The Forever House: A feel-good summer page-turner

by Veronica Henry

  ‘Is this where she worked?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sally ran her finger along the spines. ‘I was hoping I’d find a first edition worth millions so we wouldn’t have to sell, but they’re of no real value. They’re out of fashion nowadays.’

  ‘It’s fascinating, though. We could make a feature of this. People love a bit of history.’

  ‘Yes, we could do that,’ agreed Sally. ‘My kids used it as a party room. They could get up to whatever they wanted with their friends without us knowing.’

  ‘Lucky things,’ said Belinda. She pictured the cramped RAF quarters she’d been brought up in – she rarely had anyone back for tea, let alone for a party. She’d been shy, and making friends when they moved every two years had been torture. ‘Anyway, there’s heaps of potential. It’s rare these days, to find something like this unspoilt. It makes the whole thing very special.’

  Sally nodded

  ‘It is special.’ She was fighting back tears. ‘But nothing lasts forever. You have to learn to let go.’

  She gave a tight smile and walked past Belinda, leading her way back down the stairs.

  Inside, they sat back down at the kitchen table. Belinda refused more coffee – she wanted to get some momentum.

  ‘My strategy would be to market the property with a realistic guide price then ask for Offers In Excess Of. When people fall in love with Hunter’s Moon, it will give them the confidence to make the most generous offer they can to knock out the competition.’

  She named a figure. Sally nodded. Belinda had no idea what she was thinking. She couldn’t tell if she was wildly off the mark, or spot on, compared with the other valuations. Usually people gave the game away, with a wince or a widening of the eyes or a mutter of approval.

  ‘Interesting,’ was all Sally said.

  ‘In what way?’ Belinda countered, eager for a clue.

  ‘What’s your percentage?’ Sally asked instead.

  ‘It’s negotiable. Depending on the asking price.’ She paused. ‘If you sign up today, we can probably come down a bit . . .’

  She felt uncomfortable trying to close the deal. It seemed crass, but this trick often worked. Sally just gave a vague smile. Belinda felt as if she was losing her. Perhaps she needed to change tack?

  ‘If you want to exchange quickly,’ she went on, ‘it would be good if we could get everything on to the system and I can send my photographer over. The weather forecast is good for the next couple of days, and a blue sky really is paramount for photographs—’

  ‘There is something I need to tell you.’ Sally interrupted, putting a hand up to her neck. ‘My husband has just been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.’

  Belinda could see the anguish in Sally’s eyes. For a moment she didn’t know what to say. She had been so wrapped up in the perfection of Hunter’s Moon that this revelation was quite unexpected.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ was all she could think of to say.

  ‘You wouldn’t guess if you saw him now. Only people who know him well can see he’s not quite himself. We’ve had a very early diagnosis. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.’ She took in a deep breath. ‘Either way, it’s a terminal disease. Life is going to get very difficult. So I have to do everything I can to make it easier. Which means selling this.’ She smiled. ‘Like many people of our age our pension pots are sadly lacking. My husband was very successful – he was in the rag trade on the business side – but we had rather a foolish habit of spending rather than saving . . . So basically, we need to free up some capital. The difference between this and the Digby Hall cottage would go a long way towards nursing costs and whatever help we need.’

  Belinda nodded. She knew Sally didn’t really want her to say anything, just listen. This often happened towards the end of a viewing: the real reasons came spilling out, once the client trusted you. There was a slight break in Sally’s voice as she carried on talking.

  ‘Alexander’s having lunch with Leo in London today. I didn’t want him here while I was talking to agents. He would find it too distressing.’

  ‘He does know you’re selling?’

  ‘Oh yes. He knows it’s an inevitability.’ Sally looked down at the table for a moment. ‘I don’t want to make a big thing of the sale. I don’t want a sign on the road, or for it to be in the paper. Or in your window.’

  ‘Oh.’ Belinda made a face. ‘Obviously that makes things difficult. Getting the best price does rather rely on exposure. But we can work around it.’

