HE’D SLEPT DEEPLY and for enough hours to make him feel human again. When the smell of cooking wafted up the stairs, Jon levered himself from his bed and made for the bathroom. But the time he’d emerged, the smell of coffee had been added to the mix.
He hadn’t expected her to be cooking for him, and when Jon went downstairs to the kitchen-diner he didn’t expect her bright smile either. Both were very welcome.
‘What’s that?’ He craned over her shoulder as she slammed the lid down on a large electric waffle iron.
‘Oat waffles. And coffee for you.’ She switched off the coffee machine and put the flask of coffee on the table.
‘You didn’t need to do that.’ He sat down anyway at the place that was laid for him. No one had cooked him breakfast since... Jon’s mind recoiled at the thought. This was nothing like that, it was probably just a thank-you for taking care of Amy.
‘A decent breakfast never did anyone any harm.’
That was obviously a matter of pride with her. Chloe’s fridge was always well stocked with good, fresh food, and he didn’t need to look in the larder to know that there would be fruit and vegetables there.
He poured the coffee, noticing that her cup stood next to the kettle, with the tag from a herbal teabag hanging over the side. Chloe struggled momentarily with the waffle maker, and just as he was about to go and help her she got it open and the waffles out onto two plates.
‘You like bananas?’ She turned to him and Jon nodded. ‘Good.’
A liberal helping of sliced banana, along with kiwi fruit and blueberries went on top of the waffles, and she carried the plates across. One waffle for her and three for him.
‘You’re sure you don’t want any more?’ Jon could eat three. He could probably eat half a dozen, but he didn’t like the idea that she was giving him the lion’s share.
‘No, one’s enough for me.’ A glass jar with home-made nut butter clattered onto the table in front of him in a no-nonsense invitation to help himself. Then Chloe fetched her tea and sat down.
‘These look really good.’ Jon took a mouthful and it tasted even better than it looked. ‘Where’s Amy?’
‘In her playpen, in the sitting room. Let’s see whether we can get breakfast eaten before she realises we’re not paying enough attention to her.’
Chloe managed it, and was halfway out of the front door before Amy started to grizzle. Jon’s fuller plate was only part finished, and he picked it up and walked into the sitting room.
‘It’s just you and me, then, Amy. Let’s see what we can get up to today.’
* * *
Despite all Chloe’s misgivings, they’d fallen into a routine that worked. Every morning, she ignored Jon’s assertions that he’d probably stumble across something that would pass for breakfast later and made a proper breakfast for all of them. And every morning he cleared his plate and said that he might be tempted into getting used to this.
Each evening was different, too. Someone to ask about her day, and give an account of how Amy had fed the ducks in the park, or almost managed to sneak a packet of chocolate buttons out of the supermarket without paying.
Amy was beginning to settle, and wasn’t waking up so many times during the night. Jon and Amy had become firm friends. He talked to her all the time, and just the sound of his voice was enough to have her gazing wide-eyed into his face. Chloe sometimes envied her niece the privilege of looking at him so unashamedly when her own glances at Jon were so often stolen. The way Amy had no hesitation about being close to him, steadying herself against his legs as she heaved herself up into his lap, curling up there while he read the paper or a book.
But there was one, magic hour. After Amy was in bed, and when the house was quiet, they sat together in the kitchen, talking about everything and nothing. Jon spent two evenings assembling a moon and stars mobile to hang over Amy’s cot that somehow failed to catch Amy’s eye but which Chloe gazed at every night before she closed her eyes to go to sleep.
* * *
‘She doesn’t like my cookies, then?’ Breakfast at six on a Saturday morning made jumbo sized cookies with elevenses all the more welcome. But Amy had licked the icing off hers and thrown the rest on the floor.
‘Maybe she’s just saving the world as we know it.’ Jon took his second cookie from the plate, and Amy started to make loud explosive noises, clapping her hands together.
‘Ah. And who taught her how to do that?’
‘If you’re going to make Dalek cookies, you can’t expect them not to fight a bit before you eat them.’ He bit off the Dalek’s head, rolling his eyes at Amy, while the little girl crowed with glee. ‘Although I’ve never seen a pink Dalek before.’
