Page 35 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
‘I’m afraid there are only arrowroot biscuits on the premises and they’re a bit limp,’ he said, offering it to me. ‘My uncle seems to have been on a bland diet for the last few months of his life, because the freezer in the scullery is full of mushy stuff like mince and mash, fish pie, macaroni cheese and that kind of thing. And the cupboards are stacked with tinned soup, rice pudding and semolina.’
‘Lovely. You need building up a bit, but I don’t think that kind of stodge is going to tempt your appetite.’
‘Mrs Danvers’ not very strenuous duties included preparing dinner – by shoving it in the microwave from the look of things – but apparently the nurses took care of breakfast and lunch.’
‘I’m not surprised, if they had to eat the same pap for dinner as your uncle. I expect that’s all he could digest, though,’ I suggested. ‘What else did your very own Mrs Danvers do for her extravagant salary?’
‘So far as I can see, not a lot. She ordered supplies, arranged for the cleaners and carers to come in, and sorted out the laundry for collection: nothing terribly hard or time consuming. But her husband, Clem, seems to do the work of five men in the garden, so I suppose it sort of evens out.’
‘Isthere much actual garden?’
‘The way the land rises behind the house means there isn’t a formal garden, other than that small knot in the courtyard and the shrubbery round the parking area and down the drive, mostly rampant rhododendrons. But the terraces going down from the house to the lake have rockeries, stone troughs and flowerbeds on every level, so that keeps him busy.’
‘Yes, those terraces must take a lot of work,’ I agreed.
‘Clem told me there’s an old walled kitchen garden behind the garages and stables, but it fell out of use before he came here. I haven’t found the key to the door yet, but there’s a tin box of them in the boot room to go through.’
‘Nick will be entranced by the idea of a secret garden!’
‘It’s not secret, just unused and overgrown. But yes, he’s going to be delirious with pleasure when he finds out about it.’
‘Let’s hope he’s just as delirious when he and his film crew findthemselves hacking their way in and digging vegetable beds while they’re at it,’ I said tartly, and he grinned.
‘You won’t need Mrs Danvers to cook because you can do that yourself, and Grant’s wife, Molly, runs a business filling freezers with her own lovely home-cooked and healthy dishes, so you could have some of those for back-up when you don’t feel like doing the catering.’
‘Sounds good – especially since I know your cooking skills of old.’
‘Icancook!’ I protested indignantly. ‘It’s just that there’s usually something more interesting to do.’
‘We’d have to get rid of Mrs Danvers’ ghastly frozen stodge before we could refill the freezer,’ he said. ‘Seems a pity to throw it out, though. She’s going to come as usual this Friday to let the cleaners in and so on, till I decide what’s happening.’
I looked round and noted all the signs of neglect in the kitchen, like the dull range, the dusty ceiling light, and the tarnished silver mountings on the biscuit barrel. ‘The cleaners don’t seem to be putting a lot of effort into their work.’
‘They’re only here for a couple of hours once a week and they strip and make beds and do any ironing in that time, too, so vacuuming the floors, cleaning the bathrooms and having a quick dust is probably all they’ve got time for. But the panelling in the old wing is immaculately polished: Ella said she cleans that herself and it’s obviously a labour of love.’
‘Well, that must be worth part of her wage, at least – and she shows visitors over it, too.’
‘Once or twice a year? Big deal!’
He put down his mug and smiled at me, his wonderful purple-blue eyes glowing in the way that I sometimes think makes him look slightly loopy, but in a good way.
‘You have to find somewhere to live and work and I’ve got the space and the workshop – plus, I need you.’
‘To mend the cursed window and as general dogsbody?’
‘No, as my best friend. I think you’re the only person I could bear having around me the whole time just now,’ he said honestly. ‘We know each other so well and we’ve even lived together before.’
‘But with Nick and some of the others,’ I pointed out. There hadbeen quite a group of us renting the student house together when we were at college. It had been chaos, in a fun kind of way.
‘Well, when Nick, Sukes and the rest of the unit are staying here, it’ll be just like old times, won’t it?’ he said.
‘You mean, you cook vats of spaghetti bolognese, nobody washes up for a week, there’s an endless party in the living room with empty bottles everywhere and someone’s new girlfriend is throwing up in the only bathroom?’ I asked.
‘Well, no, perhaps not quite like that.’ He gave me the borderline loopy grin again. ‘Come on, Shrimp, what do you say?’
He knew the answer: after the last couple of weeks I needed a safe haven, and he was it.
‘Equipping the workshop will take all of my savings,’ I said cautiously. ‘You’d have to be responsible for the fabric of the building – any repairs, structural work, plumbing and electrics.’
