Rumours

by Freya North

  ‘Oh,’ said Stella, confused that the demon jogger should open the door.

  Xander didn’t answer, he just executed one of his expansive sweeping gestures with his free hand to welcome her in, as if genuflecting with his tongue firmly in his cheek.

  ‘Is Mr Fletcher home?’ Stella said. ‘Lady Barbary-Fortescue told me I was to ask for him.’

  ‘I am he,’ said Xander, doing another sweep of his arm because Stella was still standing on the doorstep, determined to hold out for a Mr Fletcher.

  ‘No,’ she said, rather formally, ‘I don’t think so.’ She looked through sheaves of paper on her clipboard. ‘No.’ She looked up. ‘You’re the Jogging Man.’

  Xander was momentarily silenced. There was something unnerving about her conviction, her eyes unblinking. Brown. A strange brown – pale fawn flecked with auburn, striated with amber. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The two times I’ve seen you, you’ve been out jogging – and both times you’ve practically tripped me up.’ That should wipe that cocky smile off your face.

  ‘I run, I don’t “jog”,’ Xander said, as if he was a Michelin-starred chef being asked for a Big Mac. They stared at each other a moment longer, unsure who was quarry, who was prey. ‘I am Xander Fletcher – and if you want to call me Mr Fletcher, that’s fine, Mrs? Miss?’

  ‘Hutton,’ said Stella briskly. ‘Ms Hutton.’ She wasn’t going to pander to this pompous prick and argue the toss between jogging and running.

  ‘Come in, Ms Hutton,’ he said wearily, walking ahead of her. ‘And it’s “Lady Lydia Fortescue”,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Or she’ll have your guts for garters.’

  To Xander, Stella today looked younger than he had first thought; less confident, less officious – and he felt a fool for having been remotely threatened in the first place. Look at her, hugging her clipboard as though it contains trade secrets or revision notes for an exam she’s eagerly prepared for.

  ‘Please, Ms Hutton,’ he said, annoyed with himself. ‘Let me show you around.’

  You’re not getting my first name out of me, thank you very much. ‘I’m just here to have a quick look – I won’t keep you long,’ said Stella, thinking to herself, I can’t believe he’s Mr Fletcher. She thought, I bet his cupboards are full of stinky jogging trainers.

  Running shoes.

  She thought, I could murder a cup of tea.

  ‘Tea?’ he offered, taking a sip of his.

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Stella, primly. ‘I’d like to get cracking.’

  ‘It’s no bother,’ he said and she noticed his face was open, his head tilted, his offer simple and friendly. He was running his hand across his hair, smiling with grey-blue eyes.

  ‘Well, OK then. Tea. Thank you.’ She watched him walk off to the kitchen, open plan with the sitting room. She wondered whether he’d been out running today too. She wondered what exactly was the difference between jogging and running? Just speed? Or distance covered? Or some physiological distinction between types of footfall? Was he having to stay in because of her visit? He’d seemed pissed off initially, now no longer. He looked comfortable in his home, whistling softly as he made her tea. Black jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt. It was grey and had a darker grey print of a native American Indian. She wondered, what made him choose that? He looked, today, like someone she might know, like someone who might well be part of her milieu. But she decided swiftly to un-notice all of that. And then she thought, it’s silly to wonder about any of this – I have work to do and football to get to.

  She loosened her hug on the clipboard and made notes on the room. It wasn’t dissimilar in layout from next door’s, identical in size and yet with a very different feel. Number One had appeared tiny on account of Peg Gilbey’s dark furniture, swirly carpets and whatnots crammed with, well, whatnots. Number Two had seemed airier and yet cooler too with all those Farrow & Ball neutrals. Here at number three there was exposed brickwork and beams; flagstones partly covered by a rug in autumnal shades and an Aztec design, a coffee table hectic with books and newspapers and a scatter of mail. The sofa, indented from where the last person sat. An armchair with a sweatshirt draped over the back and an Iain Banks open halfway through, face down. Number Three was homely.

