had no make-up on and looked flushed from the exertion of weeding. I brushed back strands of hair from my face with my free hand, then rubbed away a smudge of earth from my forehead.
‘I won’t stay long,’ he continued. ‘But I’d like to speak with you rather urgently.’
I hesitated for a moment, then decided: best get it over with. ‘Sure, just give me five minutes.’
I raced to the cloakroom, splashed my face, applied a slick of lipstick and smoothed my hair. Why the effort? I asked myself. I’d given up on men a long time ago, but old habits die hard, and from what I remembered of my brief encounter with Michael Harris, I’d felt intimidated by him.
On the dot of five minutes, he knocked on the door. He was still attractive: eyes the colour of polished conkers, a full head of sandy hair flecked with grey. He looked a kind man, the type who could be relied on, probably due to his tall stature and broad shoulders. He’d put on a bit of weight around his middle, which I felt gratified to see. It made him look more approachable.
‘I expect you’re calling about the house,’ I said as I let him in and ushered him into the front room.
He nodded as he looked around, appraising the place. ‘I’m on my way to Truro. Funeral arrangements and so on.’
‘Of course. I’m so sorry … my condolences. I …’
He nodded again briefly and I got the impression that he didn’t want to talk about the death of his mother. ‘I’m sorry not to have given you more notice, but my brother called me to say he’d spoken to you earlier and as I was driving this way I …’ He had the decency to look faintly embarrassed. ‘I wanted to call in. I know it’s been your home for so long but—’
‘I can pay the rent if you give me your details. I’ve never missed it.’
‘I know. It’s not that. I … that is my brother and I, now that our mother has passed, well, we’ll be putting the house up for sale. I know William has put it all in a letter but I felt that was rather formal in the circumstances which is why I thought I’d take the opportunity to speak to you in person.’
‘Circumstances?’
‘You having been here so long.’
My stomach constricted. This was my worst nightmare, but I did my best not to let my reaction show on my face. Of course, they want their inheritance. The house must be worth at least five hundred thousand. Can’t blame them, though he doesn’t look short of money, I thought as I took in the navy cashmere pullover, well-cut chinos and brown leather brogues. Michael Harris had a gloss about him that said he lived well. He smelt expensive, too: Chanel for Monsieur. I recognized the scent, woody with a hint of citrus. It had been Dad’s favourite. Mum had kept a half-used bottle of it for years after he’d died. The familiar fragrance always stirred up sadness – as if Dad was there for a moment, but of course, like the cologne, the scent of him soon evaporated into nothing, leaving me with a sense of emptiness at his absence in my life and a longing for something or someone to fill it.
‘I wanted to let you know that we’ll give you first option on the sale,’ he continued, ‘that’s the least we can do.’
I laughed and Michael looked at me quizzically. It struck me that if Mum hadn’t made the condition that delayed my inheritance for a year, I’d have been in a position to buy the house immediately. However, I didn’t want to tell him about Mum nor the will, not until I’d had a chance to talk things over with my friend Anna.
‘I am sorry,’ he said again.
‘I’ll have to go over my finances. Can I get back to you?’
He looked surprised. ‘Of course, er … in the meantime, we need to have the house valued – estate agents. Only fair to you and us. We’d want three valuations.’
‘That would be sensible. Just let me know when they want to come.’
He glanced, disapprovingly, I thought, around the living-room artefacts. There were rather a lot of them and most of them had a story – a memento from a holiday or a gift from a friend. His glance rested for a second on the bronze Greek statue with an oversized penis on the mantelpiece. Anna had given it to me five years ago after a date had gone disastrously wrong and I had told her I was giving up on men. Anna brought the statue to make me laugh. And it did.
‘Satyr with penis rectus, a classic example of the ithyphallic. Some say it was Dionysus, others that he was one of the wood satyrs said to have been a companion,’ said Michael. ‘In contrast to the sleek beauty of so many Greek statues, its vulgarity conveys a strong image, don’t you think?’
Stuck-up prick, I thought, then almost got the giggles when I realized how apt that was in the circumstances. ‘Also known as the wahey, look what I’ve got,’ I blurted. I don’t know what made me say it, but he had sounded so pompous.
He didn’t laugh or ask to look around any further, and I was glad to see him to the door.
‘I’ll be in touch to arrange valuations,’ he said after he’d taken my email address and I his. He made his way through the small front garden and out to his car, a black Jaguar which was parked opposite, outside Anna’s cottage. Before he got in, he turned back to take another look at the house, but saw me still standing on the doorstep. ‘Er … good to have met you again.’
Yeah sure, I thought. You just want me out and your money in the bank. ‘And you,’ I said and gave him my most charming smile. With knobs on. Greek ithyphallic ones.
*
I went through to the kitchen, sank into a chair and blinked away tears. This wasn’t my home any more, it belonged to the Harris brothers. My ginger cat, Max, stared at me from his place on the windowsill. An image of the Buddha looked down at me from one of the many postcards and photos I’d pinned to a notice board next to the cooker. He was half smiling, eyes closed, his expression serene. Smug bastard, I thought. I don’t suppose you had to pay rent for your spot under the banyan tree.
A montage of my life was pinned up on the board: my daughter, Lucy, as a toddler in a red bathing suit, paddling in the sea in Goa, again at nine years old dressed as Charlie Chaplin for a fancy dress party, a wedding photo with Andy, my first husband and Lucy’s father – the twenty-four-year-old me at our wedding wearing a crown of cream rosebuds. Another photo showed Nick, handsome, adventurous, the free spirit. Everyone had adored him, but neither family life nor commitment were for him – at least not with me. Halfway down the board was a photo with someone cut out – that would have been John, my last partner. We were together for six years until I had an epiphany at a dinner party. He was a well-regarded local artist and was rattling on in his usual superior manner and it was like the blinkers came off and I saw him for what he really was – a pompous bore who had sponged off me all the time we were together. I later found out that he’d never been faithful. Back then I took the prize in the ‘Love Is Blind’ contest. I’d had a symbolic cutting up of all his photos, then I’d burnt them with Anna’s help. I’d felt like an old witch as I watched his self-satisfied face shrivel and disappear into flames then ashes.
Further down the board, there was a photo showing my cats, Max and Misty, wearing Santa hats; lots of photos of Mum over the years, some in fancy dress – she loved to dress up for any occasion. She wore reindeer jumpers at Christmas, dressed as a fairy princess on birthdays, the Easter bunny in spring and, one Halloween, she put a sheet over her head