‘The pink ones are the ones you have to look out for. Much more dangerous. And when I looked in the cupboard for some colouring for the icing, I only had pink.’
‘That explains it.’ He broke off a piece of his cookie, handing it to Amy, and she put it in her mouth and then spat it back out again. ‘Actually, I don’t think she does like them. I’ll just have to finish them off myself.’
‘I’ll make some more. That’s the last of them.’
He grinned, leaning back in his chair and reaching for the paper. ‘I’ll get blue food colouring when we go shopping.’
‘Aren’t you going to your house?’ Chloe had expected to be alone with Amy today, but instead Jon had gone out for the paper and seemed ready for a lazy Saturday.
‘The builders have it all in hand. But I suppose I should pop in later, just to see what they’ve been up to...’ He paused for a moment and then put the paper down. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy coming with me? It’s a mess at the moment, but I like to think it’s got potential.’
‘Bit like this place, then.’ Chloe stared up at the sitting-room ceiling, wondering how many times she’d lain on the sofa, tracing the cracks with her gaze. Looking at the crystals on the mantelpiece instead had been an exercise in ignoring what she couldn’t change and concentrating on something a bit prettier.
He chuckled. ‘It’s nothing like your place. Mine’s really a mess. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this house that a bit of filler and a couple of cans of paint wouldn’t remedy.’
Chloe quirked her lips downwards. ‘That’s what I reckoned when I moved in, over three years ago.’
‘And instead you gave your sister a home and then battled a debilitating illness. I think you can be forgiven for overlooking a few cracks in the ceiling.’
And Jon knew how to forgive. He seemed to do it with everyone, apart perhaps from himself. ‘Okay, then, I’ll come. Maybe it’ll give me a few ideas on what to do when I get a chance to get started here.’
* * *
Jon’s house was the only one in a street of neat, suburban houses that looked ramshackle, the paint flaking off the downstairs window frames. The garden in the front looked as if it had been recently cleared, a few tree stumps sticking out of the sun-baked clay soil and an uneven pile of stones that must have once been crazy paving.
‘Watch out. Don’t step into any holes.’ He grinned at her, taking Amy from her car seat and hoisting her up into his arms, where she couldn’t get into any mischief.
Only the newly painted front door gave some clue that the house could be a lot more than it was now. Jon opened it, and when Chloe walked into the hall it was dark and dingy, no wallpaper, no carpets. But it had possibilities. The decorative newel post and the stair bannisters had been stripped down, and once a coat of paint was applied it would bring out the rippling shape of the turned wood.
‘This is wonderful.’ She turned, running her hand across the sitting-room door. It was caked with so many layers of paint that the mouldings had practically disappeared, but it still had an original stained-glass panel, along with what looked like a decorative cast-iron backplate for the door handle.
Jon chuckled. ‘Not many people say that. But when it’s all done, I think it’ll look okay.’
It would look great. It all needed a bit of care and attention, and about a gallon of paint stripper, but Chloe could imagine the house, rising phoenix-like from the dust and the years of neglect. ‘You have most of the original features still.’ She looked up at the ceiling and saw moulded cornices and plasterwork.
‘Yeah. The place belonged to an old guy who’d lived here all his life. He was a hoarder, and it was in a pretty bad state but relatively untouched. You couldn’t get past the piles of newspaper to decorate.’
‘But you saw something in it.’
‘It looked like a challenge. As we cleared everything, we came across some lovely old features. And a few nightmares. All the kitchen floorboards had been soaked through and were rotten. It’s a miracle someone didn’t fall through them. And the wiring was completely shot—the electrician took one look at it and condemned it as unsafe.’
Despite his less-than-enthusiastic comments, Jon obviously loved this house. Who wouldn’t? A chance to give an undiscovered gem a new lease of life.
‘It’ll be lovely when it’s finished, though.’
He grinned. ‘That’s what I’m hoping. Careful through here, the floorboards have been taken up to run the cabling.’
Jon led the way through to the kitchen, which had obviously taken priority over the decoration of the hallway. Almost finished, it was bright and gleaming, with honey-coloured wooden cabinets and black quartz-effect worktops, which sparkled subtly when the light hit them.
Spotlights were sunk flush with the ceiling. Bright chrome taps and a built-in hob and oven with chrome trimmings. Grey slate on the floor. Chloe gasped.
