They walked the short distance out of Will’s front gate and down the lane, the trees gathering overhead to form a tunnel, the moonlight full and bright but barely visible under the canopy of foliage. They turned through the broken gate to Deux Tourelles. ‘Want me to fix that tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘Make a good impression on the estate agents?’
‘Can you fix it?’ she asked dubiously.
He looked at it in the dark. ‘Yes, I’ll just get a new hinge and replace a section of wood for now and repaint the whole gate later. It’ll look more inviting then. I offered to do it for Dido months ago but she politely declined.’
‘OK,’ she said, feeling warm all over. ‘Thank you.’ They walked up the drive and towards the house. Lucy had left the lamps on in each of the front bay windows and the house emanated a warm glow. ‘It looks lovely like this,’ she said. ‘In the dark but not quite dark.’
‘Not as spooked by it as you first were?’ he asked softly.
‘Not now strange neighbours don’t burst in on me and shout at me for playing music really loudly.’
He put his hands in his pockets and looked sheepish. ‘Yeah, sorry about that.’
‘You’re forgiven,’ she said somewhat more coyly than she’d intended.
Will kicked at a little bit of the gravel drive, his hands resolutely in his pockets. He seemed to be looking anywhere but at her. ‘Well … goodnight,’ he said.
‘Goodnight,’ she replied and turned towards the door. ‘Thank you for a lovely evening.’
He lifted a hand from his pocket and waved as she entered the house. The moment she closed the door she counted to five and then moved to the front bay sitting room window. She watched Will turn at the gate, look back towards the house and then continue towards his cottage.
The wine and the late hour at which she’d finally gone to bed had done damage to her beauty sleep and she awoke later than planned, tired and in desperate need of a glass of water and some coffee. After she’d spent a painstaking hour hand-picking dandelions out of the front drive, she stood in the kitchen, the old flagstone flooring cold under her thick socks. The clear sky from last night had lasted well into the day and the garden was now bathed in sunlight. Her efforts in the garden had paid off, she could see that now, and she padded across the newly mown lawn, down towards the old garden bench to enjoy the fruits of her labour.
Sipping her coffee she heard her phone ring in her back pocket. It was her sister. Peace, hard to find, was so easily interrupted.
‘Hey,’ she said to Clara and then was cut off before she could utter anything else while Clara ran through the day’s itinerary for her. It was a perfunctory conversation. Lucy half listened, inwardly wondering if it was because Clara felt some sort of resentment towards Lucy that she treated her like this? It was so hard to pinpoint why Clara ran so hot and then so cold moments later.
Three estate agents were scheduled at various times throughoutthe day. If only they could have been grouped a bit closer together, then Lucy could have visited the museum with Will. When she hung up after having received her orders, she composed a message to him.
Thank you for the lovely evening last night. Sorry, I can’t make the museum with you today. Another time?
She wondered if he’d reply instantly and held the phone in her hand, forcing herself to drag her eyes away and look around the garden. Ideally she’d have loved to sit here, on the bench, all morning. Perhaps this visit to Guernsey was what she’d needed all along, rest and recuperation.
She looked at the lawn. Maybe her time would be better spent outside, rather than inside. No, she knew that wasn’t true. What she wanted wasn’t necessarily what was best for the house. This house needed love and to be a family home again. And also, being pragmatic, she didn’t want to scupper their chance to get the best possible price. No, inside was where the real work was needed. Outside would be the fun project she had to save for later. Although, she thought, the lawn did need a clip around the edges. Maybe she could fit that in before the estate agents arrived.
After a few minutes, Will replied.
I had a nice time last night. Let me know when you’re next free. See you soon. Will. x
Lucy spent far too long smiling at the ‘x’ before she put her phone in her back pocket, stood up and went inside the house for some last-minute tidying.
‘Oh my God, you’re joking,’ Lucy spluttered when the final estate agent, Simon, gave her what he called his ‘ballpark valuation’. His was by far the highest yet and by quite a phenomenal differenceto the other two who had visited earlier in the day. Clara had instructed Lucy to play it cool when the agents gave her their valuations and so far Lucy had done as instructed. But not now.
The estate agent smiled. If Lucy hadn’t been quite so entranced by the number he’d just given her, she might instead have been entranced by his smile.
He’d also stayed the longest of all of them, quizzing her on what she was doing with the house to improve it and how long she was planning to stay on the island – a fact Lucy hadn’t yet worked out herself. He was in his thirties, quite handsome, and when he asked her out for a drink later that evening – ‘If you’re not busy …?’ – it had shocked her so much that she’d replied that she’d ‘love to’ without actually processing what he’d just asked her.
‘I know this great little bar in St Peter Port,’ Simon said. ‘I need to head back to the office but if you like, I’ll pick you up at seven?’
Lucy agreed, spellbound by the speed at which he had confidently secured a date. As he left she looked down at her daily uniform of jeans and T-shirt and wondered if she should get changed. In the end she decided just to add a pair of heels to what she was already wearing so it didn’t look like she was making too much of an effort. She was doing what Clara had suggested and was actually not going to take the easy way out of something. She was going to see something through now she’d agreed to do it. But there was something rather exhausting about the idea of drinks with this estate agent. Regardless, turning him down now felt like rather bad form and so she’d go along with it, have a couple of drinks and come home to bed.
An hour into the date, Lucy was regretting not crying off. She was right, it was exhausting, but not for the reasons she’d thought. She hadn’t had to rack her brains for endless small talk to keep the conversation going and neither had she had to think of witty things to say. She’d had almost no chance to say anything at all. The man on the date with her at the bar was a completely differentperson to the man who’d appraised Deux Tourelles earlier that day. His chattiness at the house had been because he had a genuine interest in property, so when she’d asked if he enjoyed his job, he’d reeled off dozens of examples as to why being an estate agent was the dream job.
‘I get to look in people’s houses all day. And then I sell them and make money,’ was Lucy’s particular favourite. But when he’d continued for a full half an hour, barely pausing for breath, Lucy knew she’d made a mistake.
‘The best thing is when I sell a house to someone and then a couple of years later I sell it again. It’s great. Like coming full circle.’
‘Mmm,’ Lucy agreed half-heartedly and picked up her wine glass, groaning inwardly when she noticed it was empty. ‘Actually,’ Lucy said, grasping around for something to say that would cut the date short. ‘I’ve got an early start and—’
