Chapter 35
Present
It felt as if they’d hardly pinned up the for-sale sign, when already there was interest from buyers in looking at number three. Cathal rang up the morning after he’d put the details up on the estate agency website to ask if there was a good time for him to show the place to potential buyers.
‘Actually, it’s exceeded my expectations,’ Cathal said.
‘Any idea if people are interested in it for residential or for commercial reasons?’ Rae asked.
‘No idea. So far, it’s been mostly online enquiries, so I haven’t been able to get a sense of who we’re dealing with, but it’s the hottest property we’ve had on the books for quite a while, if that makes you feel better.’ He laughed.
‘Who’d have thought it?’ Rae said almost to herself.
‘Oh, these old buildings, people go mad for them – and the photographs didn’t do any harm either. I mean, a view of the sea and all those original features, it’s hard to get a package like that all wrapped up together. The only thing is…’
‘What?’
‘Well, the bank next door, that could potentially put off some of the buyers. For others, it mightn’t matter so much, but people can be funny about having empty buildings nearby and things like that – who the neighbours are likely to be, if it was sold and what have you…’
‘If that’s going to put them off, we’re probably better off without them on the square anyway,’ Rae said.
‘No. No. The more, the merrier, that’s what we want, a frenzy of interest for when the offers start to roll in.’
Rae was worried about Siggy. It seemed as if she wasn’t really herself these days. She had a feeling that her niece might have a little crush on Danial, which would be no bad thing. Poor Blythe, it would be like Rae and Johnno all over again for her.
It wasn’t that though. Rae was pretty sure. It was something else. Something that Siggy was carrying closer to her heart than a simple crush.
‘You’re sure there’s nothing wrong?’ Rae asked Siggy again.
‘Sure, I’m sure Rae, what could be wrong?’ Siggy said then, before going to wipe down a table after a few of the church cleaning ladies had finished up their weekly tea and nattering in the window seat.
‘Maybe Blythe was right,’ Rae said then. It was pure impulse, but suddenly it felt like a good idea. ‘Maybe we should go and get our hair done together.’
‘Really? Would you really get some mad colour in your hair?’
‘No. But the fact is, it’s high time I started to take care of myself again,’ Rae said and that was half the truth.
The other half, which she could hardly admit to herself, was that it was high time she became part of the community again.
Oh, she had people drop in here for coffee and she kept her Soroptimists meetings over the years, but she had a shortage of real friends.
Marcus had cut her off, one outlet at a time.
The biggest loss was Blythe and Siggy, of course, but there were so many other casualties along the way that she hadn’t realised until it was too late.
‘It really is.’ Siggy dropped the cloth from her hand and pulled out her phone.
‘What?’
‘Well, no time like the present. The place is empty,’ she was dialling a number.
‘Let’s do it now?’ she said. ‘Hi Dawn, can you fit Rae and me in for an appointment…’ Rae stood, a little dumbstruck watching her.
They were really doing this. Fifteen years since she’d crossed Dawn Doherty’s threshold to have her hair cut – or more importantly, to sit there and have a long natter about everything and anything under the sun, while they sipped coffee and munched on biscuits or flicked through gossipy magazines.
‘Yes, of course, my aunt Rae, here in the hotel.’ Siggy giggled at whatever Dawn said next and Rae winced.
It’d be the talk of the town, if she even turned up for a wash and set.
Damn it, anyway, she had to start somewhere.
She walked over to the cash register behind the counter, took out enough to pay for both of them. ‘Right away,’ Siggy was saying.
‘Right away it is,’ Rae said and it felt like another delicious act of rebellion that would intensely irritate Marcus if he could see her now.
They walked up the street to Dawn’s place, arm in arm and even though, she planned nothing more than a trim and a wash it was a step in the right direction.
She might have lost interest in how she looked years earlier, but she’d missed the camaraderie of her visits to Dawn’s and the connections with other women that she’d always enjoyed there.
The following day, Hugh Gilmore called in to Rae.
Just checking in. He did a double take when he looked at her.
Her hair didn’t look all that different, what can you do with a boyish crop, but somehow Dawn had made it look more sophisticated, cared for; softer.
Maybe next time, she would do something a little more drastic!
*
Rae had just got back from the bakery the following morning when her phone rang. This time, it was Cathal Regan.
‘Good morning.’ He sounded chipper.
‘Good morning to you, too.’ And she supposed it was, because it looked as if the sky was about to crack open with a huge downpour, which meant that there was a good chance, no one would come near the place all day long.
‘I have news. We have a concrete offer on the property.’ He stopped, and Rae wondered if perhaps he was going to follow that up with a drum roll. He needn’t have bothered, suddenly her heart was racing.
‘But nobody has come to view it yet.’ She wanted to argue with him, even though she knew it was utterly illogical to feel as if her back had been put up in some way.
‘Apparently, he doesn’t need to. There are conditions.
It’s a one-time offer. They are leaving it on the table for a week.
It’s for the whole of number three – ground floor included.
They are happy to put in a dividing wall along the original line of the building plans, and they’ve agreed to do that before taking possession of the building, to avoid any inconvenience to you. ’
‘There’s a but…’ she said because of course, if things seem too good to be true, then in her opinion they usually were.
‘Hear me out, okay?’ Cathal stopped and she heard a noise, like tapping, perhaps on a computer or a laptop. ‘It’s well over the asking price…’
‘How much over it?’
‘Two hundred thousand.’
‘Wow – somebody’s flush,’ she said, and she wondered who had that sort of money.
‘You’re sure it’s not some criminal gang looking for somewhere to hide their ill-gotten gains?
’ She laughed a little nervously. She was only half serious because she’d seen a programme on it recently, vacant properties picked up all over the place and left to rot – without a lot of awkward questions from the tax man.
‘I’m as sure as I can be,’ he said. She noticed he didn’t give her an outright no. ‘We have a few options.’
‘Okay, what are they?’
‘You can, of course, refuse the offer straight off. I can tell them that you want to take it to market and take your chances. If they want the place, they can fight it out with whoever else is in the ring. Of course, it’s unlikely you’ll make the same price.
’ He stopped. ‘You can accept the offer as is, we take the sign down and push through with the sale. Or, I can contact the other people interested in the property and move the viewing forward, letting them know that there is a firm offer on the table and that will let us check the temperature of the market.’
‘I’m presuming you would suggest I do that last one?’
‘Of course, when would suit you to move it forward to?’
‘Today? Tomorrow?’ she said because she couldn’t shake the feeling that the offer on the table was forcing her hand, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to be rushed into this.
It was much too big and really, whether it was true on paper or not, deep down, she knew, it affected Blythe every bit as much as it affected her.