The exes, p.2
The Exes, page 2
‘Thank you so much for doing it. You’re awfully clever with the camera.’
‘Part of my skill set. I’ll do the first draft of the letter to the man who presents the show. You know I’d like to meet him. He’s attractive.’
Laura works as a top event organiser in London and is used to bashing out pitches and can be very persuasive when necessary.
‘Fingers crossed it leads to something,’ Holly says. ‘Did you see that small box on Lillian’s bed? It may contain something important, and I’ll take it back with me.’
The small cardboard box is covered in thick dust, and Holly sweeps it clean before double locking the front door. They reach the street, wide, leafy, and prosperous, and are greeted by a friendly looking woman, probably in her sixties.
‘Hello. I’m Hazel. I live next door. Are you moving in?’
‘I’m Holly Hilborne and this is my friend, Laura. Yes, I’m moving in soon and I plan to renovate the house.’
‘It’s excellent news you’ll be living there. Welcome.’
‘There’ll be a lot of building work, a scaffold, some noise and dust for a while, I’m afraid, but…’ Holly peters out.
‘But it will be worth it,’ Hazel finishes her sentence for her. ‘A house that’s been empty for so long, it’s just so dismal, isn’t it? Not to mention the threat of squatters moving in.’
Hazel glances beyond them, up at the façade of Penumbra House, with a look of aversion on her face. There’s an awkward moment as Holly tries to think what to say. Should she apologise for the obvious neglect of the house?
‘I’m sure you will make it lovely. I was told it was owned by a famous French writer who was a recluse,’ Hazel adds.
‘A translator actually, my aunt Lillian. She was based in France most of the time.’
‘It’s odd, but I don’t think I ever spoke to her.’
‘She wasn’t here very much,’ Holly says.
‘I’d invite you both in for tea but I’m about to go to my Purl and Plonk group.’
They smile at the name of the group.
‘Are you a knitter, Holly?’
‘Not since my schooldays.’
‘To be honest, it’s often more plonk than purl.’
‘Sounds fun. It’s nice to meet you, Hazel.’
‘Likewise.’
Holly and Laura walk away.
‘I’m glad I warned her there will be months of building works,’ Holly says to Laura. ‘People have a passion for their properties and they must have hated the signs of decay next door to them.’
‘She’ll share this intelligence with the other people on the road. There’s bound to be a neighbourhood bush telegraph in a street like this.’
They reach Brighton station and buy two small bottles of rosé in the M&S on the station concourse. Finding a four-seater, they sit opposite each other on the train back to St Pancras. By the time they reach Gatwick, they’ve both finished their little bottles and harmony is fully restored between them.
‘You know I’d love it if you’d join my “commune”,’ Holly says, ‘but you’re such a London person, and anyway you have the most beautiful home.’
‘Oh God, yes, you’ll never get me out of Camden Square or London.’
‘I want to live a bigger, braver life and the inheritance is the moment to make changes. Restoring Penumbra House will be my major project.’
‘I get it, Holly. And it could be a beautiful house, a palace after your flat. It’s just recruiting your three exes as your helpers strikes me as high risk. Once they’re in the house you’ll be lumbered with them.’
Laura’s phone rings and she switches seamlessly into work mode.
Holly looks out of the window. She’s still married to James, even though they separated four and a half years ago. It was a difficult separation, but as the resentments faded, they’ve managed a kind of friendship.
Following the 2008 financial crash James had to reinvent himself from city high-flyer to trainee osteopath. He’s in his last year at the University College of Osteopathy. She recalls their awkward conversation when James phoned to ask if he could use the top floor in Penumbra House as a treatment room for patients. Foolishly, she’d told him Ray and Spencer would be involved in her restoration project.
‘Hang on. You mean you want to work out of the top floor?’ Holly had said.
‘Exactly, for the first year, while I build my practice.’
‘So, clients will come to the house?’
‘Patients, not clients. There won’t be many to begin with, I can promise you that.’ He gave a bark of laughter, which sounded false, and she guessed he was embarrassed to ask her for this favour. ‘The first year of building a practice is critical, you see. As soon as I get established, I’d move out.’
‘But I thought you planned to practice in London?’
‘Brighton’s actually an ideal location. I’ve done some research.’
He’d done some research! Probably after their December lunch when she’d told him about her inheritance and her plans for Penumbra House.
‘But what about your mum?’
‘Easy to travel up from Brighton and my sister is nearby.’
‘I’m not sure about this at all.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘It’s the idea of people coming to the house. The disruption. They’ll ring the bell and–’
‘I’ll install a separate bell. Of course I will. My patients will be middle-aged and older folk and all very well behaved. Nothing to alarm you.’
She found that comment patronising, as if he implied she was easily alarmed. ‘I mean, it’s a family house.’
There was a pause, and she knew James was marshalling his arguments.
‘Actually, lots of osteopaths work out of private houses and you’ll hardly know I’m there.’
‘But you don’t get on with Ray or Spencer. You never have.’
‘Oh, we’ll rub along just fine. Water under the bridge, you know. You’d be doing me an enormous favour. For old times’ sake, Holly.’
