‘Hi, Pansy, how are you?’ she said.
Pansy looked unimpressed with Clara and the cottage and snuggled her head back into Henry’s shoulder.
‘So this is the little doer-upper?’ Henry said, as Pansy suddenly pushed herself down from his arms and stood staring at the house, her hands on her hips.
‘It’s a shithole,’ the child said emphatically.
‘Pansy!’ Henry looked horrified. ‘Where did you hear that word?’
‘The plasterers on the Moorcroft house. They said it was a shithole and that Mr Moorcroft was an absolute bast—’
Henry put his hand over his daughter’s mouth, his face bright red.
‘God, I am sorry, she comes on jobs with me and sometimes there is less than desirable language flying around the place. Oww!’ he cried.
Henry held his hand and then started to shake it. ‘You bit me.’
‘I did. Your hand smells like onions,’ said Pansy calmly and she walked into the garden.
Clara started to laugh. This child was incredible, she thought. She had never liked children but this one, she liked.
‘She’s incredible,’ she said to Henry.
‘She’s a changeling and any day the Goblin King is coming to take her back.’ He was still rubbing his hand.
‘Why does she come on the jobs? Where’s Mum?’ she asked casually, trying to sound non-judgemental.
‘Inside, next to the onions and the potatoes.’
‘Peeling them for dinner?’ asked Clara.
‘No, she’s dead. Her ashes are in the van.’ Henry shrugged. ‘She died three years ago. Pansy and I live in the van and go from job to job.’
Clara was taken aback. Now the Piles and Judas betrayal didn’t seem so terrible compared to him raising a child in a van, alone.
‘Tell me about the cottage,’ he said, his tone clearly a sign that he was changing the subject.
‘It was built in the 1800s and it is, as your changeling stated, a shithole and I have mad regrets about buying it.’
Henry started to laugh now. ‘I have seen worse.’
‘Where? In war-torn countries? I haven’t even been inside. I’m scared of what I will find.’
‘Let’s do the tour together,’ he said. ‘Pans, we are going inside.’
Pansy was picking dandelions from the long grass. ‘Good luck,’ she said, not looking up.
‘How old is she?’ Clara asked.
‘Six going on sixty,’ he sighed.
‘She’s not in school yet?’
‘Not yet.’
She heard his tone change again and she left it. It wasn’t any of her business, she reminded herself.
But she thought about her mother, Lillian, and her insistence on education for Clara, her only child. There were only the two of them, and Lillian had worked hard for Clara to have as much as she could afford, even though she worked in a nursing home as a carer. She never missed a concert or an awards assembly and even managed to buy a little flat for them both.
Thinking of her mother made her eyes sting, and she focused on the cottage.
‘Have you got a key? We can do this together if it’s easier.’
Clara thought about Piles and this being their dream and her eyes stung again.
Pulling the large old-fashioned key out of her handbag, she went to the front door and tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t move.
‘It’s stuck,’ she said to Henry.
‘Wait on,’ he said and he half-walked, half-jogged to the van.
‘Let me put some of this in your keyhole,’ he said, pumping something from a can into the door lock.
‘Steady on, ask me for a drink first.’ Then she realised she had said it aloud.
Henry looked at her in a slightly panicked fashion.
‘Jokes,’ she said feeling like a predator, as she reinserted the key and turned it. ‘Sorry, inappropriate jokes. The key works,’ she said, opening the door.
A pigeon flew out above them.
Clara looked up at where the roof was supposed to be and saw clear blue skies.
‘It’s a hole,’ she said slowly. ‘A big, gaping hole.
‘A complete shithole,’ said Henry, looking around him. With that, Clara burst into loud sobs, not even soothed by Henry’s hugs and her face fitting perfectly into the curve of his neck.
6
There was no doubt the cottage was a disaster. The lack of furniture was one issue, as the images in the photos had clearly been styled to resemble a scene out of a Beatrix Potter drawing with a fire in the grate and pretty rugs and curtains, which were nowhere in sight now.
‘I should sue them for not disclosing the true condition,’ Clara said after she had wiped her face with her sleeve.
‘Did you look at it before you bought it?’ Henry asked.
Clara paused. ‘No, I bought it on a whim. A sad, wine-induced whim.’
Henry raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Fair enough.’ He shrugged and she respected that he didn’t want to know the ins and outs of her sad life choices and that he wanted to keep proper boundaries between them, even after she had snotted on his shoulder.
The hole in the thatching was large and there was mud on the floor, and some sort of animal droppings.
‘Fox, most likely,’ said Henry as he kicked it.
‘They said it was furnished,’ Clara stated as she looked at the large dust sheets creating unattractive shapes in the living room.
She pulled one back to reveal a wooden chair with a high back.
‘God, sitting in that for too long would be a punishment,’ she said.
Henry laughed as she walked into the tiny kitchen.
‘I think the hole in the roof isn’t that old, and the kitchen is okay,’ Henry said.
But all Clara saw was dust as thick as icing on the table, and some odd and unmatched coloured wooden chairs stacked against the wall.
There was an old refrigerator and an Aga.
‘I always wanted one of those stoves,’ she said, trying to rustle some cheer about it all.
Henry had opened the back door and was looking outside. ‘Wow,’ he said.
‘Do I want to know?’ Clara asked. ‘I don’t think I can bear any more disappointment.’
‘No, it’s good.’
