Page 78 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
From time to time he’d exclaim, ‘Wire brushes!’ or something else I’d forgotten, and then scribble in the margins.
When we’d decided on the best model of kiln for my purposes, I told Carey that Ivan knew a plumber.
‘That’s right. Officially retired, like me, but still working because he’d be bored sick doing nothing all day and though you canexiston a pension, it’s not a lot of fun,’ he said. ‘He’s a good plumber.’
‘Ivan rang him from the workshop and he’s coming tomorrow to see about putting a small sink and electric water heater in the cloakroom,’ I said. ‘And he’ll check out the rest of it, to see what else wants doing. He’s going to cut me a good deal – or rather cutyoua good deal, since the plumbing must be your department.’
‘In cash,’ Ivan nodded.
‘How retired is he?’ asked Carey, a familiarly keen expression in his eyes. ‘I mean, could he do a bit of updating in the house and fit me a shower in one of the rooms, perhaps?’
‘He could do that, all right,’ Ivan agreed. ‘You’d need an electrician as well to sort the shower wiring and fuses, mind.’
‘That’s OK, I’ve got one of those, recommended by the people at the pub down the road.’
‘You’d better have a word with him when he comes tomorrow, then,’ Ivan said. ‘Me and Louis will be back, too, but Grant’s got plans.’
‘Yes, though I’ll come up and give a hand whenever I can, Angel, and you can always ring me if you want to discuss anything,’ he said.
‘I’m just grateful you all came over today,’ I told them. ‘It’s made all the difference.’
Next morning Carey came down to meet Ivan’s plumber friend, Garry, who told him he’d sort out what I wanted at the workshop, no problem, and would come up another day to see what was needed at the house.
After that, Carey took himself off to the big attic, because the dealerfriend who liked high Victorian furniture was coming over later with a large van.
Louis spent hours outside the workshop removing the old paint from the window frames with a small flame gun, which he seemed to regard as extremely enjoyable, while Ivan and I started painting the big room. Or rather, I went up the tallest ladders to paint the tops of the walls, while Ivan held the bottom and droned gently on about football, in which I had no interest whatsoever. I just said ‘um’ occasionally and let it flow on uninterrupted. It was very pleasant and peaceful.
When I looked out later to see if Louis wanted a drink, he was down at the corner of the building, talking to Vicky, of all people – in fact, they seemed to be getting on like a house on fire and, going by their stance, were inputting each other’s numbers into their phones.
Then she gave him a flirty look and tottered off down the drive, while he gazed after her with a slightly dazzled expression. I suppose she was terribly sexy really, and Louis was of an age to be flattered by the attentions of an attractive older woman …
He was a nice boy, but I wasn’t sure what she was going to get out of it. Perhaps she was just being nosy and pumping him for information about what we were doing, and the flirtiness was incidental.
We saw a vast van drive past in the late morning and when I took Louis and Ivan up to the house for a belated lunch and to show them the Jessie Kaye and Lady Anne windows, three burly men were loading monumental bits of mahogany into it. They’d had to park on the drive at the side of the servants’ wing, since the van wouldn’t fit into the courtyard without demolishing the fishy fountain and the lollipop topiary.
Carey looked pleased as the van filled up. I wondered how there could have been so much weight up there without the ceiling coming down.
When they’d driven off, we all went up to the attics to see what was left and I appropriated a couple of battered but comfortable chairs for the workshop and a pretty desk in a light maple colour for the studio-office downstairs. I’d carry on using Carey’s battered old kitchen table for working on, though.
Carey had already spotted a few treasures that he was sure would find their place in the house when it had been renovated, and Louis and Ivan stayed up there helping him to pull things out, while I went down to cut a plate of sandwiches and heat soup.
Then, just as I was about to summon them down to eat, footsteps thundered down the stairs and Louis burst into the kitchen, saying excitedly: ‘We’ve found something in the attic and Carey says you need to come and see it!’
Ralph showed me the first two rooms beyond the baize door on the upper floor of the servants’ wing, which he said he had designed with a nursery in mind. We discussed furnishing it in the modern style and it was just like old times, before Mr Browne came back, when we would talk about all manner of things with interest and enthusiasm. It was decided I would design three Aesop’s fables-themed top window panels to replace the plain glazing, and would commission Lily to make a matching embroidered hanging for the wall.
A whole morning had slipped by pleasantly in this manner and we went down to lunch still debating the finer niceties in the way of curtains and carpets, only to find Mr Browne had arrived for lunch, though I am very sure he was not invited. But then, he does not seem to wait for invitations but turns up whenever he pleases.
He ignored me in the rudest fashion, engaging Ralph in conversation on the subject of the latest house he had been commissioned to design, in the Lake District. Now that Mossby was almost finished, apart from some grandiose schemes for the gardens, including a hothouse in the small walled fruit and vegetable garden beyond the stables, there did not seem to be much to hold his attention here.
I began to hope he might move to the Lake District permanently and, when I expressed this thought to Honoria, she earnestly agreed with me.
27
Positively Wired
I found them at the furthest end of the attic, gathered round a long, painted metal box. The lid was thrown back and they were all directing their torch beams into it like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie.
‘Come and look at this, Angelique!’ Carey said excitedly.
