AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 4
Alice’s thoughts turned to the blasted DNA kits that Theo and Freya had been given at the Christmas party. She really didn’t want to think about that. Instead, she turned her thoughts to her best friend. She would have loved to speak to Jane about her house move. Unfortunately, at this time of year Jane and her husband always took a three-week holiday to Thailand for some winter sun. They’d been doing it for years, even when their two children were small. They could do it because once they’d had their children, Jane had only done supply work in schools. This gave them the flexibility to take the children with them to the Far East in February. They’d had to take the kids out of school, but it was in the days before it was frowned upon and parents were fined for doing this.
Jane had been gone for two weeks already. Alice smiled at the thought that she’d be back in a week. She couldn’t wait. Jane already knew about her house move, but Alice wanted to chat about it anyway.
She turned her attention to the task at hand and thought she’d start by sorting the contents of the trunk out. She reached for one of the empty boxes and pulled it towards her, wondering why it was suddenly feeling heavy when she’d hadn’t filled it yet. She turned to look inside, and a furry head popped up, meowing at her loudly.
‘Oh, crumbs!’ exclaimed Alice in surprise. ‘What are you doing up here?’ She knew very well what Marley was doing there. He’d followed her into the loft. She didn’t know why she was acting all surprised. On the rare occasions she ventured up there, he always followed. In fact, he’d follow anyone up there, given half a chance.
Alice lifted him out. He was a cross between a moggy and a long-haired Maine Coon. His long hair always stood on end as though he’d plugged a paw into an electric socket and given himself a shock. She held him up. ‘You gave me a bit of a fright, do you know that?’ She smiled at him. He was one of those cats that seemed to look permanently grumpy, as though he’d got out of the wrong side of the bed every morning. He scrambled out of her hands and dived back into the box.
‘All right, you have that one and I’ll use this one,’ she said, reaching for the other box. She watched him for a moment, settling down in the bottom of the box for a nap. He was three years old; she’d got him as a kitten from a rescue centre as a present to herself when she’d decided on early retirement last year. She’d made the decision to retire when she’d realised that her job search was futile. There were no classical civilisation teaching jobs out there. Jeffrey had suggested that she could do some classes in I.T. and teach that instead. Alice hadn’t been interested. She hadn’t even really been that interested in getting another pet. She’d only popped to the rescue centre with Jane, who had been looking to rehome a dog. Alice hadn’t expected to walk home with a rescue pet herself – and a cat, at that.
‘I thought you were a dog person,’ she recalled Jane commenting. ‘And how is Hestergoing to react to the new addition?’
As if on cue, Alice heard a low, guttural woof coming from the bottom of the stairs. She got up and walked over to the loft hatch. Hesterwoofed excitedly when she saw her.
She smiled at the beagle. ‘What are you doing down there?’ She’d thought Hester was asleep in her favourite spot on the sofa in the lounge. The dog sat down, her big brown eyes looking up at Alice. She wagged her tail and woofed.
Alice shook her head. ‘You’re not allowed to come up here too,’ she said as Hester put her two front paws on the bottom step.
‘No!’ Alice admonished her dog.
Hester whined.
‘Hester – bed!’
Hester took her front paws off the step and slunk away, head bowed.
Alice stared after Hester until the dog disappeared. She heard her familiarthump, thump, thumpas she ran down the stairs. Hester was Alice’s pet too. She wasn’t a young dog; she was now twelve years old. Jeffrey had bought her for Freya, who had been asking for a puppy since she was seven years old. The problem was that by the time Jeffrey bought Hester, Freya was thirteen years old and not all that interested in the new addition to the family. She was too interested in music, makeup and boys – although for the first few weeks, Freya showered the cute puppy with attention and was rewarded with a wagging tail and Hester following her wherever she went.
Alice recalled the other reason Jeffrey had chosen that moment to get Freya a puppy. She had been going through a tough time in her new secondary school. Freya, unlike her close circle of friends, had been given a coveted place in the local grammar school. While her friends were walking to their local comprehensive, she was being bused thirty minutes away to the ‘posh’ school, as her friends called it, on the other side of town, out in a magnificent country setting. But things had not all been plain sailing when she first started; she had been the odd one out in having to fit in and make new friends.
It was only a few months after getting the puppy, though, that Freya had turned a corner. She had made friends and settled down at her new school. She spent less and less time with Hester until one day Alice realised she spent more time with the dog than any other family member – walking her, feeding her, taking her to the vet. Alice had realised that Hester was, in fact, now her dog. She probably always had been.
