Nothing.
But it’s still quite early. Maybe he’s having a lie-in.
I take my time showering and drying my hair, and I makemyself wait to check my phone again until I’m downstairs, sitting at the littletable in the kitchen with a freshly-brewed cup of coffee in front of me.
Still nothing.
My heart sinks. Perhaps he didn’t take me seriously. Or maybehe’s simply forgotten about my offer to help.
Getting up to put bread in the toaster, I tell myself it’sprobably just as well. I’d been planning to spend the day in my pottery shed,anyway. Helping Aidan would only mean I’d be playing catch-up tomorrow.
When my phone pings through a text, I ignore it until mytoast pops up. Then I casually walk across and look at it.
Were you serious about helping me paintwalls today? I hope you were. But don’t worry if you’re too busy doing otherstuff. Promise I won’t blame you if it’s a disaster (not much anyway) Aidan x
I’m still smiling when another text pingsthrough, giving me the address. And I smile even more at the name. HollyhockCottage. How lovely.
I run upstairs, munching my toast, the pottery shedforgotten, and I search through my wardrobe to find an over-sized shirt topaint in. Of course, there isn’t one. (Who actually owns an over-sized shirt?)So I settle for a pair of old blue jeans and a khaki top that’s seen betterdays (but used to be my favourite because the colour seems to make my greeneyes look brighter).
A pair of old tennis shoes completes the ‘DIY diva’ look.Grabbing my bag, I whisk out to the car, humming a bit of Madness (‘Our House’)as I punch Aidan’s post code into my ancient satnav.
His cottage turns out to be on the Sunnybrook side ofTorminster, along a maze of narrow country roads with trees on either side. Andat last, I’m drawing up outside Hollyhock Cottage. It’s a pretty, one-storey property,with white-painted windows and a minty green front door. But the garden thatsurrounds it is a bit of a jungle, to say the least.
Aidan greets me at the door with an apologetic grin. ‘Thankyou for coming. You’ll have to use your imagination, I’m afraid.’ He ushers meinto a small hallway.
‘Oh. This is... striking.’ I gaze aroundme at the orange floral wallpaper and the green and orange swirly carpetbeneath my feet.
‘Very diplomatic,’ he grins. ‘It gets worse. I should havewarned you to bring sunglasses.’
We enter a room on the right that’s been painted a vibrantegg yolk yellow, with the same swirly-style carpet, although this time invarious shades of brown and cream. The rest of the cottage follows the samepattern, except in the kitchen and bedrooms, where Aidan has already strippedoff the wallpaper.
‘This is the best bit.’ He grins and leads me into thebathroom.
My eye lands immediately on the shower head.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ I burst out laughing. ‘What is it? Aplastic bottle?’
‘I know. How inventive is that?’
‘The shower head must have broken, so they decided a plasticbottle would do the trick just as well?’
He nods. ‘It actually works. Someone’s carefully punchedlots of little holes in the bottle cap.’ He steps forward, brushing past me inthe tight space, and turns on the shower.
I shake my head. ‘Ingenious. I’d keep it like that, if Iwere you,’ I joke, my whole body a riot of feelings at the unexpected contact.
‘Absolutely. Why mess with perfection?’
As we laugh, our eyes meet and hold a little longer thanthey should, and my heart seems to swell in my chest. I swallow, and it emergesas a loud gulp, which effectively breaks the spell.
‘Right. Where do we start?’ I look around me, trying to getmy haywire emotions under control.
‘Kitchen?’ he suggests, and I follow him through.
‘Where’s the wonky shelf you put up with my mugs on it?’ Iglance around.
He grins. ‘I took it down before you got here. It wasbad.’
The green wall is pretty revolting as well, and afterlaughing about it, we then have a competition to guess exactly how many coatsof powder blue paint we’ll need to cover up Aidan’s mistake.
