by Anna Bell
‘You never bought that wreck, love? How much did you pay for it?’
My sister stutters for a second, too shocked at the bluntness to reply.
‘She got a good deal at auction,’ I say, filling in the blanks.
‘You’d need to have done,’ says Gerry. ‘That’s a big old farm. What do you plan to do with it?’
‘I was thinking of doing holiday lets,’ she says wincing.
‘Oh, more holiday lets,’ says Liz. ‘But, it’s better than nought for the community. It’s worse when they’re left a crumbling wreck on the landscape.’
‘And the tourists always spend well in the village,’ says Gerry.
‘That they do. And your husband’s helping, is he?’ says Liz, pointing at Rosie’s wedding ring.
‘Um, he will when he can. We live in Manchester and he works during the week,’ she starts muttering under her breath about weekends and I know that she’s desperate to change the subject.
‘So there are a few holiday lets in the area, then, are there?’ I say, taking the focus off Rosie and Rupert.
‘Oh aye,’ says Gerry. ‘People want to come here mainly for the walking, it’s ideal with the Lakes and the Pennines so close. There’s all sorts of accommodation here already; Lodges, B&Bs. You name it, we’ve got it.’
I nod. In all the talking with Rosie about her vision she hadn’t mentioned her target market – who she wants to attract. Looks like we’ll have to suss out the competition too. This project is getting bigger by the second.
‘Have you seen much of Jack up at Lower Gables?’
‘No, not yet,’ says Rosie. ‘We did run into someone with a cocker spaniel yesterday, though, who had a big hairy beard.’
I think back to his rudeness with me this morning and I feel a wave of anger.
‘That would be him,’ says Liz, her eyes lighting up. ‘On his own, was he?’
‘Just him and his dog,’ I say, thinking we already said that.
‘Bet he won’t be happy, Liz, with the tourists,’ says Gerry.
Liz nods wisely. To be honest, I get the impression that he wouldn’t be happy with anyone.
I see Gerry’s eyebrow hovering, as if she’s waiting for us to say something more, but instead Rosie sees the silence as our bid to escape.
‘So, how much do we owe you, then?’
‘Oh, let’s see,’ says Liz, pressing a button on the till. ‘Twenty-seven pounds seventy-five, then, please.’
‘Can I have a stamp as well, for the postcard? Do I have to buy that over there?’ I ask, pointing at the post-office counter.
‘I’ll run and get you one,’ says Gerry. ‘Liz will ring it through her till.’
Liz adjusts the balance and Rosie pays.
‘I’ll just quickly write this,’ I say, getting one of my pens out of the packet.
Yo Erica,
Check this out – written by my own fair hand and everything. So Rosie and I are in Cumbria. Turns out that she conned me into coming to this old farmhouse that’s riddled with mice and is falling down around us, as she’s gone and bought the bloody place.
I do my best to draw a shocked face.
I’m coping like a trooper without the Internet. I’ve not missed it in the slightest *lying heavily*.
Hope all is well with you and Chris and now that I have departed there has been much –
I start to draw an aubergine but it looks way too rude to leave on a postcard. I’m not sure if Royal Mail have censors for decency, but, either way, I scribble it out and decide to write it instead.
– ‘Aubergine’ – wink. Righto. Miss you lots. Will update you soon.
Not entirely sure of our address, but I’m sure if you write ‘Upper Gables Farm, Lullamby’ it’ll find us. The postwomen seem very helpful.
Love ya
Daisy xx
I stick the stamp on and hand it over, knowing full well that it’s going to be read by Liz and Gerry, but I need it to catch the post. We say our goodbyes to our new friends in the village shop.
‘See you again,’ calls Liz over the bell.
‘Ooh riddled with mice,’ I hear Gerry say.
Blimey, she could at least have waited for me to leave before she read it!
‘Talk about the Spanish inquisition,’ I say as we reach the car.
‘Don’t forget you’re used to being down South. Everyone’s much friendlier up here.’
‘Are you sure that it’s not more about the gossip than being friendly?’
Rosie shrugs her shoulders. ‘Same, same.’
