‘Happy?’ Scott asked her.
‘It’s huge.’
‘I know.’
‘We’ll have to put up some kind of fence to block the garden off. Stop George wandering off.’
‘Plenty of time for that.’
‘And maybe a gate across the drive. It’s a bit open.’
‘Christ’s sake, Chelle, stop looking for faults.’
‘I’m not. I’m just being practical.’
‘Well don’t, at least not for a few minutes. Just look at the potential of this place.’
‘It’s certainly got potential, I’ll give you that.’
‘Don’t sound so surprised. See, you lot should trust me more.’
‘We do trust you.’
‘A place like this in Redditch would have cost a bloody fortune. Three times the price at least, I reckon.’
‘I know. That’s why we’re here.’
‘Probably because of the fracking,’ Phoebe said.
Scott went to open the door. George was awake. He started moaning, then crying. ‘Sort the lad out, love,’ Scott told Michelle. ‘I’ll show the girls around.’
Michelle went back to the car and unbuckled George and lifted him from his seat. ‘What do you think, Georgie?’ she asked as she carried him to the door. ‘This is your new home.’ George buried his face in his mother’s shoulder, too tired and grumpy to care. Michelle looked up at the house again, feeling like she was here for a viewing, not to move in. It was a lovely place, she had to admit, and though Thussock itself had been initially underwhelming, the surrounding area was glorious. Beggars can’t be choosers, she reminded herself. And though I’m not a beggar yet, for a while it was a close run thing.
She took a breath – excited, nervous, heart fluttering with anticipation – and went inside. She could hear the rest of her family exploring already, their footsteps echoing from different rooms and different directions, but she couldn’t see any of them. She was standing in a large square hallway with the staircase, the kitchen, and three other doors ahead of her. A downstairs bathroom, the ground-floor bedroom she and Scott would share, and the living room all looked like they hadn’t been decorated in decades. Scott had already brought a load of their furniture up from Redditch, but rather than making her feel more at home, seeing their things in these unfamiliar surroundings made her feel even more disconnected. She ran her hand along the back of her sofa in the living room, and all she could see was the place in the house in Redditch where it used to be. She sat George down and left him to wake up fully while she continued to explore.
It wasn’t a particularly well-planned house, she decided. In fact, parts of it looked like they’d barely been planned at all, just tacked on to cope. The girls and George all had rooms upstairs, but there was just a toilet up there, no bathroom, and down here there was no way into the dining room from the living room, nor from the dining room into the garden.
The others had met in the kitchen, an impressively well-sized room. ‘So what do you think, girls?’ she asked.
‘It’s big,’ Tammy said, stating facts rather than expressing an opinion. That was usually a safer option.
‘Bit cold, isn’t it?’ Phoebe said.
‘That’s just because no one’s been here for a couple of days,’ Scott said. ‘You wait, there’s a real fireplace in the living room. I had it going in the week. I’ll stoke it up again later if I can find enough wood.’
‘You could burn some of this furniture,’ Tammy suggested. Much of the previous occupant’s stuff had been left behind and whilst he’d already thrown a lot of it out, Scott had simply assimilated the rest.
‘We might be able to salvage some of this,’ Michelle suggested, looking at a dresser and gently pushing it, checking its sturdiness. ‘Might even be able to sell bits of it.’
‘Nah,’ Scott told her. ‘It’s all crap. I’ll burn the lot of it.’
‘Might be some antiques here.’
‘I told you, it’s all crap.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Every penny helps.’
Tammy and Phoebe disappeared upstairs again to choose rooms, taking George with them. Michelle went to the kitchen window and looked out over the yard.
‘So what do you think?’ Scott asked.
She looked over her shoulder at him, then faced the window again. ‘It’s big. We’ll be rattling around here.’
‘That all you’ve got to say?’
‘It’s a lovely house, Scott. It will be, anyway.’
‘Told you I’d see us right, didn’t I? When I say I’m going to do something, I do it.’
‘I never doubted you, love.’
‘You’re going to be happy here then?’
‘We’ve only just arrived.’
‘I know that, but just look at this place. Much more space than we had before. All those fields… the countryside.’
A pause. Careful consideration. Say the right thing. ‘We are where we are.’
‘What?’
‘It’s what I keep telling the girls. We are where we are, now it’s down to all of us to make the most of it.’
‘And we will. This is the start of a new chapter, Chelle. Turning over a new leaf, all that stuff…’
‘Lay off on the clichés, love,’ she said. ‘Don’t you know that’s how ghost stories always start?’
‘You’re taking the piss.’
‘Of course I am. I don’t believe in ghosts. You should know that by now.’
Michelle walked around the battered wooden table which took up most of the kitchen floor. She went back through to the hall and looked up. She could hear the kids thumping on the floorboards above her. It sounded familiar and normal, though none of it felt normal yet. It will in time, she reassured herself. Give it a chance.
She followed Scott into the living room and peered through the rattling, single-glazed French doors into the overgrown back garden. It too had plenty of potential. Sort the lawn out, put in a couple of flower beds, maybe some decking or a patio by the house… The garden was certainly much bigger than the small square patch of grass they’d left behind. With no visible boundaries, no fence or wall, it seemed to go on forever, stretching towards the hills. Scott put his arms around her from behind. She flinched. ‘You made me jump.’
‘You wait, Chelle,’ he said, ‘once the rest of our stuff’s in here it’ll feel like home. The truck’ll be here Monday afternoon.’
She nodded and gently freed herself from him, keeping hold of one hand for a few seconds longer. Her attention was caught by a pile of clutter in the corner of the room. ‘What’s all this?’
‘Some of the old guy’s stuff. I was going through it before I chucked it out. I’ll keep the magazines for the fire.’
‘You said you’d cleaned this place up,’ she said, running her fingers along a dust-covered dado rail.
‘I have cleaned it. You should have seen it before I started. Some rooms hadn’t been touched in years. I swear, I was flat out all week. I dumped three loads at the tip. It’s a sixty mile round trip, you know. There’s still more down the side of the house to get rid of. Once that’s all gone and the rest of our gear’s in, we’ll be sorted. This time next week…’
‘I think it’s going to take a while longer than that. It’s not all about decoration and furniture, you know. The kids are—’