The House (Armstrong House Series Book 1)

by A. O'Connor

  “Damn! Can’t you just keep on working until he arrives?”

  “No! It has to go on his insurance if there’s a problem, so he has to sign off. Or you replace Collins with a new architect and it goes on the new firm’s insurance. But at the moment you’re paying men for sitting around doing nothing.”

  “Bugger!” Her face creased with worry. “All right, I’ll take care of it, Mr Maguire.”

  “Trouble?” asked Tony.

  “Bloody Collins is playing hard-ball and not turning up to work. Cheek of him!”

  Tony studied his wife. “What is the problem between you and Nico? It’s been nonstop clashing since he started working for us.”

  “Whatever problem there is, it’s his problem!” she said, exasperated.

  “Nothing to do with you, of course?” he said knowingly.

  “He just gets on my nerves!”

  He put his arms around her and used a soothing voice. “Tell Tony – why don’t you like him? What’s he done?”

  “Oh nothing! I’m being stupid.”

  “Kate?” he said, with a warning face.

  She sighed loudly. “When I was growing up in Castlewest near the house, we were poor. Before my family left for New York we had nothing.”

  “I know. Same as my own background. We’re self-made. But what’s that got to do with Nico Collins?”

  “I remember him growing up.”

  “Do you? I thought you didn’t know him.”

  “Oh, I didn’t, I can assure you. We lived in different worlds. He and his family would come down to their holiday home for the summers. You know Hunter’s Farm, down the road from where we’ve bought?”

  “Uh huh,” nodded Tony, interested.

  “His father was an architect and his mother was this very beautiful woman called Jacqueline. Everyone knew of them, because they seemed quite glamorous to us back then. I remember watching them, Nico and his brothers and sisters when they came into town or were playing by the lake. I mean, they were nobody compared to the Armstrongs in the past, but they just seemed so confident and classy. I guess I was envious of them. They seemed a million miles from my family, my life.”

  “That’s a long time ago. Why is that interfering with your relationship with Nico now?”

  “We’ve fought for everything we have. Both of us, fought from the bottom up. And I just feel Nico is resentful of us because of what we have – and he’s arrogant. When I say something, or make a suggestion, he makes me feel . . . he makes me feel like I’m not that important.”

  “Come on, Kate, you’re on top of the world, everyone wants to be your friend, be with you. You’re letting insecurities from the past get the better of you. You’re no longer that girl in that town looking on at the Armstrongs enviously. You have more and have achieved more than they ever could. We’ve done it together.”

  She sighed. “You’re right of course.”

  “So you’ve two choices: either get rid of him, or forget all this nonsense and let him get on with rebuilding our new house. Our new home.”

  She looked at him and kissed him. “Thanks, Tony.”

  Nico answered the door at Hunter’s Farm and was taken aback to see Kate standing there.

  “I think we need to talk,” she said, taking off her sunglasses.

  He sighed and moved out of the way to allow her to enter. She stepped in and followed him down the corridor and into the lounge. She was impressed by the interiors which were antique and elegant and obviously hadn’t been touched for decades.

  He leaned against a sideboard in the lounge. “So?”

  “I’m not going to beat around the bush. I need an architect and you need a job.”

  “Actually, no, I don’t. I was snowed under with work. I’m burying myself here in Hunter’s Farm to try and catch up with it.”

  She dismissed him with a wave of her hand, that gesture she had that really irritated him. “Yes, but this job is special to you. It’s your ancestral home – you want to have a part in its restoration.”

  “Cut the shit and tell me what you want.”

  She lit up a cigarette. “Here’s the deal – I’ll stay out of your way while you complete construction and only come back when you are ready to renovate the interiors and need my input. Say – in three months?”

  “Four months,” he corrected.

  She made a face. “Four months then. Until then I’ll stay out of your way.” She put out her hand. “Deal?”

  He thought for a second and then shook her hand. “Deal.”

  “Great. Now we can all get back to work. You’re worse than a trade union, Nico.”

  “And less of the wisecracks,” he warned.

  She laughed. “That’s not part of the deal. Go on – make me a cup of tea to seal the pact.”

  He nodded and walked off to the kitchen. She walked around the room and took in the ambience, liking it. She looked at the photos on the wall, mainly happy family photos of the Collins family growing up. She stopped and studied the photo of his parents, Jacqueline smiling happily as she walked along the lakeshore. She walked to the sideboard and saw a photo frame turned over. She picked it up and studied it.

  And the ex-wife, I presume, she said to herself.

  Nico was back in Dublin and was in the video rental shop with Alex while she selected some DVDs. Kate had taken him by surprise with her offer of a truce. He thought she was uncompromising, one who would never give in. As they had sat and chatted that evening in Hunter’s Farm over tea, she had even managed to be charming – talking about day-to-day things in a relaxed way he would never have thought possible of the Fallons. She had chatted about her acting career and he was intrigued to find out how good an actress she apparently was. She had said she was a varied actress running the gamut from comedy to serious drama.

