Chapter 3
I wasn’t someone who generally went to bed particularly early, and Rafe certainly wasn’t, but by the time we’d made up the beds, given the cats a good fuss and shared a takeaway – which was delivered to the house, what a novelty – we were both flagging.
I didn’t expect to nod off so quickly in a different bed in a new home situated in a city at the opposite end of the country to where I was used to, but I went out like a light and didn’t wake until I heard Rafe cursing on the landing the following morning.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked, as I joined him.
We were both still in our summer pyjamas, but Rafe’s thick, dark hair looked nothing like the tangled nest I suspected that I was sporting.
‘Plato made a dash out of the sitting room door when I went to check on him and Socrates, and now I can’t find him,’ he said worriedly.
‘Are there any doors to outside or windows currently open that he could have escaped out of?’
‘Thankfully not,’ he said, sounding relieved as he looked down from the landing. ‘But the little sod could be anywhere. Oh damn! And there goes Socrates, too!’
In his haste to locate Plato, Rafe had neglected to close the sitting room door before coming upstairs and now Socks had made a bid for freedom, too.
‘So much for keeping them in one room for a few days,’ Rafe groaned.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s follow Socks. He’ll probably lead us straight to Plato.’
We quietly went downstairs and headed for the kitchen, which was the direction Socks had gone in.
‘There,’ I laughed. ‘What did I tell you?’
The pair were wantonly basking in the sunshine that was streaming through the bifold doors and neither looked the worse for wear following their adventure beyond the confines of Rafe’s sitting room.
‘What do I do with them now?’ Rafe frowned. ‘Take them back to the other room or leave them to get on with it?’
‘Given that they’re not looking at all bothered, I think I’d leave them if I was you,’ I said.
‘They can go back to your sitting room if they’re feeling unsure and, in the meantime, we’ll just have to be super careful about external doors and windows.
’ Given that it was such a sunny morning, it would have been lovely to open the doors to the garden, but it couldn’t be helped.
‘How long do they have to stay inside for?’
‘Two weeks,’ Rafe sighed. ‘At least.’
‘That time will pass in a flash,’ I said stoically, as I reached for the kettle. ‘Now, I don’t know about you, but I could do with a coffee and some breakfast.’
Once we’d toasted most of the loaf Rafe had thought to bring with him and had a fix of caffeine, he showed me an online shopping order on his phone and asked what I’d like to add.
‘Of course, I’m planning to shop locally as much as I can,’ he told me. ‘There’s a street not too far away with shops selling pretty much everything we’ll want to eat and drink, but while we get set up and as we need to stock up on some of the basics, I thought a bulk delivery wouldn’t hurt.’
‘It’s a good idea,’ I agreed, as I scrolled. ‘Though having things delivered isn’t what I’m used to. And being able to walk to the shops is going to be as much of a novelty as having our dinner arrive on the doorstep.’
‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I’d forgotten how remote you’d been at Highfell.’
‘You’ve missed off cleaning supplies,’ I pointed out. ‘And that reminds me, I haven’t got a vacuum cleaner. Have you?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve nothing like that and I’m not sure we’ll need a proper one as I was thinking of asking Lisa if she knows of a cleaning firm or even a local person who could take care of the domestic side of things for us.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ I told him. ‘I’m more than happy to clean. I enjoy it and it will give me something to do. I’m going to need something to fill all the time I’ve got.’
Rafe didn’t look convinced.
‘I’m sure we can find you something more exciting to do than cleaning,’ he tutted.
‘Perhaps, but in the meantime, leave the housework to me.’
He eventually acquiesced but insisted that we should have two cordless vacuums. One for upstairs and another for down, so I wouldn’t have to carry one up to the bedrooms. Clearly, my father was used to a different standard of living than me.
Back at Highfell I’d had to drag an ancient and very heavy cylinder vacuum about when the housekeeper needed a hand.
It had been a nightmare to balance on the stairs until you got the knack.
The rest of the day was spent unpacking boxes and starting to settle in.
There wasn’t a huge amount to do, but Plato seemed to think everything we were doing was for his amusement and had a great time following us about and diving in and out of the empty boxes, and a couple of the half unpacked ones too.
Socrates stayed mostly in the kitchen, observing from afar and soaking up the sun.
Along with the sofa and chair, my books, framed photographs, few ornaments, mirror and paintings all looked perfect in the little sitting room and the addition of a lamp from Rafe completed the cosy aesthetic.
