Chapter 14
14
‘Look at you, looking all Sophia Loren in your mysterious dark sunglasses.’ Michelle leaned down and kissed my cheek.
I took off my glasses and placed them on the table as she sat down.
‘Shit, who died?’ she exclaimed.
‘Just my dreams,’ I replied dramatically. I couldn’t help my mood. I felt like my whole insides had been crushed. She ordered herself a coffee then turned her attention to me.
‘So come on, you’d better spill. What the hell is going on?’ she asked, clearly worried.
After her coffee arrived, I told her about my morning and the extent of the work needed, and she blew out a great big breath of air.
‘Fuck!’
‘Fuck indeed!’
We both sat in silence and gazed out of the window. I normally loved watching the world go by, but now mine was falling apart.
Michelle broke the silence when she banged the table loudly.
‘There’s still the solution I mentioned the other day. Convert the other buildings and I’ll rent one of them from you and you can find someone else to rent the other. You still have two bedrooms left for visitors in the main building. Have you thought any more about that?’
‘You’re not the first person who’s suggested that, you know. Are you in cahoots with Seamus?’
‘Phwoar. I should be so lucky.’
Despite my gloomy mood, the sleazy way she said it made me laugh.
‘Seriously, Jo. I’d love you to show me around the holiday let. I can’t find anywhere in Cornwall that I’d want to live and the view from the hill is to die for. It’s perfect. The more I think about it, the more of a fabulous idea it is. I could relocate down here and if work won’t let me do my work from here, then I’ll find a new job.’
‘I can’t ask you to do that. Besides, there’s a hell of a lot of work that would need doing in there to make it habitable.’
‘You’re not asking me to do anything. Just think about it, Jo. It could be a perfect solution. With a monthly income coming in from the rental, and I’m very happy to sign a long-term lease, with a lump sum deposit, then you could afford to maybe have the other stuff done. It could be the answer to everything for you. We could go to an estate agents and find out how much you’d get if you rented it. I’m very happy to pay you the going rate. It could be right for both of us. And it’ll give me the kick up the bum that I’ve needed. I think I’ve been wandering round looking at properties finding fault in everything because the perfect property doesn’t exist. But it could. My perfect property could be your perfect solution.’
‘But the fundamental piece of the puzzle that’s missing here is that I don’t have enough cash to do the house or the buildings up. I just don’t have any spare money. What I did have I’ve given to Lucy for her wedding. She’d set her heart on this country house hotel which is costing an arm and a leg.’
‘Surely her dad can give her some towards that. When is it?’
‘I can’t think about the wedding. Every time I do, I come out in hives at the thought of us all being in the same place together. I just keep pushing it away. And with regards to the money, he says he doesn’t have it. So my settlement and house renovation fund is going to get spent on one day. It had better be a good day! So unless you have a spare hundred grand lying around then I’m well and truly stuffed.’
‘I wish I did. It’s mad, isn’t it? Could you get a bank loan?’
‘It’s a good question and according to the bank when I spoke to them this morning, the answer is no. I don’t have a job or a guarantor. When you have no money, that amount is huge and so out of reach. If you had millions, it would be a drop in the ocean and you’d be able to just conjure it up without an issue.’
The pressure in my head was unbearable and I reached down to grab some headache tablets from my bag.
‘Sorry, Jo. I don’t want to put any pressure on you at all. Maybe you could think about it, though. Could you borrow it from anyone? Michael maybe?’
‘I’d never ask him for a penny. I’d rather sell my body on the streets than ask him.’ I knew I had a penchant for being dramatic and I tried hard not to smirk at myself now.
‘Do you have anything worth selling that could raise any cash at all? You could throw that into the pot. Maybe it’s worth looking for work down here too. You could get a job and that would help. I know it’s not what you thought living down here would look like but it’s an option.’
‘It’s the only bloody option I have available to me right now.’
‘Sorry.’ She pulled a face.
‘No, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just not what I thought would happen. I thought that I’d be living a life of luxury and relaxation by the seaside.’