  Nico was peering up and down the video rental shop.

  “May I assist you?” the guy who worked in the store finally asked.

  “Em, yeah – I’m looking for a Kate Fallon DVD?”

  “Kate Fallon?” The man was confused. “Ah, you mean Kate Donovan who married Tony Fallon. Yeah, we’ve got some of her stuff here all right. What are you looking for? Her early stuff is on the end of that shelf, while her later stuff is on the end of that one.”

  “Well, what’s the difference?”

  The man laughed. “Well, her early stuff is pretty trash, to be honest, but her later stuff ain’t so bad – she even won a couple of awards.”

  “Er,” Nico scratched his head, “I think I’ll take one from either end of her career.”

  “She cut her career short when she married Tony Fallon – you know, the magnate?”

  “Was she a loss to the film world?”

  “I guess we’ll never know. She was only getting into her stride when she retired.”

  Alex placed three DVDs on the counter and announced, “I’ll take these.”

  After Alex had gone to bed, Nico put on one of the DVDs and settled back to watch Kate Fallen for the night. He was intrigued as he watched her grace the screen. He found the characters she was playing hard to associate with the Kate he knew.

  “So, are you acting in the movies, or acting in real life?” Nico questioned her image on the screen as he knocked back his brandy.

  94

  Kate had spent the day curled up in front of the fire in their lounge, reading Clara’s letters. From what she could see they were all from soldiers fighting on the front in the First World War. She was fascinated as they described their daily lives. But more intrigued by how they spoke to Clara. They held her in such high esteem, almost as if they were in love with her.

  Dearest Clara,

  I was so overjoyed to get your letter today. You don’t know what it means to me to know I’m in your thoughts at this horrible time. I think of the past here all the time, it stops me dwelling on the present. I remember the fun times we had in London before all this started, before you left for Ireland. Remember that funny incident at the
Charlemont Ball . . .

  Soon she found herself lost in his words as he described the night and Clara’s fairytale life. She was dying to open the unopened letters addressed to Pierce Armstrong, but was putting off doing so. She was curious to know how they had found their way back to Armstrong House unopened and who were they from. Maybe they had never reached him with the war, she reasoned. She had a feeling looking at the elegant writing they were from Clara writing to her husband at war. Somehow she was reluctant to open them – as if it would be an intrusion into something private and even sacred.

  The front door banged. Tony came in looking hassled and went straight to the drinks cabinet where he poured himself a large whiskey.

  “Have you not left that position all day?” he asked, seeing her stretched out in front of the fire with the letters.

  “Only to get some chocolate! These letters are so intriguing, Tony!”

  He walked over and knelt down beside her.

  “How can you even read that scrawl?”

  “I think he had beautiful handwriting!”

  “He?”

  “A Captain Hugo Arbuthnot, who was a great friend of Clara’s, and was in love with her from what I can read. Isn’t that amazing? To read his words about her?”

  “Hmmm, truly amazing,” he said sarcastically. “Wasn’t she supposed to be married to Nico’s grandfather?”

  “Yes, but there’s none from him. I guess she hid these in the floorboards so he wouldn’t get jealous.”

  He looked at her, puzzled, then jumped up and went to turn on the television.

  “I can’t wait to see how the house is coming along,” she said.

  As the news came on the television Tony raised the volume loudly and said “Shhh – I want to hear this. Lehman Brothers has collapsed.”

  “What?” asked Kate, jumping up and coming over to sit beside him as she listened attentively to the report.

  Tony swigged back his drink. “Unbelievable!”

  “What does it mean?” Kate said concerned.

  “Who knows? It’s not just Lehman Brothers – all the banks seem to be in terrible trouble.”

  “Ours included?” Her face creased with worry.

  He smiled at her. “I’ll give Steve a call tomorrow. Should be nothing to worry about.”

  95

  Kate kept to her bargain and kept out of Nico’s way until she finally received a call from him one day to come and meet him at the house. When Kate and Nico met, they each felt they harboured new revelations about the other. Nico had curiously sat through Kate’s movies and now felt he was an expert on her acting skills. After watching her weep, laugh, fall in love and murder on screen, he now felt there was more to her than the tycoon’s wisecracking wife. As for Kate, addictively reading Clara’s letters made her feel she had a link to Nico’s past.

  Nico turned the key in the front door of the house and she held her breath as she walked in after him.

  As she walked through the hallway she loved the freshly finished feel and aroma. She excitedly walked from room to room, and up the stairs where everywhere had been replaced and made safe.

