The Winter Children

by Lulu Taylor

  Striving. That’s a word that comes into Olivia’s mind when she thinks of Cheska, as though she’s on her way somewhere, trying to keep it all together as she goes implacably onwards, never daring to stop in case of . . . what?

  And now she has this. What on earth are they going to do with it? There are only four of them. What kind of madness makes them want to live in this huge house? It ought to belong to the National Trust or something.

  She can see it now: open to the public, with a tea room, and a shop that sells fudge and tea towels and decorated garden tools, along with big illustrated hardbacks about the house’s history. She can see weddings held in the great hall, marquees on the lawn for anniversaries and literary festivals and genteel gardening courses. There ought to be a car park and public loos and guides on hand to point out interesting features, and the rooms furnished in the right period and hung with portraits of previous owners. People ought to swarm the corridors, children running down galleries, the place alive with activity, everyone able to experience and enjoy this place.

  Four people living here?

  She remembers that the place will be open to the public, once the restoration is complete. Perhaps there will be guided tours arranged privately by appointment. Not exactly guaranteed to bring the punters in.

  ‘Mummy, I’ms hungry . . .’ Bea is pulling at her hand. Stan is singing to himself, swinging on the iron gates, his feet on the cross bar between the upward rails. ‘Biscuit?’ Bea asks, smiling sweetly, showing her rows of tiny, perfect teeth.

  ‘Yes, yes, let’s get back,’ she says. It’s going to take a good twenty minutes to walk home. Something in her is a little stunned that this place is their home. Her bedroom has a door that leads into this extraordinary place. She is astonished at the thought. Even, she realises, a little afraid.

  ‘Come on, off we go!’ She takes Stan’s hand and pulls him gently off the gate. Bea slips her hand into Olivia’s other one.

  They start their slow meander back down the road.

  Dan has lunch ready when they get back: plates loaded with little crustless sandwiches, chopped cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks and boxes of raisins. There’s a tub of grapes and some little round cheeses in red wax coatings. Typical toddler fare.

  ‘What are we having?’ Olivia asks with a laugh, when the children are settled and eating.

  ‘Err . . .’ Dan looks about. He picks up a bowl and offers it to her. ‘Tuna mayonnaise on crackers?’ he asks.

  ‘Maybe. Or I can get some soup on. It won’t take a moment – there are some parsnips withering away that I can stew up with an onion and some curry powder.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ Dan is scrawling a list on a pad on the table. ‘We’ll need to get to the supermarket at some point, we’re running low.’

  ‘And Cheska’s arriving later,’ she reminds him.

  ‘Oh yes. I forgot.’ He makes a face.

  She laughs again. ‘You look like you can’t stand the thought! I don’t understand it, you two are such good friends. Why have you gone off her all of a sudden? Is it because she’s become our landlady or something?’

  Dan’s eyes harden. He shrugs and says nothing for a moment. Then he says, ‘Maybe. Something like that. She always likes playing Lady Bountiful.’

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘You know, arriving with armfuls of presents, picking up the bill at restaurants, sending us lavish hampers at Christmas, all of that.’

  ‘I thought she was just being generous. Spreading a bit of her money about when she knows we haven’t got as much as she has.’

  ‘Yeah . . . maybe.’ Dan is quiet again, pensive. Then he smiles and says, ‘Maybe I’d just rather it was only us. We’ve been living with your family for such a long time. I’ve kind of enjoyed being on our own again.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ She goes round the table and hugs him. ‘I like it too. I don’t even want to go to the supermarket.’

  He hugs her back, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Then stay here. I’ll take the kids.’

  ‘I have to stay anyway,’ she says into the warmth of his shirt. ‘That conservation man is coming, the one Cheska wants me to meet.’

  ‘Ah. I forgot. All right, you stay here. I’ll go shopping after the children have had their naps.’

  Olivia savours the warmth and security of his solid body, bigger and stronger than her own. She looks back at the table and sees Bea’s green eyes fixed on them, watching solemnly as she chews on her sandwich.

