A Perfect Home (37 page)

‘Trust me. I'll make it perfect for William.'

A watery sun struggled through a grey winter sky as Claire's car made its way up the lane towards the house.

The builder's car was already parked in front of the soggy, sagging shell. As Claire opened the door the smell of charred timbers and thatch seemed worse than it had done before. She felt sick.

A stocky, square-faced man came towards her holding out his hand.

‘Hi, I'm Neville Brady,' his accent had a vaguely Midlands twang. ‘As I'm sure you're aware, my company has been contacted by your insurers to rebuild your home.'

Claire nodded and pulled her scarf up over her face to try and block the smell. She shivered in the cold early morning air.

‘I know this time is never easy for families whose lives have been ripped apart by the destructive power of fire,' he said as though he was reading from a script. ‘Well, never fear, Brady and Sons is here.'

Despite the awfulness of the situation Claire wanted to laugh.

‘For twenty years my company has been specialising in repairing fire- and smoke-damaged buildings. We'll turn this tragedy around and make it into something positive for you.'

He stopped and looked at Claire as if requiring some sort of affirmation. She nodded again. ‘Very good,' she said through her scarf.

He looked pleased and carried on with his speech. ‘Like a phoenix from the flames, your dream will rise again,' He raised up his arms to illustrate what he was saying, ‘And then your home will be returned to you,' his arms went higher ‘and you and your loved ones can continue with your happy lives once more.' He raised his arms over his head in a triumphant finale. Claire resisted the urge to give him a round of applause.

‘How long will it take?' Claire asked. Neville Brady turned around and looked at the home as though seeing it for the first time. He drew in his breath.

‘It's quite bad damage you've got here,' his head looked left to right and up and down as though to size up the job, then he turned back to Claire and smiled. ‘Six months,' he said. ‘Give or take a few days.'

‘Will it be like it was before?'

‘Yes.'

‘Exactly?'

‘Well the problem is we don't really know what it looked like before and you may think you know what it looked liked but usually I find that people can't really remember the details.'

‘I have photographs.'

‘You do?'

‘Well, they're in a magazine.'

‘Do you have the magazine?'

‘No, our copy went up in the fire but you can still buy that issue in the shops.' Any time Claire went to the supermarket,
Idyllic Homes
seemed to glare reproachfully out at her from the mass of publications lined up in the shelves.

Neville Brady looked at the house and back to Claire again. ‘You're the family with the perfect house that went on fire. I read about it in the newspaper. What a tragedy.' He tutted and shook his head. ‘If you buy another copy of the magazine we can go over it together,' he went on, ‘then I can get a good impression of what the house was like.'

‘Can you buy it?' asked Claire. ‘It's just –'

‘Oh, I can imagine.' He put his hand onto his heart. ‘It must be painful, too too painful. I'll pick up a copy on my way back to the office now. Don't worry about a thing. We will give you back a house you'd be proud to show off in a magazine again.'

Chapter Thirty-one

‘Filled to the brim with interesting ornaments, soft furnishings and her children's art works – for Claire it is a dream come true.'

Two weeks after Mrs Needles and her girls began they finished.

The old wooden crates were stacked up in the store room, each one lined with calico and piled with beautifully crafted items waiting to be packed in cellophane, placed in cardboard boxes and delivered to the London store.

When the last box had been taped up and sent down the motorway in the back of the courier's transit van, Claire called everyone together. Then she went into the little kitchenette at the back of the shop and returned with several bottles of champagne. She set out the wine glasses she'd bought specially for the occasion and she and Sally filled each glass with the sparkling wine. Claire picked up Ben who had been trying to ride a sewing machine like a rocking horse and with one hand she banged a pair of steel shears on a work bench to silence the girls.

