‘As soon,’ Mr Mundy said, stil smiling, ‘as it is humanly possible under current market conditions.’
Chrissie shut the door.
‘What a creep—’
Tamsin remembered catching Mr Mundy with the massage-ads page of the Ham & High newspaper, and thought she wouldn’t mention it. She said instead, ‘Wel , he’s an estate agent, isn’t he? And if anyone can sel this house, he can.’
In the first weeks of the house being on the market, there were nine viewings. One of those viewings was by a young couple with a toddler, and after two days they came again. They stood about in the rooms, behaving, as Chrissie had come to realize, with amazement, in the way that people buying houses commonly behaved, remarking – as if Chrissie had not made this house her home for the past fifteen years – on what was the matter with it, and what needed doing to make it even halfway acceptable. On that second visit, there had been so much to find fault with – outdated decor, neglected garden, absence of garage, pokiness of existing office space, tired bathrooms – that Chrissie had seen them go with a mixture of relief that she need never see them again and regret that whatever had drawn them back was not strong enough to convince them.
‘I don’t get it,’ she said to Sue on the telephone. ‘I don’t want to have to sel this house but stil I’m panicking that nobody wil want to buy it. What’s going on?’
‘You’re getting better.’
‘I can’t be—’
‘You are. And they’l be back.’
‘They won’t. They couldn’t find anything to like today—’
‘They’l be back.’
And they were. They turned up, entirely insouciant, as if they had never had any intention of doing anything else.
‘But,’ Chrissie said, ‘I real y thought you didn’t like it, I thought you said—’
The wife stared at her. She was dressed in a grey linen tunic over a discreet pregnant bump, and she had the toddler on her hip, and an immense soft leather bag covered in pockets and buckles slung over her shoulder.
‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘we love it.’ She looked at the toddler. ‘Don’t we, Jamie? We’re going to make a playroom out of that room you said used to have a piano in it. For Jamie. Aren’t we, Jamie?’
They offered Chrissie fifty thousand less than the asking price.
‘Say no,’ Tamsin said.
‘I was going to. Anyway.’
‘I would advise—’ Mr Mundy began.
‘No,’ Chrissie said, ‘I’l take ten off.’
‘Mrs Rossiter—’
‘Ten,’ Chrissie said.
The young couple offered forty thousand less than the asking price.
‘Fifteen,’ Chrissie said.
The young couple said that they were no longer interested at that price.
‘I wil leave in six weeks,’ Chrissie said, ‘and I wil take twenty thousand off the asking price.’
‘Oh God, Mum,’ Dil y said, ‘do you know what you’re doing?’
‘Not real y,’ Chrissie said, ‘but I’m going on instinct. I’m excited.’
‘You’re over excited—’
The young couple said that they would agree to exchange within two weeks and twenty-five thousand off, but that they were of course now looking at other properties.
‘Done,’ Chrissie said, ‘done. And I’ve taken the job at Leverton’s.’
‘You can’t—’
‘I can.’
‘She can!’
‘What do you know,’ Tamsin said to Dil y, ‘you’ve never earned a penny in al your life.’
‘I wil be,’ Dil y said. ‘I’m looking for work now. I will be.’
‘Playing houses,’ Tamsin said scornful y, ‘in that poky flat.’
‘It could be a pretty flat,’ Chrissie said. She was stirring Sunday-night scrambled eggs. ‘I’l ring the owner in the morning. I’l tel him that the minute I’ve exchanged contracts on this I’l sign the lease.’
‘Not before,’ Tamsin said.
‘I know not before,’ Chrissie said irritably. ‘Please do stop treating me like a halfwit.’
There was a fractional startled pause.
‘Sorr ee,’ Tamsin said in an offended voice.
‘I’ve bought and sold houses before,’ Chrissie said. ‘I’ve lived on my own and earned my own living, I’l have you know. And you can’t even manage to move into a flat that’s being provided for you, complete with customized wardrobe.’
The landline telephone rang.
‘I’l get it,’ Tamsin and Dil y said in unison.
There was a smal scuffle. Dil y was quicker. She twitched the handset out of its mooring and held it hard to her ear.
‘Hel o? Oh, hi, Ames. How goes it? How’re you doing?’
There was a considerable silence. Chrissie took the egg pan off the cooker and continued to stir with elaborate concentration. Tamsin leaned against the nearest wal and folded her arms, fixing her gaze resolutely on some midpoint halfway down the kitchen. Dil y stayed where she was, listening. Then, after what seemed an unconscionable time, she said, ‘Oh wow,’ and, ‘Jesus, Amy,’ and then, ‘You’d better talk to Mum. Hadn’t you?’
Chrissie stopped stirring. Tamsin stood upright. Chrissie held her hand out for the phone.
‘Big deal, Ames,’ Dil y said into the phone, taking no notice.
Chrissie took a step closer.
‘ Please—’
‘Give it to her!’ Tamsin said sharply.
‘They’re going mad here,’ Dil y said. ‘Shal I pass you over?’ Then she laughed. ‘Countdown,’ she said. ‘Ready? Three, two, one, Mothah!’
She handed the telephone to Chrissie.
‘And?’ Tamsin demanded.
Dil y ignored her. She was watching Chrissie. Chrissie was listening intently. Then she said, ‘But I want you home tomorrow. You promised you would be back tomorrow—’
‘She’s not staying?’ Tamsin hissed.
‘She’s fal en in love with some music thing,’ Dil y said, stil watching Chrissie. ‘Some folk-music degree, or something. Sounded a bit weird to me.’
‘ Folk-music degree?’
‘She sounded completely mental about it. Newcastle University or something. Where is Newcastle?’
‘Wel , obviously I can’t force you,’ Chrissie said, ‘but it does seem very strange, very sudden. You’ve only been there ten minutes—’
‘They’ve brainwashed her,’ Tamsin said.
‘I wish somebody’d wash your brain,’ Dil y said with spirit. ‘You mightn’t think you’re right al the time if they did.’
‘You can be such a little cow—’
‘Al right,’ Chrissie said, ‘al right. Of course I’m not going to forbid you. I couldn’t forbid you, in any case. I suppose—’ She stopped. Then she said with difficulty, ‘I suppose I should wish you luck. Wel , I do. I do wish you luck, darling. If this is what you want.’
‘Oh my God,’ Tamsin said, uncrossing her arms and flinging them out dramatical y. ‘This family is fal ing apart.’
Dil y went over to the cooker and prodded at the egg with a wooden spoon.
‘It’s al gone rubbery—’
‘Yes,’ Chrissie said. She sounded tired, defeated. ‘Yes. Wel , ring and tel me. Or text me. At least text me. Oh, and Amy? I sold the house. Yes.
Yes, I think so, I think that too. OK, OK, darling. Night night.’
She took the phone away from her ear and held it, looking down at it.
‘What have they done to her?’ Tamsin said.
When Amy woke, it was broad daylight and the uncurtained window by the bed was ful of the wide, high, cloud-streaked Northern sky. She lay there for a while, so that her mind could swim slowly to the surface, past al the events of the day before, past the lunch and the conversation, past the discoveries and the phone cal home, and past – much more savouringly – the marvel ous unexpected midnight hours when Scott had at last sat down at the piano and played, and she had retrieved her flute from her rucksack and joined him, and it was better than talking, better than anything, better even than playing with Dad had been, because Scott played like an equal, played as if only the music mattered and who cared who was fol owing or leading.