Page 19 of Her Fixer Upper

‘Be careful, you don’t want to break the key,’ I said.

‘Or do myself some damage,’ he replied, letting go for a moment and stretching his fingers, before trying again with growing frustration. I leaned against the wall watching the spectacle.

‘We could do with your flame-thrower now to heat up the lock and make it easier to turn,’ I couldn’t resist teasing him.

‘Perhaps you should have a go,’ he said slightly huffily, taking a step back and folding his arms, no doubt anticipating my imminent failure.

‘Without wanting to sound smug, one of my special talents is opening jam jars,’ I said, confident that I would be able to open the door without any problems. Of course, I spoke too soon, as I realised that Charlie hadn’t been pretending. The lock was so stiff I feared the whole mechanism must have rusted into position about a century ago. Nevertheless, I persisted. It seemed symbolically important that we get past this hurdle. If we couldn’t even open the front door, it didn’t bode well for how the rest of the restorations would go.

‘Had enough?’ asked Charlie. ‘You’re going to give yourself a friction burn if you’re not careful. Why don’t we add the front door to our list, and we can sort it out on another occasion? We can always get into the house through the back door, which at least we know actually works.’

‘No, it has to be this way,’ I said, my determination growing. I took hold of the key and twisted hard again, ignoring the heat in my flesh which warned me I was about to tear my skin open.

‘Then let me help,’ said Charlie. He placed his hand over mine and we fought the key together. There was an ominous crunching sound from within the lock, and then finally I felt the key start to move.

‘We’ve done it,’ I said. ‘It’s open. I wonder when this door was last unlocked.’

‘And who by,’ said Charlie. ‘Maybe once the house gets to know us it will reveal some of the secrets of its former occupants. Shall we push open the door? I think it’ll be another task for two.’

We stood facing each other, a shoulder each against the wood, and shoved hard. The door gave a shuddering creak worthy of a butler making a dramatic entrance in a murder mystery film, but it finally groaned open wide enough for us to shuffle inside sideways.

‘Home sweet home,’ said Charlie as we stood in the grimy dark of the living room. The nervous tone of his voice did not reflect the happiness of his words.

It wasn’t a particularly warm day, but the air in the house was even cooler than it was outside. I shivered, both from the cold and the sudden chilling realisation of the scale of the task we had taken on. Ever since the first viewing I’d known renovating this house was going to be a huge challenge, something the survey report had reinforced in stark clarity. But somehow, over the last few weeks of trudging through the painful buying process, my mind had dulled its memories of the reality of the place, probably a form of self-protection. Now my senses were in overdrive as the sight and, more importantly, the smell of the house reminded me how much work there was to do. I thought I could hear the scrabbling of creatures running underneath the floorboards, a sound that sent a shiver down my spine. It was overwhelming, and if it hadn’t been for the door being so hard to get open in the first place, I think I would have run straight back out of it and kept on running in the opposite direction. I sniffed, hoping Charlie would put it down as a reaction to the dank smell in the room, rather than recognising it for what it really was, a teary response of terror and regret.

Fortunately, Charlie pulled himself together more quickly than me and adopted the role of Mr Positive.

‘First things first. We haven’t decided who’s getting which bedroom. Do you want to Rock, Paper, Scissors for it?’

‘I don’t mind, you choose,’ I said dully. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to risk climbing up the stairs at this point.

‘Tell you what, you can have the room at the front as it’s slightly bigger, and I’ll take the one at the back. It seems only fair that I take the smaller room as we’re going to convert the outbuilding into an office for me.’

‘Sure,’ I said.

‘Come on, Freya, penny for ’em,’ said Charlie, putting his arm around my shoulders and squeezing.

I allowed myself a few moments to take comfort from the warmth of his body next to mine, then I pulled myself together and stepped away.

‘Sorry, Charlie. It’s been a long day in the coming, and it all felt a bit much. But if we could open that menace of a front door, we can manage anything between us. Right?’ I was still desperately looking for reassurance.

‘Absolutely,’ said Charlie, his voice artificially hearty. ‘I think we should toast our future. Let me grab the bottle of bubbly the estate agent gave us and we can start as we mean to go on.’

Of course it turned out that neither of us could remember if or where we’d packed the mugs, let alone champagne glasses. But we didn’t let that stand in our way. I did the honours, carefully twisting the bottle as I eased the cork out so I didn’t spill a drop. Not that spilled champagne would make much of a difference to the heavily stained carpet of the living room.

‘Here’s to our fixer upper,’ I said.

‘Cheers,’ replied Charlie, then we mimed clinking glasses before taking it in turns to have a glug straight from the bottle. The bubbles tickled the back of my throat, setting off a laugh which was half giggling, half choking.

Charlie joined in and then the pair of us were laughing hysterically without really knowing why.

‘Are we completely deluded?’ I asked, as I clutched my sides and took another generous gulp from the bottle.

‘Without a doubt,’ replied Charlie. ‘We are massively in over our heads. I mean, we couldn’t even open the bloody door without a battle. But doesn’t it feel good?’

Now my initial horror had been softened by the anaesthetising fuzziness of booze, I had to admit Charlie was right. I was no longer throwing hundreds of pounds away to help pay off somebody else’s mortgage. I was investing in my own future. Whatever challenges were ahead of us, we would face them. And if we had to endure some hardship along the way, then it would make the final outcome that bit sweeter.

I took a final swig from the bottle then passed it across to Charlie to finish off.

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