  Where did those green eyes come from? she wonders idly. She has blue-grey and Dan has dark blue. Then she remembers. There’s no knowing. They could be from anywhere.

  The knock on the cottage door comes right on time at two thirty, not long after Dan and the twins have left for the trip to the supermarket.

  She answers it, a little nervous. She’s not quite sure what she’s supposed to do, and Francesca speaks about the conservation officers as though they are agents of the devil, engaged on a mission to thwart, disrupt and destroy her plans at every opportunity.

  A man holding a buff-coloured folder stands on the doorstep. He’s well dressed in a smart coat and dark trousers, a bright red scarf around his neck, his chestnut leather shoes shiny. He has an open expression, soft brown eyes behind a pair of tortoiseshell-framed glasses and a longish face, his bottom lip fuller than the top and a dimple in his chin. His brown hair is the only unkempt thing about him: it’s wavy and rather long, with a touch of mad professor about it.

  ‘Hello!’ he says in a brisk, friendly tone. ‘Are you Mrs Felbeck?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He sticks out his hand. ‘I’m Tom Howard. Good to meet you.’

  ‘Hello, Mr Howard.’ She takes his hand and he pumps it up and down briskly.

  ‘Call me Tom.’

  ‘Call me Olivia.’

  ‘Thanks. I will.’ He grins with a pleasant beam of friendliness, his eyes crinkling up at the edges. She notices that there’s a touch of green in the brown of his iris.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says after a moment, ‘please come in. Would you like a cup of coffee or something?’

  ‘Well now, I would, very much. This is just about the hour for a bit of reinvigorating caffeine.’

  She laughs and leads him into the kitchen, and puts the kettle on while he looks about.

  ‘This is very cosy,’ he says, and taps his foot on the floor with appreciation. ‘Very fine local limestone. Wonderful stuff.’ He shakes his head. ‘This place is full of treasures. What’s it like to be living here?’

  ‘It’s hard to say,’ Olivia replies, getting coffee and mugs together. ‘We’ve not been here very long. We’re still settling in.’

  Tom Howard is looking about, scrutinising the walls and ceiling, as though noting every light fitting. Olivia feels oddly nervous, as if she has allowed him in against Francesca’s wishes. Did she get permission for all the work in here? Or did she not need to? It’s a Grade I listed building. I imagine she needed permission for every plug and every pipe. No wonder it’s taken years to get this thing moving.

  ‘You’re looking after the place for Mrs Huxtable, are you?’ he says, his eyes moving over the room. ‘Did she finally manage to get rid of old William?’

  ‘We’re not exactly looking after it, but I think she’s glad to have someone on the property, especially once work begins. And William is still around. I saw him only recently.’ She has caught glimpses of the old man in the distance and she saw him yesterday, emerging over the top of a distant hedge, trimming it carefully with shears. She wondered what shape he was maintaining and told herself she must go and look at the gardens again sometime soon. The life in them was beginning to call to her; she was being tempted to venture beyond their own section of walled garden.

  Tom Howard nods, looking interested. ‘I don’t think they’ll ever get rid of him. Not now.’ He glances around the kitchen again. ‘Of course, he must miss this place.’

  ‘Yes. I feel bad that he was chu
cked out and now we’re in. How long did he live here?’

  Tom frowns. ‘Oooh, I don’t know . . . I’m told he’s been here over thirty years. It was a girls’ school in the fifties and sixties, and it got hit by some big scandal to do with one of the girls getting pregnant. It limped on for a bit but closed down in the early seventies, I think. Then it was bought by a foreign businessman who never did a thing with it and hired William to be a caretaker while he was abroad. Goodness knows why he wanted it, he never spent much time here. Then he got caught up in some revolution in his own country and more or less disappeared. It was left to rack and ruin. William stayed on to look after it as best he could. You can imagine what kind of a job it was to keep an eye on this place on his own. I believe the owner kept sending cash to pay him and to maintain the fabric but that stopped once he lost contact. But William carried on anyway.’

  Olivia pours out the coffee and hands him a mug. ‘Milk’s in the jug if you’d like it.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Tom takes the mug and then sloshes in some milk. ‘This is just the ticket.’