  Stella glanced down at the page of notes. Facts. Jargon. They seemed to quash the spirit of this man’s home. What was it that she suddenly felt? Not guilt – how could it be? He wasn’t being forced to sell. He didn’t even own it. Regret? It was disconcerting. She told herself to snap out of it – she would much rather be annoyed with him. Because he was an arrogant cock, wasn’t he. But she did feel concern. And just a little intrigued. Why was he so irked about the potential sale? What exactly was Lydia to him? He said he’d been at Longbridge all his life – how so? Was it just a purely sentimental attachment? But did he really matter? Did the George family next door matter? Miss Gilbey did. And so did Art. And his neighbour, Mr Tringle. And someone else called Clarence, who lived in a little stone building in a field a way off from the stable yard. They were elderly. Longbridge was all they’d known and to an extent, it defined them. What would they be without it? She thought about Clarence – she had yet to visit him. She’d have to fudge it until they were at the stage of setting out the prospectus. These folk were dependent. Where would they go? This Xander Fletcher – he’d be OK.

  Commission. Commission. Commission.

  I had to leave my home. Sell it fast and for a fraction of what it might have realized in a year or two.

  Damn the recession!

  Damn bloody Charlie.

  ‘Tea.’

  Stella blinked. Xander, handsome in grey, looking at her quizzically, offering her tea in a mug that was telling her to Keep Calm or Fuck Off. She looked at it, then at him and smiled, lifted the mug as if it was a wineglass, raising it so that the message was relayed back to him.

  ‘Thank you.’ She took a sip. He didn’t appear to notice which mug he’d given her. Or maybe he did. It figured. ‘Lived here long?’ How corny did that sound.

  ‘I grew up on the estate – with my family.’

  Stella nodded. ‘I meant here – in this cottage?’

  ‘Eight years.’

  She blew rhythmically at the tea, watching intently the ripples on the surface. Eight years a home doth make. She felt at once awkward. She hadn’t felt this when she visited the Georges next door.

  ‘Yep,’ he said, ‘eight years. I could have bought one of the new houses but I wanted to be part of Longbridge again. And Lydia is very fair with the rent.’

  ‘Peppercorn rent,’ said Stella.

  Xander nodded.

  ‘I’ve always loved that expression – and the concept,’ said Stella. That’s enough talking.

  The tea scorched the back of her throat. She put the mug down, on last week’s Sunday Times which was uppermost on the pile on the coffee table. She took a broad tape measure from her bag and started to work. Bloody thing! Curling back on itself with a twang, flinging itself back into the casing as if struck by acute shyness. How amateur she must look.

  ‘Do you want me to hold it?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Stella. ‘I mean, I know the room’s about seventeen by fifteen – not just because the others are. Because actually, I can estimate pretty well. But that’s in feet, and I know that converts to about five by four but I have to account for every centimetre so yes – thanks.’

  ‘Here.’ Xander held the case while Stella pulled the metal ribbon to the other side of the room. ‘Seventeen exactly.’

  ‘Bang on!’ she said with a triumphant thumbs-up that was artless and funny and made him laugh.

  He thought, who on earth finds seventeen feet so thrilling? He thought, I don’t think she’s really a proper estate agent. ‘Five metres eighteen centimetres,’ he said deadpan.

  ‘Just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it!’

  Xander raised an eyebrow and turned away. ‘Come on,’ he said and he showed her elsewhere downstairs. The kitchen, th
e cold little loo crammed with the washing machine currently in spin cycle while photographs of Xander finishing races rattled against uneven walls, as if he was running right out of the frames. The back door out to the garden.

  ‘Veggie patch,’ he said. ‘I like my veggies.’ And he thought, what a bloody stupid thing to say.

  ‘Do you live here alone?’ Stella asked. She didn’t have to. She wasn’t sure why she did.

  ‘Yes,’ said Xander, whose thoughts strayed momentarily to Siobhan and the text he’d had in response to his.

