path, trampling on them for good measure. ‘I don’t want you to get stung. Nettles are always happy to prove that a human being can itch and hurt at the same time.’
Nell followed him along the narrow path he’d cleared but they stopped again on the other side of the shrubbery to study the houses. ‘It’s hardly a street; it’s only six houses long and one-sided.’
‘Well, they gave it a name and the council approved it, so someone must have felt it mattered.’
She was still staring. ‘They’re not what I call cottages. They might not be big but they’re detached houses, and three of them have dormer windows in the attics. The two houses at the end standing at right angles to the others are bigger with Number 6 the biggest of all. They’re a charming group of buildings, aren’t they? Let’s go inside.’
He grabbed her hand. ‘Put your safety helmet on first. We’ll go slowly. No rushing into the buildings.’
‘I’ll be careful, I promise. We might as well start at Number 1 and work our way along.’
‘Your wish is my command.’
‘You know, the street is more attractive than modern housing in England, where every house seems to be almost a carbon copy of the one next to it. When do you think these houses were built?’
He stopped again, head on one side. ‘Early twentieth century, I should think. When I find the full records we’ll see exactly when and, I hope, find out why they were deserted. I have a vague feeling they’ve been deserted since World War II. That’s surprising when they had such a housing crisis in Britain after the war, but I don’t think the War Office returned them to the family for a while after it ended.’
He took out his phone. ‘Wait a minute! Let’s take a photo of the whole row as it is now, before we even trample down the weeds.’
She continued to study the houses as she waited for him to finish. ‘They’ve all got large front windows. I think they might have been shops.’
‘Could be. There used to be lots of little local shops instead of these horrible, soulless shopping centres.’
‘The shopping centres are highly convenient in bad weather and when you need to buy a big load of groceries.’ She watched him take out a bundle of labelled keys and unlock the door of the first house, then hold up one hand to stop her going inside. She waited, dying to explore but knowing he was right to do this slowly and carefully.
‘There’s a dusty smell, but it doesn’t smell damp, so maybe the floor will still be sound.’ He put one foot on the floorboards in the entrance, then stamped hard, still holding on to the door frame. ‘Feels sound.’ He stepped inside and jumped up and down vigorously, still staying near the door. ‘Not a sign of sponginess.’
She moved forward and joined him inside.
‘Yes. Stay there till I’ve tested the rest.’ He stamped his way across the middle of the floor, after which he stood still and turned round on the spot, studying the ceiling and walls. ‘Doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, apart from years of dust and cobwebs.’
‘Good.’ She went past him and opened the door at the rear of the room, looking to her right. ‘I think this must be a storeroom. It’s quite big. There’s a small barred window at the far end of it.’
He joined her as she went into the back room. ‘This would have been the kitchen and living area. And this door leads to … a bedroom and bathroom. Very modern plumbing for those days. Shouldn’t be hard to upgrade.’
‘So it’s a house and workshop or shop, with living quarters for one person.’ She stamped on the floor. ‘It feels sound in here as well.’
‘I’m still hiring an expert to check the houses out before we start renovating them. Let’s take notes and photos and move on to the next one.’
‘Just a minute! What’s this?’ She opened a door in one wall that looked like a cupboard and found some steep narrow stairs.
He grabbed her arm. ‘I’ll go first.’
With a shrug, she humoured his protectiveness and stepped back, waiting for him to get to the top.
‘The stairs creak but they don’t seem rotten in any way,’ he called. ‘Come up and join me.’
She went up to find that there was an attic, after all, but it had its single dormer window in the rear side of the roof, so it hadn’t been visible from the front. The space was completely empty.
‘It’s huge. You could easily put another bedroom up here.’
‘Or a separate workroom.’
‘OK. Let’s move on.’
In the next house the shop area was a little smaller, the middle room bigger with a French window opening on to a side garden about three yards wide.
Before Angus could stop her, she had gone on ahead and disappeared into the back part of the house. ‘Nell, wait!’
There was no answer. Suddenly afraid, he rushed after her and found her standing staring round her as if someone had hit her on the head. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. I just—don’t laugh, but I thought I heard voices. The same voices I heard before I ever came to England: your family ghosts.’
‘Ah.’
‘I’m not making it up. I did hear them!’
‘Did they sound threatening? Something terrified the man who tried to break in, after all.’