  ‘I know it’s impossible for it to be completely confidential. But I don’t want a fuss. I don’t want gossip and speculation. And I know Alexander won’t. He’s devastated about selling and he feels it’s his fault. Not because he’s ill, but because he didn’t plan well enough. I don’t want him bumping into people and having to explain. You know how small Peasebrook is.’

  Belinda thought carefully before replying.

  ‘People often want a discreet sale. It’s not that unusual. But it does mean a different strategy.’ She cleared her throat, twirling the sugar bowl round in her fingers. ‘We could have an open house. It’s hard work at the time, but it saves weeks of people traipsing in and out and constant tidying.’

  Sally looked interested.

  ‘How would that work?’

  ‘We pick a weekend to hold it and tell all interested parties. My team will help you get the house ready. Make sure it looks as good as it possibly can. We’d have plenty of staff on hand to supervise. But we only let people come who have registered an interest and given us their financial details – and proved that they are in a position to proceed. No casual passers-by or people who just want a nose.’

  ‘That sounds like a great idea.’

  ‘Then we ask everyone to submit their best and final offers as a sealed bid. It really is the quickest and most secure way to get the ball rolling.’

  Belinda could tell Giles hadn’t suggested this avenue. She felt pleased, but sensed Sally would need time to think. She stood up.

  ‘I’ll leave you to think about it. And just call me if you have any questions at all.’

  ‘Thank you. I can’t take it all in,’ Sally said. ‘I do need to think. And I need to talk to my husband. This is the biggest decision we’ve ever had to make.’

  5

  After lunch, Leo was anxious about his father and wanted to put him in a taxi to Paddington. Alexander refused.

  ‘I’ve never taken cabs in London and I’m not about to start now. Everyone knows it’s quicker by Tube.’

  ‘I can get you an Uber. It’ll be as cheap as chips.’

  Alexander wasn’t having it.

  Only now, as he stood at the top of the escalator, he wished he’d taken his son up on his offer. He felt daunted, suddenly. What if his leg gave out on the way down? Or his stupid hand wouldn’t let him grab the rail – that was happening more often, though he hid it as well as he could. People streamed passed him, and the metal stairs rolled relentlessly downwards, making him feel giddy. Perhaps he shouldn’t have had wine on top of sherry?

  He could feel panic welling up and he wished Sally was with him. She’d make it all right. She’d take his arm without being asked. He felt desperate. He didn’t want to become over-reliant on her. They’d always been very independent. They didn’t live in each other’s pockets. All that was going to change. He hated the thought.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’ A girl in a black padded jacket and leather leggings touched his arm, her face full of concern.

  He wanted to say he was fine, but he wasn’t. He wanted someone to hold his arm while he went down the escalator. He was afraid. He didn’t think he’d ever felt such fear before in his life, except perhaps when Jess was born and had been a little bit blue and he’d felt so terribly powerless despite all the nurses reassuring him.

  ‘Would you mind?’ He held out his elbow for her to take.

  ‘Take care stepping on,’ she said, and guided him until his feet were firmly on a ste
p. They glided down together. He worried they were blocking the escalator – there was always someone in a tearing hurry – but she sensed his anxiety.

  ‘Don’t worry. They can wait,’ she told him.

  Peasebrook seemed unreachable at the moment. He had to get to Paddington yet.

  Once again he longed for Sally. He remembered when they were young, the two of them racing for the Tube hand in hand, leaping down the escalators and along the platform and then on to the train just as the door was closing, falling into their seats laughing.

  They reached the bottom and he managed to step on to the ground without stumbling.

  ‘Thank you so much. I’ll be fine now,’ he told the girl, and she patted him on the shoulder before racing off to her own destination.

  Break the journey down in pieces, Alexander told himself. He needed to get to King’s Cross, then change for Paddington, then get on the train. And Sally would be waiting for him at Peasebrook.