  Ok. Good luck. And thanks! SEx

  Upstairs, a box room with a rowing machine that could only fit on the diagonal and a windowsill heaving with trophies. Next door, a tiny bedroom with a futon sofa bed – she hadn’t seen one of those in a long while. A sympathetically modernized bathroom and then, finally, the master bedroom. Stella thought, if he had owned this cottage and wanted to sell it, she’d say to him, you need to do something in here, Mr Fletcher, you need a woman’s touch. Even a couple of scatter cushions would help. A throw at the end of the bed. Different linen, perhaps – not that cold white. And ironed too. His bedroom was the least attractive room in the whole house. No personality, a basic coldness. Just a bed, a closet, a mirror, a chest of drawers, a folding chair folded against the wall. And more framed photos of Xander running his socks off. Narcissistic prat! No curtains. The warmth and homeliness downstairs was utterly absent here – as if there was a downstairs bloke and an upstairs one.

  ‘You have no curtains,’ Stella remarked.

  He looked at the window as if he’d only just noticed himself. He saw his bedroom through Stella’s eyes. ‘Well, I’m not getting curtains just so Lydia can get an extra bob or two for Longbridge,’ he said and he walked out, so close to Stella that she had to step back to avoid being pushed into and, in the process, caught her back on the edge of the drawers. It hurt.

  ‘I didn’t imply that you had to!’ Stella retorted, stomping after him. Her back was smarting and she was thoroughly irked. Xander was standing on the landing, arms crossed, with a glower on his face.

  ‘I was just noticing, that’s all!’ Stella descended the stairs in front of him with a perceptible flounce. The cottage was small enough for her tea to be still hot. She gulped it, irritated by his shortness, cross with herself for feeling affronted. Cross with herself for feeling just a little compelled by all those bloody photos of him, pounding twenty-six miles out of pavements in various locations. ‘Right,’ she said brightly, a little spikily. ‘That’ll do.’

  He was between her and the front door. ‘Right,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Fletcher,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘I’ll be in touch, as and when.’ He noticed how she checked her bag and heard her say under her breath, phone, tape measure, keys.

  With his hand on the latch, he stopped and turned to her. ‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘she’s an old battleaxe but she’s vulnerable too.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Lydia,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t feel that’s any of my business.’

  ‘But Lydia and the old house aside – please just consider how there are so many people woven in with Longbridge,’ Xander said. ‘It’s not about money – there’s a morality bound up in the mortar.’ He paused, searched her face to see if she was listening properly. ‘People’s lives,’ he said, only now opening the front door. ‘The integrity of the place. The vision Gregory Lynforth, the architect, had. The utopian plans of Frederick Makepeace William Fortescue.’ Xander didn’t know where he was going with all this and he knew he sounded melodramatic. ‘The sale will affect so many. Past and present. There are fewer and fewer of these estates left. You lose them, you lose a way of life. You destroy balance. In this village in particular.’

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ Stella said. He had to admit to himself, he had made it sound as though she was culpable.

  ‘I’m not saying it is,’ he nodded. ‘You’re just doing your job, and your job, ultimately, isn’t about people – it’s about percentages and commissions.’

  Do. Not. Redden.

  But it was true.

  How mortifying that, deep down, she knew she’d become so mercenary. Even so, she felt he didn’t have to make her sound so heartless and materialistic.

  ‘I’m saying Lydia is old and perhaps there is a solution, an alternative, to her selling.’

  Stella thought about this. ‘It’s not for me to advise,’ she said. ‘It’s beyond my remit. She asked for a valuation, and that is what I’ll give her. If she wants me to represent the sale, then I will gladly do so. But ultimately, I can’t see what business it is of yours.’

  Xander said nothing, knowing he’d said enough, perhaps too much.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, stepping aside to let her pass. ‘It’s none of my business. It’s just a shame that the human side of Longbridge – of Long Dansbury – appears to be none of your business either. Goodbye.’

  His words ricocheted around Stella’s head as she walked to her car, his garden path feeling to her like the plank on a pirate ship. She felt like saying, hey! estate agents have feelings too! But that sounded as though it belonged on a mug or a bumper sticker. Anyway, what was the point? She heard the door shut firmly. Why did she care what he believed? Why did he care so much about something Lydia seemed so level-headed about? After all, it was her place not his; her decision. And people would find new homes, other jobs.

