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  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the radon gas, you know. I’ve heard some parts of Cornwall are quite badly affected, and Treverny must be the full of it. There must be more people dying here than anywhere else, judging from all the activity in the churchyard. I wish I’d known before we bought the house.’

  ‘Oh Kate, Treverny isn’t full of radon gas or any other lethal thing; in fact it’s probably one of the healthiest places to live with all the sea air and unpolluted countryside. There are always people visiting churchyards down here, putting flowers on their loved ones’ graves. It’s not like cities, where people mostly die and are buried far away from their roots. Here people live nearby, so they can visit the graves often.’

  She’s so relieved that she gives my arm a quick, thankful squeeze. ‘Oh I’m so glad we talked. You’ve no idea how it’s been troubling me.’

  As I go into my own home, I remind myself to warn Ben about the new paved garden next door. He won’t like it either, but like me, he won’t say much. It’s their house after all, and what they do with it is their business.

  Back home, I give the rental agency a ring. They were meant to be sending someone out a week or so ago, but they had to cancel for some reason. Too many homes suddenly being put up for rental, I suspect, but they assure me they need more, as Cornwall is even more of a holiday destination with all the Euro problems abroad, and many people forced to be more frugal. Campsites especially are booming, with many of them booked up already for the coming summer. It’ll be no problem at all renting our house, I think as I look around it.

  The woman on the phone jolts me by saying, ‘Actually one of our consultants has just had a cancellation. She can be with you in half an hour.’

  Suddenly my lovely home looks rather chaotic. Jake is lounging on his favourite armchair, the carpet looks a bit dog-hairy, and there are cushions on the floor where Amy and Will were watching television last night. There are also magazines and newspapers all over the place, not to mention a few play scripts Ben is reading, strewn around on several work surfaces, next to a batch of recipes I cut out last night from a favourite Sunday supplement and haven’t put away yet.

  But goodness, it’s all surface stuff; I can tidy it away in minutes. ‘That’s fine,’ I gush. ‘Just wonderful. I’m ready to show you my house.’

  The next half hour I rush around like a madwoman, even giving the sitting room floor a quick Hoover. By the time the rental consultant comes, my house looks perfect. Just the sort of place I’d love to rent for my own holiday.

  The woman who knocks at our door exactly thirty minutes later is extremely businesslike. Navy suit, navy heels – high but not too high – crisp white blouse underneath her jacket, not too skinny. She’s even carrying a briefcase. I offer her tea or coffee, which she refuses, but sits down for a moment in the armchair that Jake has just vacated. He’s leaping around her in greeting but she ignores him. Thank goodness she’s got dark clothes on and won’t see the dog hairs that must be sticking to her trousers. I get the feeling she’s not a dog lover so I put Jake out in the garden. When I get back, Ms Channing, as she’s called, has pulled out a formidable sheaf of papers which she hands me. ‘This is for you to read later,’ she tells me. ‘It gives you the requirements necessary for a rental property.’

  We then go around the ‘rental property’. She’s taken a clipboard out of her briefcase and seems to be checking things as she goes along. I start off the tour bubbly and confident. ‘This is my daughter’s room. Amy’s. We’ll put twin beds in here, as well as in Will’s room. His is smaller, but we can squeeze another bed in. That way the cottage would sleep six.’

  ‘A good number,’ she says, face non-committal. ‘Don’t forget that you have to have a bedside table and lamp by each bed. And a chair. Plenty of hanging space for clothes as well as a dresser. Oh, and a mirror for each bedroom as well.’

  Goodness, all that? A bit fussy, I’m thinking, but OK, it’s manageable.

  She leaves the bedrooms and makes her way to the bathroom. ‘You’ll need to put a lock on that,’ she says, indicating the door.

  ‘Oh, right.’ We’ve never had a lock on any of our doors inside. The family knows, and so do all our visitors, that if the door is shut, someone is inside, if it’s open, the bathroom is free. So, a lock on the loo. Well, that won’t be a problem either. So far so good.

  ‘And you’ll need locks on all the windows.’ She’s busy jotting things on her clipboard.

  ‘Really? Here in this placid little village? Window locks?’

