Chapter Thirty-Seven
Nick blinked and tried to work out where she was. Sunlight filled the room, and she could hear cows outside. In the past fortnight she seemed to have been constantly waking up in other beds. Not one of them felt like home, not even her clean and well-ordered apartment in London.
‘Come on, Ohana. Let’s explore.’
As she headed into the kitchen, she saw Gabe had set everything up for her for a morning brew. A mug and some sugar and coffee had been placed by the kettle. Propped up against it was a note, written in a strong confident hand.
Call me if you need anything. X
Nick looked at that ‘X’ and wondered if he signed all his notes that way. Was it just a flourish or a kiss? Did he still like her? God, this was so frustrating, she felt like a sodding teenager, reading too much into every little message. Looking around she saw there was also a sprig of lilac in a jug of water. That wasn’t there last night, and Gabe must have cut it for her this morning before he left at five. Nick smelt the blossom and was surprised by how sweet it was.
Making her coffee she slipped her feet into a pair of trainers and stepped out the back door. It was a Saturday morning, and she couldn’t hear anything beyond the birdsong. Checking her phone she saw it was seven o’clock. Was the whole world asleep?
‘Just you and me then, old girl. Lead on.’
Ohana wagged her tail and darted off through the long grass between the two buildings. To one side ran the old patio but this middle section where the burnt-out house once stood was now a wild meadow. Various flowers were growing up through the grass, not that she could name any of them. They didn’t smell as sweet as the flowers Gabe had cut, but she picked them anyway until she had enough for a few bunches.
‘Let’s make the place look a bit more welcoming, shall we?’
Ohana barked in agreement and they headed back indoors.
‘Where shall we put these then? A bunch in the sitting room, you say? I agree.’
Nick had found several beer bottles and was now using them as flower vases. From the sitting room she wandered along the dusty marbled corridor and wondered what it would look like when it was renovated. The rooms were huge, and Nick imagined they would be hell to heat. The tall ceilings wouldn’t help either. Each room once boasted intricate mouldings on the ceilings; in some rooms these had fallen to the floor and been swept to one side. Halfway along was the marble staircase that led to the next floor. Based on Clem and Ari’s homes she knew that there would be other staircases and continued along the corridor. Finally, she found a discreet wooden staircase tucked away in an antique kitchen. She had thought the one at the front of the house was pretty decrepit, but this one belonged in a museum. No doubt when the old owners had decided to bring the kitchen into the twentieth century they simply picked a different room and started again.
‘It’s a bit gloomy back here, isn’t it? I think I like sunshine with my coffee as well. ’
As she continued to wander around the late-Georgian manor house, she had a sense of rooms built just for the sheer scale and number. Given that this hadn’t even been the main house it felt utterly wasteful. These rooms with their bold painted walls and cobwebbed corners again seemed too grand for the servants. What were they for? Rooms just to hang paintings? Maybe a family member kept to a suite of several rooms – a little aristocratic commune.
‘I wonder how many mad old aunts they kept up here? Maybe Will and Leo are already working out where to store me? What do you say?’
Ohana barked.
‘I agree. Talking to oneself is clearly a problem but I am talking to you. Although if you are going to be impertinent, I shall start talking to the birds instead.’
Ohana spotted a mouse and raced off down the corridor barking as Nick shuddered. Gabe hadn’t mentioned the extra house guests.
Ohana came bounding back, her tail wagging.
‘Good girl. Yes, you are. Now, just make sure our guests stay well out of our way and I’m sure we will all get along together.’
She walked past her bedroom and then Gabe’s, and couldn’t resist peering in. Like hers the bed had been made, the duvet turned down and the window left slightly ajar. Nick placed some flowers on his bedside table.
Ohana sat down and tilted her head, her ears flopping to the side .
‘Well, obviously, I’ll replace them when he next comes down. Who knows, he might find time to get back during the week?’
Ohana tilted her head the other way.
‘And you can stop that as well. I know there’s nothing in it, but I can dream.’
Finally, she put some flowers in the bathroom. The floor was laid with horrible black-and-white chequered lino. A large window with clear glass looked over to the other building and Nick wondered if the previous owners had enjoyed flashing the other house. There was no shower which was disappointing, and the bath was so big that by the time the water warmed up enough it barely filled five inches.
