Things could be much worse than getting a mini Sinclair concert. Like no Kit at all.
“Do you mind if we take a detour?” she asked, stopping at a crossroad. I scanned the area, the signpost pointing towards Lairg, another towards home.
“Of course not,” I answered easily, not thinking twice about it, at least not until she became quiet, the radio long forgotten in the background. She drove slower, taking her time, pondering every turn, losing herself in deep thought, muttering under her breath.
I let her drive like this for ten minutes, before I asked, “Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer at first, her head somewhere else. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m fine.”
“You seem distracted.”
“I think…” She trailed off before turning on the indicator, taking a sharp left exit. The road was an overgrown single track, the surrounding bushes encroaching on the tarmac, so close it threatened to brush the paintwork of my car. “Do you remember I said my gran lived around here?”
“Yeah, you’ve mentioned it a couple of times.”
“She lived up here. I think.”
“Really?” Stress began to wrap around my chest like a cobra, tightening with every breath. “Are you thinking about staying with her?”
If she had a relative here, why would she stay with me? She could visit, see out the rest of her trip with them. Our time…it could have reached its end before the new year.
“No,” she said, and an embarrassing amount of relief washed across me. “You’ll understand when you see it.”
Kit didn’t explain any further, instead carrying on up the long and winding drive.
When we reached the clearing, I took in the sight of the sprawling house, white stone walls overgrown with frosted ivy that zig-zagged up broken pipework, up towards weathered window frames that hadn’t seen a fresh lick of paint in at least a decade. The garden was overgrown, weeds poking through the snow, and every single one of the downstairs windows was boarded up, sprayed graffiti across some.
If Kit’s gran was alive, it had been a long time since she’d lived here. Since anyone had ever shown the house a little care.
“The Sinclair family home,” Kit remarked, bringing the car to a stop. She leaned forward, taking a good look. “Dad always hated it. Too drafty, too quirky. It was built in the thirties and decorated by a really famous designer. Gran took it over and never dared to redecorate. She loved it.”
I took another look, finding those elements of beauty in the building. Through the upstairs window I could just make out tall mahogany furniture, pretty floral wallpaper peeling from the walls. There were hints to its former glory everywhere, the grand double front doors, stained windows to the side, a huge sunroom built onto the left.
“What happened?” I asked, sitting back in my seat.
“She died.’
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She shrugged me off. “No, it was a while ago. I was seventeen.” Kit fell silent for a moment, her eyes searching the building as if wanting to see the house in anything but thesorry state it was in. “And then they let it fall into disrepair. I think they tried to sell it, even though I begged them not to. Developers came and went but never had enough interest to actually buy. Then there was a fire, and damp crept in very quickly after.” She waved her hand like it meant nothing, but there was a sadness etched so deeply into her features it sunk deep into my own heart.
“That’s sad,” I said, unsure what else to say, given the resignation across her features.
“I know.” She sighed, her lips pressing together. “It’s a beautiful building. I dream of buying it from them some day.”
“Still saving?” I asked, my brows pressing together. If her parents owned it, then it couldn’t be that difficult for them to transfer it to her, could it?
“Still convincing them,” she said bitterly. “I don’t speak to my parents all that often. The discussion doesn’t go far before we get into some sort of argument.”
I didn’t say anything. What could I say? Instead, I reached my hand out towards hers, interlacing our fingers, and squeezed once.
“One day,” she added, her voice almost breaking. “Mark my words, I’ll fix it up.”
“Why does it mean so much to you?” I asked. If she was willing to not only reach out to her distant parents but beg to purchase the house too.
She took a moment to answer, as though trying to find the right words. “It’s a kind of legacy, I guess. Magazine covers, adverts, these things last for a few weeks, a campaign, and then the world moves on. Nothing I do lasts.”
I thought about my parents’ house, my grandparents’ even. How heartbreaking it would be to see anyone else living there, replacing and overwriting our memories. How much harder itwould be to watch that home decay like this one had, watching a home slowly turn into rubble.
