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“Nonsense. Silly boy.” She kissed him on the cheek. “You can help your dad set up the barbeque. I don’t think he should be trusted with lighter fluid.”
As far as he could remember his parents had never owned a barbeque and his mum hated eating outside. The weather wasn’t too bad, but by the time they’d got the thing going and they’d cooked, it would be dark and on the chilly side.
“Why are we eating outside? You once said you’d rather starve than battle for domination with mosquitoes.”
She waved him away. “You’re always putting words in my mouth. Where’s your sense of adventure, Ali? We’ve fresh air, some lovely trout a friend of your dad caught and even some homemade sloe gin… what’s not to like? Then we’ll sleep under canvas like proper explorers.”
“You’re camping?” Something very strange was going on. “You hate camping more than barbequed food.”
“I am expanding my horizons.” She scurried away before Alex could grill her.
His brother Stephan emerged from one of the tents. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. You can help me talk some sense into them. They’ll listen to you.”
This was not a good sign. Stephan was more often than not as flaky as their parents. “As much as I’d like to think they listen to me, we both know that’s a complete fallacy. What is going on?”
“I got here last night. Apparently, they’ve been camping out since the assessor from the builder came around.”
He’d only been gone a month, and he’d heard nothing about this. “I didn’t know they were having building work. Have they moved out to get it done?”
“Come with me.”
He followed Stephan to the side of the property where there were two outbuildings tagged on the end of the house. Stephan pointed to the door of one of the outhouses. “Can you see it’s not straight in its frame?”
“Yeah, what of it?” The house was over a hundred years old, nothing big or fancy but it was sturdy enough.
“Apparently over the years tree roots have done some damage and, coupled with a weakness in the foundations, the house isn’t safe. Structurally speaking.”
Alex was always amazed that his parents never failed to tell him about the mundane things that didn’t matter but seemed to gloss over the big items. Like when his dad had an accident and ended up in the hospital or his mum had needed specialist tests. And now this.
“So where’s the underpinning, and whatever else a structural engineer would have suggested?”
“I haven’t got that out of them yet. But suffice to say, they’re been living out of tents for the last week at least.”
Surely his parents had insurance for this sort of thing, or savings they could dip into to at least make the house safe, if not completely fix it. His mum was collecting herbs from her vegetable patch and he decided this had to be tackled head-on.
“Mum,” he said as he approached, “Stephan said you’ve been camping out for a few days now. Want to tell me the real reason behind it?”
She stared at the bunch of greenery in her hands. “The thing is, sweetheart, we’ve hit a little bit of a snag, and until we rebalance a few things, me and your father have been exploring the world under canvas.”
“A little bit of a snag? Mum, Stephan said there’s an issue with the house, but you must have building insurance.”
“Well, therein lies the rub. When we paid off the mortgage we thought we wouldn’t need it anymore. And what with pensions these days, the extra money came in handy.”
His heart sank. He could understand their reasoning. The house had been sound and paying for insurance was a luxury they hadn’t thought they could afford. He wished they’d spoken to him, he could have carried the expense of the premium but not the full amount for work stabilising and then rebuilding their house might now cost.
“Have you estimates for the work?”
“Nothing easily affordable. We were thinking about getting a motorhome instead.”
They’d lived in their home for thirty years, there must be something that could be done. He had some savings, and maybe they could borrow against the property. “How much are we talking? Don’t soft soap it.”
“Around twenty thousand, give or take.”
He had some savings but nowhere near that much. “Could you re-mortgage?”
“We don’t have the income to support the repayments. And it’s a bit of a catch-22 because until the work is done the house isn’t habitable so the bank won’t loan against it.”
“You can’t live in a tent. Can’t social services help?”