‘Cold baths are good for me anyway!’
She had already stood on the loo and pulled on the overhead cistern to make sure it was secure. Who could forget the time that Mr Shankley had flushed the loo and pulled the cistern down on top of him and knocked himself out? All the adults from the street spent the next week telling the children to stop laughing. Looking back she could see that it hadn’t been funny at all, but as children it slipped into local legend. Along with the time the men in the street had to bump start a neighbour’s car and pushed it straight into a letterbox.
‘Come on, old girl. No point standing around here laughing at other people’s bad luck – I have enough of my own to laugh at. Honestly, Ohana, you’re a bad influence on me.’
Ohana wagged her tail in agreement, and they continued to walk around the shell of the house, their voices echoing as they put the world to rights.
** *
Several days passed and Nick found herself settling into a routine. At first she had been reluctant to give her sisters her address but in the end Ari told her if she didn’t tell her, then Ari would call Aster to track down Nick’s IP address. At that point Nick gave in – Aster loved playing with computers and would pinpoint Nick’s new location within a few minutes. She knew her sisters were intrigued that she was staying at Gabe’s place, but they wisely chose not to comment.
Once again, she had turned down all their invitations to stay, often quite forcefully, until they had finally stopped asking. Although every night Paddy would send a text asking what she would like for breakfast and Nick would fall asleep with a smile on her face.
Training Ohana was coming along in leaps and bounds and she was impressed with how smart her little companion was. The floors of Parscombe Court were as yet uncarpeted which helped with Ohana’s accidents, but they were now few and far between. Once a day, she would put Ohana in her crate and having made sure she had everything she needed, took the bike out and explored the countryside. First and last thing, they would explore the parklands that the house sat amongst, avoiding the cows that ambled freely across the fields. They were huge shaggy brutes with long horns and made Nick think of Clem up in Scotland. An electric fence kept them away from the properties, but she was still a little concerned.
She had eventually tracked down the farmer to ask if they were dangerous – he laughed and told her they were a docile rare breed. Sensing her interest, he invited her over to the farm where she learnt more about the cattle industry than she had ever thought possible. Buying some of the farm produce, she and Ohana drove home and enjoyed scrambled eggs, some homemade cheese and home-cured bacon for lunch.
There was also a supermarket, some ten miles away, and a pretty market town, where everyone fussed over Ohana and had no issue with striking up a conversation. In fact, Nick had spoken to more strangers in the past week than in the past year in London. She wondered if that’s what country folk did, lure the city person into a false sense of security then take her out and burn her? Making a note to herself to stop reading crime and horror books for a bit, she tried to carry on with her old life.
The Wi-Fi at the house was excellent so she could track the markets, but the inability to take part frustrated her. She still played cards online with her friends but was finding it harder and harder to stay awake into the early hours.
July drifted into August and the weather had for once played fair. Rather than raining, it had settled into a warm front without the horrors of the earlier heatwave. The Cotswolds in late summer were a very pretty place and there seemed to be as many caravans and coaches as there were cars winding down the small roads. One time she had found all the traffic standing still whilst a tractor and a caravan had come to a stand-off. Knowing that wasn’t going to be easily resolved, she turned around and found another lane to explore.
** *
Parking her bike against the kitchen wall, she left her helmet on and strode across to the other wing of the house where she was currently expending most of her energies.
‘Morning, Letta,’ shouted Callum from the joists above her head. ‘John’s at the far end.’
Nick thanked him and then began to make her way through the shell of the house. Callum was one of the electricians currently finishing the cables for the first fix. Once the walls were finished and all the paper and paint done, he would come around again, running the second fix, basically putting on the switches and boxes. For now, though, this house was still in its first stage of renovations. It was at least watertight with a repaired roof and restored windows.
‘Morning, John. How’s it all going today?’
When they had driven down, Gabe had explained how Rafe was struggling to manage the project remotely. They had hired a quantity surveyor who was also working as the project manager, but he had become ill and was no longer able to work. At this short notice Rafe couldn’t find anyone he trusted to take on the job. A quantity surveyor and project manager basically kept all the plates spinning, making sure the supplies arrived on time. They also interpreted the architect’s plans and kept all the tradesmen in order. There was no point in hiring a plasterer if the joists were still being cut.
