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17
Lucy’s phone rings while she’s cleaning Henry’s kitchen the following morning. Her heart stops and starts again at the thought that it might be Henry. But it’s a St Albans prefix and it’s not Libby, so it must be an estate agent. She replies slightly breathlessly. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi! It’s Max Blackwood, from Raymond & Cobb. Have you got a minute?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes. I do.’
‘Well, I’ve been going back and forth a bit with the vendors and they have said that if you can stick another fifty K on the end of your offer, they will take it off the market for you.’
‘So …’ She can’t arrange the numbers in her head into anything that makes sense.
‘Yes, that’s one million and fifty thousand.’
‘Right. OK.’
It seems crazy to her, how little the extra fifty thousand seems in the context of all those other zeros. She should fight it. She should object. But she wants this house and she doesn’t want to do anything to delay getting this house so she finds herself replying, very quietly, but resolutely, ‘Yes. OK. That’s fine.’
‘So you’re happy for me to say that you’ll accept?’
‘Yes. I am very happy for you to say that. But on the understanding that they will do everything within their power to push this through as quickly as possible. Please.’
‘I will absolutely mention that to them, Lucy. Absolutely. I cannot see any reason for them to drag their feet.’
After the call ends, Lucy rolls her head back on her neck and says a silent prayer to the gods of house buying. Please, she thinks, please after all these years and years and years, give us a home where we can finally be safe.Please.
