The Magic Cottage

exuberance. Not only that: I also felt good about the deal myself. Suddenly I was a man with conviction. Yes, I was going to enjoy living in the country. Nobody said it had to be completely back-to-nature. And Gramarye was going to be our first proper home together.

But still that niggly tormentor enjoyed itself at the back of my mind.

'Um, I'm just a bit puzzled,' I said to Ogborn. 'Mr. Bickleshift implied that a number of people were interested in the cottage.'

'There have been six positive inquiries since the advertisement was placed and, as I've already informed you, I, myself, met with another young couple only yesterday.'

I felt awkward, but I couldn't let it go. 'So why us? Don't get me wrong—we want to buy, the deal is as good as sealed so far as we're concerned—but I can't help wondering if the other offers were lower than ours.'

He seemed genuinely amused. 'On the contrary, Mr. Stringer. Those who were interested were willing to pay the full price.'

Curiouser and curiouser.

He went on: 'But as I've already explained, Flora Chaldean was insistent that Gramarye be passed on to someone suitable. Several of those other prospective buyers were merely property speculators, the kind who would renovate and modernize, to sell again immediately at some exorbitant price, while others would only use the cottage as a weekend retreat. That was far from what my late client had in mind for Gramarye.' He paused. 'And then there were those who had altogether different purposes for the place.'

The last sentence had been said very quietly, almost to himself.

'Sorry?' I said.

He rested back in his chair. 'Not important, Mr. Stringer, not important. Now, I know you have a long journey ahead of you, so I shan't detain you any further. I'll make Bickleshift aware of our agreement and perhaps you could let me have that deposit within the next day or two—naturally my own offices will handle the conveyancing of the property.'

'Mike . . .' prompted Midge.

'I can let you have a check right away.' I was already reaching into my inside pocket.

'Splendid. I'll make out a receipt for you and then the matter will be safely in hand. The agent tells me you haven't the problem of selling a house yourself, so that's a complication out of the way.'

'That's right, we're renting at the moment. How did Bickleshift know that?'

'I told him when I rang on Monday,' came the answer from Midge. 'I thought having no chain of contracts would be in our favor.'

She really had been so sure of the place.

We concluded our business with the solicitor, shook hands with him and left. Midge was surprisingly subdued once we were outside, although I could tell she was deliriously happy, and I guessed it was due to the tension of the past couple of days draining from her. That being so, we still wanted to celebrate right there and then, but unfortunately her work commitment wouldn't allow: she had to get back and start on those illustrations. Also, I had to get together with Albert Lee and work on arrangements for next week's lightning tour. It was going to be a heavy schedule, and I looked forward to it; long time since I'd been on the road, and I'd already half forgotten the hardships involved.

We drove from Bunbury and jabbered all the way to the city, amazed at our good fortune and busily making plans. Midge and I had a lot of sweat ahead of us, but we knew it was going to be worth it. Oh yeah, we knew.

MOVING

THE FIVE OR six weeks that followed were just a dreamy kind of blur, events moved so fast. The Everlys tour was a sellout and I enjoyed every minute—tearing around the countryside for six concerts in various towns didn't faze me one bit. I was on a high which had nothing to do with illegal substances. Before I went on the road I had the chance of seeing the results of Midge's painstaking nights-and-days' toil, and I have to say it, despite my natural bias, they were brilliant. The campaign was aimed specifically at toddlers and the art director had envisioned fairy-tale settings—white castles, dark forests, prancing elves, the usual ingredients—with our little modern-day tykes superimposed photographically among them. Clever photography would ensure (hopefully) that they blended in well. I forget how the copy-line went, but it was pretty crass, I know that. And yet I could imagine the posters working: they presented the sort of nostalgic images mothers would love, and the clothes themselves were cutesy-stylish enough for those same mothers not to feel they were regressing their infants. I couldn't make up my mind whether the message was blatant or subtle, but if they were successful I was sure a lot of credit would be due to Midge's artwork.

Because of her moderate fame and my ability to keep in regular employment musically speaking, obtaining a mortgage was no great problem, even though we wanted it in joint names and we were only cohabiting. Probably the fact that either one of us could have coped easily with the repayments on our own had a lot to do with the Building Society manager's favorable attitude. Not that we were seeking that much; we'd been tucking away savings into that very Society for such an event ever since we'd been together, and the amount had risen to a tidy heap.

We managed to get down to the cottage only a couple of times over the next few weeks, and on both days the weather was overcast so the effect was not quite the same as before. Sunshine can produce all kinds of warmth, not just physical. I was even more pleased, though, for on both occasions the place looked better to me.

I arranged for a firm of local builders to invade as soon as final contracts were exchanged, providing them with a list of faults that required urgent attention, and another list of lesser defects that would also need treatment afterward. Painting and decorating we could manage ourselves, but anything that smacked of technical skill had to be tackled by them. We agreed on a date for the workmen to start, and on that very morning came the odd phone call.

Midge was out in the rain on a shopping expedition and I was restringing my Martin, feeling slightly ashamed that I'd allowed the instrument to die on me, when O'Malley, the foreman, came on the line. He wanted to know if I'd made a mistake with my faults list. There was water in the kitchen to be sure, and the inside wall that backed onto the embankment would need complete damp-coursing, but he couldn't for the life of him locate any dampness in the walls upstairs at all (no, he didn't add another 'at all' —he wasn't quite that kind of Irishman). And what did I mean by the crack in the lintel over the range? The stone looked perfectly okay to him. The floor-to-ceiling split in the bedroom wasn't as bad as I'd indicated, either; it could easily be repaired. There were one or two rotted windowframes that would need replacing, but for the life of him he couldn't locate the dangerous stairboard. The roof certainly needed fixing, unless I liked sleeping under the stars, but the water tank wasn't too badly rusted; however, he advised replacing that to save problems later.

I don't know if I was more taken aback at finding such an honest builder, or at apparently having exaggerated Gramarye's failings. Whichever, it was good news, if puzzling. I instructed O'Malley to carry on with whatever he felt was necessary, and returned to stringing the guitar, mystified yet pleased at the same time.

I told Midge the news when she returned from her shopping trip, drenched from the rain, hair matted flat around her face. She stood there, dripping on the carpet, her expression one of bewilderment. We had written the list together from notes we'd made on one of our trips to the cottage, so there was no question of overactive imagination on my part. I remember remarking at the time that the defects were not as bad as I'd first thought, but they were still there, and very apparent. We discussed the mystery throughout the day and into the evening, but still hadn't reached any satisfactory conclusion by bedtime. We fell asleep still wondering.

Too busy to consider it much over the next few days: I was tied up with recording sessions, mainly for advertising jingles—very lucrative—and Midge had embarked on a series of illustrations for a new book—something of a departure for her this time because it was for farmhouse recipes. We also had to organize our future lives: sending out change-of-address cards, arranging for electricity and the phone to be switched back on at the cottage, the cesspool to be cleared, signing checks for this, that, and God knows what else, buying odd bits of furniture we'd need, having a brand new electric stove installed . . . the list went on.