‘It’s time. This house is too big for us… always was, really, and we can’t keep up with the maintenance.’
‘And the redundancy package is very good, and I was due to retire next year anyway. With that and the pension, we can buy a nice little place.’
‘But if you sell this house, you’ll have loads of money.’ Houses on this street, this size, in this area, must have been worth well over a million pounds – one-point-two or one-point-three at least.
Miriam and Derek exchanged another one of those diffident, uncertain glances, and neither of them spoke for longer than what was an acceptably pregnant pause.
For at least a full minute the four of them looked at each other as the clock on the wall with its loud tick counted down the seconds like a timer on a bomb.
‘Oh no, you haven’t been scammed by one of those equity companies, have you?’ Hannah straightened, her hands clasped with sudden worry.
‘No, no,’ said Derek. ‘It’s not that.’
It went quiet again and Mina wanted to shake one of them to break free the vital piece of information that they didn’t seem to be able to volunteer. Hannah gave her another warning kick under the table. Seriously, why did people always assume she was the loose cannon about to say the wrong thing?
‘Anyone want another cup of tea?’ Miriam reached for the tea pot, pulling off the dark brown knitted tea cosy. She was the only person Mina knew who actually used a tea cosy.
‘Yes,’ said Derek with over-enthusiastic eagerness.
Mina moved her legs out of range, ignoring Hannah’s narrowed eyes.
‘So what’s the problem?’
Derek sighed. Miriam sighed.
‘The thing is…’ Derek tapped his finger on the table. ‘The thing is… The house. It’s not ours.’
‘Oh.’ Mina frowned in confusion. ‘Have you been renting it all this time?’
‘But if it’s not yours,’ said Hannah, ‘How can you sell it?’
Miriam gave a nervous laugh. ‘Well, we sort of, you know, kind of…’
‘We forgot,’ prompted Derek.
‘How can you forget that you don’t own a house?’ asked Hanna, glancing over at Mina.
‘Well, we just got so used to being here.’
‘So the owner is selling the house and you’ve got to leave.’ Mina sat up. ‘I’m sure there are laws to protect you. Aren’t you sitting tenants? They can’t just throw you out. Hannah can sort it all out for you. We won’t let them do that.’
Miriam laughed and patted her hand. ‘That’s not it at all.’
‘Who does own the house, then?’ asked Hannah.
‘Well, you do.’ Miriam smiled as if it were totally obvious.
Mina clicked her key fob and saw the flash of her hazard lights. ‘I can’t believe those two.’
Hannah laughed. ‘How do you forget you don’t own a house?’
‘I suppose they’ve been there for so long they hadn’t thought about it. It must have been a legal nightmare when our real parents died. You’d have thought with their proclivity for adventure they might have thought about having a proper will.’
Miriam had explained that when Georgie and Stuart were killed, everything had been a terrible mess and it had been easier to move into the girls’ family home, which Stuart had inherited from his own parents, rather than unsettling them further by moving them into a rented terraced house on the other side of town. Hence Miriam’s lengthy journey to her job. Derek and Miriam had moved in and started life as a family there, and until they’d decided to downsize, had never even thought about ownership.
‘How do you feel about them insisting the proceeds of the sale come to us?’ asked Hannah.
‘Uncomfortable. It’s totally wrong. They’ve paid for the upkeep of the house all these years. I think they should get enough from the sale to buy whatever they want. That only seems fair to me. There’ll still be plenty left over.’
