Finding Home

by Lauren Westwood

  ‘No?’

  ‘Honestly, I find it a bit creepy.’ She turns away from the lovely girl in the pink dress. ‘In fact, I’m glad you dropped by. This place – it gets to you when you’re here alone.’ She crosses her arms and shivers.

  ‘It does,’ I agree, though obviously the house ‘gets’ to me in a completely different way. I follow her back down the stairs to the great hall. I offer to turn off the lights and lock up. ‘You must be dying to get back to your hotel for a nice hot bath,’ I venture.

  ‘Well, yes, actually. The flight over here was so long, and then it took forever driving all the way here on the wrong side of the road.’

  ‘Then why don’t you leave me to it. I’ll just straighten up a bit – the viewing is at two o’clock tomorrow and I want the house to look as good as possible. You did say you’re okay with it, right?’

  ‘Knock yourself out. I won’t be here – I’m going to London to do some shopping. I’ve had about as much of this place as I can take. It’s so… dead.’

  We walk together through the rooms on the ground floor while she tries to remember where she put her handbag. I notice that some of the old papers and magazines have been cleared into black bin bags in a few of the rooms, and there’s actually a smell of polish. I practically trip over a heavy upright hoover parked right in the middle of one of the drawing rooms. Someone has definitely been doing some cleaning. Not Flora, clearly, so it must be Mrs Bradford. It seems a strange thing for her to start doing her job now that it no longer matters.

  Flora locates her oversized Coach tote and puts on her coat and Burberry scarf, her eyes watering from the chill.

  ‘Can you find your way back to the hotel?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  ‘Have a good night then, and it was nice to meet you.’

  This time when I hold out my hand, she shakes it.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says gratefully.

  I wait at the door until she’s run out to her rental car and the tail lights disappear into the gloom. Then I return to the library. Whoever’s been cleaning hasn’t made it in here yet. The broken frame with the picture of the newlyweds is face down on the desk where I left it. Rain is seeping in through the open window and pooling on the rotting windowsill. The books that are propping open the window are damp too, and I remove them. The window closes with a bang and a rattle of glass. One by one, I dry the books on my scarf and put them back on the shelves: John Le Carre, Jeffrey Archer, Catherine Cookson, Maeve Binchy. And then the last book – the only one without a title or an author. It’s a little larger than a chequebook, with a black leather cover. I open it gingerly, unsure of its age.

  It turns out to be a small sketchbook, the pages filled in with doodles and drawings in black charcoal pencil. There’s no name or date inside the cover to reveal who the artist might have been, but I flip through it with growing interest. Many of the drawings are rough portrait sketches – young men, children, older women, pretty flapper girls, even a Spanish flamenco dancer. Some of the sketches have names scribbled in the margin: Feldmann, Stein, Rabinowicz. There are also sketches of fancy clothing, like the artist was designing for the theatre. There are beaded flapper dresses with dropped waists, 1930s bias-cut dresses, and jaunty little 40s pencil skirt suits and Homburg hats.

  And at the very end, I find a page labelled ‘Windham’, marked with a folded-over piece of ivory paper. There are several sketches of a dour-looking young man with a thin nose, delicate cheekbones, and a curtain of hair falling half over one eye. I flip over the page, and my heart thuds against my ribcage. She’s there – in profile and en face – the girl in the portrait on the stairs! Her hair is different than in the portrait – tied severely back from her face rather than loose at her shoulders. But the eyes that stare out at me are the same, I’m sure of it. Rendered in muted charcoal, she looks even more like Ms Flora. The rest of the pages in the book are blank. Whoever she was, she was the last person to be sketched by the artist.

  I close the book and sit down on an old threadbare sofa with a trail of stuffing that’s been gnawed by mice. I consider what I know so far about the girl in the portrait – nothing – and about the Windham family – very little. The letters between Henry and Arabella mention an artist friend of Sir George’s who was hired to paint Henry’s portrait, using the studio up in the attic. That would have all taken place in the early 1950s. The date on the frame of the girl in the pink dress is 1899, making her well over a hundred years old. So that leaves two possibilities. Either the sketchbook dates back to the time of the portrait – unlikely given the styles of the clothing in the drawings; or else the artist sketched the portrait itself, rather than the original sitter. It’s somewhat odd that he sketched her with a different hairstyle, but I suppose he was simply captivated by her face, and those bold blue eyes.

