Chapter 29
The following Saturday morning was bright and breezy, and Bella did a final check around her small bedroom, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.
It wasn’t as if she was moving miles away, but she didn’t like leaving things unfinished.
Glancing into the wardrobes for the third time, and checking under the bed for the fourth, she finally satisfied herself that there would be no lurking socks or objects when she left the room for the last time.
‘Is that the lot?’ Gerard called up from the downstairs hallway.
‘Yup!’ Bella called back. She drew a deep breath, silently thanked the room for looking after her, as she did when she left any of the places she’d lived, and then headed down the stairs.
Noah had handed over a newly cut set of keys on the day they’d talked about her impromptu tenancy, and they’d arranged with Mollie that, once Bella had settled in, Mollie would bring Monty back to the cottage.
Bella and Mollie had been concerned about the upheaval of the work on the cottage, but with the aid of some calming meds and a designated room where Monty could take refuge, they were sure they could manage him so that he wasn’t too stressed.
Jack’s cottage was only a road away, but Bella was grateful for Marieke’s car – carrying her boxes would have been a tiring way to start. She hopped into the car and within a minute they were outside Bella’s new home. Taking a deep breath, she turned the key in the Yale lock and stepped inside.
Noah, to his credit, had obviously given the place a bit of a clean before she was due to move in.
Far from being musty, the air smelt of a flowery disinfectant, and the beige carpet in the hallway looked as if it had been recently vacuumed.
Wandering through to the kitchen at the back of the cottage, she noted that, while old-fashioned, having been installed in the early 1990s and a symphony of melamine and wood veneer, it was spotlessly clean and even the chrome electric kettle shone.
The air felt still, and as Bella unlocked the back door that led to Jack’s garden, a slight breeze stirred it.
This was a place she could definitely call home, despite the dated decor. She’d never been precious about where she laid her head and she’d crashed out in places far less salubrious than this stone cottage. At times, the only roof she’d known had been the roof of a car.
‘Where do you want the boxes?’ Gerard called from the hallway.
‘Oh, just put them down in the living room for now,’ Bella replied.
She’d packed in a characteristically haphazard way, despite her initial plans to employ some logic, and wouldn’t be sure, until she opened each box, what she’d actually put inside them.
However, Mollie had given her the day off tomorrow, so she’d be able to sort through them at her leisure before Monty was due to arrive on Sunday afternoon.
Heading through to the small living room, Bella was unsurprised to see that the footprint of this room was very much like Marieke’s cottage.
A window at the front, that looked out onto a rambling front garden, and a neat fireplace, regrettably gas-fired rather than open, ran up the party wall.
Bella supposed that, in the later years of his life, the elderly and increasingly frail Jack wouldn’t have been up to dragging in logs and coal and cleaning out the ashes of an open fire.
I’d open that fireplace back up, though, if it was really my house!
Two high-backed Ercol armchairs sat in the small space – again, a concession to the advanced age of its former resident.
Bella could imagine Jack, with Monty perched on his knee, watching the small television of an evening, resting a glass of whisky on the occasional table that sat by the chair that looked out of the window.
She also imagined Noah joining his grandfather on the occasions he’d visited, both of them setting the world to rights over a dram or two.
She allowed herself a moment to visualise the conversation in full flow – perhaps the two would have opposing opinions on things, perhaps they wouldn’t – but the chat would last long into the night.
The sense of loss in this room felt palpable; Jack’s presence was everywhere.
Bella could understand why Noah and his brothers wanted to sell and move on.
All the same, even to her untrained eye, the fact that the house had been so unchanged since Jack’s death might, in its current state, deter prospective buyers.
Those of a similar age might be put off by the prospect of having to redecorate, and younger buyers might not want to take on such an extensive project – not to mention the fact that a terraced cottage with two tiny bedrooms wasn’t exactly ideal for anyone wanting to start or expand their family.
Heading back to the hallway, she helped Gerard to get the last of her stuff, and then, rummaging in the large tote bag she’d brought in first, she handed him a bottle of Cava.
‘I’m afraid I can’t quite run to champagne,’ she said as she handed it over to him, ‘but I know this is Marieke’s favourite brand, if you wanted to share it with her, to say thank you. ’
‘Thanks, Bels,’ Gerard replied. ‘You didn’t have to do that – it wasn’t much stuff in the end. You certainly travel light!’
Bella felt a stab of something she couldn’t quite identify as he said that. She’d always prided herself on being able to move on at a moment’s notice, but even now, when she’d been in Lower Brambleton for a while, to anyone else her possessions obviously seemed pretty paltry.
‘Well, you know,’ she forced a smile, ‘no point in hanging onto stuff I don’t need, is there?’
‘I’m sure if you’ve left anything, Marieke or I can drop it round.’ With a final, friendly glance, Gerard said his goodbyes and closed the front door behind him, leaving Bella alone in the latest place she was going to call home.