a couple of oldies, killing a little of their excess time by driving somewhere unnecessary as slowly as mechanically possible, specifically to annoy the younger people who are running late in the long line of cars behind them. Well, no, he didn’t say that exactly. In fact he didn’t say it at all. He just said people drove slower in the country, and to be careful of speed cameras.
Goodness, though, there do seem to be an awful lot of elderly persons in this corner of the countryside. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course. Of course, of course. Oldies have to live somewhere, don’t they? And so on.
The last time we saw the Dream House was on a beautiful sunny day back in May. The grass had been freshly cut and there was honeysuckle growing in vast, sweet-smelling clumps all over the terrace balustrade. It was breathtakingly pretty. It was beautiful.
This morning the honeysuckle was long gone. The sky was low and black, and it was raining. Not only that, the garden clearly hadn’t been touched since the day we last came to see it, nearly four months ago.
We found Richard the estate agent waiting for us, yawning and stretching, managing to look simultaneously self-righteous and half asleep. We trampled up the path towards him, apologising for the tractors and the old people and the resulting need to reschedule (we had called to postpone the meeting). It all seemed to be going down OK—in fact he almost cracked a smile—but then, just as Fin and I climbed the final step to the front porch, I accidentally trod on a slug.
It was the size of a small serving spoon, I think; possibly even larger. And I screamed. I couldn’t help it. I was only wearing thin canvas trainers, and so my foot had clearly experienced each stage of the slug’s final moment: the pathetic, rubbery resistance, the deathly squelch…It was not good. So I screamed. And the other thing I did, unfortunately, was I shouted ‘Fuck!’ Once again, I couldn’t help it. Sometimes these words have to come out.
Richard the estate agent looked at me as if I’d just brought out a machete and threatened to cut off his cock. Wish I had, actually. Might have livened him up a bit. In any case I apologised profusely, of course. But some people just won’t accept apologies, will they? He could hardly bring himself to look at me after that. Sulkily, he turned back to the front door, slid the key into the lock—and then paused.
‘The office just called, by the way,’ he said. He had to shout over the sound of rain gushing from the broken gutter above our heads. ‘You’ll be delighted to hear we’re ahead of schedule. You and the vendors exchanged and completed contracts about half an hour ago.’
‘Ooh sugar!’ I chortled (trying to suck up, obviously, after the swearing débâcle. Richard the estate agent would be getting no more fucks from me). ‘Don’t suppose we can sidle out of it now, then, can we?’
‘Not easily, no,’ he said drearily, looking only at Fin.
Fin said ‘Fantastic!’ or something similarly delightful. I could see Richard’s sullen shoulders slowly relaxing. Once again he very nearly smiled.
Fantastic Fin—always says the right thing in the right way to the right person, and wherever he goes he always leaves a trail of slowly relaxing shoulders behind him. But sometimes (I happen to know) he’s being Fantastic on autopilot. He’s actually not paying the slightest bit of attention to all the Fantastic words which are bubbling so agreeably out of his cakehole. Sometimes, for example, he’s exchanging text messages with a film financier in Canary Wharf at the same time.
It doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s too late now. And the fact is I wasn’t texting financiers at the time, and it didn’t occur to me either—or not until just now (back at Fin’s parents and after a long bath)—but I now think Richard the estate agent was probably lying when he said the house was already ours. We’d not been due to exchange and complete until the day’s end, or so I had understood. And frankly, what with the rain and the broken gutter and the outrageously neglected garden, the house wasn’t exactly looking…
Well it’s still beautiful and everything, and big—and it’s going to be lovely. I’m sure it’s going to be lovely. But this morning it wasn’t really looking its best. It was looking pretty awful. In fact there was a moment, as we stood on that leaking porch, and I still had bits of giant slug attached to my foot, when all I really wanted to do was run.
The feeling didn’t last. Of course. Of course not. In any case the house is ours now, for certain. Gordon Brown has taken his monumental Stamp Tax. He has already tossed it into his big, black hole, never to be seen again.
And the house is ours. There can be no turning back.
We’ve been in Paradise ten full days already and the sun has shone for every one of them. The sun is shining now. It’s beaming down on us, and there are no slugs anywhere to be seen. Dora and Ripley are outside, and I can hear their squeals of laughter. Both seem to be very happy at their new school. Their new classmates are sweet and welcoming, and noticeably more innocent and less bratty than the little Londoners we left behind.
Ditto the mothers, actually.
Not one of whom, incidentally, seems to work. Their husbands, like Finley, commute back and forth to the capital, and they stay at home, just being mothers, and being really nice. Oh dear.
I’ve noticed they don’t like it when I swear.
Fin is in London again, and plans to be all week. But I’ve just ordered the box set for Series 5 of The West Wing, and I still have three episodes of Series 4 to go, so I won’t miss him…In my next life I plan to be a press secretary at the White House, with no children, sadly, but lots of clever colleagues and lots of Armani suits. In the meantime, all is good in Paradise. Tomorrow, after school, Ripley, Dora and I are going to pick blackberries in the fields behind the house. For the first time ever, I think, I begin to feel almost smug about my mothering abilities, and the children’s upbringing. It’s all so wonderfully wholesome it makes my eyes water.
I just wonder why we didn’t move down here years ago.
The children’s nametags arrived! Unfortunately I’ve got to do a book plug/radio interview all the way over in Plymouth this evening—assuming, that is, that Fin arrives back from London in time to babysit. Desperately need to get hold of a regular babysitter from somewhere—but where? I’ve asked numerous mothers, but they all seem to use the same person. Or there’s one other girl somebody suggested, but she lives twenty-five miles away.
Any case, I will sew on the nametags tomorrow. Failing that will definitely do them over the weekend.
Fin’s train was delayed, so I had to cancel the radio interview. Shame, as I said to Fin. Among numerous other things. But it made me stir my stumps on the babysitting front, and I think I’ve found someone at last. She’s only slightly younger than I am and she has a couple of children, though she was a bit vague as to their
