Lara slid her feet into her slippers, stood up, and grabbed her dressing gown from the back of her dressing table chair, reeling off the things she had to do as if reading them from a list. ‘Right. Loo. Shower. Breakfast. Get dressed. Leave by nine.’
Padding over to the window, she smiled again as she peeped through the gap in the curtains. She hadn’t checked the time but as the heating came on at seven and she was awake before the alarm she’d set for seven-thirty, it must be somewhere in between. Closer to seven-thirty she guessed as dappled sunshine filtered through the gold and ruby leaves on the trees in the front garden and those spaced at equal distances along the length of the road, casting long shadows on the pavements. Two cars had stopped at the zebra crossing further down to let a solo dog walker and his three dogs cross, but other than that, the street was empty.
In the park opposite, the grass shimmered in the early morning light, with dew coating the blades. The winding path looked wet in patches, also from dew, as did several leaves that had fallen onto the wet grass and damp ground.
Autumn had been her father’s favourite season; her mother’s had been winter, which was also Lara’s favourite, and they had all loved Christmas. As soon as September was over, they would begin planning for the festive season. Each year they had started earlier with the decorations. They had joked that one day they might start in June. Or perhaps they’d simply leave them up all year.
Lara pushed those thoughts aside and admired the view. She lived in the upstairs flat in a large detached house on the crest of a hill on the outskirts of Woking and was lucky enough to, not only have a view of the small park opposite, but also to have rooftop views for a good distance beyond. Her bedroom faced due east, which meant she had the bonus of the sunrise. Not that she was usually up early enough to see it. But today she was up not long after the sun, and this morning’s sunrise was glorious. The rooftops to the east glowed like gold with the sun rising above them, and wide ribbons of blue, pink, gold, and silver stretched for miles across the sky as daylight chased away the dark of night. Lara had a hectic day ahead but she could take a few minutes to appreciate the beauty before her. Especially as she wouldn’t see this vista for at least a month after today, and it was, after all, one of the reasons she had bought the place.
It wasn’t just this flat she owned. She had purchased both flats in the Victorian villa, built in the 1840s and converted into flats in the early 1990s, together with the freehold, soon after her eighteenth birthday. The Estate Agent said she was incredibly lucky to have the money to afford to buy the place outright, at such a young age, but she and her solicitor knew that luck had nothing to do with it. Not good luck at least. She had inheritedthe money from her parents after their tragic deaths on her sixteenth birthday, and it had been held in trust until she was eighteen.
She bought this flat to live in, and the ground floor flat as an investment, and partly so that she could choose who lived in the flat below her.
Her aunt, who had taken Lara in after tragedy struck, had sniffed in a derisory manner when Lara had told her she would be moving out of her aunt and uncle’s house and into a home of her own.
‘Well, that’s the thanks we get for looking after you for the last two years, is it? You moving out of the home we’ve made for you, the minute you can get your hands on my dear sister’s money.’
Lara’s hackles had risen, as they invariably did when her aunt opened her mouth, but Lara bit back as much of the retort as she could, although she didn’t disguise her sarcasm.
‘Actually, Aunt, I thought you’d be happy to be rid of me. I know I’ve beensucha burden from day one, as you’ve made perfectly clear. And the inheritance my parents left me, was from them both. It was very kind of you and my uncle to take me in, and I think I’ve shown my appreciation over the last two years, but I’m eighteen now, and having my own home will be good for us all. It’s time we each got on with our own lives. It’s what my parents would have wanted.’
Lara’s aunt and uncle had taken her in, partly because they were her only living relatives, but mainly because her parents’ solicitor had informed them they would be reimbursed for any costs incurred. Her parents’ wills had named her paternal grandmother as their choice of guardian until she reached eighteen, should anything happen to them both. Sadly Granny Grey had passed away the year before, but Lara’s parents had not got around to amending their wills. Her maternal grandmother had passed on several years earlier. Not that shewould ever have been an option as far as Lara’s parents were concerned. Lara suspected that neither would her aunt and uncle, in truth. But it was them, or no one, and as the wills dictated that her parents’ estate would be left in trust until Lara turned eighteen, someone had to look after her. Had she not been so utterly devastated by her parents’ sudden deaths, she would have insisted she could take care of herself, but the reality was, in her heartbroken state, she could not.
‘We have two daughters of our own,’ Aunt Deb had protested at the time, ‘and our house is so small.’
‘You can move into the family home,’ the solicitor had said. ‘That’s large enough to accommodate you all, with bedrooms to spare.’
Aunt Deb’s eyes had briefly lit up at that prospect, until the solicitor had added that the house, of course, would belong to Lara once she turned eighteen.
‘No, no,’ said Aunt Deb, folding her arms over her ample bosom with finality. ‘The house must be sold. We’ll put our own house on the market at the same time, and then we’ll buy a new home for us all to live in. We’ll use the sale proceeds of our home and you can provide whatever shortfall there might be for the new property, from the sale of my sister’s house. But as most of the funds will come from us, we’ll be allowed to keep the new house once Lara comes of age. After all, as much as we adore our dear niece, we are putting ourselves to a great deal of trouble. And we’re only thinking of moving home to make Lara more comfortable.’
The wills had appointed the family solicitor as a joint and several trustee, meaning he was able to make decisions and take any action he felt appropriate regarding the estate, providing the decisions and actions were in Lara’s best interest. That meant he could sell the family home if he believed it was the right thing to do.
The solicitor had discussed it with Lara, but she was in such a total state of shock at the time, that she was unable to think clearly. She had no wish to live in her family home without her parents and no desire to see her aunt, uncle and cousins moving in and changing everything, so she had agreed to her aunt’s proposal.
The sale of her family home went ahead and the property sold quickly, as did her aunt and uncle’s. A new house was purchased by her aunt, and the family – of which Lara was now a member – moved into their new home a few weeks before Christmas. But it was never a home as far as Lara was concerned.
She didn’t know her aunt, uncle, and cousins well. The two families had rarely spent time together, despite living less than ten miles apart. Not even at Christmas. But she didn’t particularly like them. Neither had her parents, she believed.
She did know they were completely different from her parents, who were abundantly cheerful, generous, kind and caring, and who loved Lara and one another with all their hearts.
Aunt Deb and Uncle Jeremy were moaners, as well as hypochondriacs, and so were their two daughters. There was always something wrong with the world, and with everyone else, in their opinions. And there was always some ailment they were suffering with, which was surprising really, as they considered themselves to be nothing short of perfect in every other way.
In truth – and in the opinions of most people who knew them, as Lara discovered – they were rude, meanspirited, and tightfisted. But Lara hadn’t thought of them as cruel people. Until the day she went to live with them.
Now, Lara glanced across the rooftops to the enormous clock on the local church steeple a few roads away from her flat.
‘Seven-twenty-five!’ She couldn’t recall the last time she had been awake and out of bed this early. She usually slept for at least another hour.
It was probably because of her excitement.
‘Right,’ she said once more, inhaling a deep breath and turning away from the window. ‘I’d better get a move on. Places to go. A cottage to see. An adventure to be had.’
Lara wasn’t entirely sure what sort of ‘adventure’ this was going to be, but she was sure of one thing.
It was too late now to change her mind.