  The little book has so piqued my curiosity that I’m a little disappointed that it doesn’t hold any real answers. Mrs Bradford said that the girl wasn’t Sir George’s wife or mother. So who was she?

  I slip the book into my bag for safe keeping – I can’t risk Flora throwing it out with the rubbish or tossing it in the auction box. As I do, the page marker slips out onto the floor. I pick it up, realising that it’s actually a letter that’s been folded over and used as a bookmark. Ignoring a momentary niggle about poking my nose where it doesn’t belong, I unfold it and read through it:

  Rosemont Hall

  April 1st 1952

  My dear friend—

  I eagerly await your arrival. Has it really been more than a decade since we last saw each other? When I close my eyes I can still smell the scent of gardenia, feel the warmth of the Andalusian evenings on my face, taste the wine and the salt of sweat on my lips. I’ve never felt so alive as when we were cheating death every day.

  Now that we are soon to meet again, I must warn you that the years have not been kind. I have sold my treasures off one by one, in order to maintain this house. And each time, it’s felt like a little death. Only you can help me now, in this, my hour of need.

  Be assured that you have been given the finest space in the house, with a view of the parkland, and natural light that floods in through the oriel window. It’s everything an artist could want. And you, my friend, are so much more than that.

  Please come immediately. I have enclosed money for the fare. We will say that you are here to paint my son’s portrait. Your work must be finished before the date we spoke of. I am planning a grand ball for the occasion. And maybe, a few fireworks…

  The letter isn’t signed, but I deduce that it was written by Sir George. I read through it again. The references to his time in Spain and the sale of his treasures is self-explanatory, but what did he mean by his ‘hour of need’? And what about the portrait? There’s no portrait of Henry in the house.

  I refold the letter and tuck it back into the sketchbook. There’s more here than meets the eye, and I’m going to keep collecting any pieces to the puzzle. A puzzle that no one is looking to solve, and pieces that no one will miss. I zip the letter and the sketchbook up in my bag.

  I spend another hour looking through some of the old books and papers in the library, but don’t find anything else. It’s getting late, and with three viewings tomorrow, morning will come all too quickly. I walk through the downstairs rooms off the great hall and shut off the lights. Before leaving, I climb the stairs to the landing and pay one last visit to the girl in the pink dress.

  ‘I told her a few white lies to buy you some time.’ I remove the sticker that Flora must have stuck on the frame when I wasn’t looking. ‘But just how much, I don’t know. Don’t tell anyone, okay?’

  Just for a moment, I imagine that the girl in the pink dress seems to smile a bit more broadly – even conspiratorially – now that she’s keeping my secrets as well as her own.

  - 17 -

  Saturday. I wake up to winter light streaming in through the curtains. Last night’s visit to Rosemont Hall and meeting the �
��the girl in the portrait’ seems like an odd dream. I know it’s real only when I check my knicker drawer and find that the bundle of letters, the gold lighter and the artist’s sketchbook are all still there. I’d like to sit down and go through everything again; reconstruct the final hours before the ball; look for connections that I might have missed. But I don’t have that luxury now. Because all too real is the stack of glossy brochures on the nightstand – the particulars for the day’s three viewings.

  When I emerge from my room, Mum accosts me with a full English (minus the sausages and the stewed tomato). ‘You’re not leaving the house again, young lady, without a proper breakfast.’

  There are worse things in the world than Mum’s cooking, so I sit down at the table in the kitchen and tuck in. I’m going to need every ounce of strength today.

  ‘Three viewings?’ Mum shakes her head when I tell her my itinerary. ‘You’ve been working six days a week. For what they’re paying you, it isn’t right.’

  ‘But Mum, if I can sell a property and get a commission, then it will be worth it.’ Someday soon I’ll be able to buy or rent my own flat and move out, I don’t add.

