Fern Britton - Coming Home

‘Must have been hard for them.’ Kit pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. ‘How old were you again?’

‘Thirteen months. Henry was two. Not so bad for me – I have no memories, not even impressions. But Henry knew her. I mean really knew her. Had cuddles and bedtime stories and walking on the beach and playing. Somewhere in his head he must have those feelings. No wonder he’s so angry.’

Henry arrived at Mandalay Road, Clapham at the same time Kit and Ella were talking. His taxi drew up, double parked, and he paid the cabbie before hauling his weekend bag over his shoulder. He stood motionless before suddenly throwing up Ella’s pasty and coffee on the kerb outside his front door.

There were several letters on the mat as he pushed the door open. Bills and a catalogue. He picked them up and chucked them on the hall table, went into the kitchen to switch the kettle on before making himself a cup of tea. While the kettle was boiling he went up and dumped his bag on his bed and had a quick pee.

Downstairs, sitting on the sofa with his mug of tea, he looked around his home. Above the fireplace was one of his grandfather’s paintings: a small girl with red hair sitting on the quay at Trevay with a crab line in her hand. It was unusual in that this was one of the very few canvases Poppa had painted. Poppa was the Potter – Granny was the painter.

In front of him was an Indian carved coffee table. His grandfather had brought it back from a trip to Rajasthan and Henry and Ella had always had their Friday night supper of fish and chips on it, rather than at the big kitchen table. It was their treat and marked the start of their weekends.

‘Argh,’ he said angrily to the empty room. ‘I am not going to see that woman.’ The sofa sagged as he leant back into it. His grandmother’s again. She and Poppa had bought it when they first married and moved into Pencil House. A ridiculously tall, thin house that was one of the landmarks of Trevay. A place where visitors still stood and had photos taken of themselves. His own mother, born in that house, had grown up with this sofa, just as he and Ella had. He tried to imagine his mother as a child, sitting where he was sitting, having a bedtime story read to her. Being hugged by Granny or Poppa just as he and Ella had been. Well, she was not coming back to take this from him. Or the paintings. Or the table. Or the bloody wine glasses. They were his. His and Ella’s, as was every stick of furniture or cutlery in this house.

Bill and Adela waited for two years before they married. Adela wanted to finish her degree and Bill wanted to make sure he had enough savings to begin married life in a home of their own.

Tucked up in the chill of Adela’s Marylebone bedroom they talked of their future.

‘Do you think we can afford to start a family straight away?’ Adela had asked hopefully, her face pressed into the warmth of Bill’s chest.

‘How much do babies cost?’ he had asked.

‘Not much. I’ll ask around the family for the essentials. I’m sure my old pram is stuck in the attic somewhere. We can use the kitchen sink as a bath and I’ll feed the little mite myself so …’

She heard his laugh rumbling in his chest as he tightened his arm around her.

‘What are you laughing at?’

‘Your practicality and frugality. Most women would want brand-new everything.’

‘Well, I don’t. And I have a few books of Green Shield stamps that I’m sure would get us a cot.’

He kissed the top of her head. ‘And where would we live? This garret of yours is fine for us but it would be a squeeze for three of us. And I don’t fancy carrying the pram up and down three flights of stairs.’

‘I always imagined us going back to Cornwall,’ she said quietly. ‘My parents have spotted a tiny place in Trevay, on the harbour.’

As she lifted her head to check his reaction to this piece of news, he saw the longing in her.

‘I’m not having handouts from your parents.’

‘No, no. Nor me. And I hadn’t said anything to them about looking for something. Honestly.’

‘Then how do they know about it?’

‘My mother sent me something.’ Adela shifted herself from her arms and slipped out of bed. She tiptoed across the icy lino and reached for a newspaper stuffed into her handbag and got back to the warmth of her bed as fast as she could. ‘Here, look.’ She turned to the properties page and handed it to him. ‘There.’ She pointed.

He scanned the small advert and blurry picture.

‘What do you think?’ she asked, tucking herself around him again.

‘It’s a derelict shop.’

‘An old chandler’s, actually.’

‘But not a residential home.’

‘That’s why it’s such a good price.’

‘No indoor bathroom? No bedrooms? No kitchen and no heating? And it’ll be freezing.’

‘But, stuck between those two houses as it is, it will keep itself warm.’

He said nothing.

She pressed on. ‘Bill, it’s so pretty, and I don’t mind living in a building site and I can do lots of labouring for you. Between us we could build the home we really want.’

He held her anxious gaze. ‘You really like it?’ he said.

She nodded, her fingers crossed under the eiderdown. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Hmm,’ he said, wanting to keep her in suspense. ‘We could go down this weekend and take a look at it?’

She sat up clutching her hands to her chest. ‘Could we?’

‘Why not?’

To their delight, the second-class train compartment was empty. Bill put their small, shared suitcase up in the netted luggage rack while Adela opened up their packed lunch. ‘It’s only egg sandwiches and ginger nuts, I’m afraid,’ she said, fussing over the greaseproof-wrapped packages and passing him one. ‘Oh, and I’ve put the last of my chicken soup in the flask.’

Sitting together, watching as the smoky London scene beyond the glass began to morph into suburbia then farmland, they munched and chatted and did the Guardian crossword until, leaning their heads together, they fell asleep to the rhythm of the train.

Newton Abbot, Exeter and Plymouth sped by in a drowsy haze until the guard, in a comforting West Country voice called along the corridors, ‘Bodmin Parkway next stop. Next stop, Bodmin.’

As the bus rattled onto Trevay Harbour and came to a stop, Adela and Bill collected up their bits and jumped off.

‘There it is,’ Adela said with renewed energy, pointing at a very tall, thin building, ‘I can see the estate agent waiting.’

They hurried across the road, past the Golden Hind pub and turned left into the narrow lane where the building stood, squeezed in between its neighbours.