What She Wants (21 page)

climbed into the comfortable big bed, Hope knew there was no point in raising the state of Curlew Cottage again, and adding that she’d be on the first plane back to Bristol if he didn’t take immediate action to make it habitable.

The next morning Hope got up at seven with her energetic offspring and went downstairs to make them breakfast. Her reserved soul didn’t like the idea of pottering around in someone else’s kitchen. There was no sign of Finula or Ciaran. Sleeping off massive hangovers, she supposed. Being artistic seemed to mean sinking an awful lot of booze.

Coco Pops were the current favourite breakfast with Millie. But true to her beliefs, Finula didn’t have a single packet of manufactured cereal anywhere. Not even cornflakes, which were practically a health food in Hope’s book. There was just a big jar of homemade muesli that looked for all the world like mouse droppings.

‘Want Coco Pops,’ whined Millie after a few minutes’ waiting. Toby sat quietly as usual, turning the pages of his Silly Pig Finds A Friend picture book.

‘I can’t find any,’ Hope .said. She opened another cupboard and bingo: no Coco Pops but lots of lovely home made bread.

They breakfasted on toast and jam, with milk for the children and coffee for Hope.

Afterwards, she wrapped them all up in anoraks and Wellingtons and they set off to explore. If the previous day had been dismal and wet, this was the perfect example of a glorious winter day. Crisp and cool, with a bright wintry sun shining low in the sky, dusting the landscape with piercing light. It was beautiful. Today, the hills in the background looked picturesque instead of brooding and Hope could pick out a myriad of colours in the landscape instead of yesterday’s dull, rainy grey. She could see warm peat browns, soft umbers and rich plums. The stone walls that crisscrossed the land were a flinty grey and there were traces of green everywhere, from the gleam of dewy grass to the faded verdigris of moss clinging to the walls. It would be a wonderful

place if you were a painter. She breathed deeply, letting the sharp country air permeate her lungs. In the distance, she could see two cottages and one two-storey farmhouse but for at least a mile on either side of Finula’s house there was nothing. Incredible, she thought. This really was the country. ‘Let’s go for an adventure,’ she said. ‘We might find some animals.’ Toby looked unsure. ‘Mummy will pick you up if you’re scared,’ Hope told him gently, ‘but we’ve got to get used to cows and things. Maybe we’ll find some baby cows.’ She had no idea if this was possible. Did cows have calves in winter? Or maybe they had them at Easter. Or was that lambs she was thinking of ? Who knew. The countryside was very mysterious. The ground crunched as they walked down the drive and out onto a lane bordered by a low stone wall. Holding both the children’s hands, Hope walked slowly, admiring the stark leafless trees, bent and gnarled as they clung low to the ground. The ground was mucky after the previous day’s rain and she stepped around puddles delicately, while Millie struggled to jump in them. A car drove past and the driver raised a hand in greeting. When the driver of the second car waved, she decided that the local people were simply friendly and waved to everyone. The next vehicle was a tractor with a grizzled old farmer sitting on it. ‘Let’s all wave,’ said Hope enthusiastically. ‘Helloooo!’ they all yelled. The farmer kept both hands on the steering wheel and looked at them as if they were mad. They found a herd of cows clustered around a trough of hay, all up to their hocks in mud. Millie was fascinated as to why they were all so dirty. ‘Mud, darling,’ Hope said. ‘Oooh look!’ Millie yelled as one beige coloured cow

lifted her tail and let forth a stream of manure. ‘Cow pooh pooh, Mummy! Cow pooh pooh! Can we smell it?’

Back at the house, Finula was up and already organizing.

‘PJ Rice will be down at the cottage at eleven and he’ll discuss what work you need done,’ she told Hope bossily.

‘Is he a contractor?’ Hope asked, extracting Millie from her Wellington boots and hoping that she didn’t have cow pooh on them.

‘He does a bit of everything,’ Finula said.

‘Surely we need a separate plumber and heating man …’ Hope began.

‘Nonsense. We’ll all muck in with the painting and as for heating, sure Gearoid had a great range that’ll heat the entire cottage. All it takes is to get it cleaned out and a bit of a knack to keep it running.’

‘We saw cow pooh pooh, Daddy,’ squealed Millie happily as her father appeared, clutching a glass fizzing with soluble painkillers.

Hope had had her suspicions about PJ, but after three days of back-breaking work from all parties, the cottage was looking better. Homes and Gardens wouldn’t be desperate to photograph it for their latest issue, but at least Curlew Cottage was fit for human occupation.

