Page 5 of The Art of Loving You

‘I don’t believe in curses. Anyway, thanks to Sid we can rest assured everything will be okay.’ Jack placed the skittle on the windowsill, the beer bottle next to it.

I conceded he was right, that the old wives’ tale was rubbish, because my mobile beeped with an email alert from Greta, my partner in the photography business we ran.

Joyfully, I read the email once, twice, three times but still I couldn’t quite absorb it. ‘I’ve got it! Jack, I’ve got it!’ My eyes flickered across the email again to make sure.

Jack picked me up and swung me around. I was dizzy with it all, the house, him, the good news I’d just received. The news I didn’t have to explain because we were so in tune with each other. Or so I thought.

Then.

‘Finally a yes.’ He planted a kiss on my lips.

Today was the day our stars had aligned. Everything was falling into place. The Hawley Foundation Prize for photography was a huge deal.It wasn’t only the large cash sum if you won, but the exposure. It lent a sense of credibility to the winner. Photography was such an overcrowded market; it was difficult to make a mark. You had to be selected to enter the themed competition and I’d pitched unsuccessfully for a place for the past four years.

But now not only an acceptance but a ‘Your submission photograph “trust” evoked a strong emotional response from the panel.’ The picture I had sent was of Sid, crouching in the alley behind Jack’s studio, holding out a piece of ham in his gnarled fingers towards Whisky the stray ginger tom with the torn ear and skinny body, who stalked the area like he owned it. He never usually let anyone touch him.

Until Sid.

I scanned my screen again, hardly daring to believe it was true.

‘The theme is “hope”. Possibilities already whirred around my head. I could feature this house. Jack’s project. What could be more hopeful than our future plans? It felt so apt.

But then came the first phone call.

The first star shifting out of alignment. My universe already veering off its perfect path.

But I didn’t know it then.

Chapter Two

The first of those four fated phone calls was from my sister, Alice. ‘I have something to tell you,’ she blurted out before I’d even said hello. ‘Can I pop over?’

I pressed my mobile to my chest, mouthing, ‘It’s Alice,’ to Jack. ‘She wants to drop in.’ I had told her we wanted some alone time to settle, so I arched my eyebrows in a ‘you-know-my-sister’ way and he raised his own in a ‘you’re-going-to-say-yes-anyway’ response but he wasn’t annoyed; he loved her almost as much as I did.

Moments after I’d told her she could stop by the doorbell rang.

‘That can’t be her already!’ But it was. She must have made the call from outside.

She had the grace to look sheepish. ‘Sorry for turning up today but I have something to tell you.’ She lowered her voice as she stepped inside. ‘Where’s Jack?’

‘I’m here.’ Jack appeared behind me. ‘This is a nice surprise.’

‘I hope so.’ She forced a smile. ‘Do you want to show me around?’

‘Love to.’ Jack’s face glowed at the prospect. ‘We haven’t made it upstairs yet today, let’s start there.’

The stairs creaked in the way that old houses do. My fingers curved around the wooden handrails that sat atop the spindles and I wondered about the hands that had come before me – Sid and his family – and the hands that would come after.

‘It smells of damp.’ Alice wrinkled her nose.

‘It needs some work but we’ll get there.’

Jack’s confidence had always brought me comfort but that day I had to fight to cling on to my optimism which wriggled further from my grasp with each room we peered into. Peeling wallpaper and flaking paint. Yellow ceilings. Curtains billowing in the draughts snaking in from the gaps around the sash windows. It was far worse than I had remembered. When we’d visited previously our enthusiasm had tinted everything with a rose-coloured hue.

The main bedroom was habitable at least. A cast-iron bedstead. Pink floral paper covered the walls. Edging the room, dark mahogany furniture: a wardrobe, set of drawers. A large oval mirror balanced on top of a dressing table. This was the home Sid was born in, raised in and the place he’d brought his young bride, Norma. They hadn’t been able to have babies, ‘not through lack of trying’ he had told us.

‘I’m sorry.’ I had placed my hand on Sid’s knee covering a faded patch of rough corduroy.

‘Don’t be sorry. One thing I’ve learned, young Elizabeth, is that even if things don’t seem like it, everything will be okay. It usually is. This has been a real home, one filled with laughter.’

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