His eyes continue to tighten until I run out of things to say. He remains quiet, continuing to drink his coffee.
I huff and run a hand through my hair, frustrated by his lack of response. “Gah. Doesn’t anything faze you?”
“No.” He smirks. A few more moments of silence pass before he sighs and rips the packaging open. He takes a few bites, chews, and swallows. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“You’re welcome.”
Maybe now he’ll be a little less grouchy. While Art eats, I unlock my mobile and check to see if the agent has texted me. The green bubble icon is empty, however. It’s still a little early. I sigh and rest my head against the seat.
“Ma’am?”
“Hmm?”
“Why this flat?” I open my eyes to see him squinting out the window. “The building is knackered.”
“It’s not knackered. It’s a blank canvas.” My lips twitch as I try to ignore the peeling paint, overgrown ivy coating the exterior, and mound of rubbish that’s accumulated near the front gate. “You show a building a little TLC and it’ll give it right back to you.”
“It sounds like you think the building is living.”
“It is. It’s living history.” I nod. “Besides, I’ve grown up in character properties my entire life, and I can’t ever imagine myself living somewhere modern.”
“Not a country cottage?”
Butterflies flutter in my stomach at the thought. Art has touched on one of my long-term goals. I’d love nothing more than to own a chocolate-box cottage with a thatched roof somewhere in a small English village. I can picture the original wood beams and a large inglenook fireplace. But those types of properties require a special owner. As much as my heart might be telling me to ignore my head, I’m not at the stage of my life where I can handle it.
“No. Maybe in the future I will, but right now, I have to be practical. I need a space that will suit me while I’m in uni and to figure out how to maintain it before I can make the jump to something like a four-hundred-year-old cottage.”
“You’re passionate about it,” he notes. His hazel eyes are more alert than they were earlier. The caffeine and sugar from the food must’ve kicked in. The grump is slowly melting away into someone who is tolerable.
“I am. That’s one of the reasons I’m going for my structural engineering degree.”
“Not architecture?”
“No. I’ve never had an artistic eye for building design. I’m a problem solver. I’d much rather come up with the systems and configurations to support an architect’s designs and work with restoring older properties.”
My phone chimes as Art cleans up his rubbish and screws the lid back on the thermos. “The agent?” he asks.
“Yeah, he’s about a minute away.”
Art steps out of the car and opens my door. “Thanks,” I say.
Art walks ahead of me,guided by the light of his mobile. I’ve peeked through the photos on the website and knew going into today’s visitthat the building was in rough shape, but physically seeing it still sends shockwaves through my system. I chew on my lip. Bruce was right. I may have bitten off more than I can chew. And it all could’ve been avoided if I’d read that darn surveyor’s report.
We enter the ground-floor sitting room. The plaster is peeling off the walls, revealing suspicious white patches that could be mildew and cracks. Studying the angles from the corners, I think most of them are going to be cosmetic, but there are still one or two that are worrisome. The floorboards are buckling and have begun to come up from the ground. There is a large crack in the front window and a pane missing from the lower left corner.
“That’s not good,” I mumble.
“No.” Art joins me by my side and takes a few steps closer to examine the missing pane. “It’s probably where the moisture is coming from.”
We move deeper into the building. It’s dark and stuffy. A cloud of dust floats around the light of his mobile as we explore. The kitchen is in slightly less bad shape, but it’s devoid of any appliances, and all the sockets appear to be thirty or forty years old. The entire electrical system will need to be rewired and replaced.
“The garden looks all right. Just overgrown,” Art muses.
Through a grimy window, I spy a few patches of light. “It’s more of a jungle than a garden.” The plants have taken on a life of their own. Vines, weeds, and other shrubs are spilling out from every spare inch of space. We can’t see to the back fence, but I know from the map of the property that it’s long enough that I’ll be able to add a summer house and have a lawn put in so Lillian can run around.
Approaching the stairs to the first floor, I find there is no handrail. Art insists on going up the steps first, and that I hug the wall as we ascend so I don’t fall. Each step creaks as weight is placed on it.
“Should I be worried we’ll fall through?” he asks.