‘I just want to say something to mark this very special occasion,' she began. ‘Three weeks ago getting that huge order together seemed an impossible task. I had no workshop, no sewing machine, no fabric, no home,' she smiled at the mass of smiling, wrinkled faces in front of her, ‘and now thanks to all you fabulous girls it's actually done and on its way. I'm so grateful to you for all your hard work and dedication, I don't know what I'd have done without you, you've been so –'

‘Oh get on with it, for God's sake,' a croaky voice said from the back. ‘I'm gagging for a bloody drink.'

‘Well said, Doris,' laughed Sally. ‘Quit being so sentimental and let's have a party.'

‘OK then.' Claire raised her glass.

‘Let's drink to a successful future for Emily Love and all those who've helped keep her sailing,' shouted Sally.

A cheer that must have been heard right down the high street went round the room and Mrs Nettles put Radio 2 on very loud and before long everyone was dancing to Steve Wright's Non-Stop Oldies. Sally and a group of women got on the sturdiest table and did the twist and Doris showed them that she still knew how to jive even though she did it sitting down. Claire hugged Mrs Nettles and Mrs Nettles had to dab her eyes with a little scrap of yellow gingham left on a table beside her.

‘What's going on?' Claire turned to see William's mother standing stiffly behind her. Claire smiled and stepped forward to give her a hug too but William's mother stepped back. ‘Who are these people?' she looked around her with disdain. ‘Is it some sort of old people's aerobic group?' She had to shout above the noise of the radio but her last few words had coincided with the end of a song and all eyes turned to look at her. She straightened the silk scarf at her neck and looked slightly uncomfortable. She pursed her lips.

‘It's a pensioner's rave,' said Doris wickedly, ‘and you look old enough to join in. Grab a glass of bubbly and have a bop, the male stripper will be here soon. You did order one, didn't you, Claire?'

William's mother's face started to turn dark purple. Claire hastily ushered her out of the store room into the shop where she found William's father hovering nervously near the door.

‘That was just Doris; she's very lively for her age.'

‘What is she doing here? What are all those old women doing here? I thought you'd rented this building to do some of your sewing in. It looks as if you're hosting some sort of wild gathering for vulgar pensioners in the middle of the afternoon.'

‘They're mostly very respectable members of the W.I.'

‘They don't look like the W.I. members from my village!'

‘I'm sure they don't,' sighed Claire. ‘How's William? I presume you've been visiting him today.'

‘Yes, we've been to visit my poor boy. Of course I find it very distressing to see him the way he is.'

‘He's lucky, it could have been so much worse.'

‘You do realise just how serious William's condition is, don't you, Claire?'

‘Of course, it's awful for him and I'd imagine the next six months lying on his back in a body brace will be pure hell for him but the doctor does say he will get better.'

‘And he's very miserable, Claire, his home is in ruins, he's desperately upset. I thought you might want to spend more time with him but all you seem able to think about is work and –' she indicated towards the doorway with one bony hand, ‘having parties and drinking in the afternoon.'

‘You make it sound like I'm having some sort of debauched drunken rave.'

‘Nothing you did would surprise me.'

Claire picked up a piece of calico that had been left bundled on a makeshift table. She started to fold it. ‘I'm trying to do my best for the future of my family, if I can keep building on the success of Emily Love it might not matter if William isn't well enough to go to work for a while. If I can get more orders from large stores I might be able to support us instead of William having to worry when his sick pay runs out.'

William's mother didn't comment on what Claire had said. Instead she glanced around her and gave a sniff. ‘Look at this place. You've chosen to house your children in a ramshackle shop. The insurance company would have paid for you to rent somewhere much more suitable. I have to say that without William to guide you your choices seem a little odd.'

Claire opened her mouth to speak but fury seemed to prevent the words from coming out. She simply stared at the boorish woman in front of her and waited for her to speak again.

‘I want to –' William's mother turned and looked at her husband. ‘
We
_want you to promise that you are going to do everything to make sure that house will be rebuilt as soon as possible.'

‘You behave as if you don't believe me. As if you don't trust me.'

‘Trust?' William's mother's laugh was mocking. ‘Maybe you should know that William's told me about your sordid little affair.'