For old times’ sake. She can’t forget how he treated her in their last years together. James was ruthless when he wanted something.
‘It will be a building site for months, noisy and dusty, hardly ideal for a treatment room.’
‘But I won’t be practising fully till the summer.’
She had run out of arguments to dissuade him. When James got an idea, he was like a terrier with a bone.
‘If I said yes, you’d have to pay rent for the rooms and a contribution to the council tax, water and utility bills,’ she said crisply.
There was a pause at the end of the line, and she hoped her demand for money had put him off the idea. To have her three exes involved in her house was getting absurd.
‘Ray and Spencer are paying rent, are they?’
She recalls her hot flash of irritation and she’d snapped at him.
‘How long have we been separated?’
‘Um, a while…’
‘Coming up for five years, James, and I don’t intend to share my financial arrangements with you.’
‘I was only asking. How much would the rent for the top floor be?’
‘Less than the market price.’
‘Fair enough. It’s a deal then?’
‘I suppose so; but only till you’re established. Not for the long term.’
‘Thank you, Holly. I appreciate it and I’ll move in sometime during April.’
As the outskirts of London flash by, she reflects the major difference is that she invited Ray and Spencer into the house because she wants them there. James has invited himself. Sure, they have a shared history, and it’s the longest relationship she’s had. But why did she agree? Is it because she knows James is short of money, and he was generous to her when he was earning big in the city?
She won’t accept rent from Ray; his contribution is managing the renovation, a huge task. Spencer is strapped for cash and probably won’t even heat the first-floor rooms. He once told her he is more creative when he’s cold. He’ll probably give her a painting and she likes his paintings; and now she’ll have plenty of wall space on which to hang them.
Oh well, the die is cast, and James will join the house in April. Best not to brood on it.
But Laura’s vehemence on the subject of her exes has had a dampening effect on Holly’s mood. It’s not a commune! It’s four people, all in their mid to late forties, coming together under her roof because she’s been gifted this big old house. Holly can afford to be generous. And she tells herself it will be wonderful to have more space to live in after her tiny flat. Once it’s done, she’ll feel proud to say I did this – I restored Penumbra House to its former elegance.
* * *
Laura was harsh to dismiss Ray as Holly’s rebound relationship. It’s true they got together eighteen months after Holly had given up on her marriage to James and moved out. Ray isn’t impossible. He is an excellent and reliable builder who understands how houses work. Then she recalls how Ray will smoke a joint from time to time.
‘You can only tile a bathroom so many times before you go loco,’ he told her when she caught him sitting on the toilet seat in her flat with a large spliff.
She has seen him stoned a few times, and he gets noisy and plays his music at full volume. Can she rely on Ray? Will the cost of the renovation be a bottomless pit? Will it become Penury House? She chews on her thumbnail, doubting herself. Her brave aunt Lillian would despise such defeatism and had faith in Holly to rise to the challenge of Penumbra House. This time she will not be a coward and will not let herself be ruled by fear.
Laura has been talking business all the way from Gatwick to Farringdon. Finally, she snaps her phone shut. ‘That client is so demanding. This is supposed to be my day off.’
They get out at St Pancras and share a taxi back to Camden Town. They hug before they part outside Laura’s flat. Holly’s flat is a short walk around the corner.
‘Ray, Spencer and James all under your roof. Look, sweetheart, it’s your bed and you’ll have to lie on it.’ Laura says then waves goodbye.
Chapter Two
HOLLY’S LONDON FLAT
THAT EVENING
* * *
Holly is glad to be back in her cosy flat, which she’ll be leaving next week. She had put her flat on the market to give herself a building fund for the renovation of Penumbra House. The flat sold quickly to an American woman, a cash buyer who met the asking price.
Things are happening almost too fast, and Holly is still stunned at the bequest. She thought her aunt didn’t totally approve of her. Lillian would look at her with an odd expression, puzzled and sometimes even pained. Holly thinks it’s because Lillian thought she hadn’t done enough with her qualifications and rather despised her for not showing more ambition in her career. But few people could live up to Lillian’s exacting intellectual standards. To be left Penumbra House is both thrilling and bewildering. It’s mortgage-free and now belongs to Holly, all four storeys of it. She’s a lottery winner who never bought a ticket.
She puts the small box she found in Lillian’s bedroom on her kitchen table and slides her nail under the rotten tape. At the top, something is wrapped in wads of tissue paper. Holly unrolls this carefully to reveal two small liqueur glasses, each about five inches high. They are crystal and engraved with flowers and a bird in flight. They look antique, probably Victorian, and are exquisite. She doubts she’ll ever use them, as they would hold only a mouthful of liqueur, but these little glasses appeal to her. And they must have meant something special to Lillian.
Below are two photographs held together with a rusty paper clip, and a piece of yellowing paper at the back. The first photograph is black and white and shows Lillian sitting with a man at a table in what looks like a French square. It’s a younger Lillian, maybe early forties, and she has her trademark Gauloises in her right hand. She’s wearing a dress with bold stripes and chic sandals and looks almost glamorous. The man is a few years older than her, handsome with striking thick eyebrows. There is something about their body language, the way their torsos and arms mirror each other, which makes Holly feel sure they were intimate. Written on the back in ink is one word: Jacques.