  She nods. Seems a bit much, but I nod back. ‘Fine.’

  Ms Channing is very polite, quite nice actually, but I’m getting more and more uncomfortable as her eagle eyes begin to spot imperfections in our perfect home. Well, perfect to us anyway, but now I, too, am not so sure as she spots a couple of cracked windows at the back of the house, which we meant to get mended ages ago but never got around to. ‘They’ll have to be repaired,’ she tells me as we go downstairs. Her eyes pierce the room, and all its hidden secrets. ‘The sitting room needs repapering.’ Oh dear, she’s noticed the bit in the corner where it’s peeling. But to repaper the whole thing? Really? ‘I’m afraid so,’ she says. ‘Actually, the dining room, too. Make it look fresher.’

  Next it is the windowsills. They’ve rotted slightly and need repairing as well. She looks out through the open window and I feel cheered. It’s glorious out there again today, with spring at its best, flowers and foliage rampant everywhere, birds chirping away merrily. Ms Channing agrees when I mention it. ‘Yes, it’s lovely, really lovely. I do adore spring in Cornwall.’ Abruptly she is businesslike again. ‘Your gutters all need to be cleaned and drained.’ She makes another mark on her clipboard. I imagine great big black Xs against our house. I feel like a schoolchild again, being marked down.

  But I pull myself together. Those are only a few little things which can easily be seen to. Well, maybe not easily – glass is expensive, and new window panes won’t be cheap – but it’s all reasonable stuff. If it has to be done, it will be.

  ‘I’m sure we can manage all those repairs before summer,’ I say, confidence booming again.

  She nods. ‘Good. Now, can I see your equipment? Let’s start with the kitchen.’

  My confidence ebbs again. Our appliances are old and will need replacements. They’re working perfectly well, almost perfectly, certainly they’re good enough to do all the home cooking Ben and I do, not only for ourselves but for our many visitors. ‘You’ll need a microwave, of course,’ Ms Channing is ticking her boxes furiously. ‘Are you sure you don’t have one?’ She’s peering around in cupboards as if we’re hiding away the microwave for some strange reason.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure we don’t have one. I don’t like the things.’

  She looks up at me as if I’d said I don’t like daffodils or little lambs frolicking in the meadows. ‘Really? I couldn’t live without my microwave.’ She checks her list. ‘Washing machine?’

  ‘That’s all right. We’ve had it for years and it’s never given us an ounce of trouble. Works a treat. The clothes come out whiter than white,’ I babble, sounding like a TV advert.

  ‘Can I see it?’

  She actually laughs out loud when she does. ‘Far too old. And look at that bit of rust at the bottom. It’ll never do. You’ll have to get a new one.’

  Seeing my face she adds kindly, ‘Have a look later at the information I gave you. It tells you the high standards we require for our holiday cottages.’ She’s looking at all my mismatched cutlery, crockery, and glassware. ‘I’m afraid none of this will do,’ she informs me. ‘Everything has to be matching.’

  ‘Even eggcups?’

  ‘Yes, even those.’

  Goodness, whoever notices mismatched eggcups when they rent a cottage? We never did, when we lived in London and rented our holiday homes in Cornwall. Were the eggcups matching? Were the washing machines brand new? They worked, which was all we cared about with two youn
g children, but we never noticed the age.

  Still, the amount of money we can get for a week’s rental is staggering, so we’ll have to go along with it. We’ll need to take out a bank loan to get the place up to scratch, but if need be, we’ll do it.

  However, there is more to come. As I walk Ms Channing to the car, she says, ‘Oh, and you’ll have to repoint this front path. I noticed on the way in that it’s quite uneven.’

  That’s the understatement of the year. It’s made up of large flat stones of various sizes. She doesn’t say it, but I can tell by the amount of writing she’s doing on her clipboard that the whole path will have to be redone. There is the less able, or the elderly holiday maker to consider.