  *

  Leo hated leaving his father, but Alexander was stubborn. He would have needed a gun at his head to get him into a taxi. But there was definitely something wrong. He’d been quiet and withdrawn and . . . slow. His father was never slow. What Leo couldn’t fathom was whether his father knew he was different. Was he hiding something or was he simply unaware? He’d said something about his knee – his arthritis playing up – but Leo hadn’t been convinced it was just that. Maybe he should have gone back home with him? But that wasn’t an option – he had a five o’clock meeting before everyone went home, then a soft launch of a new bar in Soho. Never mind – he would call home at about six and make sure Alexander had got back all right.

  He felt a nagging guilt as he pushed through the crowds – the area was always buzzing with food tourists nowadays. Of course the world wouldn’t end if he didn’t go to the meeting or the launch. What was more important – the social media campaign of a new brand of ‘artisanal’ pork scratchings or his parents? His parents, obviously. The deep-fried skin of a British saddleback didn’t get a look in.

  His phone rang and it was the office, checking on his whereabouts. His next client had arrived.

  ‘I’m three minutes away. Make them coffee.’

  He broke into a light jog, arriving slightly breathless and charmingly apologetic. And of course, in between the meeting, and the launch, and bumping into a couple of people he’d been hoping to do business with, it was half eleven before he thought about ringing home and by then it was far too late. Anyway, his mother would have rung him if there’d been a problem. Of course his dad was all right. His knee had been giving him gyp, that was all.

  6

  Belinda drove back into Peasebrook after her visit to Hunter’s Moon feeling unsettled.

  She knew if she left a valuation without tying the deal down she probably wouldn’t get it. But she could see how upset Sally was, and she hadn’t wanted to manipulate her emotions. If she was meant to get the job, she would, but she knew when to back off. Sally’s revelation about her husband had upset her too. So often there was sadness and grief lying underneath perfection.

  She drove up the high street, and just as she did every time she felt a burst of fondness for the town that had become her home. She smiled in approval to see that it was buzzing. It had the proud boast of having the highest ratio of independent shops in the region. Of course there were a couple of chain stores, because its rising population meant a pressing need for a supermarket and a chemist, and there were the usual banks. But the other shops were a combination of long-running family businesses – the butchers, the saddlers, the greengrocer – or new enterprises set up by people passionate about what they were selling. She could see the zinc buckets of flowers spilling blooms outside the florist, and the window of a boutique filled with pastel dresses ready for spring. And her own favourite, Nightingale Books, just before the little bridge that led out of town. She promised herself a browse in there on Sunday, her only day off.

  She drove over the bridge and forked right as the road split into two, then drove up a hill and pulled up outside her office. It wasn’t on the high street, but that meant her rent was a quarter of what it would be if it was, and it really didn’t seem to matter, and best of all there was a tiny flat over the shop, which she lived in. The basement she let to her photographer, Bruce. All in all she had made the building work well for her.

  She felt a burst of pride that she had come so far. A long, long way from the shy school-leaver who had typed up property details at a faceless high street agency in Oxford, being shouted at because she had spelled ‘storey’ ‘story’.

  ‘A three story house?’ her boss had shouted. ‘What bloody story? The Three Little Pigs?’

  She had felt tears stinging her eyes and for a moment had been tempted to walk out, but she had stuck at it, because there was something even then that intrigued her. Selling houses was like selling dreams. She loved everything about it: the personalities, the drama, the challenge.

  You didn’t have to be a psychiatrist to work out that moving every two years into yet another anonymous RAF quarter, where she hadn’t even been allowed to paint her bedroom walls a different colour or knock a nail in to hang up a picture, had given her a fascination with the notion of owning your own house. Your own home. She had never really known what home meant as a child. Wiltshire, Germany, Holland, Yorkshire, then finally back to Oxfordshire – the houses had always been the same, cramped and soulless with metal windows and walls the colour of skimmed milk. Unwelcoming. Sterile. She had never walked over the threshold and felt a sense of belonging.