The second photograph is in colour. It’s the same man, those eyebrows are unmistakable, but many years on. He’s sitting at a desk with his hand resting on a volume, a gentle smile on his face. He is probably eighty, yet still a handsome man. Holly turns the photo round and deciphers the name on the spine of the book: Jacques Pichois. There must be a love story here.
She examines the sheet of yellowing paper. It looks like a letter, or a draft of a letter, because a line is scored diagonally across the text. It’s in English on one side and in French on the other and she recognises Lillian’s handwriting from the birthday cards she got from her aunt as a child, always with a book token enclosed. She reads the letter.
September 1996
My darling,
I met her mother in the village. She is broken, has aged ten years and says their future has been taken from them. I have hardly slept since so deep is my dread. I am consumed with the thought I have not done the right thing and should have reported my suspicions.
He was in the area, and I know he is capable of killing. Remember Rabbit.
I am frightened of him. I have decided I cannot and will not see him anymore. I urge you to seek professional help for him.
My love as always,
L.
The letter disturbs Holly. Her brave aunt was frightened of someone, someone connected with this Jacques, who surely must be the My darling at the top. The draft is dated September 1996, twenty-three years ago. Why did Lillian keep this draft letter with the photographs and the liqueur glasses? These things were important to her. And what does Remember Rabbit mean?
At the bottom of the box are three hardback books. She takes these out and examines them; they are in French and the author is Jacques Pichois. It seems Lillian had a lover, probably for many years. It would explain why she spent most of her time in Brittany. Holly finds she is glad her aunt had a lover, that her life was a happier one, less lonely than she previously thought. Yet her father never mentioned a man in Lillian’s life. Did he know anything about this Jacques Pichois? Or could he have been a married man and Lillian had to keep him a secret all her life? It’s a mystery.
Chapter Three
JANUARY
ONE WEEK LATER
* * *
It’s Holly’s moving day. She thinks, I’m leaving London and all I know.
Cooper, Laura’s cockapoo, is at her side because Laura is away at a conference and said Holly must have a dog to keep her company and guard her ‘for the first few days in that big old empty house’. Cooper is adorable, apricot in colour with bright affectionate eyes and Holly loves him dearly, but she has never thought of him as a guard dog.
She says goodbye to her pretty little flat with a pang. When she reaches St Pancras station she wonders if she’ll ever live in London again. When people leave the capital, they rarely come back.
She finds a four-seater on the train to Brighton and Cooper settles at her feet with a little sigh.
Spencer is waiting for her when she arrives at Penumbra House.
‘A big day. Tell me what you need doing,’ he says.
Shortly afterwards the two removal men pull up and park their van. They manoeuvre her double bed into the dining room which is going to be her bedroom. It will make a grand bedroom with its ornate cornicing and long windows which overlook the garden. They put her sofa in the centre of the sitting room which faces the street. Her furniture, which fitted like a glove in her small flat, is dwarfed in so much space and Cooper is unsettled by the size of the house. He skitters in the hall and hovers at doorways as if tensed and ready to spring into action. Spencer unpacks the box of kitchen utensils so they can all have tea.
Holly only unpacks the most essential things because the house is dirty. The rest will have to wait until the house has been thoroughly cleaned and she’ll live out of her suitcase for the next few days. The removal men head off. Holly is covered in dust and exhausted. Spencer sweeps the hall.
‘That’s enough for today,’ she says and they go into the kitchen. It’s cold and Holly retrieves the small fan heater which belonged to Lillian, still in its original box, and plugs it into the wall socket. It throws out a meagre heat and a smell of singed dust.
Holly holds out a bag. ‘I brought us some sandwiches and apples. No cooked supper tonight I’m afraid.’
She washes a couple of plates and puts the sandwiches on them.
‘Sorry it’s dirty in here. I’ll clean the kitchen tomorrow. Thanks for the help, Spencer. You’ve made it easier all round,’ she smiles at him.
‘My pleasure. What the hell?’ he exclaims, his fond smile falling away.
Sparks are shooting out of the plug in the wall. They both leap up and Holly moves towards the fan heater.
‘Don’t touch it!’ Spencer shouts.
She steps back. The sparks crackle and spit dangerously and there is the strongest smell of burning rubber.
‘I need to turn the power off. And no water anywhere near it.’
‘The fuse box is in the cupboard under the stairs.’
They go into the hall and Spencer throws the big switch. The lights in the kitchen go out and the flying sparks stop, but the smell of burning rubber persists. He pushes the kitchen window open. ‘Do you have any rubber gloves?’
She gives him a pair.
‘I’ll pull the plug out once it’s cooled down.’
They finish their sandwiches, and Spencer tugs the heater plug out of the wall and half of it has melted. He puts the power back on. The kitchen bulb flickers but remains on.
‘Dodgy electrics,’ Holly says.
He packs the ruined fan heater back into its box. ‘I’ll take this with me and dispose of it,’ he says.
