by Niamh Greene
‘But will you really care what the locals think about you? I wouldn’t say they’re exactly … sophisticated.’
As we sped through Glacken I’d spotted one or two people. It was difficult to see what they looked like, but from their casual attire I’m guessing that none of them knows what the big fashion trends of the season are.
‘Well, I’ll want to fit in,’ Claire says. ‘After all, when I set up my practice I’ll be part of the community.’
‘Do you really think you’ll have anything in common with the villagers, though?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asks.
‘Well, have you ever heard the expression “kissing cousins”?’ I say.
‘Yeah, why?’
‘This place is so remote, I’d say everyone is related. Very closely related, if you catch my drift.’
‘Maggie, are you trying to tell me I’ll be surrounded by inbreds?’ Claire throws her head back and roars with laughter.
‘You said it, not me.’ I shrug my shoulders. ‘All I’m saying is country people aren’t what we’re used to. Don’t expect too much from them.’
‘From the backward culchies, you mean? You’re unbelievable, Maggie!’
‘Well, let’s face it, it’s not exactly café society down here, is it?’
‘It’s café society I’m trying to get away from.’ Claire sighs. Then she grips my arm. ‘Oh. My. God!’ she whispers. ‘I can’t believe it!’
‘What? What is it?’
I take my eyes off the cow’s bottom swaying in front of the windscreen and look to where she’s pointing. I can’t see anything, except more trees and overgrown bushes.
‘It’s a baby rabbit!’
I see a small furry ball move in the hedgerow. ‘That’s not a rabbit,’ I say, squinting. ‘It looks like a rat.’
‘It’s not a rat – rats don’t have little bunny tails. I want to take a photo.’
She’s stopped the car and is scrabbling in her wretched patchwork bag for the state-of-the-art digital camera I gave her for her birthday last year. I suppose I should be grateful she didn’t give it away with the rest of the stuff she carted down to the charity shop. Stuff she used to treasure but now thinks clutters her mind. I’m just grateful she didn’t chuck out her Chanel too – that’s gone into storage. I’m still hoping she’ll give it to me eventually.
‘Are you mad?’ I cry. ‘We’re never going to get there at this rate!’
‘But I’ve always wanted to see a real baby rabbit!’
‘Get down to the pet shop on Earl Street, then,’ I say. ‘I hear there’s plenty of them there – you can even buy one to boil, if you like.’
‘Now, now, Maggie.’ She pulls out the camera and leans close to the windscreen to get her shot.
‘Aren’t you at least going to get out of the car?’ I ask.
‘I don’t want to frighten it.’ She clicks the shutter. ‘Ah, look how gorgeous it is, Mags.’
‘I suppose,’ I say. The bunny is quite cute, the way it’s nibbling the grass, its little whiskers quivering in the air. It’s oblivious to us, just like the cows. What is it about the animals around here that makes them so confident and self-possessed?
‘It probably has myxomatosis, though,’ I add, in case she gets any funny ideas – like wanting to coax it inside the car with us. God knows what she’s going to suggest next – she’s been playing a lot of wild cards recently. Time was she would have wolfed rabbit au vin for supper in a snooty restaurant – now it wouldn’t surprise me if she wanted to adopt one from the wild.
‘OK, I think I’ve got the shots. I’ll keep the camera out, though, just in case I spot anything else. There’s probably loads of amazing wildlife here.’
‘Hark at you, Dr Dolittle,’ I gripe, as she turns the car key in the ignition again.
At least the road before us has almost cleared of cows at last. We finally turn the last bend and there, right in front of us, is the picture-perfect Rose Cottage.
Rule Five: Keep an open mind
‘Oh. My. God. This place is amazing!’ Claire bounds up to the cottage door, panting like a six-week-old puppy. ‘Have you ever seen anything so adorable?’ She stands back to admire the trelliswork that runs across the doorway and points out the weathervane on the roof.