  When she goes, I sit down to look at the information she’s given me. All the extra things we’ll have to supply! A barbecue, a dryer. Cots and high chairs for babies, toys, games and books for older children. All the paraphernalia needed for a fire inside, for even in August the weather can be rainy or chilly, and besides, visitors like a cosy fire to settle in front of, even in summer. So that means supplying bags of coal, wood, tongs, brush, shovel, poker, fireguard, the whole works. The thought of strangers lighting fires in our house gives me the shivers. Will they be as careful with sparks and roaring fires as we are, especially if they haven’t one in their own home? And, of course, the chimney will have to be swept professionally, and certified. The certificate has to be placed in a folder where the guest can see it. A fire blanket and extinguisher have to be provided. I’m getting more and more anxious about all this – good God, what kind of fires do holiday makers start, to warrant all this equipment?

  By the time I’ve read all the information, I’ve gone right off the idea. When Ben gets home later, I tell him all about it.

  ‘It’ll cost a fortune,’ he says.

  ‘I know. We’d need a huge bank loan.’

  ‘All the things we need to do! Not only will it take money we don’t have, it’ll take ages. We even need to get our LPG gas bottles checked and certified, even though they’re outside. Our boiler has to be fully serviced and certified. There’s so much more, as well.’

  We talk it all through carefully. Finally we decide that, yes, we’ll do it – in the end, it will earn us money. But we’ll take it slowly. Getting all the things done will take time as well as money, and we want to do it properly, don’t want to rush things. If we can’t get our home rented before this summer, we’ll go for the Easter trade next year to begin with.

  We’re both happy about this decision. ‘As long as it doesn’t change our place too much,’ I say as we go into the kitchen, start to prepare the evening meal together. Will and Amy, home now and outside with their friends in the village, will be disappointed that we won’t be camping out for a couple of months this year, but I’m secretly pleased. And who knows, maybe our cottage will be ready by the end of summer. But if not, there is always next year. As everything in Cornwall, there’s no need to hurry.

  Annie has booked the crystal therapy session for one of my days off. We set out together on a drizzly morning which doesn’t damp our spirits in the slightest. We plan on a proper day out – an inexpensive lunch in a tiny café after our session, then a browse around the better charity shops.

  There is a lurid purple sign outside the door of the crystal therapist’s office which is tucked down a back street past the bus station. In bold black letters are the words CHAKRA READINGS and CRYSTAL HEALING. ‘What are chakras?’ Annie says as we knock on the door.

  It opens so quickly that we both involuntary step back, nearly falling down the concrete step. An extremely tall, extremely skinny man with a wispy salt-and-pepper beard and long straggly hair dyed ebony black says, ‘Chakras are the energy centres in the body. Come in, please.’

  He ushers us into a long narrow room cut in two by a brown velvet curtain. The room has high ceilings which is just as well, for the man must be six foot six inches tall at least. He’s dressed entirely in black which emphasises his skeletal frame, the pallor above his beard. ‘My name is Gawain,’ he says grandly, in what sounds vaguely like a French accent. ‘Please sit.’ He indicates two scruffy wing armchairs. ‘You will excuse me, s’il vous plaît, while I prepare myself.’

  He disappears down the corridor somewhere, shutting the door as he goes. Annie and I look at each other. ‘Gawain?’ she whispers. ‘More like Gary, I bet. There’s definitely an Essex twang there underneath that phoney French stuff.’

  ‘Shall we make a run for it?’

  ‘Too late, he’s coming.’

  Gawain enters the room, looking exactly as he did before except now he has a huge pendant around his neck. It’s round and ivory-coloured with a black stone in the centre which stares out from the middle of his chest like a third eye. ‘Creepy,’ Annie mouths at me when his back is turned.

  He takes a seat facing us and asks where we found out about him. Annie tells him about the two free tokens she found in the local newspaper and he can’t hide the disappointed look on his face. Then he brightens as he says, ‘But of course you must understand that one session might not be enough, especially if any of your chakras are blocked. Now, who would like to be first?’

  Stifling a smile, Annie gives me a little shove. I shove her back. We engage in a silent tussle while Gawain pulls back the velvet curtain, revealing some kind of tall bed or massage table. Shelves on the walls contain crystals of various sizes, shapes, and colours. More velvet curtains cover the windows, blocking out any natural light there might be. A coloured lamp with a red bulb shines malignly in the corner, providing the only light. I wonder if the room doubles as a brothel after dark.