  She sips her coffee, looking distinctly sceptical, and I regret having told her that the Blundell deal fell through. However, that was just bad luck. The Blundells prove that, barring unforeseen circumstances, I can sell a property. And since I’ve done it before, I can do it again. Today.

  I down a second cup of coffee and drive to my first viewing appointment: the cottage near Shepton Mallet. The house is in the centre of a small village that is charming at first glance. At second glance, the post office is ‘to let’, the duck pond is chock-full of floating rubbish, and the pub on the green is boarded up. In fact, the only open business is a garage advertising ‘pass or don’t pay’ MOTs. But on the plus side, there are nice views of open countryside, and the property I’m here to show – Acorn Cottage – is half-timbered and quaint.

  I park the car and quickly review my notes. The clients – a Mr and Mrs Wakefield – are retirees looking to downsize. The vendors are a Mr and Mrs Chip.

  I make my way through the miniature gate in front of the house and walk up the weedy path. I’d assumed – and hoped – that ‘The Chips’ would be out during the viewing. But I can hear voices from inside. I tap the tarnished brass knocker on the door. Inside, everything goes quiet.

  A minute later, bolts and chains start to jingle. The door opens and a tiny woman (literally – she comes up below my chin) with stringy black hair stares up at me, a cigarette dangling from her mouth.

  ‘Hi.’ I put on my cheeriest smile. ‘I’m Amy Wood, the estate agent. Mrs Chip – is that right?’

  From behind her, a child screams: ‘Mum, Joey did a poo poo in his pants.’

  Mrs Chip ashes the cigarette at my feet.

  ‘I’m here to show the cottage,’ I say, ‘– at half nine?’

  ‘Uh huh.’ She stands aside and I enter. The room is filled with scattered toys and reeks of ashtrays and dirty nappies. In the centre of the room is an oversized dining table with (I count them) six small children seated around it eating some kind of gruel, and a seventh in a bouncer. One small boy has sick down his front. The unnatural silence is broken when he flings a spoon of slop at the face of a chubby ginger-haired girl across from him.

  Mayhem breaks out: ‘Stop it Ronnie!’; ‘You started it!’; ‘Susie called me a wanker’; ‘Can I go watch Waybuloo?’; ‘Mum, Willy ate a bogey.’ Mrs Chip ignores them all, and stares at the television which is blaring with Bargain Hunt.

  In the height of the fray, the door knocker clunks. The Wakefields – right on time. Unfortunately.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ I say, though no one is listening. A projectile of goop goes flying in my direction. I barely manage to duck in time for it to whizz past me and splat against the wall.

  I hurry to the door and fling it open. A prim, serious-faced older couple is standing outside wearing what at first glance seems to be matching tweed suits and small wire-framed glasses. The woman frowns as the din behind me crescendos.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Wakefield.’ I pretend I can’t hear the cacophony. ‘I’m Amy Wood. I’ll be showing you the property – it’s a lovely character cottage, don’t you think? Can I suggest that we start with the outside?’

  From the first, it’s clear that the Wakefields are neither impressed, nor amused.

  ‘From the map on your website, we were expecting it to be off the main road,’ Mr Wakefield says to me as we stand in the overgrown jungle of a garden.

  ‘And the particulars didn’t have any outside photos – I’d no idea that the roof was thatched.’ His wife frowns. ‘That’s a bit of false advertising.’

  ‘It costs a bomb to insure thatch,’ Mr Wakefield chimes in. ‘I’ve been in the insurance industry for 40 years, like my father before me. So I should know.’

  ‘Of course.’ I smile through my teeth. ‘On the plus side, if I’m not mistaken, Mrs Chip is keen to sell.’ At least, I assume she is given that her current set-up is like the little old woman who lived in a shoe.

  Having exhausted the viewing possibilities of the outside, I usher them inside the cottage, where things have gone from bad to worse. The children have finished their breakfast and are up from the table. Two are fighting over a ride-on Thomas the Tank Engine, and one boy is literally swinging from the net curtains. A mucky-faced girl has her sister by the throat, and two of the older boys are playing ‘doctor’ with a butter knife. Mrs Chip seems impervious to the chaos, nonchalantly eating crisps straight from a bag with one hand, and smoking a cigarette with the other.