I fix a cynical look to my face before I answer. It’s critical that Claire doesn’t get her hopes up about this place. For all we know it could be infested with mice the size of hamsters. ‘It’s OK, I guess,’ I say, acting like I’m unimpressed with what I see. Secretly, though, I have to admit the cottage is a lot better than I ever imagined it would be. Instead of the tumbledown shack I’d expected, the place looks in pretty good order. There’s a neat garden out front and the roof does look as if it’s been replaced pretty recently – the photos Claire had shown me hadn’t been touched up. Still, I don’t get my hopes up. God only knows what we’ll see inside – it’s probably a complete horror show in there. At best, it could be a nightmare of seventies chic. At worst, the place could be covered with mildew and dripping damp. There may even be a few resident rodents. I’ve seen hundreds of homes in my years working in Hanly’s and I’ve come to expect the very worst of all of them, no matter how promising they may look from the outside.
‘Ooooh, look at the décor – it’s gorgeous!’
Claire now has her nose flattened against the traditional sash window pane and is peering inside. ‘I just love the colour scheme, don’t you? All those pale walls mean you can introduce colour with fabric. Isn’t that blue dresser divine? Do you think it’s original to the cottage? Maybe it’s been used by families for hundreds of years – isn’t that an amazing thought? I could be part of history in the making!’
She’s practically drooling over a pine dresser that’s been painted Tiffany blue. Far from being an original feature, the landlord probably bought it for half nothing at an auction, then slapped some paint on to make it presentable – it’s bound to be crawling with woodworm. Claire has a lot to learn about how these people operate. If she goes on appearances alone, she’ll have the wool pulled over her eyes good and proper.
‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ I warn. ‘Décor can hide a multitude of things.’
‘Like what?’ She turns to face me, her eyes shining with excitement. I know she’s already imagining herself arranging antique crockery on the dresser that she thinks has been used by generations before her.
‘Like rot. Or wood lice. Or worse.’ I do my best to sound gloomy, even though I somehow inexplicably quite like the cottage. There’s something about the place. Still, it won’t do to become in any way emotional about it – I have to keep a cool head for negotiations. Looking for possible negatives everywhere ensures I’m able to do just that. It’s a trick I’ve learned from working in Hanly’s.
‘Well, it’s not like I’m buying the place – I’m sure I could get along with a few woodlice!’
Claire dismisses my concerns with a wave. Nothing is going to burst her bubble, not even my cynicism and pessimism. She’s genuinely excited at the thought of moving here.
‘Still, there’s no sign of the landlord.’ I glance at my watch. ‘He’s late.’ I look meaningfully at her.
‘So what?’ she asks, right on cue.
‘Well. It’s nothing, I suppose.’ I pause to make sure she knows that I mean exactly the opposite. ‘It’s just that good landlords are usually on time. Being late means he’s not reliable. Like he may not show up in an emergency.’
‘What kind of an emergency?’ She frowns.
This is good – I have her worried: I can tell from the way her brow has furrowed that she’s thinking about the implications of this.
‘Well, you never know what may happen,’ I say, as vaguely and as ominously as possible. Luckily, I’m very good at playing this game – as a child, imagining the disasters that could befall me was one of my favourite pastimes. Mind you, Theresa usually beat me: her version of catastrophe was always off the charts.
I don’t want to terrify her, of course not. I just want her to know what she might be getting herself into. I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t.
‘Well …’ I rack my brains for some top-notch disasters, the sort that could scare the bejaysus out of her without scarring her for life. ‘The water mains could burst and flood the place. Or the gas oven could explode. That sort of thing.’
‘The gas oven could explode?’ She doesn’t look too frightened by that.
‘Yes.’ I’m sticking to my guns. ‘It happens more than you think. These sorts of landlords don’t take due care of their property, you see, that’s the problem. They just cram as many people as they can through the door and collect the money at the start of the month. That’s all it is to them – money. Most of them are money mad.’
‘But he’s not trying to cram anyone in, Maggie.’ Claire is clearly bemused.
‘Yes … that’s what he says now,’ I reply darkly. ‘It could change.’
‘What does that mean?’ She cocks her head.
‘Well, you never can tell what these sorts have planned. Once he gets you to commit he could try to squeeze in more tenants. Who knows how many?’
‘Like in a tenement?’
‘Exactly!’ I say. I’m delighted she’s catching my drift at last. I was beginning to think I’d never get through to her.