  Gawain lights several tall candles. Now it looks as if he’s preparing for a Black Mass. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry, and obviously Annie doesn’t either, for she’s clutching my arm and giving me odd pokes. I’m not sure if they mean ‘let’s get out of here’ or ‘what a hoot this is’. My poke back at her means ‘how in hell did you get me into this?’

  The next minute I’m lying on my back on the table, or bed, or whatever it is while Annie disappears behind the velvet curtain, though I’m sure she’ll find a way to peek inside to see what’s going on. Gawain plays some music on a small CD player and seems to have trouble adjusting it to the right sound, for a blare of noise nearly blasts me off the table before it quietens to a background hum of New Age sounds, high-pitched and eerie, with birds twittering in the background along with the rush of gentle waves. I guess it’s supposed to put me in the mood but it only makes me wish I were walking on the beach with Annie instead of stuck here in this weird room.

  Gawain takes a pink quartz the size of a fist and lays it on my forehead, letting it rest there while muttering something incomprehensible with a few French words thrown in. Then he does the same to my throat, my chest and my belly, changing the quartz for an amethyst somewhere down the line and shaking his head mournfully from time to time as if distressed by what my chakras are up to. He’s obviously new at this sort of thing for his pendant with the Evil Eye hits me twice in the face while he’s moving the crystal. Finally he takes it off with a very un-French swear word that he doesn’t think I hear, for he turns back to me full of smiling charm once more.

  As the quartz rests on my chest, Gawain tells me my heart chakra is ailing. But then it seems they all are, which naturally will entail more sessions, but, he assures me, he has a special offer of three for the price of two.

  When my turn is over, Gawain once again leaves us ‘to prepare for the next healing session’.

  ‘He’s gone out for a smoke,’ I whisper to Annie. ‘I could smell it on him last time. You have a sniff when you go in there.’

  ‘Me, go in there? Not in a million years.’

  Gawain, back again, says to Annie, ‘Entrez vous, madam.’ Then, more prosaically, ‘Your turn.’

  Annie shakes her head. ‘Oh Gawain, I’m so sorry but my friend here is exhausted after her treatment and I’m taking her home. Ano
ther time, perhaps.’

  He frowns. ‘The free offer only lasts until the end of the month.’ Turning to me, he asks when I’d like my next appointment. When I say vaguely that I’ll ring him when I’m ready, he knows he’s lost us. He’s barely civil to us as he sees us to the door, practically shoves us out. His French accent is totally gone. Annie was right, he’s definitely an Essex man.

  ‘Well, that was an experience,’ I say, as Annie and I head for a café and a much needed coffee. ‘Do you think we were his first ever customers?’

  ‘His last, too, if he doesn’t get his act together. He’s been reading too many wizard books.’

  ‘It’s a shame, really. A man like that gives all alternative therapies a bad name, and some of them are quite good.’

  ‘I’m sure crystal therapy is good, too, in the right hands,’ Annie has found a café and is pulling me towards it as she keeps talking. ‘I looked it up on the net before we came out and it’s quite an ancient therapy. The Hopi Native Americans used it in Arizona, and the Hawaiian Islanders still do apparently.’

  ‘Well, Gawain’s hands were definitely the wrong ones.’

  ‘Too skinny.’

  ‘Chalky.’

  ‘Bony. And did you see his fingernails? Far too long!’

  We start to laugh. Inside the café I say, ‘The poor man. Just trying to make a living, like the rest of us.’

  Annie will have none of that. ‘Fleecing us, you mean. I’m all for people making ends meet any way they can, even Gary from Essex, but not if they’re fleecing others.’

  She’s getting so indignant that I remind her he didn’t get a penny from us. ‘He must think he’s good,’ I muse, ‘giving away free sessions. He must really think people will come back for more.’

  ‘Poor Gawain.’

  ‘Poor Gary.’

  Later after lunch, some retail therapy at the vintage second-hand shop, and a great many laughs, Annie puts something in my hand. It’s a tiny pink quartz stone, no bigger than a fingernail. ‘A souvenir,’ she says. ‘I picked it up in that tiny gift shop opposite the store where you had gone to buy some socks for Ben. A memento of another successful girlie day together. I feel my chakras are positively glowing.’