PJ had installed a new shower in the bathroom and the pipes in the kitchen no longer rattled ominously when you turned the taps on. The big cream range was going and indeed, it did heat the whole cottage, although it gobbled up fuel at an horrific rate.

Matt had rented a sander and the floors upstairs were soon smooth and pale gold. The downstairs flooring was icy stone slabs and Hope vowed to buy nice rugs for them as soon as she got a chance. PJ’s two colleagues, a couple of hard working teenage lads, painted the entire inside of the cottage with white paint because Matt said it would be a good idea to lighten the place up as the windows were so small. However, as the two painters painted any dirt and

dust into the walls at the same time, Hope soon learned that she had to scrub and clean each room before they started. The bathroom was the biggest nightmare because under the infamous claw footed bath was a thriving and wriggling community of bugs. ‘Clock beetles,’ PJ remarked laconically as several jet black insects scurried out from under the bath, frantically running in different directions. ‘They’re lucky, you know.’ ‘Not in this house,’ Hope said with feeling. Worn out and with reddened hands from plunging them into buckets of soapy water, Hope insisted that Matt deal with the wild life in the bathroom. ‘I hate creepy crawlies,’ she shivered, handing him the soapy cloth and the bucket, ‘even lucky ones.’ On Thursday, Matt bought three beds and a secondhand couch in Killarney, along with a fridge freezer and washing machine. All were to be delivered on Friday. The few bits of furniture they’d had shipped from Bath were due to arrive at the same time. ‘What about a cooker?’ asked Hope suddenly, realizing that there was one vital omission from Matt’s shopping list. ‘We can cook on the range,’ Matt shrugged. ‘Anyway, I’m too broke now to buy anything else. Paying PJ and paying for this lot cost a bomb.’ Hope bit back the retort that it had been his idea to come here in the first place and if he hadn’t thought they could afford it, they shouldn’t have come. He wasn’t going to have to cook on the horrible old range, that would be her job. She stormed off to their bedroom. So much for the wonderful revitalization of their marriage.

By Friday evening, five days after their arrival, the family were finally installed in their new home. Matt’s computer was set up in the tiny box room, ready for the consultancy work he was going to do part-time for Judd’s, and the kids’ rooms were as perfect as they could be under the circumstances, full of their toys and pictures, if a little barren.

Their own bedroom was a bit of a mess with just an old rail for hanging clothes and two upturned boxes as bedside tables. Everything was still a long way from her vision of country life with the cosy cottage, Hope thought. Instead, she’d found herself in what looked like a barren holiday cottage where the owners had never really made themselves at home.

‘It’s a bit sparse,’ she said, looking around the sitting room with its meagre furniture and no pictures on the walls.

‘Yeah, I remember Gearoid having lots of oil paintings, stuff his friends had painted. I suppose he had to sell them in the end. Money was always tight with him. I thought he was brilliant but he never had much success with his poems.’

‘How many books did he have published?’

‘Three and they’re out of print now,’ Matt said sadly. ‘Poor Gearoid. He was talented. Still, let’s not get maudlin. We’ll be so happy here.’ He hugged her. ‘Thank you for this, Hope. I know it’s been strange for you this week, but it’ll be fantastic for us all from now on. We need this, I need this.’

He kissed her tenderly, the way he’d kissed her on their wedding day: as if he didn’t believe it was all for real. For the first time in ages, Hope felt her insides contract. She hadn’t felt even vaguely sexy all week. It was the strain of sorting things out. But she felt a definite frisson now. It was wonderful the way he could do that to her. They loved each other, she knew, they’d survive anything.

‘Let’s go to bed early tonight,’ Matt murmured.

As he pottered around in his study, Hope walked through the cottage thoughtfully. She had plans for it. She’d drape throws over things, the way Finula did to such effect. The modern silver frames with their wedding photos and pictures of the children looked somewhat wrong too. Perhaps she could learn how to make curtains. It couldn’t be too hard, it was a challenge. Hadn’t women always travelled to strange destinations to be with their menfolk. They had followed

armies in centuries gone by, enduring enormous deprivations just to be with the ones they loved. They had in Jane Austen’s time, Hope reflected trying to feel suitably noble. If they could do it, she could.

She fried some of Finula’s homemade sausages and free range eggs for dinner. It was the only thing she could think of to cook as she had no idea how to deal with the range. It could take twenty minutes to boil the kettle on it - Lord knew how many years it would take to cook a chicken casserole.