‘Jon... This is gorgeous.’
‘Like it?’
‘I’d kill for a kitchen like this.’ The kitchen units ran along two sides of the large room, and cardboard boxes were stacked neatly along the third. ‘What’s going in here?’
‘I was going to carry the units and worktop on round, but now I’ve seen it I’m thinking that that’s more cupboards than I could possibly use. I quite like the idea of having a table and chairs here instead, the way you have in your kitchen. I think it would make the room warmer.’
Chloe nodded. ‘It is handy having the table, and the room’s plenty big enough. And it could do with a break to all those clean lines.’
Jon chuckled. ‘All I need is Dalek biscuits and a few crystals. That’ll take the gleam off it.’
‘I’ll send Amy round with the biscuits. You need to get your own crystals.’
She walked to the back door, looking out on the weeds and overgrown shrubs. Then they picked their way past the lifted floorboards in the hall and up the stairs to the front bedroom.
Another one of those breath-catching, I-wish-I-lived-here moments. Jon had obviously decided to decorate one room at a time, and this room had fresh paint on the walls and woodwork. There was a cast-iron fireplace, which had been stripped and polished up so that the pattern of twisting stems and flowers shone. A curved bay window, with stained glass in the lights at the top, looked out onto the quiet street. This would be a lovely place to wake up in the morning, dappled colour shining across the polished oak floor.
‘I didn’t notice these windows from the outside. They’re the originals?’
‘Yep. They were in pretty good condition under all the layers of paint. I’m not sure how warm they’ll be in the winter, but I don’t want to put in secondary glazing if I can help it.’
‘Thick curtains? I have some with thermal linings in my bedroom and the room’s really cosy in the winter.’
Chloe bit her tongue. She could almost see the kind of thing that would match the red and green in the stained glass and bring those colours out. A cold night, closed curtains and candlelight. And the warmth of Jon’s arms.
But this wasn’t her house. Amy would never sleep soundly in the next bedroom, surrounded by pretty things, and Chloe would never sleep in this one. Amy should be with her mother, and Jon had determinedly left all thoughts of a family behind.
Jon was nodding, looking at the windows. ‘I didn’t think of that. It’s an idea.’
Amy started to struggle in his arms, wanting to explore, and Jon put her down onto her feet, holding both her hands and letting her lead him over to the fireplace. She traced the pattern in the cast iron with her fingers, sitting down suddenly in the hearth.
‘So you have a kitchen and a bedroom...’ It seemed like a countdown. How much more did he need to do here before he wouldn’t need to stay at her place any more?
‘And the bathroom’s going in over the next few weeks. That’s all I really need, and then I can move in and do the rest as I go.’
‘It’s a long job.’
‘I’ve found somewhere that I want to be now. If it takes a while to get everything finished, that’s okay.’ He looked around the room thoughtfully, and then bent to pick Amy up. ‘I guess we should make a move if we’re going to get some shopping.’
That was best. Get away from here before it gave Chloe any more ideas. She turned, almost bolting out of the room and down the stairs.
* * *
It had been right on the tip of his tongue. Jon had almost asked Chloe to come with him to choose curtains.
Calm down! he reasoned with himself as he walked down the stairs, his boots thudding on the bare wood. Choosing curtains isn’t like asking someone to kiss you.
In some ways it was worse. A kiss could be explained away as the momentary wish for some warmth. Curtains were a more cool-headed statement. And the thought that Chloe might just talk him into the perfect set of curtains for the room was terrifying.
He was done with perfect. He didn’t want domestic bliss because he’d seen it crumble into vitriolic chaos. Jon realised he’d left his car keys in the kitchen and left Chloe hovering by the front gate, walking the length of the hallway with Amy in his arms.
‘Bye-bye.’ Amy waved happily as he picked up his keys and closed the kitchen door behind him.
‘That’s right, sweetheart. Bye-bye, house. We’re going to the supermarket now.’
Out of the mouth of babes... Amy’s instinct had divined the truth before he’d had a chance to formulate it in his head. Helping a friend out was one thing. But he wasn’t going to ask Chloe back here, for fear that he might be tempted to ask her to stay.