She smiled. ‘Not at all frightening. They never do. They sound like a group of motherly older women. Today …’
‘What?’
‘They told me this will be Stacy’s house.’
‘Who the hell’s Stacy?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I thought you might know.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know anyone called Stacy. Did they tell you anything else about her? Did she once live here?’
‘I don’t know. That’s all I heard.’
‘Maybe you were just imagining things.’
She pretended to beat him over the head while chanting the lines from Hamlet at him – and not for the first time:‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’They’d had this discussion before and she refused to back down.
‘Well, if you’ve finished communing with my ancestors, let’s continue our explorations.’
They went upstairs to an area that seemed larger than that of the first house, with two decent-sized bedrooms and an old-fashioned bathroom with the sort of free-standing bath on curly feet that was fashionable all over again.
There was nothing in the rooms and the bare boards echoed beneath their feet as they walked to and fro.
The silence was suddenly broken by his phone playing the beginning of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. ‘Just a minute. I need to answer that ringtone quickly because it’s the agency that gets me casual project work and it usually means a job.’
After a brief chat with someone called Jared, he turned to her. ‘I was right. They’ve offered me a small job. It’s urgent and they’ll pay a bonus for a speedy result.’
‘And the houses?’ But she knew the answer already. When someone from the IT industry called, Angus stopped what he was doing and paid attention. It was usually very lucrative, because he had some sought-after specialist skills, and a reputation for an uncanny instinct for diagnosing problems quickly and accurately.
They walked back together, once again holding hands. But his thoughts were already elsewhere, she could tell, and he hardly said a word.
She stopped at the door to his office and grabbed his sleeve, shaking him slightly. ‘Pay attention for one minute more, Angus. Is it all right if I start looking through your family records?’
‘What?’ His eyes blinked briefly into focus.
‘Your family records – shall I go through them and see if I can find out more about Saffron Lane?’
‘Good idea.’
‘And if you can’t go shopping for your clothes tomorrow, my lad, we’ll go as soon as you’ve finished this job. You’re not wriggling out of it.’
‘Slave driver.’ He gave her a quick hug and was gone for the rest of the day and half the night, too.
She’d been looking forward to a day out in Swindon shopping and having lunch somewhere nice. However, they needed the money Angus made on these specialist jobs, so it was a good thing she had her own interests and had taken over the business side of the property.
He had been one of the trailblazers in his area of IT, but he said technology changed quickly, so he needed to make as much money as he could before things changed again and left him trailing behind. Of course, he might luck out and get into another developing area or his next app might take off. He had a few ideas he wanted to fiddle with. Who knew?
She felt sometimes as if the world had suddenly turned into a roller coaster and people no sooner adjusted to one change than they were whirled away in another direction entirely and had to scramble to keep up.
But perhaps that was her own view. Some people seemed to enjoy change.
Oh, who knew anything? She’d better make a start on those records. Saffron Lane seemed very interesting.
Chapter Two
The day ended badly when Stacy spilt coffee all over herself and the tablecloth.
Her mother grabbed the dishcloth and began to mop up, scowling at her. ‘You’ve got to snap out of this – this dopiness, Stacy Walsh, and join the real world again. You’re still down in the dumps about your divorce, I know, and it was hard when it happened so suddenly, but it’s been over a year now. More than time to move on.’
‘I know. I’m getting there.’
‘You always say that and you haven’t got anywhere noticeable yet. Just look at you! When was the last time you had your hair trimmed? Or bought a new top? That one’s too small for you now.’
‘Leave me alone. Please, Mum. I’ve had a hard day at work.’
‘So have I. So has your dad. Employers don’t pay anyone to sit around sunbathing, you know. Anyway, I’m not going to leave you alone from now on. I’ve tried doing that and it doesn’t work. I love you too much to stand by while you go on like this, hiding from the world except for going to work, treading water instead of doing something with yourself. You’re only twenty-five. Your life isn’t over yet.’
‘Mum, I—’
‘Apart from anything else, you’re spoiling our lives too.’
That was the last thing Stacy had expected to hear, and the last thing she wanted to do. ‘What do you mean? I don’t intrude on your privacy. I’m quiet and I do my share of the housework.’
‘Well, I wish you would intrude on our privacy more. You used to be so lively, but now I wish you weren’t so quiet. We hardly know you’re there.’ She mopped her eyes. ‘We worry about you, Stace. You spend most evenings moping in your bedroom, fiddling with your computer. It has to stop, and soon.’
