Four
‘Tom recommended you,’ Lara said for the second time today, and exactly as Bob, the electrician, had done an hour earlier, Colin, the plumber suddenly found he could do the work required for around twenty-five per cent less than the quote he had given her a moment before. Which was just as well, because it seemed the cottage needed far more work than Lara had anticipated.
‘The place needs a complete rewire to bring it up to modern standards, and to comply with current legislation. No pun intended,’ Bob, the electrician had informed her an hour ago. ‘I can do a couple of repairs and isolate a few sockets so that you’ll have electricity today,’ he added after she had mentioned Tom, ‘but don’t use any extension leads or overload any sockets until the rewiring’s done, or it’ll be a safety hazard. I can juggle a few other jobs around and fit you in the day after tomorrow, as you’re a friend of Tom’s. But why didn’t you say so when you made the appointment? I remember telling you I’d done some work on Tom’s place.’
‘It slipped my mind,’ she lied.
Colin, the plumber had just made a similar statement regarding both the work required, and his costs. If she hadn’t met Tom, the quotes would’ve gone through the roof, and only god alone knew when they would’ve done the work.
And speaking of the roof, her heart sank when Bob told her that when he was in the attic inspecting the wiring in the loft, he’d noticed he could see the sky – and it wasn’t through a window.
So she then had to call a roofer. Fortunately, Bob was able to recommend one, and this time Lara mentioned, not only Tom, but also Bob, the moment Roger, the roofer answered his phone.
‘I can pop round later today and take a look,’ he said. ‘And as you’re a friend of Tom’s, I’ll give you a discount.’
Tom was clearly a good man to know. Perhaps she’d treat him to a pie and a pint in The White Lion in the next few days. As long as his grandson didn’t find out.
Lara sat outside to eat her lunch of sandwiches. She had to make do with sitting on the doorstep as she had no chairs as yet, and although the sun had shone all morning, the grass was still damp. Not that she could find any grass to sit on in either her front or back gardens. To say the gardens were overgrown was an understatement of epic proportions.
She had considered taking a couple of black bin liners and sitting on the grass on the clifftop opposite the cottage, but a flock of sheep were wandering freely over the cliffs and among the copse of trees, and as cute as they looked from a distance, she didn’t want to pique their interest in her.
Plus, she’d heard about seagulls attacking people for food in many seaside towns and villages. She’d also seen some videos. Several gulls had been flying about all morning and two had even perched on top of her car, and on both Bob and Colin’s vans, so she wasn’t taking any chances. At least if she sat on the doorstep she could dash inside if one approached. As long as itdidn’t try to get to her and her sandwiches via the hole in the cottage roof. She had also seen that Alfred Hitchcock film, The Birds.
To be honest, she had been more than a little disappointed when she’d driven up Old Oak Lane and clapped her eyes on the cottage. She had been heartbroken, in fact. She wondered if the photos on the auction site had been touched up to make it look better than it was.
Not that she had anyone to blame but herself. She could have come to look at the property before she had placed a bid. She had told Jenny that she’d had no intention of bidding and that was why she hadn’t, but now that she was being truthful with herself, the real reason she hadn’t viewed the place was because she thought that if she did, her common sense would kick in and she would never make a bid.
She had secretly fallen for the cottage the moment she had seen it on that auction website. She hadn’t believed in love at first sight until that second. She had never been in love with a man, at first sight or otherwise, but she had fallen head over heels for a tumbledown cottage on a clifftop in a seaside village the second she had seen it for sale.
How ludicrous was that?
And like a victim of a Romance scam who had parted with thousands of pounds in the belief she had found what she had been searching for, when reality hit, she was overcome with regret.
But this was no scam. The cottage was very real. As were its many imperfections. And for the first few minutes after her arrival, Lara had sat in her car and cried.
Fortunately, after telling herself that she would have to make the best of it and that she might as well get out of her car and face whatever mountain she had to climb, on closer inspection, things weren’t quite as hopeless as she had thought.
Admittedly, the place needed loads of work. Much more than she had expected. And yes, the place was filthy and would take several days and a lorry-load of cleaning materials – or preferably, a team of professional cleaners to come in – before it was as spick and span as she would like. And without doubt, when she had opened the front door the stench that greeted her had almost knocked her for six. She had left the front door wide open, along with the back door and all the windows once she was able to brave the putrid odour and get inside and it had still taken all day, and all of Ula’s magic to get rid of the stink. But the cottage did have charm. And oddly enough, the moment she had crossed the threshold, despite the nauseating pong, she had felt as if she had come home.
Once she had experienced that feeling, it was as though she now wore rose coloured glasses. All the bad points didn’t seem quite so bad, and all the good points seemed so much better.
The cottage not only had charm, it had character. It had potential. It had definite possibilities. It had several rooms, all with large sash windows that let in oodles of light – as well as fresh air. It had some original features. It had both a front and a back garden, each more jungle-like right now but Lara could imagine how beautiful they could be. Perhaps best of all, the cottage had no close neighbours. The one it did have was a few minutes’ walk away and, having met him, Lara was rather pleased.
On top of that, the views were to die for. The cottage was on a clifftop overlooking a bay with golden sand, and water of the bluest blue Lara had ever seen. No wonder the place was called Bluewater Bay.
She couldn’t recall it being quite so blue the last time she was here fourteen years ago. But perhaps that was simply because, as a happy go lucky, fifteen-year-old, soon to be sixteen, her mind was on things other than the scenery. Like boys, and fashion,and music, and boys, and sunbathing and water sports, and boys. Okay, her mind was mostly on boys in those days.
Oh how things had changed. These days, boys – or now men – were the last thing on her mind. Now she could appreciate the glory of the world around her. And this place was glorious.
The grass covering the cliff was like a cloak of resplendent green and the small copse of trees that sat across from her cottage would give tourists who travelled to countries like Canada to see the beautiful colours of the Fall display, a sight to behold. The leaves were every shade of red and gold and green and brown imaginable.
Even the sheep that seemed to be free to wander over the cliff and down the gentle slope to the sandy beach below, appeared to be prettier than ordinary sheep. Their fleeces were whiter than white and their black heads were as dark as a Raven’s wing.
The sky was almost as blue as the waters of the English Channel, and Lara was sure she could see the coastline of France on the horizon. Or maybe that was stretching reality a little too far.
From the rear windows, and the back garden, the vistas were equally breathtaking. The main village of Bluewater Bay stood at the top of the next hill across from hers and Old Oak Lane wound its way down into the valley and a wider sweep of bay, and then rose up again and snaked into the village. A church spire was visible above the village rooftops, but this church had no clock, unlike the one in Woking.
The distance from her cottage to the village seemed shorter across the hills and Lara wondered why Tom had been walking on the main road. But then it dawned on her that the main road may be the longer route but it was also flat for the most part and then became a gentle incline into the village. The walk from Tom’s cottage would be downhill this side but, by the look of it, would then entail a steep climb up the lane on the other side.