  ‘Get over yourself!’ Stella said, as if Xander Fletcher was still in earshot. She drove off angrily, feeling affronted. And something else. What was it she felt? Why were her cheeks burning up? What was it?

  A little bit ashamed.

  It was true – the percentage. All those juicy zeros. They were what mattered most to Stella. Fine old house and grounds, sweet little old lady in the cottage, doddery old characters in the stables, some old boy called Clarence who appeared to live in a remote sty whom she had yet to meet, a talkative bronze statue in the garden, cartoon-perfect housekeeper, the mad old bat who owned it all. And this man – this jogging running stroppy man who’s against it, handsome and fit and morally upright but with a cold cold bedroom that appeared to have a story behind it. None of his business. Business is business. Sell it. Just sell it. It’s a dog eat dog world, Geoff had said to her when one of her clients had been gazumped last week. She thought, he’s right – it is. And then she thought, even so – I don’t like sodding Mr Fletcher defining me as one of them. And she thought, why can’t I get those bloody photos of him and his legs and the triumph and pain and achievement on his face out of my mind?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mrs Gregg took the call. Xander noticed she was doing a lot of listening and not much talking. ‘Please hold – I shall put you through,’ she said, eventually. As his desk phone rang, Xander looked over to her. ‘It’s a Mrs Hutchins?’

  ‘Mrs Hutchins? I don’t know a Mrs Hutchins,’ but he answered the phone anyway. ‘Xander Fletcher – good afternoon?’

  ‘Oh, Xander – I wasn’t sure really what to do so I decided to phone you. I’m in a bit of a tizz really – I’m just confused.’

  Who was this?

  ‘And where do I fit in?’ he asked, diplomatically.

  ‘Well, it was Len’s idea, really. He said, Doreen – rather than take the rumours as gospel, why don’t you speak to Xander instead of getting your knickers in a twist with all the not-knowing. He speaks like that – you know he does.’

  It’s Doreen – Doreen from the village.

  ‘What is it, Doreen – are you OK?’

  ‘It’s what’s being said – about Longbridge Hall. We’re on a peppercorn rent here – Lydia’s been very generous. But I worked all those years in her kitchen, when Len was with the Longbridge cows. We only have our pensions. What will we do if it’s sold? We’ve been saving to go on a cruise – trip of a lifetime. Do you know anything? Will you speak to Lydia? I saw Mrs Biggins in the shop – but she pulled a
zip over her lips. It’s just these rumours, Xander, circling around and around – but all of us feel out of the loop.’

  ‘I don’t know what I can do,’ said Xander gently, ‘but let me have a think about it and I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Thank you, Xander. Thank you.’

  He hung up and shrugged at Mrs Gregg. ‘Trouble at mill,’ he said in a faux Yorkshire accent but she could see by his expression that he was worried. He checked his text messages and reread one sent last night from Jim – an old friend from the village. Xander took his mobile and went outside.

  ‘Jim! It’s Xander. Thanks for your text, shall we go for a pint tonight? I’m starting to get calls from the village – about Longbridge and is it, isn’t it. To be honest, I probably don’t know much more than they do. I think I’ll phone a couple of the others – you know, with Longbridge connections. See what people feel, shoot some ideas, see if we can come up with something. Can you ask the guys in the small barn workshop – you know, the computer twins? Yeah – but I never know which is Dave and which is Dan. Thanks – I appreciate it. See you later. Black Ox at eight-ish. Bye.’

  God, if ever there was a time to start smoking again, now was it. But he and Caroline had both given up over seven years ago and he prided himself on his supreme willpower and enjoyed lording it up over her chronic Nicorette habit. He took a moment to stand in the sunshine and breathe. Shake off the headache of that month’s unpaid invoices whose payment he really needed. Tomorrow, he’d put Mrs Gregg onto chasing them up by phone. She had a wonderful way on the phone – officious yet non-threatening but very, very persuasive.

  School was out and droves of bouncing children chattered excitedly while their mothers half listened. He watched them standing at the pedestrian lights, patiently, obediently though there wasn’t much traffic. Bugger waiting for the green light, he thought – I want to go home now.

  ‘But I want to go straight home – Clone Wars is almost on – almost! But Mummy – please.’