‘What’s the urgency?’
‘We’re selling this house, so we need you to find a place of your own and move your things out of our garage.’
‘Selling the house? But you’ve lived here ever since you got married. It’s your home.’ And it still felt like her home, too.
‘Not any longer. It’s more than time for us to try something else. And even if we weren’t moving, when I said you could come and live with us for a while, I didn’t mean for ever. I was going to give you another month or so to get your act together then tell you to move, but it’s been taken out of our hands. Your father’s just been made redundant.’
‘Oh, no! What are you going to do? Can he find another job?’
Her mother smiled. ‘He doesn’t have to. We’re not without savings and he’s getting quite a generous payout which will top them up nicely. So I’m giving up my job and we’re going to move to the country. You know we’ve always planned to retire early and run a B&B.’
‘I thought that was just a dream.’
‘There’s no “just” about dreams, unless you want to drift along dreaming. It takes hard work to make them come true. We’ve always planned for a B&B, we’ve even done courses about it, and this is our chance. You’ve still got a job, so you can afford the rent on a flat of your own, or you could even put down a deposit and buy a small flat with your share of your own house sale. That’d keep you on the housing ladder.’
She waited and when her daughter didn’t reply, added in a firm tone of voice, ‘We’ll give you a fortnight to find somewhere for yourself, your furniture and your junk, then this house is going up for sale. It’s Saturday tomorrow so you’ve time to go round the estate agents and talk to them about what’s on offer. You could even look some places up online tonight. And, of course, your father will help you move your stuff when the time comes. He can borrow his friend’s van as he did when you broke up with that horrible Darren Cooke.’
She waited and when she got no answer from her daughter, said sharply, ‘I mean it, Stace!’ and left the kitchen.
Stacy was so shocked by this ultimatum she didn’t move for a moment or two. Then she made a fresh cup of coffee and took it up to her bedroom. No, not her bedroom, she mustn’t think of it like that any more. This was her parents’ spare bedroom.
She caught sight of her own face in the dressing-table mirror and that gave her a further jolt. Her mother was right. She did look a mess. She hadn’t bothered to change out of her drab work clothes, her hair badly needed cutting and, admit it, she’d put on weight since the divorce – a lot of weight, a couple of dress sizes. Setting the cup of coffee down carefully on the table mat, she sat on the edge of her bed staring at her reflection, not liking what she saw.
Crossing her arms round herself she rocked to and fro, beyond tears, but feeling full of pain. Bad enough that Darren had started being a bit violent. She hadn’t known what to do about that, had felt too ashamed to seek help.
Then last year he’d suddenly told her that he’d met someone else and was having an affair. He’d doubled the blow by saying that he’d have left her anyway because he didn’t like being married and didn’t want to settle down and have a family. And she wasn’t much fun in bed. Ha! That was because he’d started hurting her. He always apologised and said it was because he got carried away, but she’d gradually come to realise that he enjoyed it.
She’d been so stupidly, blindly in love it had taken her months to understand she’d been more in love with being married, having her own home and planning to have children than she’d been with spending her whole life with Darren. She’d been such a fool, and that had added an extra layer of humiliation to the break-up.
Now her parents were throwing her out and it felt as if no one wanted her.
In the end she couldn’t hold the tears back any longer and wept herself to sleep, crying quietly for a long time, not wanting her parents to hear.
She woke again just after midnight and couldn’t get back to sleep, so she went online for a while and had a look at houses for rent. The costs had shot up since she’d last rented anywhere and she definitely couldn’t afford to rent a whole house on her own. A small flat, not even one near the centre of Bristol, was the best she could hope for.
After a while she went back to bed, yet even though she felt exhausted, sleep still eluded her. As the darkness morphed slowly into the grey of early dawn, it began to feel as if the river of tears had cleared some blockage inside her. Her parents were changing their whole lives, and if they could move on, so could she.
She didn’t need to look into the mirror to remember how awful she looked, but when she got up, she did face her reflection again, staring back at the puffy face and body. She’d fought so hard to lose the last of her plumpness for the wedding, because Darren liked girls who were sylph-like; now all the fat was back on again, plus a little extra.
The first decision about her new life was easy to take: the weight wasn’t going to stay on. She’d lost it before, could do so again. It wouldn’t be easy because her body seemed to be programmed to be bigger than men liked. But she’d work on it.