  Olivia persists. ‘So are you saying that William has worked here for decades and decades . . . for no pay? All alone?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it. If he hadn’t, goodness knows what would have happened. As it is, there was lots of decay and damage. When we got hold of the place six years ago, it was in a sorry state. It took over a year just to mend the roof and stop the worst of the water getting in. Luckily William had dashed about with buckets and stuck up polyurethane when the holes got too bad, and he kept everything he could when it fell. Chunks of plaster, joists, bits of shattered statue.’ Tom smiles, the skin around his eyes crinkling behind the glasses. ‘He deserves a medal, he really does. He used to roam the house with his torch at night, to make sure there weren’t any vandals getting in.’ Tom laughs. ‘For all I know, he still does.’

  ‘Poor old man,’ she says thoughtfully. ‘Alone here for years and years. No family, no nothing. And he’s being sacked?’

  Tom Howard sips his coffee slowly, as though gaining a little time while he considers. ‘I rather thought you’d know all about it – as you’re working for Mrs Huxtable.’

  ‘I’m not working for her,’ Olivia says quickly. ‘We’re her friends.’

  ‘Of course. Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.’

  ‘You haven’t. But I don’t know anything about what’s happened to William.’

  Tom looks about again. ‘Well, when he lived here, it was a good deal less comfortable than it is now. Not so much in the way of dishwashers and so on. A bit less gingham. I suppose he must be in one of the estate cottages now but they’re little more than sheds. Unless the tenant farmer has given him a place. I don’t suppose he minds very much. He only wants to be close to the house, that’s all. I’ve never seen such dedication in anyone.’

  Olivia is full of guilt. What must the man think of her and Dan, moving into his house after he’s been thrown out, and never lifting a finger to look after the house? How could Francesca do it, after everything the old man had done for the place? Couldn’t she have kept him on, or renovated a place for him? It would have cost her nothing in the grand scheme of what this place was surely going to require.

  Tom has finished his coffee in three easy gulps, not seeming to mind its scalding heat. ‘That was delicious, thank you.’ He puts down his mug. ‘Now. Shall we go and see the house?’

  In his folder, Tom has detailed plans of the house that seem to go on forever. He consults them as they walk around, muttering to himself and gazing about. Olivia follows behind him, staring with amazement at everything she sees.

  ‘But this is incredible,’ she says, awestruck. The house is an extraordinary piece of history, she can see that, full of beauty and magnificence. She has never walked around a place so redolent of the past before.

  ‘Haven’t you looked around already?’ Tom asks, surprised.

  ‘No. We haven’t. Not really. It’s taken all our time settling in to the cottage. And we have small children. Two. Twins.’

  He blinks at her blankly, as if that’s no excuse for not exploring a house like this when it’s on your doorstep. ‘Oh. All right then.’ He begins to talk as they go. ‘That is a plaster barrel ceiling – an amazing example of early sixteenth-century work. Really quite stunning. Of course, it’s gone through extensive renovation. I was part of the team overseeing the work here, and really you wouldn’t believe how much has been done. It was just the tip of the iceberg, if you’ll excuse the cliché, but at least it stopped the rot. Our hope now is that Mr and Mrs Huxtable continue the good work.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Olivia says as they walk along a gallery with views over the formal quadrangle behind, ‘is why this has gone to a private family. Surely it’s a national treasure. Why hasn’t it been taken on for use as a public space? It should be open to everyone, all the time.’

  Tom stops and turns to look at her, a sigh escaping him that he tries to hide. ‘Believe me, I think the same. This place is like Hampton Court, or Blenheim Palace, never really designed as a private home but rather as a magnificent setting for courtly life. But people higher up the food chain thought that the best thing for the place was for it to go back into private hands, even though that caused half the trouble in the first place.’

  As he talks, he takes a pencil out of his pocket and scrawls a red line over a small section of the plans.

  ‘Are you going to approve the changes that Francesca – Mrs Huxtable – wants?’ Olivia asks, observing him scribble. ‘It seems a bit contradictory to let a private family buy it and then refuse to allow her to turn it into a family home.’

