of the lovely smiling Elsie who was so selfless as to have taken in and raised Ernie. Beth was sure Elsie would have kept the house clean; it must have been in Wilf’s later years that things had got out of hand.
Every room upstairs was wallpapered and she had vague recollections of helping her dad as a child with removing wallpaper with warm wet sponges and a scraper. It had taken most of a half-term holiday for them to do one room, it would take for ever to do the whole cottage on her own. She heard voices outside and then an odd whooshing noise, and then she felt the sensation of ice-cold water trickling over her. She looked up to have her face washed by a steady stream of water coming through the ceiling above.
‘Shit!’ She stomped to the nearest window and tried hard to ignore the sight of the dingy bathroom that surrounded her. She struggled to open the window to shout at Jack who was merrily hosing down the roof but the window wouldn’t budge. By the time she had made it downstairs and pointed out the dripping to Leo who was lost in a game, the noise and water had stopped.
Jack sauntered into the cottage. ‘Did you find any leaks?’ he asked with a smirk.
‘You bloody idiot! I’m soaked. What if that gets in the electrics?’ Beth shook her hands and droplets of water flew off her.
‘Electrics are switched off. I assumed you’d be getting a professional to check those over before trying them.’
Beth wanted to scream. She hated pretending she knew what she was doing and she hated Jack’s smugness. He was obviously playing games.
‘Yes, the electrician is already booked but dousing everything, including me, in water is not the way to find out where the leaks are!’ She made a show of pulling her hair into a ponytail and wringing it out.
‘Okay, so how would you have done it?’ Jack looked intrigued.
‘Well, I … I would have looked for damp patches, like you said before and … gone up on the roof to check the pointing.’ She wasn’t entirely sure she’d used the right term but she had heard her dad talk about pointing before so it was worth a punt.
She noticed that Jack momentarily raised an eyebrow, perhaps she was on the right track.
‘Don’t let me stop you,’ he said. ‘The ladder is outside.’
Beth swallowed hard. She was okay with heights when she was inside and safe like in a lift or looking out on a spectacular view; then she was fine. Climbing up ladders, on the other hand, she was not good at but she wasn’t going to back out of this obvious challenge. ‘Fine, could you hold the bottom for me?’
Jack failed to suppress a schoolboy smirk. ‘Sure thing.’
The first few steps were fine. She kept telling herself it was like going up stairs, only it wasn’t. Her foot slipped a fraction. She squealed and tried to hide it with a cough. She didn’t want to fall. Beth was trying hard to control her breathing but the fear was making it speed up. She clutched the cold metal tightly and slowly moved her hands up as she took another step.
‘You okay?’ said Jack.
‘Wonderful,’ lied Beth, as she muttered a string of inaudible obscenities to herself.
Each step was a fear conquered as she went higher and higher. She was suddenly very grateful that she hadn’t bought anything taller than a cottage. As she neared the roof a thought struck her. What the hell was she going to do when she got there? She had no idea how to check the pointing. She didn’t even know what pointing meant. When her feet were at last level with what remained of the cottage’s ancient guttering, she slowly moved her head so that she could scan a section of the roof.
‘Are you getting on the roof?’ called Jack, followed by something that could have been a cough or a laugh or a bit of both.
‘Um, no, I can see perfectly well from here,’ she replied, her voice shaky.
‘What’s the pointing like?’
Beth stared at the tiles, row upon row of them. They all looked the same, all shimmering wet as the summer sunshine glinted off them. ‘I think they’re okay.’
‘Really?’
‘Well … they’re definitely all pointing in the same direction.’
Carly loved going to the hairdresser’s. Danny had been keeping her style on trend for the last few years and he was full of gossip, so it was an indulgent couple of hours that she always looked forward to. As she expected, Danny was on form and he got completely carried away when she told him about the treehouse getaway and the imminent proposal.
‘OMG. That is the epitome of romantic. This boy’s a keeper,’ said Danny as he snipped confidently. ‘You know, there was an amazing article in one of the mags only the other day about treehouses and one of them was like this microcosm of luxury. I bet that’s where he’s taking you. Lucky bitch.’
Carly giggled.
‘You should look it up on the internet,’ he said with a wave of his scissors. Carly wrinkled her nose. ‘Dear God, have you still not joined the twenty-first century. Carly darling, you need to catch up with the human race. Here,’ he handed her his phone – the latest from Apple.
‘It’s okay, thanks. It’s just not my thing.’ She gave the phone back.
‘You sound like one of those people that said a hundred years ago “planes will never take off!”’
Carly wasn’t sure if the pun was intended but it made her laugh anyway. She was feeling good about things. She was over the whole non-proposal upset and it was only a couple of weeks to the weekend away and she was now convinced that the idea of a proposal in a treehouse was so much more romantic than the Whispering Gallery.
While Carly was paying at the reception desk, Danny hunted for the magazine. ‘I can’t find it, darling, but I will if I have to turn this place into Primark. I will leave no surface unturned. I’ll drop it round to the flat when I uncover it.’
‘Are you sure? That’s really kind, thanks.’
‘Ooh, looks like someone is getting another surprise.’ Danny pointed to the door. As it opened a large bouquet of yellow and white roses came in and a smidge of dark hair was barely visible above them. Carly’s stomach did a little flip although at the same time her brain was telling her that the roses’ deliverer wasn’t tall enough to be Fergus. The roses came towards her, obscuring her view of the holder as Danny vigorously nodded his approval at her side. As she took the flowers she saw who was holding them.
‘Nick?’
She immediately pushed away the flowers. ‘I don’t know where she is.’
‘These are not for Elizabeth. They’re for you to say I’m sorry for being a jerk the other night. It’s all getting on top of me. I love her, Carly. I need her back.’ He handed her the flowers.
Carly shooed Nick out of the salon and away from the open mouths of clients and stylists alike. ‘Here,’ she thrust the flowers
