Barbara Erskine - House of Echoes

Slowly they walked back into the kitchen. The room had in many ways not changed at all since the first day they had seen it. The range was still there, and to their joy had been found to be fully functional after an overhaul; the plates and cups on the dresser had been washed and were sparkling. The heavy table, decorated now with a scarlet poinsettia, a gift from John Cornish, had been scrubbed almost white by Joss’s mother, Alice. The crates of their own china and glass stood piled along the wall. Tom’s high chair was pulled up at the head of the table.

Alice was bending over the pan on the stove, stirring something which smelled extremely appetising as they walked in.

‘Removal men gone?’ Her husband, Joe, was unwrapping saucepans with his small grandson’s help, making a huge pile of newspaper in the middle of the room.

‘Gone at last, thank God.’ Luke threw himself down in one of the chairs. ‘That smells wonderful, Alice.’

His mother-in-law smiled. ‘You know, I’m really enjoying cooking on this range. I think I’m getting the hang of it at last. This is real cooking!’ The range had been one of the urgent things they had had repaired before the move. She glanced at Joss. ‘Why don’t we all have a glass of wine, while I finish this. Let Lyn take Tom, Joe. She can give him his tea.’ Comfortably she stood away from the stove, wiping her hands on the front of her apron.

There were two bottles of wine in a Sainsbury’s carrier on the table and a six pack of beer. ‘Corkscrew?’ Joss extricated the bottles and stood them in line with the poinsettia. After the weeks of worry and packing and organising the move she was so exhausted she could hardly stand.

‘On my boy scout knife.’ Luke grinned at her. ‘Do you remember the removal foreman telling us: “Leave out the kettle and the corkscrew or you’ll never find them again after.”’ He fished around in the pocket of his jacket and produced a corkscrew which had obviously been nowhere near a boy scout in its life. ‘Beer for you, Joe? And I think I’ll join you. It’s thirsty work, moving house!’

Sitting at the table, watching her sister cut up an apple and put the pieces in front of Tom Joss felt a sudden wave of total contentment. It would probably take them years to sort out the house; months to unpack, but at least they were here properly now. No more London; no more office for Luke as he tried to sort out the last-minute details of his former life. And here they had enough room to put up Joe and Alice and Lyn and anyone else who wanted to come and stay for as long as they wanted.

Helping herself to a glass Alice sat down next to her. ‘I’ll leave that to simmer for a couple of hours. Then we can eat. You look done in, love.’ She put her hand over Joss’s.

‘Done in, but happy.’ Joss smiled. ‘It’s going to work. I know it is.’

‘Course it is.’ Joe had gone back to pushing the crumpled newspaper into a black plastic sack, considerably hampered by Tom who was pulling out the pieces as fast as Joe was putting them in, and tossing them around the room. ‘You’re all going to be very happy here.’ He reached for his beer. ‘So, let’s drink a toast. To Belheddon Hall and all who sail in her!’

The sound of the back doorbell was almost drowned by their raised voices. It was Luke who, with a groan, levered himself to his feet and went to answer it.

They had met Janet Goodyear several times since she had introduced herself on their first visit to the house almost three months before and Joss was beginning to like her more and more. Her first impression of an interfering and nosy neighbour had been replaced by one of a good-hearted and genuinely kind, if not always tactful, woman, who, far from being pushy was in fact diffident about intruding on her new neighbours. In her basket this time was a bottle of Scotch (‘For emergencies, but I can see you’ve thought of the alcohol bit already’,) and, what turned out to be a corn dolly. Accepting a glass of wine from Luke she pulled up a chair next to Joss. ‘You’ll probably think I’m dotty,’ she said cheerfully, ‘but I want you to hang this up somewhere in the kitchen here. For luck.’

Joss reached over and picked up the intricately plaited figure. ‘It’s beautiful. I’ve seen them of course –’

‘This isn’t a souvenir shop piece of tweeness,’ Janet interrupted. ‘Please don’t think it is. It was made specially for you. There’s an old chap who used to work on the farm – he does some odd gardening jobs for us now – and he made it for you. He asked me to bring it. It’s to ward off evil.’

Joss raised her eyes from the plaited straw. ‘Evil?’

‘Well –’ Janet shrugged ‘– you have probably gathered by now that the locals are a bit funny about this house.’ She laughed uncomfortably. ‘I don’t believe it. I’ve always loved it here. It has such a nice atmosphere.’

‘What do they say exactly?’ Clearing away the remains of his apple, Joss pushed a plate of scrambled egg in front of Tom and put a spoon into his hand.

‘I don’t know that we want to know, dear,’ Alice put in quietly. ‘You look at the range, Mrs Goodyear. What do you think of it now?’ Joss had told her mother about the estimate of twenty thousand.

‘I think it’s wonderful.’ Still cheerfully unaware of the consternation her initial comments on the state of the house had caused, Janet swung round to inspect it. ‘It’s so clever of you to get it fixed so quickly.’

‘You could join us for supper later,’ Joss interrupted. ‘Mum has made enough for an army as usual.’

‘Thank you but no.’ Janet drained her glass and stood up. ‘I only came to bring you the dolly. The last thing you all want is a visitor on your first evening. Later, though, I’d love to come. And in the mean time if you need anything at all we are very close. Please, please don’t hesitate to ask.’ She smiled round at them, then pulling her scarf back over her head, she was gone.

‘Nice woman, Janet Goodyear,’ Luke said to Joss when they were alone in the great hall later. They had made no attempt to introduce any of their furniture there. The room was too big, too stately, and, they both agreed needed no more than was there already.

The meal had been eaten and the beds made up and Luke’s first job, a rusty, shabby 1929 Bentley, had been ushered into the yard on the back of a low loader. It hadn’t even required an advertisement in the paper. A card in the shop, and a few words in the pub and the phone had rung three days later. Colonel Maxim, from the next village had owned the car for twelve years and had never got round to working on it himself. Luke could start on it as soon as possible, and when that was done, there was a 1930 Alvis belonging to a friend.

Tom, exhausted by the excitement of the day had gone to bed in his own room without a murmur. The old nurseries led off the main bedroom which was to be Joss and Luke’s, and, with the doors open into the short passage which separated the two rooms they would easily be able to hear him if he cried. The nursery complex consisted of three rooms, one of which had been converted into a bathroom. It was a cold, north facing room, and even the string bag full of Tom’s colourful bath toys did nothing to cheer it up. ‘Curtains, bright rug, wall heater and lots of vivid, warm towels,’ Joss dictated as she took the little boy on her knee after his bath and cuddled him dry. Lyn was making a shopping list, sitting on the closed lid of the loo. ‘Tom’s bathroom and bedroom are a priority.’ She shivered in spite of the heat from the gas cylinder heater Luke had put into the room. ‘I want him to love this place.’

‘At least your four poster will keep the draught out,’ Lyn commented. The bedroom she had been allocated off the main staircase, although facing south across the garden, was bitterly cold. In the past it was obvious a fire had been lit in the grate in there. There was a rudimentary central heating system, working off the range, but the heat didn’t seem to reach the bedrooms, and they had already decided that they would just have to stay cold. A thousand blankets, hot-water bottles and thermal pyjamas were going to be the order of the day from now on.