  Mrs Wakefield takes one look around and begins to cough.

  ‘Why don’t we go upstairs,’ I suggest. I lead the way up the narrow staircase.

  At the top of the stairs, Mr Wakefield bangs his head on a low beam. ‘Bollocks!’ he yells, rubbing his head.

  ‘Mummy, mummy, that man said bollocks!’

  I cringe inwardly. ‘As you’ll see, there are three lovely good-sized bedrooms up here and plenty of loft space for storage.’

  The bedrooms are packed floor to ceiling with toys and oversized furniture. Everything reeks of smoke. Mr Wakefield ducks and dives under low beams, and Mrs Wakefield walks around with her nose wrinkled up like a pug dog. As we all crowd into one of the tiny rooms, Mrs Chip comes in carrying an enormous pile of laundry. I’m about to suggest that we move on when Mr Wakefield decides to get chummy.

  ‘Why are you selling?’ he asks Mrs Chip. All of us ignore a blood-curdling shriek from downstairs.

  ‘My piece o’ shit bloke ran off with some tart he met at the school. Me and the kids got a two-bed council flat in Yeovil.’

  ‘Oh,’ the three of us say at the same time, for different reasons.

  We take a quick peek at the tiny, grimy bathroom that stinks of potty-training-in-progress. Then we head downstairs to the war zone, where little has changed except that two of the children have hunkered down in front of the TV, and one little boy is standing on the table waving a plastic gun at us.

  ‘Uhh, the kitchen, airing cupboard and the sitting room,’ I practically shout. ‘Lots of original features and potential for renovation.’

  It feels like forever as the Wakefields explore the nooks and crannies – crunching plastic toys underfoot, opening overflowing cupboards – even the fridge. By the time it’s finally over, my lip is sore from steady biting. I give Mrs Chip a curt ‘thanks’, and herd the Wakefields out the door. ‘Sorry about that,’ I say.

  ‘It’s a charming cottage,’ Mrs Wakefield says.

  ‘Sorry?’ I do a double-take. They hated it – didn’t they?

  She shrugs. ‘Too bad it’s on a main road.’

  ‘And thatched,’ her husband adds with a disappointed tsk.

  ‘Yes, it is too bad.’

  I hand them an extra copy of the particulars, promise to keep in touch, and as soon as they’re gone, make a beeline for the peace and quiet of my car.

/>   *

  The next viewing is in Glastonbury – No. 12 Orchard Terrace. As I drive into the town, I begin to feel better – the mystical pull of the Tor works its magic. It’s said that King Arthur and Guinevere are buried in the abbey. I imagine myself as a knight errant, on a quest for the Holy Grail – my first sale.

  I drive past the New-Age shops selling crystals, love potions, indie music and goth clothing in all shades of black. The town centre looks lively and robust. But past the shops and cafés I turn off into a warren of less quaint streets lined with council blocks. Orchard Terrace has a tattoo parlour with three leather-clad bikers hanging around outside. The 1930s pebble-dashed semis are faded and decrepit; several have boarded-up doors and windows filled in with breeze blocks. My enthusiasm evaporates.

  I park the car and check my notes. My client is a Mr Patel, a property developer. The house is a 1930s semi that was recently occupied by squatters but has now been cleared out by the police. I roll down the window to take a look.

  Every window of the house is broken or boarded up, and the plywood door has a red spray-painted biohazard sign on it. I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe the police declared success a little too early, because there’s a booming beat coming from inside the house. Someone is home.

  This clearly wasn’t part of the plan, but I’ve no time to debate what to, because just then, a big black car pulls up behind me and an Asian man in a dark suit gets out. I open my door and try to put up my umbrella but it blows inside out. I shove it back in the car.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, ‘I’m Amy Wood, the estate agent. You’re Mr Patel?’

  The man frowns and nods his head.

  ‘Honestly, I thought the place was vacant, so I think we should reschedule...’ I say the last word to his back. He’s already walking swiftly towards the house.

  I curse under my breath and follow him to the cover of the leaky porch.

  ‘Someone’s inside...’ I repeat.

  He holds up his hand to cut me off. ‘It is of no importance.’