The sight of it all made me feel far happier than I had expected to when I had set off from Yorkshire the morning before.
‘Skylar!’ came Rafe’s voice from his room. ‘Could you please give me a hand?’
He had sourced second-hand, or more likely fifth or sixth hand, the loveliest worn leather Chesterfield sofa and now wanted it moved to a slightly different position.
‘If we can’t shift it on our own, I’ll ask Lisa if we can borrow her other half.’
‘I’m sure we can manage it between us,’ I said and quickly put the words into action. I might have been feeling better than the day before, but I wasn’t ready for another neighbourly encounter just yet. ‘How’s that?’ I puffed.
‘Perfect,’ Rafe nodded and stretched out his back. ‘I think we’re almost done.’
I still had my bedroom to sort, but that wouldn’t take long.
‘Let’s have a break then,’ I suggested.
The kitchen was where our individual things had been most combined and I loved the clashing mismatch of items on the open shelves.
My pieces were more practical while Rafe’s were decorative by comparison.
Our two styles complemented each other well and I imagined many a meal cooked together in the months to come.
With autumn just around the corner there’d soon be warming stews and deep filled pies bubbling away in the range oven.
‘Do you have a favourite mug in this collection?’ I asked as I flicked the kettle on. ‘I didn’t think to ask at breakfast, but we hadn’t unpacked this lot then, had we?’
We’d used the plain white mugs Heather and Glen, the former house owners, had kindly left us along with a packet of biscuits, a pint of milk in the fridge and a ‘welcome to your new home’ card.
‘I do,’ Rafe smiled. ‘It’s the Emma Bridgewater with the cats on.’
‘Of course it’s that one,’ I laughed. ‘I should have known, shouldn’t I?’
‘What about you? Pick any you like.’
He already had quite a few, and I knew he was intending to add more.
‘This one,’ I said, unhooking one that had words written around it in black.
‘That’s from the Black Toast range,’ he told me. ‘It’s a little plain for my taste—’
‘You don’t say?’ I interrupted and he laughed.
‘But it’s a Bridgewater classic, so I had to have it.’
‘Of course you did,’ I smiled. ‘Now, would you like tea or coffee?’
We spent the remainder of the day further sorting and arranging and then set to flattening the boxes. Rafe thought it would be a good idea to pass them on to someone else who was moving, but I wanted to keep them.
He hadn’t seemed impressed with the idea, doubtless because it inferred that I wasn’t planning to make Nightingale Square my forever home, but if I found a job some distance away after my time out, then I wouldn’t be able to carry on living here, would I?
In the end we opted for a compromise. With the cats securely shut in Rafe’s sitting room and until he could ask locally where he could advertise them, I carried them out to the shed.
The next morning, I spotted Lisa looking animated on her doorstep and shouting back into the house.
A minute or so later, three children of varying ages appeared and, after some squabbling, reluctantly piled into the car on their drive.
They were wearing school uniforms, and I realised it must be the first day of the new autumn term.
September was a month I usually looked forward to because, rather than the back-to-school feeling, it heralded a slight lull for me.
Most of the weddings and events had taken place during late spring and throughout the summer and it was finally time to take my foot off the gas, as Rafe was prone to say.
This year however, my foot had already been off the throttle for a while.
Madeline and Tobias had kept bookings to a minimum this season as they prepared to leave Highfell and now I felt rather adrift and unsure as to what to do with the onset of autumn. As well as the rest of my life…
‘Are the cats in the kitchen with you, Skylar?’ Rafe called to me a short while later. ‘There’s someone at the door.’
‘Yes, they’re both here!’ I called back and jumped up. ‘Give me a second and I’ll close the door.’
I waited with bated breath as I tried to work out if I knew who it was – that would only be Lisa – or if it was one of the ever-increasing number of deliveries for Rafe.
‘Come on through to the kitchen,’ I heard him say and I sprang away from the door. ‘Come and meet my daughter, Skylar. She’s in here with the cats. One of whom is already intent on escaping.’
I gave Plato an accusatory look. He was annoyingly keen to expand his horizons and proving quite the magician with his disappearing act when either Rafe or I wanted to go into the garden. That said, I was pleased he wasn’t feeling unsettled.
‘Here we are,’ Rafe said as he opened the door and I braced myself for another potential neighbourly bombardment.