The House in the Clouds

by Connelly, Victoria

‘She looked…’ Abi paused, ‘expensive.’

  A tiny smile tickled the corner of Edward’s mouth. ‘I know we suggested spring before renting out, but I could use the income,’ he confided.

  ‘Oh, dear. Is everything okay?’

  ‘It will be if I can get an apartment let.’

  Abi stood up. ‘Well, let me know how it goes.’

  ‘I will.’

  She smiled at him. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she told him as she left to get her shopping out of the car.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Edward sat with a glass of wine on his bench in the garden, the light in the sky was turning from gold to royal blue and the heat of the day had finally exhausted itself, leaving but a shadow of its memory behind in the walled garden.

  As he sat there, Edward thought about the two viewings which had gone especially well: that of Harry Freeman and Tamara Wakefield. How could he possibly choose between them? On the one hand, he had a like-minded businessman who appreciated the beauty of the place just as he did. On the other, he had a beauty he could appreciate. Edward tutted at himself. He had to be professional about this. You couldn’t make a business decision based on looks. It wasn’t ethical or politically correct. Still, the facts couldn’t be ignored. Miss Wakefield had been very beautiful, smart and personable. It was a shame he didn’t have two apartments ready to go.

  Edward couldn’t remember the last time he’d even contemplated going out with a beautiful woman or when he’d had a proper relationship. Well, he could. It had been with Lucy and it had been a disaster. Edward shook his head as he remembered. She’d been as married to her job as he had been to his and the time they’d made for one another had been pitiful really, squeezed between meetings with them both looking at their phones all the time. It was doomed to fail.

  Then there’d been Samantha. That had lasted a while, but mainly because they’d hardly seen one another. Theirs had been a digital affair comprising of texts, emails and phone calls and not very much in the way of actual physical contact.

  But here at Winfield, time had slowed down a little. He had room to think about such luxuries as love, didn’t he? Of seeing somebody. Of spending quality time with them.

  As he thought of romantic relationships, he couldn’t help thinking of Abigail and then chastised himself for doing so because it would never do to mix business and pleasure. Abigail was his neighbour and renovation partner. Theirs was a special, unique bond. They’d been brought together by Winfield Hall and they were only just slowly developing a friendship. And friendships were good; they were vital. Yet, he couldn’t help thinking of the moment he’d watched her cross the driveway towards him earlier that day, the sun full on her face, bringing out those freckles. She’d raised a hand to shield her eyes and a collection of bangles had jangled down her arm in a pleasing sound.

  He shook the image from his mind. Abigail Carey was to be nothing more than a friend.

  It was then that his phone buzzed with a text. It was Tamara Wakefield. She thanked him for his time today, but had found something else that suited her better. Well, Edward thought, that solves that little conundrum.

  He called up Harry’s number and sent a quick message.

  Would you like the apartment? It’s yours if you do.

  The reply came back within a minute.

  Definitely! Would love it! Haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day.

  Edward smiled.

  I’ll send over the paperwork in the morning.

  Edward switched his phone off and leaned back on the bench, gazing up into the blue and gold sky. It had been a good day.

  * * *

  The next day, Abi was out in the garden re-staking some sunflowers when her phone rang.

  ‘Hey, Abi!’

  ‘Douglas – how are you?’

  ‘I’m good. Really good! I just wanted to ask you what on earth you said to Ellen?’

  Abi laughed. ‘I take it things are better between you?’

  ‘Better than better – they’re great! We’re going to sell the house!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yep! We had a long talk – several long talks actually – and we both think that it’s putting too much pressure on us so we’ve just had an estate agent round.’

  ‘Douglas – this is huge!’

  ‘I know. Unlike our next house.’ He laughed and Abi could hear his relief.

  ‘So where are you going?’

  ‘Just out of town. We’ve got our eye on a cottage actually. It’s a semi with this great garden for the girls. It’s a bit of a doer-upper, but nothing insurmountable, you know? Just a bit of tarting up which we’ll do as and when we can.’

