Chapter 3
THREE
The next few days were agony. There was a particular cruelty about sealed bids, she thought to herself more than once, in that you were really bidding against yourself – one minute telling yourself an extra ten thousand would surely do it, the next that it would be crazy to let it get away for less than twenty.
In any case, the fact there were two buyers after it proved Trade Cottage had been undervalued, so it was worth offering even more – say, thirty, or even forty .
. . All the arguments and counterarguments were in your own head, as were the fantasies of actually living there.
And the sums involved were so enormous! When had this become normal for them, she tried to remember – thinking in millions and hundreds of thousands, instead of pounds and pence?
But, of course, they’d been lucky: the boom in London property values had boosted their net worth like a tide floating a boat.
It wasn’t as if they were wealthy people, not really.
They still struggled to afford a villa abroad in school holidays, and, as for the schools themselves, even before the addition of VAT, private ones had been out of reach.
And their mortgage was already colossal.
She shopped at Aldi as well as Waitrose, bought clothes from Joe Browns and M sometimes they needed to consult family members, or wanted to see further evidence of funds, or even took the house off the market altogether.
But in the event, it was less than an hour before Matt’s phone rang, and she could tell, simply by the way he looked at the screen, who was calling.
He answered tersely. ‘Hi. Yes, great, thanks. What’s the news?’
As he listened to the answer, he turned towards her, and she saw he was beaming.
‘Hang on, I’m putting you on speaker.’
Damon’s voice came on: ‘I was just saying to Matt, Kate, it’s good news. Your offer’s been accepted.’
Kate let out a whoop. Her throat had been so tight, it came out as a strangled cry: a high-pitched ululation of triumph, unintentionally primal and blood-curdling, which Damon was polite enough to ignore.
They briefly talked about next steps, but it was all straightforward: the solicitors could get to work right away.
‘All right, mate, tell me,’ Matt said as the conversation was winding up. ‘How much were we ahead of the other bidders? We’re not going to back out, I promise. I’m just curious.’
‘Well, that I couldn’t tell you,’ Damon replied. ‘Because, as it happens, you weren’t the highest bidder. Not even the second highest, in fact. Congratulations – looks like you played a blinder with that letter.’