‘My sordid little affair, as you put it, is all in the past.' Claire held the folded calico against her body like a shield; as though it might provide protection from her mother-in-laws cruel words.

‘It's not in the past for William. He's so distressed about it.'

‘I know we've got a lot to sort out, but I'm determined to rebuild our lives together. He's my husband, we've got the children to think of, and we'll get through this.' Claire squeezed the calico tighter.

‘At least William has had the support of old friends. Vanessa has been wonderful. Do you remember the girl he was going to marry before you? I'm sure you know that she's been to visit him in hospital.'

Claire didn't know but she smiled brightly and said, ‘I know, she's been so kind.'

William's mother only briefly looked disconcerted and then her eyes narrowed. ‘I don't know why William's so surprised at your faithless behaviour.' She casually flicked some sequins on a table in front of her onto the floor. ‘From the minute I first saw you I knew you couldn't be trusted. I recognised you at once for the flighty tart that you have proved to be.'

Claire couldn't help laughing. ‘Flighty tart! I like that.' She looked at the bony, hard-faced woman and kept smiling as she spoke. ‘I think you've said all you came to say. This is my home for the time being and I and the children are very happy here. The house you found behind my back and treated as though it was your own is gone. I no longer have to feel beholden to you. I no longer have to be your skivvy while you fawn all over your treasured son and find fault with me. William is not a little boy at prep school any more. He's forty-three and he can decide for himself what he wants for the future, but personally I'd rather you didn't visit us here again. Now, I'd really like you to leave.'

‘Well!' William's mother looked as though she was about to explode. Her long camel-hair coat seemed to visibly swell with rage. ‘I've never been spoken to so rudely. You are so ungrateful.' Behind her William's father gave Claire a weak smile. Claire turned back in the direction of the music and laughter of the workshop.

At the doorway she looked back and William's parents had vanished. The shop door had been left open, swinging on its hinges, letting in the icy winter air.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Claire concentrated on making the rambling upstairs flat as cosy as she possibly could.

The department store had paid their invoice and after she had paid ‘The girls' Claire had enough to live on for a little while. William's company was paying him sick pay but Claire felt determined to furnish the flat with her own money.

She made curtains for the windows and found a slightly saggy but pretty chintz-covered sofa in a junk shop. With the help of Oliver and Graham she rescued a small stained table from a skip in the back lane along with five mismatched wooden chairs for the kitchen – she covered the table with a brightly patterned piece of oil cloth and she and Emily painted the chairs red. At a local car boot sale she bought a box of assorted bone-handled knives and forks, a set of steel saucepans, a bag of wooden spoons, and a huge old colander. She also found a pre-war Poole pottery jug, a pale green Denbigh teapot, and a box of plates and mugs of assorted colours and sizes, some chipped, some cracked, it didn't matter.

Mrs Nettles found out about a house sale in an old farm and Claire came home with three simple wrought-iron beds for the children and a big brass bed for herself as well as a battered leather armchair, three moth-eaten but beautiful oriental rugs, and an old-fashioned rocking horse that sat too wonkily on his rockers for anyone to want him. She strung brightly coloured bunting around the kitchen and fairy lights around the living room. She painted one entire wall of the corridor with blackboard paint and encouraged the children to draw and write and scribble on it as much as they liked.

The mantelpiece above the gas fire seemed to grow more cluttered every day. It displayed the growing collection of 1950s pottery that kept catching Claire's eye as she searched through charity shops for clothes that could be cut up and used for Emily Love. The children added bits of their artwork and piles of pebbles from the river. Claire found a beautiful Victorian lace blouse amongst a bundle of fabric and she hung it on the wall above the fireplace; it seemed as much a work of art as any painting.

One icy morning Claire had gone to the house to fetch Macavity, thin and bewildered by the loss of his warm home, he cowered from her touch, but with the help of some little bits of cut-up chicken she lured him into a box and popped him in the back of the car.