It is going to rain any minute now.
I have been walking along the promenade for an hour or so, and although the May air has been warm, the sky has been grey. Now I’m reaching home, the afternoon is darkening, the clouds black and heavy. There are steps up to our front door that I can’t get the pram up, so I unstrap Joshua to take him into the house. I should hurry, I think as I feel for my keys in my bag with my free hand, because if I leave the pram outside it’ll get soaked. I should not, I think, and not for the first time, have been seduced by this bargain coach-built pram just because it looked nice and had a bit of history. I should have got a light one that I could fold up at the touch of my toe, and fling into car boots and hallways. I’m thinking this, hurrying to get Joshua in and on his mat, when I abruptly trip on a snapped tile in our hallway and sail through the air, Joshua loosening in my grip. My spare arm flails and I somehow manage to keep hold of him, to stop myself from crashing down or dropping him, by grabbing hold of the bannister.
‘I dread to think what could have happened,’ I say to Daniel that night, shuddering. ‘We really need to make a few improvements on the house, even if they’re only really small.’
A day later, an odd-job man arrives in a small red van like a postman’s and cringes when he enters our hallway.
‘Taken on a project and a half here, haven’t you? I saw this house on the market a few years ago and thought to myself, whoever buys that is either brave or stupid,’ he shakes with laughter and turns pink with pride at his own joke. ‘Especially with a little man to look after too,’ he adds, pointing to Joshua who I’m holding with one aching arm.
‘Yeah,’ I clear my throat. ‘It is a big project. We love it, though. We have lots of plans. But for now, I just wanted to know how much would it be to sort the floor in here?’ I gesture to the tiles in the hallway and the man shakes his head like a dog. ‘Big job, love. We can’t just make a tile out of thin air. You’d need to get the whole thing replaced. Laminate would look nice. These tiles need ripping up. You can’t have these once your little one starts crawling about. He’ll be into everything.’
I adore the black and white tiles that stretch from the front door through to the kitchen. Some of them are cracked, but to me that’s part of their charm: if they could talk, they’d have so many stories to tell about the different shoes that have walked on them over the last hundred years.
‘It’s fine,’ I sigh. ‘Thanks for coming anyway.’
‘If you get yourself a job lot of laminate, then give me a ring and I’ll lay it for you. Or if you come to your senses, and need help moving house, let me know. Got a few mates in removals.’ He hands me a red leaflet which reads:
***
‘What did he say?’ asks Daniel later that night as he takes off his coat and flings it over one of our mismatched dining chairs.
‘He suggested taking the whole lot off and replacing it with laminate flooring.’
‘Oh, Erica! It’s like he swore at you!’ He comes over to where I sit and kisses me lightly on the forehead. ‘I’ll call round some reclamation yards and ask if they have any similar tiles or any ideas. He just didn’t get it. But someone will help us sort it out.’
‘I’ve been wondering,’ I say quietly, looking past Daniel to the crooked old kitchen cabinets, ‘if we should just give it up. Put it on the market and move on.’
‘What? Quit on the house?’
‘I don’t know. It’s since I tripped with Joshua. It’s just kept going through my mind that we could look at what else there is,’ I admit. ‘I didn’t say anything because it felt wrong, like we’d be giving up too soon. But I just don’t know if this house is too much of a project. We don’t seem to be getting anywhere.’ I see guilt flash across Daniel’s face and immediately regret my words. ‘I don’t mind that – I really don’t. You having shares in Palms is something we both wanted to put our money into.’ I watch him, wanting him to feel okay about his choice. I would do anything for him and I know how he feels about his work. ‘It was fine just for us. But now we have Joshua, things are different. We didn’t really know what having a baby would involve when we bought it, did we? And we definitely didn’t properly think through the costs and the time it would take.’
We stare around us. The mould that we scrubbed at only last week is sprouting from the wall again in mini black swirls. The kitchen units are hanging from the walls like crooked teeth, the wood brittle and stained. Daniel, in his suit, with all his fine features, is at odds with the chaos.
‘I know,’ he sighs. ‘I have been trying to ignore it, but you’re right. Let’s think about it, then,’ he says.
***
We find a house to go and view at the weekend. It’s newly built, a few streets back from the promenade further towards St Anne’s. Zoe is away for the weekend, and I have been in touch with a different agent. I feel disloyal when I think of her but then I remind myself that we haven’t made a decision yet, that we are only seeing another house to try and help us work out the best thing to do.
‘Look,’ says Jack, the estate agent, as we stand awkwardly in the master bedroom. ‘If you look past those houses on your right, you can just about see the sea. Perfect.’
We crane our necks until we catch the glint of waves between buildings. If you didn’t know to look you wouldn’t see it at all.
‘We’re in a house on the promenade at the moment,’ Daniel tells Jack. ‘We’re a bit spoilt with the view.’
Jack shudders. ‘All that maintenance though. Salt corrosion. Floods. Nah, this is what you need. You get the view but none of the problems. Once I’m back in the office I’ll have a look at the diary and arrange to come and value yours, if you like. Once you’re on the market you’re in a much better position. This one will probably be snapped up if you hang around.’
We follow the estate agent around the rooms, which are all completely spotless: lush cream carpets, every surface gleaming with glossy white paint, immaculate wardrobes and en suites. Beneath is a bright, square garden with a swing set standing proudly next to the orange brick garage. Joshua stares up at the bright gold spotlights in the ceilings as Daniel carries him round. The room that would be his is painted a soft lemon. I imagine his cot in there, turn to Daniel and wonder if he is imagining the same.
‘It’s the complete opposite of our house,’ Daniel says afterwards when we sit in a cafe in St Anne’s square.
I peer into Joshua’s pram and adjust his blankets, touching the tip of his tiny nose as he gives me a gummy smile. ‘I know. It would be so strange to live somewhere so …’
‘Nice? Clean?’ Daniel offers and we laugh.
‘Well, yeah.’ I stir my coffee and stare at the swirling foam. ‘It would be better for Joshua, wouldn’t it? So much cleaner and finished.’
‘Better in those ways. But we need to love it too. Do you really love it? Or any other house like it that Zoe could find us?’
‘I think I would, eventually.’
‘So do you think we should get ours valued?’
I say nothing, taking a sip of coffee and feeling sick as it slides down my throat.
Daniel throws up his hands. ‘Erica, what are we doing? Do we really want this? Do you want this? Be totally honest.’
I shake my head. ‘No, I don’t. I feel like I should. But that house is not our home. And what I want is to go to our home right now and stay there. Of course I want to do what we can to make it safer for Joshua. But I want to live there forever and make it beautiful, even if it takes fifty years. I want to stick at this plan.’
‘Me too,’ Daniel says, downing his coffee even though it must be way too hot. ‘So let’s.’
***
A few weeks later, we find some tiles at a reclamation yard to repair our hallway. Daniel takes a day off to do the job himself, and once he has carefully fixed them into place we ooh and ahh over the transformation, congratulating ourselves. Why, we laugh happily, did we ever consider moving? It looks as good as new. It looks better. And it will be safe for Joshua when he starts to crawl, walk, run.
And as we talk about tiles and houses and hallways and live a beautiful normality, life careers on, speeding to its next destination.