‘You’re worrying about nothing,’ she says. ‘This is the twenty-first century, Maggie. I’ll be signing a lease – that’ll protect me surely.’
‘It may,’ I say airily, ‘it may not. Sometimes a lease isn’t even worth the paper it’s written on. You can’t be too careful.’
‘Well, I think you’re overreacting.’ Claire smiles. ‘Everything will be fine. Besides, Edward already knows it’s just you and me. I told him our plan. I mean, if you agree to it, of course …’
‘Well … he is late, that’s all I’m saying.’
I don’t want to let go of this point – it seems important somehow. Claire is pretty confident that I’ll agree to live here while she’s in India. The look in her eye tells me so. I need to pare back her expectations – we haven’t even stepped inside the door yet. This is the problem with her voyage of self-discovery – she genuinely feels enthusiastic about things instead of hating everything on sight like she did before. Surprisingly, it’s turning out to be a very inconvenient trait.
‘Not by much. And I’m sure he has a reasonable explanation. Anyway, what’s time if you think about it really? Just another constraint inflicted by society. It’s so much simpler and less stressful not to focus on these sorts of trivialities too much.’
My jaw drops. Timekeeping used to be such a bugbear of Claire’s. I was once fifteen minutes late meeting her for a pizza date and she didn’t speak to me for a week afterwards. Even then, I had to endure the my-time-is-valuable lecture twice!
‘Maybe he does have some sort of explanation,’ I say ominously. ‘But he could have called us back to tell us. That’s what a responsible, law-abiding landlord would have done.’
I turn away from Claire and decide to examine the external window-ledges for peeling paint or anything else sinister. Unfortunately the surface is smooth and glossy – they’ve been touched up recently, obviously in an effort to make the place look as good as possible. God knows what’s lurking underneath. This cowboy could have done a quick paint job to disguise how rotten the place is – I’ve seen it all before. Behind the perfect exterior there may be crumbling walls or a termite infestation.
‘Look – here he is now!’ Claire says, undisguised excitement in her voice. ‘See? He wasn’t that late!’
A battered green Land Rover squeals to a stop at the gate. That’s a surprise – maybe this guy really doesn’t have money, after all. Or maybe it’s a ploy – maybe he’s driven here purposely in the oldest car he has to make it look like he’s penniless – that’s a smart move. He probably has a fleet of top-of-the-range Bentleys in his custom-built garage at home. Well, if he thinks that old trick will work on me, he can think again. I steel myself: this guy could be a proper operator. Just because we’re in the middle of nowhere doesn’t mean the place isn’t crawling with con men.
As I watch, a very tall man in a raggy jumper and filthy jeans leaps out and I realize this can’t be the landlord after all – he’s far too scruffy. He must have sent an employee to talk to us instead. This is probably the caretaker he pays less than the minimum wage to run the place. ‘That’s not the lord of the manor, Claire,’ I say. ‘His wife – what’s her name? June – obviously couldn’t make it so he sent his caretaker with the keys. Imagine! He can’t even turn up to meet us – that’s pretty shoddy of him.’
‘Wow … he’s gorgeous.’ Claire whistles low under her breath. ‘If he’s a caretaker he can take care of me anytime.’
I take a good look at him as he gets closer. He is rather handsome – if you’re into the whole country just-rolled-out-of-a-haystack look. He’s at least six foot two, and even though his face is weather-beaten, there’s something undeniably attractive about his craggy features and long, rangy limbs. I can’t tell what colour hair he has because he has a waxed cap rammed on his head but even from here I can see that his eyes are an unusually bright blue.
‘Hello there!’ the man calls, striding up the path towards us. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late. Polly fell off her pony and I had to bandage her wrist. And then there was an incident with a bucket …’
A small child trots behind him, plaits flying and looking mutinous, her wrist bandaged neatly with white tape.
‘Don’t be silly.’ Claire simpers, smiling sweetly at him. ‘It’s no problem.’
‘I’m Edward,’ he says, offering her his hand.
‘Oh, so you’re not the caretaker, then?’ Claire flashes a sneaky smile in my direction and shakes his hand with gusto.
If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was batting her eyelashes at him.