Marley interrupted Alice’s thoughts by jumping around in the box, chasing his tail. Alice turned to the trunk and starting sorting through old clothes. She was surprised that some weren’t old at all, just items no longer in fashion. She vaguely remembered having a clear-out the previous year. Perhaps they were bound for the charity shop and Jeffrey had put them up there by mistake. Now she wondered why she’d thought of getting rid of them. They might be the fashion from last year, or most likely the year before, but the clothes were actually nice, well-made and in pleasing muted colours she could imagine wearing again.
She liked the cords. There were several pairs in brown, grey and pale blue, with jumpers to match, along with checked cotton shirts that made up the sets. She looked at the jumpers and felt like putting one on. It was still freezing up there; the warmth of the centrally heated house below was not wafting up through the loft hatch as she had expected. In fact, she realised that if she didn’t close the loft hatch, the cold air up there would waft downstairs.
Alice reached over and pulled a cord. She watched the metal steps fold up and the loft hatch click shut. She could get down at any time by releasing the cord. Alice turned to the trunk and found Marley nestled in the clothes, making himself comfortable. ‘Hey!’ She picked him up and got a loud, disgruntled meow and a swipe at her hand with his claws.
‘We’ll have none of that!’ Alice said, putting him back in his box. She picked up one of the cosy, soft woollen jumpers. It was little wonder Marley had been making himself comfortable in them. There were several of them folded in a neat pile of varying autumnal colours – rust red, brown, leaf green and beige. She got off her knees and held one up in front of the mirror to determine if it would still fit, although she knew she didn’t really need to. Her weight had fluctuated very little since she’d retired. When she had been a teacher, it had been a different ballgame. She had always been snacking and picking at things at home and at work. Her weight had ballooned. She had always known the cause; she had been bored and unhappy in her job.
Now, after being retired for the past year, she had been happy – until the family had got it in their heads to sell the house. Alice had been renewing a deep-seated interest she’d had since she did her degree – archaeology. She’d been visiting museums in London and Cambridge and had started to think about doing an MA; something she wished she’d pursued years earlier, after completing her degree. But she’d met Jeffrey instead, a teacher five years older than her, and had immediately started teacher-training. Her goal had been to buy a family home and have children. Alice stared wistfully off into space. If it hadn’t been for Freya coming along …
She cut that thought off; the thought that she might have returned to education to study for a PhD and then become an archaeologist. But that dream had not materialised. The fact was that Freyahadcome along, and Alice didn’t regret it one bit.
She smiled at her reflection. The jumper was lovely. However, it was a bit on the snug side; she wondered whether the previous year, before she’d retired, she had perhaps asked Jeffrey to consign these clothes to a spot in the loft and had then forgotten all about them.
She got the pile of jumpers out of the trunk and wondered what she was going to do with them. She was about to put them in one of the cardboard packing boxes when her eyes alighted on some old suitcases. Jeffrey had inherited them from his parents along with some odd pieces of furniture, a standard lamp, and various old, framed pictures, all of which he’d stashed in the loft.
Jeffrey wasn’t a hoarder, but he found it difficult to let go of anything that had some sentimental value, which was the reason the loft was full to the rafters and he’d left it until last to have a clear-out. They couldn’t take all this stuff with them to another place. As much as she liked a good few pieces of the furniture, and even the pictures, they were meant to be downsizing. Where would it all go?
She walked over to the suitcases, which were sitting on top of another trunk. There were three; small, medium and large. Made of leather, they were rectangular and boxy with old-fashioned buckles rather than zips. There were worn stickers of bygone destinations that were no longer legible. Jeffrey’s parents had begun travelling when package holidays had started back in the fifties. At the time, going to Greece or Spain was considered both fashionable and exotic.
Alice smiled. She could just make out one of the stickers –Costa Del Sol.She took the medium-sized suitcase down and sneezed. She had brought a duster with her. She placed the case on the floor by the trunk, dusted the top, and unbuckled the straps. She opened the case, lifting the heavy lid up and over. It hit the wooden floor with a thud. She sat back in surprise. The case wasn’t empty. Inside was one of her sketches. She recognised it immediately. She hadn’t sketched for years. When she’d retired, she’d thought that was what she’d do – rekindle another hobby she’d enjoyed years and years earlier.
She carefully lifted out the sketch, which she’d completed on canvas. It was lying on crepe paper. She thought Jeffrey must have found it lying around in the loft and put it away in the suitcase so that it didn’t get damaged – although she might well have just taken these old cases to the tip without bothering to check inside. Alice stared at the canvas. She imagined her idea was to use colour and paint on the canvas, using the sketch as a template for the painting.