‘Well, life doesn’t always go to plan, sweetie. Sometimes obstacles come along to test us and see what we’re made of.’
My mind was starting to work overtime.
‘I suppose I could get some of the jewellery that Michael has bought me over the years valued to see if there’s any cash in it. I never imagined selling them, to be honest, but they’re only sitting in my safe. I hardly ever wear them. None of them are really my type of thing anyway. I like simple jewellery, silver particularly. A lot of it is really chunky gold.’
‘Well, apparently gold and silver prices are at a high at the moment.’
‘That’s good to know.’
Michelle studied my face.
‘What?’ I was as grumpy as hell and needed to know what she was thinking.
‘I didn’t take you as a quitter.’ Her eyebrows lifted.
‘I’m not.’
Michelle got her phone out and started tapping at the keys.
‘There’s a jeweller across the town that does free valuations. I don’t want to pressure you, but while we’re here, we could pop in. Maybe after you’ve been back into the store to pick up those bits you wanted.’
I didn’t even feel like going back into the store. What was the point of buying furniture and accessories for my dream home when I didn’t even know if my dream home was ever going to exist?
I’d been working solidly on the things I could make an impact on. I’d hired a sander and had attacked the floorboards in the lounge, and bought some second-hand rugs to cover up the bits that I couldn’t get perfect. I’d taken down every single curtain in the house, which must have been up for years if the amount of dust that fell on me was anything to go by. I’d found some offcuts of material and was rather proud of the curtains I’d made for the spare bedrooms and found some for the lounge that I wanted online which was why I wanted to back to the store to see if they had them in stock. I’d even ordered a gorgeous roll of heavy teal brocade fabric with gold thread running through which kept with the coastal colours that I wanted as a theme and had recovered a couple of Aunty June’s old armchairs and a pouffe. Amazing how creative I could be with a staple gun and I’d surprised myself with how much I’d loved doing it. My shoulders ached and I was shattered, but I had loved every minute of it. I was finally starting to feel proud of doing something in my life.
However, it was now hitting home that my money was fast running out and I still hadn’t really got a plan.
I was so close yet so far. I wasn’t sure where it came from, but an overwhelming feeling of having one last shot at this dream life of mine suddenly whooshed through my body. Nobody called me a quitter.
‘Let’s go.’
Michelle grinned and grabbed her coat.
After stomping across the town centre, I took a deep breath before opening the door of the jewellery store. It was an old-fashioned shop, all mahogany counters and navy-blue walls. I could imagine a character from a Dickens novel being alerted to our arrival by the jingle of the bell over the door. What I didn’t expect was the very attractive, tall, dark-haired lady who greeted us.
‘Afternoon, ladies, can I help you?’
‘Err, I’m hoping so. Is it right that you do jewellery valuations here?’
‘Yes, we do, but sadly not right now. The owner of the business died last year and his brother took over, but he’s not here very often and he only does appointments. I can make an appointment for you.’
Gosh, this day was full of ups and downs, I thought. Maybe it was good that he wasn’t here right then. It would give me chance to go home and collect everything together and bring it all over. All I had on me today were my diamond engagement, eternity and wedding rings, which I’d moved from my left hand to my right, not wanting to take them off altogether just yet.
‘I’d like to make an appointment then in that case, please.’
‘Certainly, madam. Can you come along tomorrow afternoon around 2p.m.?’
‘Please call me Jo. Yes. I can definitely do that. Thanks.’
‘Great, see you then.’ She smiled but it didn’t quite reach her eyes and she had an air of sadness about her.
We walked back over to the car park by the café in companionable silence, both lost in our thoughts, knowing that we both still had a little glimmer of hope in our hearts for a future that we both deserved.
As I got in my beloved black Range Rover Sport that Michael bought me for our last Christmas present together, something which I now knew to have been bought from guilt rather than love, I realised that it was something else valuable that I could probably sell. I had loved it initially, but every time I got in it now, I thought about him and that home-wrecker.
They had destroyed my family but I would not allow them to crush the only real thing I had left. My spirit. I would continue with my dream for a new life. And I would not let go of it easily. Not without a bloody good fight.