They must be making demands on his salary, she guessed, even though he was earning quite well. But he still managed to make her feel cherished.
She didn’t like to dwell too much on Oliver’s past. He rarely mentioned it himself. And while it was a little disconcerting to think that he’d ditched his whole family, she had the impression that it was not something he had done lightly or without good reason. His ex must have been pretty awful to him, mustn’t she, to have merited being dumped like that? It wasn’t as though Oliver had had someone else lined up either; it was only months after the event that he’d met Jade.
Having thought over Oliver’s crazy speech for a little while she had realised that what he was proposing might suit her. After all, the last thing she wanted was to be tied down. She didn’t want the complications of marriage and children because of the career she planned to pursue. She could quite understand that Oliver might have had enough of that level of commitment too. And while the thought of ‘other partners’ was a bit hard to swallow, at least she would know where she stood.
All in all it seemed a sophisticated, responsible, modern and thoroughly practical idea. The way things were heading everyone would be going in for detailed marriage contracts before long, so why not ‘living together’ contracts too? Infinitely sensible. With both eyes wide open, where could she go wrong?
But she hadn’t bargained for him turning miserly the way he had. Well, to hell with Oliver’s meanness …
Within ten minutes Jade had secured the Moorcroft vase and made the fawning young salesman’s day – not to mention her own.
Godfrey Hart, her boss – a gentle, quiet man in his early sixties – was less thrilled. He had expected Jade in the office over an hour ago. In the ordinary course of events he wouldn’t have minded so much, only today she was supposed to have sat in on an interview with a particularly interesting client in order to gain valuable experience.
He would have liked to point out, too, that since her flat, in one of the lesser-known Georgian crescents, was but a stone’s throw from the premises of Hart, Bruce and Thomson, she really ought to be able to get to work on time. Particularly as other members of staff managed perfectly well, though they had to commute into town.
But he was a weak individual where Jade was concerned. Her wide-eyed delight in her purchase, in the sparkling spring morning and in life in general, rendered him, as usual, powerless. All he could find in his heart to say as she proudly held out her vase for his approval was, ‘That’s really beautiful, my dear. Shall I lock it away in the safe?’
Marjorie wound down the passenger window for a closer look. ‘Yes, that’s definitely a brick wall out there. No doubt about it.’
Philip ground his teeth. He had had about enough of Marjorie’s sarcasm lately, her hurtful little jibes. And she had obviously made up her mind not to like the house, no matter what its merits might be. Resting his elbow on the sill of his own open window he rubbed a hand over his mouth. He mustn’t let himself be drawn into an argument when on unsafe ground, he told himself. Marjorie had every right to find fault with things; she had never wanted this move. It was all down to him. He just wished she would keep quiet about every little setback, although even her silences somehow managed to convey disapproval.
‘Well, there wasn’t a wall here before,’ he snapped, unable to keep tetchiness from his tone. He loosened a button on his shirt. Although not yet mid-morning the car was already uncomfortably warm. The thermometer on the dashboard showed that the outside air temperature was unusually high for late spring and he wondered, as he surveyed the garish red brickwork silhouetted against the powdery blue of the sky, whether they were in for a scorching summer.
‘I suppose,’ he said, having turned the car in the lane, ‘the woman from the site office brought me to see the house this way as a short cut.’ Canny bitch, he added silently. She’d certainly seen him coming! A lot of building had been done since that visit, none of which he had been aware of at that time. And now that he could see the way the development was going he realised that nobody in their right mind would want to spend the price being asked, to live on such a cluttered site. It would have been far better to have gone for something more exclusive. Aloud he said, ‘That wall must belong to our garden. Look, you can see our roof on the other side.’
Marjorie craned her head for the first glimpse of their new home as the car bumped back down the lane. The roof – their roof – with its rows of raw brown tiles, looked solid enough even for Philip’s peace of mind; the black plastic drainpipes equally so. She must try to like it for his sake. It wasn’t fair of her to keep longing for their old place when it had been such a worry to him.
She would try not to spoil his pleasure, really she would, and it could only be half an hour, after all, since she’d made vows to herself about being positive. How quickly her intentions had slipped! But it wasn’t easy. Her trepidation was increasing with each passing minute
Having rediscovered the site office, Philip took his bearings and set off down what they soon realised must be the main and only thoroughfare into the estate, and as he drove, the silence that accumulated in the car with the passing of each block of houses, pressed down on them.
Marjorie found a song running through her head. What were the words? Something about little boxes made of ticky-tacky. She recalled it from years ago but its message, sadly, had not reached the ears of the architects. She glanced across at Philip, who had his hands fixed doggedly on the steering wheel, and wondered whether he was finding it difficult not to turn the car round again and head back the way they had come.
‘Didn’t see any of this lot,’ he managed to murmur, ‘when the woman showed me the house. Think some hedges must have been ripped out too.’
‘Oh?’ Marjorie lifted her eyebrows as she looked from side to side. It was hard to imagine how all these houses could have escaped Phil’s notice, hedges or not. There were hundreds of them. Simply hundreds. Spreading in every direction. And yet the plans they had been given had shown only fifteen in all. A select little development, they’d supposed The Paddock to be.
‘I thought …’ she began to put her question to Phil but he anticipated her.
‘Obviously there are other builders here. Ones I knew nothing about. Of course, they don’t show you those on your plans.’
‘No, but –’ Her tone implied that he should have made more enquiries. Heavens, couldn’t he have seen what was going on? ‘Somehow –’ she scrutinised the plots more closely ‘– they don’t exactly look as though different builders put them up. I suppose they are different in little ways, but overall they tend to look much of a muchness. Even ours isn’t all that different from what I remember seeing in the brochure. Where is it now, by the way?’
They were speeding away from the completed properties now, bumping over rutted mud left behind by countless works vehicles. The unmetalled road continued its relentless march across a pot-holed field and Philip followed it, his eyes fastened on the horizon. And now Marjorie realised that the solitary house looming ahead of them was their new home – the only one of that particular phase to have been built.
‘What’s happened to the rest of The Paddock?’ she demanded, bewilderment setting in.
The car had come to a halt on a slab of bare concrete which would be their drive when the work was finished, only at the moment it fell two feet