The main decision kept eluding her, however. Where should she go? Should she try to get a new job and move right away from here? She had enough computer and graphic design skills to find a job easily, even if it wasn’t a particularly highly paid one. Yes, that might be a good idea. If she stayed in Bristol, everywhere would remind her not only of Darren but of her carefree years of working hard during the week and squeezing out time for her own art at weekends.
She still had a few friends around the place, good friends, too. She’d neglected them after she got married because Darren preferred them to go out mainly with his friends. Why had she let him do that to her? Why had she just given in? She’d hardly been out at all since they broke up, too ashamed of the failure of her marriage to face the success of her friends’ relationships.
She’d go round some estate agent offices this morning. Surely there would be something available to rent in her price range?
She knew what she really wanted to do. Her parents weren’t the only ones to have a dream. But she doubted that it’d be possible to make a living from her art, however hard she tried.
She wasn’t going to buy a place of her own until she was sure where she wanted to live long term. She’d really loved the little house they’d bought when they married. So had other people. It had sold very quickly, bringing them a good profit to share.
The profit was mainly down to her and so she’d told Darren, but he’d shrugged and said the courts would share things out equally, so they might as well save themselves a pile of legal costs by halving everything themselves.
He’d been right but it wasn’t fair because she’d been the one who’d had the ideas as well as the one doing most of the renovations. Her father had brought her up to use tools and build things. Darren was clueless about do-it-yourself and not at all interested in learning, so he’d worked as a barista three evenings a week to bring in the extra money they needed for the renovations.
That was how he’d met the other woman.
Stacy understood now that another thing he hadn’t liked about his wife was her being more capable in practical matters than he was. Well, too bad. She wasn’t going to pretend to be a helpless female unable to use a hammer, just to stoke his ego, or any other man’s either.
She’d heard that Darren had recently split with the other woman and couldn’t help being glad about that. The only thing she was certain about was that she was going to move forward on her own. She’d done with men.
Hurrying downstairs to grab some breakfast, she gave her mother a big hug. ‘Thanks for putting up with me – and for telling me the truth last night.’
‘Oh, darling! Welcome back.’ Her mother returned her hug and they stood close together smiling mistily at one another, then Stacy picked up her dad’s morning paper and a pen. ‘Let’s see what’s available to rent.’
It took ten days of gruelling house hunting for Stacy to find a suitable flat. The one she settled on was larger than average but old-fashioned. It was part of an old, revamped building in an industrial area, not as smart as new-build flats.
It was quite a way out of the city and the flat was distinctly shabby, but it was cheap and there was generous storage available in some sheds in the backyard for a small extra weekly payment. That tipped the balance. She had too many art things to fit into a small flat, even when they were packed up in various containers, as they were now.
She’d preserved her boxes of ‘stuff’ even during the bad times, and Darren hadn’t counted them among the household goods when they were dividing up their mutual possessions because he’d always considered them rubbish. Well, they were salvaged pieces of metal, all sorts of shapes, from which she built and welded little sculptures, many of them animals or ‘creatures’ out of her imagination.
Darren hadn’t thought much of her finished pieces, either.
Even her parents hadn’t offered more than faint praise for occasional pieces. Well, her mother liked china figurines of ladies in old-fashioned clothing, which were about as far away from Stacy’s pieces as you could get.
She didn’t care. One day she’d show them all. In the meantime, the first thing was to move into the flat, then sort everything out and start practising her welding skills again. She’d thought she could manage to clear a working space in the storage area she’d also hired, as long as she didn’t work on large pieces, but she wasn’t at all sure she could work in such a cramped space.
Well, she would try to sort something out once she got off these horrible antidepressant tablets that made her feel so sluggish.
Being depressed had to be better for an artist than being dopey like this, she told herself firmly on her first day of following the doctor’s instructions for coming off the drug. He wasn’t sure she should even do that, but she was determined not to rely on them any longer, so she insisted.
It took two more weeks for her head to feel truly clear and her artistic imagination to burst into life again. Tears of joy rolled down her cheeks when she realised that the bits and pieces of metal she’d been fiddling around with had turned into a little creature, a bit like an otter. It was so cute, she photographed it then taped the pieces it was made from together. She’d weld it properly when she’d cleared her storage area and had the space.