She opens up the boot and puts in the bag of shopping before we climb back in.
The clouds that before were drab and grey seem to have become darker, as if rain is threatening, so we hurry back to the house.
I’m starting to wish I’d brought warmer clothes with me. I’m eyeing up Rosie’s North Face fleece like it’s a Stella McCartney sweatshirt. Hopefully, she was serious about sorting out my wardrobe issues as, despite the clean clothes, I don’t have much that is suited to the conditions.
By the time we make it down the bumpy track back to the farm, it’s started to drizzle, and as we’re heading to the front door, shopping in hand, Rosie stops mid-stride.
‘I can’t have closed the barn door,’ she says as she walks over and slides across the bolt. ‘Don’t want any more pigeons setting up home in there.’
I walk over to the farmhouse and wait for Rosie to unlock it with the old key. She pushes the door open like a pro and unpacks the shopping, leaving the cookies on the table and I can’t resist helping myself to one.
‘Oh, these are really good,’ I say, spilling crumbs out of my mouth.
Rosie picks one up as well. ‘Mmm,’ she agrees.
‘Do you think we should get started on dinner? I say, prodding at the worktop. ‘Do you think it’s safe to prepare food on here?’
‘I bought a couple of pizzas we can put in the oven tonight as that’s clean enough. I don’t think it was ever used. But you’re right about the rest of it, it could do with a deep clean and then it’ll be fine.’
I don’t share her optimism that a little elbow grease is all that’s needed, but at the very least it might stop us from getting E.coli.
Suddenly, there’s a large bang from outside and both of us jump.
‘What was that?’ I ask, peering nervously out of the window. The rain is really coming down now and the clouds are almost shrouding the big hills in the distance in mist.
‘Probably the wind catching something,’ says Rosie, opening the fridge to hunt for the pizza.
We hear a banging and this time it’s more rhythmic.
‘That doesn’t sound like the wind, that sounds like something’s trapped in the barn,’ I say, gulping. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t you who left the door open.’
We open the kitchen door and can hear shouting too. Rosie and I look nervously at each other.
‘Looks like you’ve caught more than a pigeon. What do we do?’ I say, my heart racing.
‘I don’t know,’ says Rosie, shaking her head.
Again I curse the fact that we’re alone here without our phones. We could have totally skyped someone as we went to investigate, safe in the knowledge that someone could have at least called the police for us if it turned out to be a crazy axe murderer. Whereas now, no one, except maybe Liz and Gerry and perhaps, at a push, the grumpy Big Foot Jack, would know where we were, and even then none of them would know we’d gone missing.
‘Perhaps we should go back to the village and get reinforcements?’ I say, wondering if there’s a village bobby as well as a pub.
‘No,’ says Rosie, ‘if we’re going to stay here, we’re going to have to deal with things like this. It’s probably just a neighbour with some scones or something.’
Listening to the thumping it doesn’t sound like they’re likely to have baked goods on their person.
Rosie takes a deep breath before jogging towards the noise. Being the supportive sister or,
more accurately, the scaredy cat one who doesn’t want to be left on her own, I follow her over.
She looks at me as she takes a deep breath and slides the door across.
A man with his arms outstretched flies at us.
I scream and cling onto Rosie, using her as a human shield. If I’m going down, then at least she’s going first; after all, she’s the one who got us into this mess.
Chapter Eleven
Time since last Internet usage: 1 day, 2 hours, 22 minutes and 43 seconds
The man staggers forward and just about manages to keep himself from falling into the muddy puddles that are popping up all over the courtyard.
He turns round to face us, and fearing that he’s going to lunge at us again, I hold my position behind my sister. Well, she is the oldest and therefore it’s only right that she should protect me.
But instead of lunging at us, he smiles and pats himself down. Clearly he’d only been going to knock as we opened the door.
Instantly I relax and pull myself out from behind Rosie’s shadow. With his wavy dark hair and glossy chestnut eyes he doesn’t look like much of a threat. Although, I guess what watching five series of Dexter should have taught me was you can never tell what a serial killer looks like.
‘Ah, thank goodness,’ he says with a heavy French accent. ‘I thought I was stuck.’
