As Eleanor walked down the narrow staircase from the bedroom the next morning, she stopped and patted the rough white walls of her terraced cottage, the way you might the neck of a horse. It was a bit eccentric, perhaps, but no more eccentric than believing in ghost ships and she was convinced that houses absorbed traces of the people who had lived in them over the centuries.
Daniel raised an eyebrow when he saw his wife stroke the wall as she entered the kitchen. “Is there something wrong, darling?”
“Wrong? No, why should there be anything wrong?” Eleanor looked up smiling, her hand dropping down to her side as she stepped into the sunny room and poured herself a cup of tea from the pot Dan had prepared.
“I could have sworn I heard you say good morning to the wall.”
“Not to the wall, silly.” Eleanor grinned as she tipped muesli into a bowl. “I was saying good morning to the house. Don’t you ever do that?”
Daniel shook his head slowly. “No, I honestly can’t say that I have ever had a conversation with the masonry.”
“It’s not any old masonry – it’s rock and rubble and bits of horse hair and lime plaster. You should know that, Mr Architect.”
“I’m fully aware of the vernacular building methods and materials, cheeky, but I have never felt moved to address a house, that’s all.”
“Ah, but you should. It’s terribly rude not to.”
“Sorry House.”
Eleanor put her ear to the wall, listening. “House says you’re forgiven. What about plants? Surely you speak to them?”
“Depends. I may speak to flowers but not veg.”
“No wonder your carrots don’t thrive.”
“I wondered where I’d been going wrong. I certainly won’t have anything worth entering in the summer festival yet again.”
The social highlight of the year was the grandly named Combemouth Summer Festival and Country Fair, an event organised by the vicar and a committee of fierce ladies in stout skirts. Although Combemouth was technically a town, it was the size and had the atmosphere of an overgrown village. Part of this was down to its position squeezed around a quiet bay on the North Devon coast.
The town never felt more rural than during the festival, which ran for a week in June. Most of the activity took place at the sea front, but the event kicked off with a country fair in the grounds of St Cuthbert’s Church where delights included ferret racing, falconry displays and fruit- and vegetable-growing contests. The “Best in Show” categories for these were earnestly fought over by dedicated gardeners. Anyone was free to enter their produce, but the prizes tended to be won by the same few highflyers every year.
“Having lived here all your life, I’d have thought you’d be used to the disappointment of constant rejection by now,” said Eleanor. “The allotment crowd are impossible to beat.”
“A man can dream.” Daniel smiled. “Seriously though, we do need to make a decision soon.”
“We do?” Eleanor wandered over to the window to look out at the pretty courtyard garden that ran along the back of the house. It was too early in the year for anything much to be growing, though she had managed to fill pots with multicoloured tulips. Down by the end wall was a patch of lawn dotted with crocus and grape hyacinth, and pale pink hellebores were starting to bloom in a shady corner. “The strawberry plants are in and maybe I’ll try courgettes in the raised bed again this year.”
“I’m not talking about fruit and veg.” Dan came up behind his wife, resting his chin on her shoulder as they watched blue tits and sparrows dart between the bird feeders. They had married in the autumn. Christmas had come and gone, it was now spring and they continued to live in their own, separate houses. “I mean coming to a decision about where we’re going to live, Mrs Pearce.”
Do we have to decide, thought Eleanor? Couldn’t they stay the way they were? But she couldn’t say what she thought. She knew she had to get her head around moving sooner rather than later. “Yes, of course. Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more.”
Daniel allowed himself to feel a flicker of hope. This was what he wanted to hear. “Seriously? Good, because I’ve lined up a couple more places for us to see.”
“Great,” said Eleanor, turning to kiss him on the cheek. “Can’t wait.”
Daniel watched as his wife opened the kitchen door and stepped out into the cool spring day, causing the birds to scatter in alarm. Dan couldn’t help noticing that Eleanor hadn’t bothered to ask him anything about the houses he’d found for them and his heart sank at the thought of another fruitless afternoon of house-hunting ahead.