Chapter 3 #3
I set the box down on the only part of the table that wasn’t covered in newspapers, crockery and piles of clothes.
I wondered if there was anyone looking after Constance but then banished the thought because what looked like disorder to me might well be how she happily kept house. Each to their own and all that.
‘She said she’d sent everything you asked for, and I think it looks like there’s a cake box on the top,’ I pointed out.
‘Put it in the fridge, would you?’ Constance asked, waving her stick in the direction of an ancient looking refrigerator. ‘And there should be some cheese to go in there as well.’
Under Constance’s staccato instructions, I soon had everything put away in the rather empty fridge and cupboards, and the pot of tea made.
There had been an uncomfortable moment when I had asked if she liked her milk in first, but I’d glossed quickly over it by admiring the profusely flowering orchid on the windowsill.
‘Looks delicate,’ Constance had sniffed, ‘but it’s pretty tough, that one.’
I wondered if anyone had ever thought or said that about her.
‘It’s very pretty,’ I said again as I tried to work my way up to mentioning the woods. The longer I’d been there, the further my courage had ebbed away. It was now or never though. ‘I was wondering—’ I began.
‘Yes, yes,’ she cut in. ‘You can get off now. Tell Melody I’ll settle up with her as usual, at the weekend after my appointment with the hairdresser.’
I was dismissed, but I hadn’t achieved what I came for and stood dithering in the doorway.
‘That’s what we always do,’ Constance said, assuming that I wasn’t sure about the payment arrangement. ‘You don’t need to worry about the bill.’
‘No,’ I said, stepping right back into the kitchen again. ‘It’s not that.’
‘What then?’
‘I was wondering if I could ask you about the woods?’
‘The woods?’ She frowned.
‘Your woods,’ I gabbled. ‘Willowell Woods, I think they’re called. That’s the patch of woodland that you’ve got up for sale, isn’t it?’
‘Who told you about Willowell Woods?’
‘No one. I just happened to see the sign when I was out walking.’
‘Well, what about it?’ she asked sharply. ‘There’s already been a lot of local interest, you know. In fact, I’m certain someone is about to put in an offer. You’re not local, are you?’
‘Not exactly,’ I confessed.
I got the impression that as a non-resident, she didn’t think I had any business being interested in her woods and I also surmised that the make-do-and-mend sign had been put up with a view to only attracting local interest. Most people in the vicinity would know who the land belonged to, so a name and number wasn’t necessary. Incomers beware!
‘You haven’t been up there already, have you?’ she then scowled.
‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘I just saw the sign and asked Melody who the woods belonged to. It’s clearly private property and I wouldn’t have dreamt of trespassing.’
Constance nodded. ‘Right,’ she sniffed. ‘Well, plenty would, so I appreciate that you haven’t done that.’
‘But would you mind if I did go and take a look?’ I asked politely.
‘You guessed right in that I’m not really a local, but I holidayed here every year when I was growing up.
My dad used to bring me and my brother, Zack, and we camped in a field next to the river.
With the farmer’s permission, of course. ’
‘Did you now?’
‘And I might never have lived here, but I’ve always felt at home in Willowell. More home than home,’ I added wistfully, remembering what Zack had said. ‘It’s such a special place. So special in fact, that I came back this time to…’
‘You came back this time to what?’ Constance sounded intrigued when I didn’t finish the sentence.
‘My brother and I decided this was the perfect place to scatter our dad’s ashes,’ I said croakily. ‘It’s where we’ve always felt happiest and where we wanted Dad to be.’
‘I see.’ Constance swallowed, looking a little choked herself, which I wouldn’t have predicted.
‘We’d had it planned for quite a while,’ I continued, ‘and I knew I would be doing it alone because my brother is abroad, but when it came to it the other night, I didn’t think I was going to be able to see it through.
Then, right at the crucial moment, someone in a beautiful house on the other side of the river to where I was sitting started to play or listen to “Clair de Lune”, our dad’s favourite, and I managed it in the end. ’
Constance opened and closed her mouth.
‘We had it played at his funeral,’ I added.
‘The music was coming from here, wasn’t it?’ she sighed.
‘Yes,’ I confirmed, then explained. ‘It was and it made me so happy because this house was always my favourite to stop and look at on our walks. I used to endlessly drag Dad and my brother along the riverbank to admire the back of it.’
I felt my face flush.
‘And now you’re inside it,’ said Constance as she looked around. ‘I won’t ask if it lives up to your expectations.’
‘I think it’s perfect,’ I responded, and she looked surprised.
‘And what about your mother?’ she asked.
‘Sorry?’ I blinked.
This seemed to be turning into something of a soul-baring first encounter. She was finding out a lot about me, yet I knew practically nothing of her. Though, I supposed, given that I was the one asking something of her, that was fair enough.
‘You’ve mentioned your brother and father, but what about your mother?’
‘Mum died when I was ten,’ I told her. ‘And we started to holiday here after she had gone. Willowell very quickly became our happy place. I think it helped that we hadn’t been here with her. It was somewhere completely new to us, and we made memories here that were entirely our own…’
I hadn’t considered that before.
‘My goodness, she must have been young herself,’ Constance calculated, then immediately apologised. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. You must think I’m being incredibly nosy.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Honestly, it’s fine, and you’re right, she was young. I find it harder talking about Dad dying though, what with it happening not all that long ago.’
Constance nodded in what appeared to be understanding and I wondered if there had ever been anyone in her life who she now struggled to talk about.
‘Well,’ she said, her tone much softer than it had been when I first arrived, ‘I don’t suppose there’d be much harm in you going and having a look, would there?’
‘Really?’ I said, one hand moving to my chest to settle my heart.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Though I can’t imagine why you’d want to. Are you actually interested in buying it?’
‘I might be,’ I said as she appraised me again. ‘But I won’t know until I’ve seen it.’
If Kaya and now Constance’s reactions were anything to go by, I obviously didn’t look like the wood-buying type. Perhaps I wasn’t. Time would tell…
‘Well, the asking price is eighty thousand,’ Constance said bluntly, sounding more like her former self. ‘Not a penny less.’
So far, I’d only got as far as imagining what the figure might be, but the price was roughly around what I had been expecting.
‘If I think I might be interested, shall I come back and tell you? Or should I telephone instead? I could ask Melody for the house number.’
‘Come back and tell me,’ Constance said, a flicker of a smile playing around her lips. ‘But before you go, you can get that cake box out of the fridge again. All this talking has made me hungry.’