I look between the man and Rosie. He doesn’t sound like he’s one of the neighbours.
‘I came earlier and you were not ’ere. I look for you in the barn,’ he says shrugging, ‘and then the door was closed.’
I’m nodding along with his story, which sounds so much better in his sing-song accent. It doesn’t occur to me to ask what he’s doing here.
‘I am Alexi,’ he says, jutting out his hand and looking between Rosie and me.
I nudge Rosie. Seeing as it’s her farm, she should welcome him.
‘Oh, um,’ she says shaking his hand.
‘It is wet, no? Perhaps we talk in the ’ouse.’
He gestures towards the farmhouse, but my sister seems rooted to the spot – too confused to move.
‘Yes, good idea,’ I say, walking forward and ushering him inside.
Rosie follows us and we stand like shaggy wet dogs in the kitchen. I pat down my hair, cursing the weather for sending my straight hair into a frizzy mess just as an attractive man shows up.
‘So, you are Rosie?’ he says to me.
‘Ah, no, I’m her sister, Daisy. This is Rosie,’ I say, slapping her on the back.
‘Enchanté,’ he says to us both, and for a minute I’m wondering if I should step forward and get all the kisses. Isn’t that what you do to be polite in France? I’m all for embracing other customs, especially when it involves hot men.
‘What did you say your name was?’ I say, realising that Rosie looks like she’s in shock.
‘Alexi,’ he says.
‘But you can’t be,’ pipes up Rosie. ‘You’re a he.’
He looks at her and squints as if he doesn’t understand what she’s saying.
‘I’m expecting Alexis,’ she says in a shaky voice, emphasising the s. ‘Not Alexi. My advert expressly asked for a woman on the help-exchange website and your photo was of a man and a woman so I assumed you were the woman.’
It slowly dawns on me what’s going on and why Rosie is so confused. This is the help-exchange worker she was expecting next week.
‘I do not understand. You speak so quickly. I am a woman?’
‘No, you are a man,’ says Rosie. ‘I was expecting a woman. I saw the photo of you and the woman or girl, whoever she was, and I thought she was you.’
‘Ah. You thought the girl in the photo was who was writing to you? That was my girlfriend. But I do not understand. You thought she was Alexi?’ he says in a tone that suggests Rosie is quite strange. ‘It is a boy’s name.’
‘Yes, well, in English, Alexis can be a girl’s name. You know, like Alexis Carrington.’
My mum would be so proud of her citing Dynasty; she adored that show in the eighties.
‘I think she was actually Alexis Colby,’ I add.
Rosie gives me a look that suggests I’m not helping. She’s lucky I don’t have my phone as I’d totally be googling it by now to find out which one of us was right. All I can remember is that she was played by Joan Collins.
‘We do not pronounce the s. A-lex-i,’ he says, breaking it down for us, so that we’re in no doubt how it’s said. ‘But now I am ’ere, I will work,’ he says, looking around the kitchen and nodding his head.
I want to point out that, in my book, he’s totally welcome, merely because he’s not a woman, but I’ve already had one death stare so I’m keeping out of it.
Rosie sighs. I know it’s a bit of a shock that he is a he rather than a she, but I don’t understand why she’s getting so het up. He looks very fit and healthy, and his arms look like they’d be very strong . . . you know, for all the lifting and carrying needed for working on the house, obviously. I totally wasn’t looking at them thinking they’d be great for picking me up and throwing me onto the hay bales in the barn.
‘Well, you’re going to be here with just me and Daisy, so I understand if you aren’t comfortable with it being just the three of us.’
‘I am very comfortable with girls,’ he says smiling. ‘I ’ave three sisters.’
‘Of course you do,’ says Rosie. ‘But, um, you know, we weren’t expecting you until next week.’
‘No, no, this week. Today, in fact. I send you an email yesterday to say my plans change. I ’ad been in Portsmouth, but I thought I arrive early.’
Rosie looks like she could cry.
‘Oh,’ she says nodding. ‘We don’t have Internet here.’
‘It is not a problem, I am ’ere now.’