  ‘I can’t say at the moment. Our decision will follow in due course, once we’ve considered all the impact the proposed changes will have on the historic fabric.’ He is suddenly all professional, his language rehearsed, his phrases well worn.

  Olivia feels a rush of annoyance and a hot flush rises to her cheeks. Before she can stop herself, she blurts out, ‘Well, where were you all when this place was falling down? When only William was here to stop the rot? What did you care for the fabric and impact then? Now someone has actually put some money into the place – millions probably, with millions more to come – you’re all over the joint. Suddenly it’s more precious than anything in the world! And now you’re laying down the law, when not so long ago you were perfectly happy to let the rain gush in and the ceilings fall down and the thieves break in!’

  Tom stares at her, his expression solemn. When she has finished, she is immediately embarrassed by her outburst, wondering where it came from.

  ‘Of course we weren’t happy,’ he says. ‘But it belonged to someone. It was only the fact that we could force a purchase that saved the place at all. Before then, we had no legal right to enter.’

  ‘And now it belongs to Francesca,’ Olivia replies, ‘and you seem to have retained all your legal rights.’

  There is a pause, and then Tom laughs, a rich, merry sound. ‘Are you sure you don’t work for Mrs Huxtable?’ he asks. ‘Because you’re certainly putting her case pretty well.’

  Olivia laughs too. ‘I don’t want the building harmed any more than you do. But it seems to me that a few bathrooms and some proper heating and all the rest aren’t going to hurt it. It was a school, didn’t you say?’

  ‘That’s right. For girls. It opened after the war and closed down thirty years later, after it had sold off most of the land.’

  ‘Then I suppose it was messed around with pretty well then.’

  ‘There are some dreadful bits,’ Tom admits. He raises an eyebrow at her. ‘All the more reason to stop anything else being spoiled.’

  Olivia gazes back. He smiles, and she feels her annoyance ebb away. After all, what does this matter to me? But her unwitting involvement in William’s eviction has made her feel part of all of it and not in a good way. ‘Do you need to see anything else?’ she asks. ‘My husband and children will be back so
on.’

  ‘That’s fine for now,’ he says, closing his folder. ‘I’ll have to come back, though. I’ll call you direct, if that’s all right. So that we don’t disturb Mrs Huxtable unnecessarily.’

  ‘Of course. She’ll be here for a few days this week, if you want to see her. She’s arriving later today.’

  ‘Yes, she said on the telephone.’ He tucks his folder under one arm. ‘Perhaps I’ll call back then. I might as well take the opportunity, if she’s here.’

  ‘Of course.’ Olivia is disoriented, but Tom knows the way. She follows him out of the long gallery, already anticipating the return of the children. They haven’t been far from her mind the whole time, and she’s yearning for them, the way she has since they were born.

  Since before they were born. Since forever.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The car takes Francesca straight from the airport to Norfolk. Her cases are in the back and she wonders how she will explain the amount of luggage considering she is only supposed to be staying a few days. One large bag is devoted to gifts for the family: some expensive cosmetics for Olivia, books and a leather-bound initialled notebook for Dan, toys and clothes for the children. Perhaps it’s a clumsy attempt to buy their affection but she can’t help herself. She’s grown used to the role of generous provider, the good fairy who arrives with delightful presents and whose arrival is therefore always welcome. She still gets a thrill from her buying power, just like the tingle of excitement she felt when Walt gave her that shiny silver credit card and she realised she had money to spend. She’d always intended to have money because she understood that the basic division between those graceful girls in the pretty brick school and the hordes of children in the big, grey comprehensive was wealth. It took money to enjoy the pleasant things in life, and if she were ever going to belong to that crowd, with their easy confidence and their certainty that they were entitled to the best, she was going to need money. That was partly what took her towards a legal career, where she would be certain of earning a decent living and supporting herself. But she wanted more than just the money, which was why she chose to specialise in human rights. She wanted a notable career, to make her mark, to rise in her profession and prove herself. She wanted to make a difference in the world.