  “It’s marvellous!” she said as she quickly came down the stairs. “It’s like a proper house again.”

  “I’m delighted you’re delighted,” he said with a smile, surprised there wasn’t one criticism or piece of sarcasm. “Come and see the basement.”

  She followed him eagerly and was overwhelmed to see the change. As planned, the level of the big back yard had been dropped and the old flagstones replaced. The kitchen was now full of light and the back yard formed an attractive patio outside.

  “So – where do we go from here?” she queried.

  “The next step is where you come in. We now have to create the interiors, so you need to direct me as to what you want. The house before was a damaged canvas, and we’ve repaired it, but it’s still a blank canvas, and now we need to paint our picture on it.”

  As Kate listened she thought it was such an interesting way of describing it.

  “You had some ideas of how you wanted it,” said Nico.

  “Yes, indoor swimming pools aside.” She looked mockingly at him.

  They walked into the ballroom and Kate circled around all the boxes and items of furniture stored there belonging to Nico.

  “Sorry this stuff is still here. I’ll order a truck and get it brought down to a stable I’ve cleared at Hunter’s Farm.”

  Kate traced a finger along a broken sideboard. “Is there anything of value here?”

  “Doubtful. Anything of value not destroyed by the fire was removed by my grandfather Pierce soon after and sold to help pay the mounting debts,” he said, picking up a box of chipped crockery. “Nothing of monetary value here, but I still need to go through it and throw out what I don’t want. Anyway, it’ll be gone tomorrow and no longer your problem. But what I was thinking is that there are a lot of old paintings and photos here, so I might pick up some pictures of what the rooms looked like before the fire, which would greatly assist us in the restoration.”

  “Oh, that would be great, thanks, Nico.” She began to examine a broken gramophone with intense curiosity. “Nico, if you want you can go through the items here. There’s more light and room here than in a stable at Hunter’s Farm, I imagine.”

  “It would make it easier. I can order a skip and discard stuff as I go through. You don’t mind?”

  “Of course not, and if you find anything to help with the restoration, great!” She picked up a jewellery box and examined it. She had been so intrigued reading Clara’s letters, she was burning with a curiosity to see what was amongst the items in the ballroom. “If you want – I can help you sort through things.”

  “You?” he asked derisorily.

  “What’s so unbelievable about that?”

  “You with your manicured hands and your Karl Lagerfield dress?”

  “It’s Chanel actually.”

  He gave her a condescending look. “I don’t think it’s really your scene rummaging through cardboard boxes. I wouldn’t want to keep you from some photo-call or film premiere for a charity somewhere.”

  “Nico!” Kate snapped angrily. “Will you stop suggesting I’m nothing but a trophy wife who has no interest in anything but having my photo in the magazines!”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s what I thought you were!”

  “Well, like most things you think you’re an expert on, Nico, you’re wrong! Anyway, sort it out on your own. Call me during the week.” She turned to leave.

  “Hold on!” he said quickly. “I’m sorry. I would very much appreciate your help in sorting things out.”

  Kate was amazed at the ruthlessness with which Nico went through the items. She feared that instead of being a help to him, she was more of a hindrance as she stopped him every time he went to throw away something in the skip he had ordered. She would take the item, study it, point out any merits it might have, and fight for its survival before Nico insisted on its demise.

  “It’s a useless jug! It’s cracked and the handle is missing!” His voice rose as she physically stopped him from throwing it into the skip outside the open French window.

  “But it might be an antique, I can have a friend of mine check it out,” she argued.

  He laughed. “You obviously have no idea about the world of antiques. But I do! And this is valueless!” He chucked it into the skip and it broke asunder, then he walked back inside the ballroom.

  She followed him, intensely irritated, aware he did know about antiques, and fully aware her knowledge was limited. And she hated that fact. Like everything she envied, this knowledge would have been just handed to him with the world he was brought up in.

  He opened a box and there was a brooch inside it.

  “I wonder whose breast this adorned?” he said, studying it.

  “I wonder?” She took the box from his hands and looked at it intently.

  “Now don’t try and tell me that’s worth something
?” He looked at her knowingly.

  “No, Nico, one thing I do know is jewellery. It’s a piece of worthless costume jewellery.”

  “My sentiments exactly!” He snatched it back out of her hand sand went to fire it into the skip.

  “No! Wait!” She grabbed it back out of his hand. “But it’s very pretty!”

  “Kate! I don’t have storage room to be cluttered by this kind of junk!”

  “Well, can I have it then?”

  He looked at her and shrugged. “If you want.”

  “Thank you.” She went and put the brooch box into her handbag. “It’s just very nice to possess something that belonged to a former resident of the house, whoever she was.”

  “You’d never make an antiques dealer. There’s no room for sentiment in the antiques business.”