After dinner, she sat in front of the range with a cup of cocoa and watched Matt fiddling around with the television trying to pick up a signal. There was no noise outside, no sound of other people or car doors slamming or horns blaring. Nothing. Just the silence of the countryside.

Used to the madcap atmosphere of Ciaran and Finula’s where people arrived at all hours, unannounced and wandering into the kitchen to make themselves tea, it felt strange to be on their own again.

Finula had been very kind but she was so overbearing, as if she wanted to lay claim to the newcomers as her own possessions. Matt couldn’t see it and felt that any criticism of his new friend was a sign of ingratitude after all she’d done for them. Well, they wouldn’t see that much of Finula from now on, would they?

Matt cursed under his breath as the snowstorm effect on the television got worse instead of better. He’d been fiddling with the damn thing for half an hour and so far, all he’d managed to locate was an Irish language television channel, which was going to be bugger all use to them. Maybe they had subtitles for the films: that was going to be the best they could do at this rate.

‘We could always watch with the sound turned down and make up our own dialogue,’ he joked, turning round to “lope. But she was deeply asleep, squashed into a corner of the uncomfortable old brown sofa with a cushion wedged

against her head. Matt watched her for a moment, smiling at the way her fair hair was all fluffed up around her face, lots of little curls running wild because she probably hadn’t run a comb through it since that morning. She hadn’t bothered with make up either and her long, thick eyelashes rested palely against her flushed cheeks. She looked very vulnerable in sleep, her rounded face defenceless against the world, her gentle coral mouth moving as she dreamed. She certainly didn’t look like a thirty-seven-year-old mother-of two. More like a naive, trusting twenty-something. Naive, that was certainly Hope, Matt thought with a twinge of guilt. Despite his fierce belief that this was a good move for them all, he couldn’t help feeling selfish for bringing her here. Dear Hope loved her routine, the comfort of the familiar. A creature of habit, she was nervous of the unknown and yet he’d transplanted her from her own world into a strange place where she knew nobody.

He knew she’d follow him to the ends of the earth and that was why she was here: because she loved him utterly.

And he was here for purely selfish reasons. Sure, he’d managed things so that he’d have a job to go back to in Bath, and their mortgage there was taken care of by letting the house out. So the family wouldn’t lose out financially. But the reason they were here was because of his dream, not theirs. He wanted the peace to write and he’d brought them all here because of that.

Hope would forfeit every dream in her life just to make sure her beloved family were happy and content. And he’d forfeit all their contentment so that he could be happy. Matt thrust that thought out of his mind. Redlion was a beautiful place. He loved it here, he felt connected to it on some deep, emotional level. He’d had such wonderful holidays here as a child. Hope would learn to love it too. He’d work his backside off to make his book a success, then they’d have real financial security for the rest of their lives. He could do it: he was sure of it. Whenever he thought about the book, he felt a fresh burst of excitement.

He’d started it in a rush of ideas, racing to get his thoughts on paper, eager to tell the story of a man on the verge of a breakdown who takes off around the world to escape his misery but ends up in a parallel universe where he’s living fifty years in the past. In his fantasies, Matt imagined literary magazines reviewing his novel with words like ‘lyrical’, ‘exquisitely written’ and ‘a breathtaking new talent.’ It wasn’t going to be easy, he knew, but life wasn’t easy, was it? He’d write a wonderful book with the drive and determination he was well known for. He’d work deep into the night every night if necessary but there was no way he would fail. He dismissed the idea. After all, he smiled to himself, his drive and brilliance had worked magic for Judds, making them the hottest agency in the area. He could do that again, for himself this time. When had he ever failed at anything?

‘You’re the new people from old Gearoid’s place,’ said the elderly man behind the counter at the convenience shop when Hope went in to buy groceries for her newly painted cupboards. ‘Er yes,’ said Hope, a bit startled. It was the day after they’d moved into the cottage and this was her first time in the village. How did he know who she was? ‘Lovely house, say it’s a bit wild on the inside. He wasn’t the full shilling, old Gearoid. Them hens had the run of the place, inside and out.’ ‘Really,’ Hope said politely as she dawdled in front of the eggs. She wanted to buy free range but they were more expensive and she’d better economize until she knew how their finances were going to pan out. The hire car had gone back and they were stuck with her Metro, which had been fixed at great expense. ‘Would you be thinking of getting hens yourself?’ the old man inquired sweetly. ‘Well, I don’t know …’ Hope hesitated, disarmed by his twinkling faded blue eyes in a warm old face. Finula had