‘Caretaker? No, there is no caretaker.’ He smiles. ‘Just me.’
They both laugh gamely at his little joke.
‘Well, you’ll do nicely!’ Claire is giggling like a teenager – she is flirting with him. ‘I’m Claire and this is my friend Maggie Baxter. I told you about her on the phone – she might take over the lease while I’m away.’
‘Of course. Nice to meet you, Maggie.’
He nods politely at me and I nod coldly back at him. If he thinks he can charm me with this nicey-nicey act, he’s mistaken. I can see right through it.
‘And this young lady is Polly.’ Edward tugs gently at the child, who’s still hiding behind his back. ‘Don’t you want to come out and say hello?’ he asks her.
‘No.’ Polly sulks and I can’t help smiling. This kid isn’t going to perform in public for anyone – I can tell by the stubborn look on her plump little face. She’s furious for some reason, and no amount of cajoling is going to make her acquiesce to the social graces.
‘Hi, Polly!’ Claire chirps, seemingly oblivious to the child’s bad temper. ‘Aren’t you cute?’
‘Not really.’ Polly looks murderous and I have to stifle a laugh by pretending to cough into my hand. This child is not going to be charmed.
‘Oh.’ Claire is taken aback and a little flustered that Polly is being so obstinately rude.
‘Sorry about that,’ Edward says, shuffling about, embarrassed. ‘She’s in a very bad temper. She’s usually a lot nicer than this.’
‘No, I’m not.’ Polly snorts.
‘Polly, please behave,’ Edward says, his voice strained.
‘No! I won’t.’ Polly stamps her foot. ‘You’re mean, mean, mean! You’re the biggest meanie ever in the world.’
This is getting more interesting by the minute and it occurs to me that it couldn’t be playing out better. Claire has never been a big fan of children – much less children who are as naughty as this one. Sh
e’s always subscribed to the school of thought that children should be seen and not heard so, hopefully, this scene will plant another seed of doubt in her mind about moving here. After all, Edward and his family live close by – if she lived here, she’d have to engage with them, probably on a daily basis. Dealing with Polly every day would wear anyone out. Edward looks exhausted, that’s for sure.
I will Polly to do something really vile to turn Claire off for good. If she vomited right here on the step, or even better when we get into the kitchen, that would be excellent. Claire has never been able to tolerate other people puking – seeing a small child barf up her breakfast would guarantee that she’d run screaming for the hills. Then we could go back to the city where we belong. Claire could give up this ashram idea and get another hedge-fund job. I could even become her assistant – it’d be just like that movie Working Girl. I’d be the lovely Melanie Griffith and Claire could be the mean Sigourney Weaver. It’d be great – much better than living here.
‘I’m sure she’s a lovely little girl,’ Claire says soothingly, apparently anxious for Polly to like her.
‘No, I’m not.’ Polly stamps her other foot, her pudgy little face getting redder.
‘Polly.’ Edward’s voice is warning.
‘One little fall and you make me get off – that is so stupid. I’m not a baby – I’m six.’
‘Honey, you sprained your wrist – you can’t ride with a hurt arm.’ He says this with the exhaustion of someone who’s been through this reasoned argument a million times already.
‘Yes, I can.’ The child glares at her father. ‘You just won’t let me. Mum would let me.’
‘Polly. We’ll talk about this later.’
‘I don’t want to talk to you again.’ Polly pouts. ‘Ever.’
‘OK, I’m sure that can be arranged.’ He grins at his daughter, so she knows he doesn’t really mean it. ‘Now, why don’t I let these ladies in to take a look at the cottage?’
He smiles ruefully at us and Claire smiles back sympathetically, obviously wanting to communicate that she knows how difficult and trying young children can be. I, on the other hand, make sure to look blankly at him in return. If he thinks he’s going to charm me with this caring-daddy routine he’s wrong. I’m here to let him know that the customer is king – and if Claire likes this place and decides she’s going to rent it, instead of starring in Working Girl with me, then I’m going to drive a very tough bargain for her. The recession means it’s a renters’ market so we have everything going for us. The ball is in our court and I’m going to make sure this Edward knows it, cute obstinate kid or not.