  So once she’d been taken out to viewings, that was it: she knew what she wanted to do. She spent three years learning the ropes in Oxford, putting hundreds of houses on the market, before moving to Mortlake Bassett in Maybury, which specialised in country homes. Beautiful houses that embraced you. Even if she didn’t own one, she loved living in them vicariously, mentally redecorating each one to her own taste. It almost didn’t feel like work.

  Thus she flourished, becoming Mortlake Bassett’s best negotiator. She shook the agency out of its complacency and implemented new strategies while holding on to their Country Life image. She doubled, then tripled, their sales figures and set a record for the biggest bonus. Other agents in town tried to poach her, and when they couldn’t entice her they copied her ideas instead, but no one had her insight or flair. Or her personality and charm: she had a way with clients that couldn’t be imitated.

  That was more than ten years ago. And then, they had betrayed her. Estate agency could be a dirty business. She had always known that, and worked hard to dispel the clichéd wide-boy image. Not realising that she would become a victim of it.

  She didn’t dwell on it now, though. Instead, she paused for a moment to look at the window where she displayed the details of the houses she had for sale in individual frames. She only listed houses she liked. That was her niche. The houses didn’t have to be grand, but they had to be somewhere she’d want to live herself, from a tiny one-bedroomed weavers’ cottage to a grand manor house. And, somehow, it worked: most people in the area knew if their house went on with Belinda Baxter, it was something special.

  She had a brimming hot box of people looking for houses around Peasebrook. She often brokered deals without even having to put a house on the open market. She never took on houses that needed too much cosmetic surgery, but she could wave a wand and transform a house almost overnight into something really special. She’d been known to put as much as fifty thousand pounds on a house just by decluttering and revamping. She arrived with dustbin bags, empty boxes, and a man with a flatbed truck who ran back and forth to the dump. She had a contact with a warehouse full of furniture and ornaments she could hire. She could transform a nondescript garden terrace into an ‘outside room’ with a jet wash, a table and chairs, and two outsize pots filled with greenery. On a couple of occasions, much to Belinda’s chagrin, the clients had loved their makeover so much they had taken their houses of
f the market.

  The other agents in town couldn’t offer this level of service. It was one of the things that set her apart. She could also organise a packing service, a storage service for surplus clutter, even arrange for dogs to be looked after during viewings.

  In other words, if you sold your house through Belinda Baxter, you didn’t have to think about anything. And if you bought from her, she could advise you on everything, from the best school for your children to where to put your horse in livery and how to find a reliable cleaner.

  The welcome pack she put in her ‘sold’ houses on the day of completion summed up her brand: a handmade wicker basket would be waiting in the kitchen, with pale blue Cotswold Legbar eggs, local sparkling wine, homemade sourdough and an apple cake from the bakery in Peasebrook.

  The keys, of course, were presented to the client on a leather fob with her logo embossed in gold: two Bs back to back.

  It was all about the detail.

  She worked ten times harder than any other estate agent she knew. And if anyone ever accused her of being a workaholic – well, when you loved your job, that wasn’t such a bad thing, and if someone broke your heart and kicked a boot through your soul, being a workaholic was better than having a nervous breakdown, surely?

  She pushed open the door of her office. She was always eager to get back. She made a point of not answering her phone when she was out on an appointment, because it was too rude for words to take a call when you were with a client and there was never anything that couldn’t wait.

  As she walked inside, she felt the usual rush of pleasure and pride. It was her little kingdom. The reception area was warm and welcoming and relaxed: seagrass flooring, sage green walls and a highly polished oak table that served as a desk. Clients sat in plump armchairs covered in a tweedy check, the lighting was soft and there was the merest whisper of baroque music in the background. The back room was where all the phone calls were taken and the paperwork dealt with. There was no sign of actual work front of house – nothing so pedestrian.