It didn’t even matter when her parents sold their house almost immediately and went off house-hunting in the country, because eventually she was going to live somewhere else too. Anywhere except Bristol, she decided, the first time she bumped into Darren.
The second time she ran into him, he had the gall to suggest them spending a night together for old times’ sake, because they’d always been good in bed.
As if!
Her only trouble was losing the weight. She couldn’t seem to lose it as quickly as she had last time. She didn’t even lose weight every week, however carefully she ate and exercised. Well, it wasn’t a crime to be plump, she told herself. She’d stopped putting weight on at least, and her clothes were a little looser.
For the first time in over a year, hope seemed to be hovering on the horizon, sparkling and twirling there like an expensive ornament, waiting for her to catch up and reach out for it.
Chapter Three
The following morning Nell tiptoed out of the bedroom and left Angus sleeping off his twenty hours of hard work. His concentration was so intense he barely noticed her coming into his office with the occasional cup of tea and some of them were left to go cold.
As she thought about what to do with her day, she ate a satisfying breakfast of fruit, and a boiled egg with narrow toast ‘soldiers’ to dip into the yolk. No use planning to go out clothes shopping for Angus, even locally, because he would probably sleep until mid-afternoon.
It’d be best to continue her efforts to find out more about Saffron Lane. She hadn’t discovered anything at all about it yesterday, and was eager to continue hunting through the Denning family’s mountains of records. She was intrigued by the small, abandoned street, amazed that it had sat there hidden for so many years and no one had bothered with it.
It could be so pretty and—an idea struck so forcibly that she sat perfectly still for a few moments while it sank in: if the other houses were also shops or workshops, as seemed highly likely from their exteriors, maybe they could start an artists’ colony at Dennings and rent out the cottages to creative people.
She’d seen such colonies in one or two out-of-the-way places in Australia and they attracted tourists. She wasn’t artistic herself, but she loved looking at paintings and sculptures. They wouldn’t be able to get the highest possible rents from artists, but it’d be an attraction for the small town.
And maybe – she smiled as another idea struck her – maybe one of the houses could become a little café or kiosk. There was a small park close to the top end of the next street that ran parallel with Peppercorn Street, and lots of families went there at weekends. And there were allotments nearby too. People working on them might like to buy snacks from time to time.
They’d have to check the local regulations, but she was quite sure she could set up and manage a small café, even if she couldn’t be the main person working there. She was a good organiser and a good cook, too. And they could have the back part of the ground floor as a small gallery, selling the pieces the artists made – and taking a commission on those sales, of course.
There was a faint sound of applause and she looked round in surprise, but there was no one nearby.
‘It’s just us,’ a woman’s deep, melodious voice seemed to echo around her. ‘The family ghosts.’
There was laughter at that phrase and it sounded to come from several women.
Then another, lighter voice added, ‘Your idea will work out very well for Dennings, Nell, but only if you persevere and don’t let anyone get the better of you.’
As the voices faded, Nell took a deep breath. It wasn’t her imagination, definitely not, but oh my, conversing with ghosts certainly took some getting used to. It made her feel spaced out, not exactly dizzy but drifting for a moment or two. That was the only way she could describe it.
What would Angus say to this latest encounter? And what would he think of her idea? He’d probably give one of his wry smiles and suspend judgement about the ghosts, but he might like her idea. Managed properly, it’d bring in regular money.
After clearing up, she went into the room they called the library. It was such a peaceful place, she loved spending time there. Yesterday she’d searched two large cupboards and labelled the different packages of documents she’d found with sticky notes. Today she intended to go through the big drawers full of family papers and account books, which formed the bottom layer of the row of bookcases that covered the whole of one wall. She’d done no more than peep into them until now.
Again she began noting down what was in each and sticking a list on the front of each drawer as she finished going through it. Then she found something useful and stopped to draw in a deep, happy breath. Eureka! She’d have to wait for Angus to resurface to check it out properly, but these papers and account books looked promising.
How many other secrets did this old house and its grounds hold? How fascinating it was to live here. Her parents had chosen to emigrate to Australia. She had returned to England after her sons grew up and felt equally at home in both countries. Though she missed her sons, two of them were married, one with a child, and she had Angus now. She already loved Dennings and somehow knew that she’d stay here from now onwards.