‘But we aren’t ready for you. Your room isn’t done, I don’t have a bed for you; I don’t even have a spare towel.’
Rosie’s head looks like it’s going to explode.
‘I understand this is, ’ow do you say it, “a work in progress”?’ he says with air quotes. ‘I ’ave my sleeping bag and mat.’
He walks around the kitchen, having decided he is staying no matter how hard Rosie tries to convince him otherwise.
‘So, this is the ’ouse,’ he says, looking around and nodding in approval. ‘It is run down but looks OK.’
He’s knocking on the walls and rubbing his hand along the parts Rosie’s already had plastered.
‘Can I look around? Let me see the work I will be making?’
‘Sure,’ says Rosie, ‘go ahead.’
He walks into the lounge and I sidle up to her.
‘Well, this is interesting,’ I whisper, my eyes wild at the unexpected turn of events. ‘At least now I won’t be scared at night any more, or if I am, I sure know where I can take refuge.’
‘There’ll be no funny business under my roof, thank you very much. Especially as we’ve got no doors. Oh God,’ she says, clapping her hand over her mouth. ‘We’ve got no doors on any of the bedrooms. I was going to get a carpenter in to hang them before she, I mean he, arrived.’
‘I’m sure that he won’t mind, he doesn’t seem to be the shy, foreboding type,’ I say staring at his bum in his tight jeans as he pokes his head up the fireplace to check out the chimney.
‘I can’t believe he’s a he,’ she says shaking her head.
I don’t understand what the big deal is. If anything, I think it’s a comfort he’s a man. As much as it grates on my feminist ideals to admit it, the fact that he’s going to be sleeping here makes me feel that little bit safer. ‘Surely that doesn’t matter?’ I say, still thinking that it’s an unexpected bonus.
‘I specifically wanted a woman,’ she says shaking her head. ‘Don’t forget I hadn’t planned to have you come here with me, I thought that I was going to be here on my own. If I’m really honest, the help-exchange was as much about keeping me company as doing work on the house. I thought I’d get a bit lon
ely rattling round here on my own.’
‘Well, that’s OK. Now you’ll have me and Alexis.’
‘But what about when you go? It’ll just be me and him.’
‘And what’s wrong with that?’
‘I’m a married woman,’ says Rosie, almost a little too loudly, and we both snap our heads round to check that Alexis hasn’t heard.
‘So what? It’s not 1950 anymore, I don’t think anyone will care.’
‘You don’t think Liz and Gerry will mention it?’
Point taken. I forgot that people up here probably take a bit more interest in that kind of thing.
‘But to be honest, I don’t care what everyone else thinks, I care what Rupert will think. I mean we’re barely on speaking terms as it is. What’s he going to say when he finds out that I’m up here on a secluded farm with a Frenchman?’
‘A sexy Frenchman. Sexy Alexis,’ I say, making sure I pronounce his name like he does.
I get the death stare again.
‘And no doors on the bedrooms,’ I add helpfully.
Rosie sighs.
‘Thank you for reminding me. My marriage is already on choppy water, I don’t want it hitting the rocks over this.’
‘Just don’t mention it to him. It’s not like you’re able to talk to him at the moment, anyway – I mean you don’t have your phone.’
‘No . . . but I’m going to have to use the payphone in the village sometimes. Alexis is supposed to be staying for a month, and maybe it will be longer – you saw what he’s like, changing his plans. I can’t not mention a help-ex being here all that time. And what if he comes to visit? I’ve asked him to come several times, what if he takes me up on the offer?’
‘Then cross that bridge when you come to it. Besides, I’m here now, and I’m quite happy to take any hits for the team if it makes it look better in your husband’s eyes.’
‘Down, girl. There’ll be no need for that. If he’s staying here he’s working on the house, not on you. You are supposed to be concentrating on your digital detox and finding yourself, not some Frenchman.’
I pout a little, but she’s right. I think perhaps having zero personal life over the last couple of months has turned me into the desperate version of myself I usually reserve for when a slow song comes on at a wedding and I’ve drunk copious amounts of wine. I’ve got to remember the fact that Marvellous Marcus and his quick reminders were beginning to seem attractive to me last week.