  ‘Oh, Douglas – I’m so pleased.’

  ‘It means I won’t have to work away anymore. I can take a job in Brighton and be home each night to see the girls.’

  ‘That’s going to make such a difference,’ Abi said, thrilled to hear how happy he was at reclaiming his position as a real member of his own family again.

  ‘It really will and I think I’ve got you to thank for this, haven’t I?’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘Well, when I left Ellen that day, she was spitting knives at me saying this was the end and, when I got back, she was all sweetness.’

  ‘Well, we did have a little talk,’ Abi confessed at last. ‘You know, sometimes you just need to state the obvious, and the obvious isn’t always obvious when you’re living in the middle of it. Does that make sense?’

  ‘I think so!’

  Abi laughed. ‘You know what I mean. I think Ellen had taken on way too much – both for herself and for you – and it had become the new normal and she couldn’t see a way out of it all.’

  ‘Well, we can now.’

  ‘I’m so pleased.’

  ‘Oh, and she asked me to tell you to come round tonight. If you’re free.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘She says she’s got a favour to ask.’

  ‘Sounds interesting.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t get too excited,’ Douglas said. ‘She had a shifty sort of look about her when she asked me to tell you.’

  * * *

  Abi was so excited to see Ellen after Douglas’s news even if there was something slightly shifty going on, and it was a brand new sister who opened the door to her when she arrived. There was a brightness in Ellen’s face and she was smiling, actually smiling. The habitual frown had vanished and there was what looked like true joy in her eyes.

  ‘Did he tell you we’re moving?’ Ellen asked as Abi walked through to the kitchen with her.

  ‘He did! I’m so proud of you, Ellen.’

  ‘We’re really going to make it work, aren’t we?’

  ‘I know you are.’ The two of them embraced just as the girls ran through. Rosie was carrying Pugly and they all had a group hug.

  ‘You know what this is called now?’ Bethanne said a moment later. ‘A hugly!’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘Oh, they’re driving me crazy!’ Ellen said, but she was half-laughing instead of the old complaining. ‘Everything is “ugly” at the moment. They want their drinks served in a mugly. If anyone sneezes, they have a bugly, and I’ve even started calling Douglas Dougly!’

  Abi laughed again and watched as the girls left the room in fits of giggles, Pugly in tow.

  ‘Talking of Dougly,’ Ellen said as she switched the kettle on, ‘I’ve had a brilliant idea to take the pressure off him a little.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m going to start sewing. You know – taking little jobs. Mending, making children’s clothes. Maybe even open my own Etsy store.’

  ‘That sounds exciting!’

  ‘Isn’t it? I might even rival you in a few years and have my own shop!’

  ‘I’m sure you could if you put your mind to it,’ Abi told her.

  ‘So, I was thinking. There’s something I really need to get started.’

  ‘Right?�
� Abi said, wondering if her sister was going to ask for a small sum of money or even a large one. She never had before, but times had obviously been testing for her sister and she was happy to help.

  ‘I’ve got a favour to ask.’

  ‘Ask away.’

  ‘Do you remember our old sewing machine?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I kind of need it now,’ Ellen said. ‘But there’s only one problem. It’s at Aunt Claire’s and I want you to get it for me.’

  Abi’s mouth dropped open in horror. ‘Oh, don’t ask me to go there!’ she cried, wishing her sister had asked for a huge sum of money instead. ‘Why can’t you? You could take the girls.’

  ‘Aunt Claire doesn’t want to see them.’

  ‘Well, she won’t want to see me either,’ Abi said bluntly.

  ‘But you could be in and out in five minutes.’

  ‘Let me buy you a new machine. A more modern one,’ Abi begged.

  ‘There’s no point spending when we already have one.’

  ‘But it would be my gift to you – to wish you well in your new venture.’