Choices could be difficult, bringing happiness but losses too. She’d heard it called the migrants’ dilemma, having people and places you loved in both countries, and now she too was facing it.
Angus came downstairs in time to join Nell for a late lunch, only he wanted what hotels called ‘a full English breakfast’: bacon, sausages, eggs, fried tomatoes, hash browns and mushrooms.
‘Can do, except for the mushrooms,’ she said. ‘Sit down and I’ll make you a mug of tea, then you can listen to my nacky idea.’
‘Nacky?’ he queried. ‘Is that a real word?’
‘It is to me. My mother used to say it.’ She put the mug in front of him and got out the food.
After he’d taken two or three mouthfuls of tea, he prompted, ‘Go on. Tell me about your nacky idea.’
She explained about setting up an artists’ colony in Saffron Lane and his face lit up.
‘Brill!’ He shovelled more food into his mouth, murmuring his approval of it.
‘Is that all you can say: “brill”?’
‘It’s all I need to say. I’m with you entirely and it’s a brilliant idea.’ He studied her face. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’
‘Yes. I’ve found some documents from World War II. Apparently the War Office took over the whole of Saffron Lane early in the war and housed some obscure unit there. They simply turned the tenants out and took over the houses. They didn’t even pay rent, nor did they ever reveal what had been going on there. And they didn’t hand it back to your family for several decades.’
‘Well, it was total war, you know, on the home front as well as on the fighting fronts. Everyone had to make sacrifices; everyone had to contribute.’
‘I’m amazed when I think what people went through, how much of their personal life they had to give up.’
‘We have some books about what went on locally if you want to find out more.’ He eyed her again. ‘Go on. From the look on your face, there’s something else, isn’t there?’
‘Yes. The War Office had planned to take over the big house as well, but decided it was too dilapidated to be worth saving. That seems strange because you said the place hadn’t been touched for decades when you and Joanna moved in. Was it really so dilapidated?’
‘Not at all. Just horrendously old-fashioned. The most urgent needs were rewiring and extending or renewing the plumbing. Luckily, I have my electrician’s ticket so I could do the rewiring once someone more experienced than me had helped to draw up an overall plan.’
There was tinkling laughter nearby and she looked at Angus but he didn’t seem to notice anything.
‘Why do you think the house seemed dilapidated?’ a woman asked, sounding amused.
‘You don’t suppose the ghosts made the house seem worse than it was, do you? So that it’d be left alone.’
He gave her a puzzled glance. ‘What made you think of that? Could they do it?’
Once again she seemed to be the only one hearing the women’s voices. ‘We can do what is needed to save Dennings. We all lived here at one time or another and care about our old home.’
More laughter then gradually the sensation of someone else being nearby faded. ‘I think they’ve gone,’ she whispered.
He shook his head in bafflement. ‘If you say so.’ As he finished his meal slowly, he looked thoughtful.
When he brought his crockery across to the dishwasher, he said, ‘Well, let’s return to more tangible matters. We’d better get someone in to inspect the houses in Saffron Lane structurally, but first, would you like to have a look at the rest of the row? I’m feeling like a stroll in the fresh air to clear my brain.’
‘I’d love to. I’ve had enough of sorting through dusty documents and it’s a beautiful afternoon, though they’re forecasting showers for tomorrow.’
Saffron Lane seemed to be waiting for them, the dilapidation of the houses softened by the lengthening shadows cast by the nearby trees.
‘I like the look of the bigger houses at the far end. Let’s go and look at those two first. Number 6 is much bigger than the others, double frontage, three full storeys.’
‘Your wish is my command.’
He stopped at the door and barred the way with one arm. ‘Wait there! I need to check that it’s safe.’
‘Ooh, you’re so masterful!’
He twirled an imaginary moustache. ‘You wait till later, my lady, and I’ll show you masterful.’
She pretended to be afraid of him, but she wasn’t, couldn’t ever be, she was sure. There had been a time when she’d been afraid of her first husband and his sudden outbursts of angry shouting, not to mention the hurtful things he said, but that had been long ago. Her Angus didn’t have a nasty bone in his body.
She watched him jump around again, testing the floor, then he beckoned her to join him.
There were two rooms with big windows at the front, again looking as if they were meant to be used as a shop, though a much bigger one than the other houses. The wooden floors were scuffed and marked, the walls covered with dingy pale-green paint. A big noticeboard still hung on one wall.
