Page 27 of Her Fixer Upper

‘My sleeping arrangements are all sorted,’ he said, neatly swerving the question. ‘I felt guilty that I was responsible for the unwanted air conditioning that your room now has, so I thought it was best to sort out the living room for you.’

‘Speaking of unwanted air conditioning, what are we going to do about the hole in the wall? Never mind the draught, I would have thought it would invalidate our insurance.’

‘I highly doubt any burglar is going to be committed enough to clamber up the side of the building and try to get in through your bedroom window.’

‘Stranger things have happened. But seriously, we need to find a way of blocking it up until we can get new windows fitted.’

Charlie nodded. ‘Let’s see what we can come up with.’

What we came up with was a makeshift shutter made up of several flattened cardboard boxes held in place by a vast quantity of gaffer tape.

I sat back on my haunches and surveyed the result.

‘I’m not sure it really adds to the aesthetic of the room, but I guess it’ll do the trick for the time being. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain any time soon.’

ChapterTwelve

Iwas dragged from deep sleep at an unreasonably early hour by the sound of someone thudding on the front door. I buried my face in my pillow, trying to tell myself the noise was another one of the orchestra of sounds which the house seemed to be permanently producing, as the beams creaked and the walls sighed in tune with the wind outside. Every muscle in my body felt stiff after yesterday’s hard work, and that had only been the start of it. It was too much to contemplate. Just five more minutes in bed, and then I’d face the day, I told myself. But the rhythmic banging persisted and as there was no responding clatter of Charlie coming down the stairs to answer the door, I groaned and got up to do it myself.

After running my fingers through my hair to try to look vaguely respectable, I managed to heave the front door open a couple of inches. Perversely it seemed to be getting stiffer rather than easing with use, which seemed to be typical of Oak Tree Cottage’s eccentricity. I stuck my head through the gap and hoped that I didn’t appear rude by not being able to emerge fully.

‘Good morning, good morning, welcome to the village,’ said a smiling woman on the doorstep. She held her hand out. ‘I’m Sheila, one of your new neighbours. Well, almost neighbours. We’re down the road, but I reckon that still counts, as Oak Tree Cottage is rather out on a limb.’

‘Hi, Sheila, lovely to meet you. I’m Freya.’ I managed to yank the door open a little further so that I could get my arm through the gap and shake her hand. I was touched that she’d made the effort to visit. In all my years of renting in the city, I’d never really graduated beyond being on nodding terms with the neighbours. I found myself feeling unaccountably nervous, wanting to make a good first impression.

‘And I’m Charlie,’ said the man himself as he appeared behind me, irritatingly looking far more rested than I felt. But then again, I had done the lion’s share of the bathroom clearing yesterday. He reached over my shoulder so he could shake Sheila’s hand too.

She beamed in delight. ‘How lovely, a nice young couple moving into the village.’

‘We’re not…’ I started to say, then fell silent as Charlie nudged the back of my foot.

‘Do you happen to know mortgage broker Philip Andrews?’ he asked.

Sheila looked confused. ‘I don’t think so.’

I felt Charlie’s shoulders relax. ‘He was full of praise for this village when he was helping us,’ he said, smoothly covering the real reason for his question. ‘Freya and I are actually old friends who decided to do the place up together.’

‘What an exciting project to undertake,’ said Sheila. ‘We’re all so pleased that someone is finally going to show some love to the cottage. Now I’m sure you must have plenty to keep you occupied, but as well as introducing myself, I wanted to invite you both along to the village Easter egg hunt today. It’s a little early, of course, but the children get so excited about it that we thought we’d do it at the beginning of the school holidays so they didn’t have to wait.’

‘We do have rather a lot to do,’ I said as Charlie simultaneously answered, ‘We’d love to come along.’

Sheila looked pleased. ‘Excellent. Or should I say,egg-cellent. Right, it kicks off at eleven a.m., here’s a leaflet with all the information on, and we’ll see you there. Everyone is so excited to meet you.’

‘We’reegg-cited too,’ said Charlie, which earned him an elbow in the ribs.

Sheila chuckled with delight. ‘We’ll have you on the village hall committee in no time; just what this area needs, some new blood. See you later,’ she trilled. We waved through the gap in the door as she sashayed off, and then we managed to shut it once again by some joint brute force.

‘Without wishing to sound horribly anti-social, why did you agree to us going to the Easter egg hunt?’ I asked. ‘I’m sure it’ll be lovely, but it sounds like it’s really aimed at the village children, plus we have so much to do. We can’t afford to waste a second. It will completely disrupt the schedule of work for today.’

‘Is that so very bad?’ said Charlie. ‘Relax, be spontaneous for once.’

‘I used up my quota of spontaneity when I was persuaded to buy this wreck,’ I retorted. ‘Please don’t force me into having to be the boring one, but we really need to keep our focus. Sheila was very kind to invite us to join in, but we’ve both got enough on our plate trying to juggle our jobs and tackling this place. The Easter holidays will be over before we know it and once I’m back at school, there’ll only be so much restoration work I’ll have time to do.’

Charlie shrugged. ‘It might be fun. It will help us become part of the local community.’

‘I hate to say it, but we’re not here to become part of the local community. It’s not fair to them if we get involved in village life when we know we’re not staying here long term.’

‘Don’t you think you might be overthinking it somewhat?’ said Charlie. ‘It’s only an Easter egg hunt.’

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