  Ellen shook her head. ‘But this one was Mum’s. Don’t you remember? She used to mend all our clothes on it.’

  ‘I don’t remember that,’ Abi said sadly.

  ‘It’s special and I’d love to use it.’

  ‘Are you even sure Aunt Claire will still have it?’ Abi tried.

  ‘Of course she will. She never threw anything out, the old miser. She’ll have it and you’re going to get it for me.’

  Abi sighed. She knew when she was beaten.

  * * *

  The next day, after a sleepless night because she knew what she was heading towards, Abi pulled up and parked in a neat London suburb where the houses all looked exactly alike. She had found a rare parking space outside number seventy-three and sat for a moment, staring at the red-bricked house. She’d rung her aunt the night before to make sure she’d be in. Their conversation had been brief, functional.

  ‘Well, I’m not doing anything with the old machine,’ Aunt Claire had said. ‘You might as well use it. It’s just taking up room.’

  Abi sighed as she tried to remember the last time she’d been in the house. She hadn’t been there since graduating from art college but, even from the outside, she could tell that it hadn’t changed a bit with the old curtains at the windows, neat but faded, and the two identical pots with their identical evergreens standing either side of the door. Everything was neat and tidy, but a little bit soulless. Abi had definitely not been inspired by her aunt’s choices yet perhaps her own need for colour and pattern had stemmed from being stifled in this house.

  She got out of the car and walked up the path, knocking on the door. As she waited, a part of her couldn’t help wishing that Aunt Claire had been called away unexpectedly and wasn’t at home at all, but that would just be postponing the pain. It would be best to get in and out as soon as possible.

  The door opened and Aunt Claire’s dour face greeted Abi. Her hair, once fair, was threaded through with grey now and she wore it tied back from her face which was free from make-up and remarkably young-looking. Abi wondered how old she was now – late-fifties? Perhaps even early-sixties. She’d been older than her sister, Abi’s mother, that’s all she knew.

  ‘Come in,’ she said.

  Abi closed the door behind her and felt the oppressive atmosphere of the old house again. The wallpaper in the hallway was the same – a very dull cream and grey stripe, a little faded with age now, and the carpets hadn’t been replaced. Aunt Claire believed in using things up until they were completely dead, and there was still a little life clinging on to the décor and furnishings at number seventy-three.

  ‘How are you?’ Aunt Claire asked, her voice clipped as if she’d forced the question out.

  ‘I’m good. How are you?’

  Aunt Claire nodded. ‘You want the old sewing machine?’

  So, this was purely business, Abi thought. In and out. No nonsense.

  ‘Yes please,’ she said meekly and she followed her aunt into a room at the back of the house. Although the sun was shining, it never quite made it round to this part of the house. Abi remembered always being slightly afraid of it during her childhood. It had been her aunt’s domain, a very adult room with glass ornaments and fine furniture. Looking at it now, Abi wished she could take a paintbrush to the whole place, giving it a much-needed make-over and filling it with soft yellows and pretty fabrics to lift the mood.

  ‘Well, there it is,’ Aunt Claire said with a sigh. ‘I gave it a dust last night after you called.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s not been used for years so I don’t know if it’s still working.’

  ‘I guess we’ll find out,’ Abi said.

  There was a pause. An awkward, dread-filled pause when Abi half expected Aunt Claire to offer her a cup of tea, but of course she didn’t. Abi had come for a specific reason and there would be no niceties.

  ‘I’ll take it out to the car,’ Abi said. The machine came in its own case and the whole thing was bulky and heavy, but Abi managed it, placing it on the floor behind the passenger seat. Her aunt watched from the door as if to make sure she was leaving, but then called her back with a quick motion of her hand.

  ‘You might as well have all the other bits and bobs that went with it,’ Aunt Claire said. ‘I won’t use any of it.’ She returned to the room at the back of the house and Abi followed, watching as her aunt pulled a box out of a corner cupboard. It was full of ribbons and buttons and reels of different coloured thread. It was all so pretty and Abi couldn’t believe she’d never seen it before. It had lived its life in the darkness of a cupboard.