‘Sounds like a giant Gant plan,’ said Nick.
‘That’s exactly what it is, and it all knocks onto each other with huge cost implications. Last week no one had remembered to cancel the digger for the patio drainage. Where he was supposed to be digging is currently full of tiles for the kitchen and bathrooms that arrived too early and are sitting outside under tarpaulins.’
‘So what happened?’
‘The builders sent the digger back to base and we had to foot the bill. And of course we’ll have to pay again when we are actually ready for him.’
‘Seems high-handed on behalf of the builders?’
Gabe shook his head quickly. ‘Not a bit of it. It’s a huge build and they can only do so much. John Barlow is the lead foreman and according to Raffy, worth his weight in Carrera marble, but there’s only so much he can keep an eye on whilst trying to do his own job.’
Now, a week later, Nick had a much better understanding of the issues involved and had taken to the logistics like a duck to water.
It was a fine balance between just-in-time delivery, who you knew, and good luck. Nick wasn’t fond of relying on luck but knew to have safeguards and contingencies in place for when the tides turned. She believed in two maxims: ‘you have to be in it to win it’, and ‘I work damn hard to be this lucky’.
Other issues she could be more proactive on. John had explained that a shortage of lime for the interior plasterwork was causing a knock-on delay. She rang around all the building merchants, but rather than see who had any left she asked who had placed large orders. She then went after them, checking if anyone had a surplus. Returning to John, she got him to break down everything that they had in volume that wasn’t needed for a while. John pointed to the interior tiles.
‘We’re a month away from needing those. And even if we can’t get them again, there’s always other tiles. ’
Calling Rafe to explain what she had in mind, Rafe then checked with John and gave her the go-ahead. After that, Nick calculated a small financial hit and exchanged the tiles for the plaster and John was able to get the team back to work. Since then Nick had looked through the bill of quants – basically a shopping list for everything the project needed – and checked deliveries, locked prices and shopped around to confirm if there were any deals to be made.
It wasn’t all plain sailing, though. On the first day she had been subjected to some gentle hazing by the builders. She had gone around checking to see what stage they were at and if they had any pressing needs. In her desire to get things right, she had wasted nearly a full day looking for tartan paint, a specialised bucket to catch sparks from the angle grinder and a left-handed hammer. By the time she told the workmen she had been unsuccessful they all rolled around laughing. Apparently, it was customary to prank any new apprentice and whilst she smiled gamely at them she was tempted to swing one of those mythical left-handed hammers in their general direction. She’d wasted an entire day and muttered darkly to John about it.
‘I haven’t learnt a bloody thing.’
‘Well, I think you’ve learnt a fair bit about builders?’
Nick muttered some more and spent most of the evening reading the project manager’s notes. The following day she made her own mistakes ordering forty boxes of screws rather than a single box of 40mm screws, but she only made a mistake the once and she kept running things past John until she started to find her feet.
** *
By the end of the week, some of the site workers were shouting out to her, asking questions that she didn’t have a clue how to answer. It was good to be part of the team, but her skill set was incredibly narrow. She didn’t know one end of an RSJ from the other, but she knew how much it cost, who had them in stock and how quickly they could get them on site. The previous quantity surveyor had left excellent records and Nick was able to quickly fit into his shoes. It was a steep learning curve, but she was pleased to have a distraction from the investigations.
Communications with Gabe were limited and awkward. He had sent her some pictures of Ohana on the island. She sent back pictures of the little dog playing with the cattle. Every time she wanted to write more she found she had nothing to say. Until she knew how he felt about her, she didn’t want to make a fool of herself. She thought there had been a connection, but since their first evening in the house and she had told him she wasn’t ready, he had backed off and now seemed to view her more as a sister. And a problematic one at that.
In fact, over the past week, she had spent more time talking to Rafe. Despite their awkward first meeting when she had sworn at him mistaking him for his brother, she and Rafe were working well together over the phone and he was trusting her judgement calls. He had his brother’s sense of humour but whenever she talked to him, she felt none of the tension that she did with Gabe. By the same token she didn’t feel she could confide in Rafe the way she had with Gabe. She didn’t know how things stood with Gabe. Since their heart-to-heart the night he had driven her up, he had been as good as his word and backed off. Now she was worrying that she had completely misread him – as if her life wasn’t messy enough.