  ‘Thank you. Ellen and the girls will love this.’

  Aunt Claire nodded as Abi took the box from her, but didn’t say anything. She wasn’t interested in her niece or her great-nieces.

  It was then that Abi spotted a silver photo frame on the sideboard. She put the box down and walked towards it, her hands reaching to pick it up. It was of her mother and aunt as teenagers, their two faces full of the family freckles. They were both so beautiful and so alike. Just as Abi and Ellen were today, she couldn’t help thinking. But one thing struck her above all else: her aunt was smiling. The young Claire Carey had been happy.

  ‘Aunt Claire?’ Abi began. ‘I’d love to know more about my–’

  ‘Put the picture down please,’ Aunt Claire interrupted before Abi had a chance to complete her sentence. She’d known what was coming, hadn’t she? She’d known that Abi had been about to say “mother”.

  ‘I don’t remember much about her at all,’ Abi said sadly as she carefully placed the picture frame back on the sideboard.

  ‘I have to go out now,’ Aunt Claire said in that clipped, brook no opposition way she had and Abi found herself nodding in meek acquiescence and leaving the house with the box of threads and ribbons. She placed it alongside the sewing machine on the floor of the car and, when she looked up to wave goodbye, she saw that her aunt had already closed the front door.

  Abi couldn’t get away from that house quickly enough. But there was one thing she couldn’t shake from her mind as she left the suburbs and that was the photo of Kristen and Claire Carey: two beautiful young women with shining futures ahead of them. Except one of them was dead and the other as good as.

  Chapter Twenty

  Abi wished that she’d somehow managed to take a photo of the picture of her aunt and mother, and she would have been able to if she’d been left alone in the room but, of course, she hadn’t. Her aunt had stood sentinel and had more or less escorted Abi off the premises.

  Abi wondered if Ellen remembered the photo and she did her best to recall it now. Maybe she could do a sketch of it, capturing her mother’s smiling, sun-filled face before it faded from her memory forever.

  Quickly grabbing a drawing pad and pencil once she was back home, she did just that, holding the features of her mother in her
mind’s eye as she sketched from memory. It didn’t take long before she had a likeness that pleased her, and also one that touched her heart with both joy and pain.

  Abi put down her pencil and her fingers reached out to touch the soft lines she’d drawn on the page before her, wondering if Ellen would recognise the image as their mother. Perhaps she’d take it with her when she delivered the sewing machine that afternoon.

  * * *

  It was around lunchtime when Edward’s phone rang. He recognised the number as a local landline, but couldn’t think who it might be.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you, son,’ a man’s voice said. ‘I’m Mr Howard. I’m ringing about your father.’

  Edward was on immediate alert. He’d left his mobile number with a couple of his father’s neighbours in case of emergencies and now it sounded like that time had come.

  ‘What is it?’ Edward asked anxiously.

  The man sighed and Edward braced himself.

  ‘He was out in the street in the middle of the night. Drunk to his eyeballs, yelling his head off and crashing into dustbins.’

  Edward’s eyes closed. On the one hand, he’d been expecting even darker news, but this really wasn’t much better.

  ‘You’ve got to have a word with him. He doesn’t listen to us and we’ve all had polite words to him whenever he does manage to answer the door to anyone. We just can’t take it anymore. Have a word with him, son, before the police have to be involved.’

  ‘Look,’ Edward said as politely as he could, ‘I’m sorry, but we’re just not that close. He doesn’t listen to me any more than he does you.’

  ‘But he’s your father.’

  Edward sighed. It was the common refrain of society – if you were related to someone, you were expected to care for them or at least be responsible for them. People didn’t understand when a child didn’t care for their parent. There was a kind of taboo around the subject.

  ‘I’ll give him a call, okay?’ Edward promised, hoping that would be enough to deflate the situation.