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EXHAUSTED, TESS HAD an early night after a quick supper in the hotel bar. She woke on Saturday morning with her mind replaying the events of the previous day and her stomach crying out for sustenance. Showered and dressed, she went downstairs to the dining room to satisfy the hunger while she sifted through her thoughts. Two priorities emerged: making a start on decluttering the house while tackling the rubbish and arranging to catch up with a friend from school for an update on Guernsey life. Black sacks, boxes and Marigolds were needed for the first and going through her Facebook friends for the second.
Back in her room Tess logged into Facebook and the first name to jump out at her was Colette Simon, previously Mauger. They had been friends since primary school and both went on to the grammar school. Tess remembered she had a gorgeous older brother, Nick, who was now, according to Facebook, married with a family. Tess messaged Colette to say she was on the island and could they meet. She then grabbed the keys to her house and walked down to the Co-op in the market to buy what she needed. Back at the house she opened doors and windows on all floors to create a much-needed flow of fresh air. The first task was filling the sacks with obvious rubbish and stacking them outside. While in the middle of this her phone rang. Colette.
‘Hi, it’s great to hear from you. How are you?’
‘Good, thanks and I’ve so much to tell you! Would you like to come round for supper tonight and meet Jonathan, my hubby?’
‘Love to. Can you text your address and I’ll get a taxi. I’m staying in Town.’
‘Sure, no problem. How about seven thirty?’
Tess agreed and seconds later Colette’s address pinged through. She smiled, looking forward to catching up with her friend. Turning back to her task, Tess carried on filling bin bags as she tried not to inhale the stale air clinging to every surface, including, she feared, her hair and clothes. Once the basement was cleared she tackled the ground floor. Here, the problem wasn’t as much rubbish as too many piles of books, magazines and papers, which needed boxes. She was on the way upstairs when the doorbell rang. Thinking it must be Heather, she opened the door with a broad smile and a welcome ‘Hi’ on her lips. Her smile faded as she took in the stranger on the doorstep.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked, conscious she must not only look dusty but probably smelled.
‘I’m looking for a Miss Le Prevost. Is she in?’ The man, tall and muscular, flashed a smile at her.
‘You’ve found Doctor Le Prevost. And you are...?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Doctor Le Prevost. I expected someone older, Miss Guilbert’s niece and heir.’ He looked less sure of himself. ‘My name’s Jack Renouf, I contacted your aunt’s advocate about...’
‘Offering to buy my property, I know. She was my great-aunt by the way. I’m afraid, Mr Renouf, this house isn’t for sale, so you’ve wasted your journey. Although why you should think I’d be here now, I can’t imagine.’ Tess was annoyed, hating to be taken unawares by what she thought of as a coffin-chaser. Had the man no scruples? She was about to shut the door when he pushed his foot forward, stopping the door closing.
‘I’m sorry if I’ve annoyed you by turning up like this, but I happened to be driving past and saw all the windows open. I knew the funeral was yesterday and guessed you might be in the house. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to introduce myself.’
Tess clocked the dark green Range Rover in the street.
‘The answer is still no, Mr Renouf. I’m planning to live in the house once it’s...habitable.’ Thinking of the mess behind her, Tess wondered if she was mad, but wasn’t going to give this man the satisfaction of knowing that. She pulled herself up straight and fixed him with a glare known to unnerve young medical students.
He removed his foot and stepped back.
‘In that case, Doctor Le Prevost, I’ll leave you to carry on your...cleaning. But here’s my card, in case you change your mind.’ He proffered the card, tilting his head as if to challenge her.
Tess grabbed it and closed the door. How dare he! Not even bothering to offer condolences, just keen to make a deal. At least she’d surprised him by being young and intelligent enough to not be sweet-talked into selling. He’d probably imagined a niece to be a pensioner and only too keen to take the money. Energised by the encounter, she shoved the card in her pocket and continued upstairs to tackle the rest of the house.
Once she had gone through the bedrooms and bathroom she took the stairs to the attic, not having seen it the previous day. She was surprised to find two proper rooms, probably used for servants in Victorian times. They were virtually empty, with only a couple of boxes holding old clothes and broken household gadgets. The air was heavy and musty and Tess forced the cobwebbed windows open. Dust motes danced in the weak sunlight highlighting the cobwebs arched across the exposed beams. Tess waved her arms about to forge a way through. A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling in each room, offering a faint light but leaving the corners in shadow. Heaving a sigh, she stuffed the contents of the boxes into bin bags and returned downstairs, badly in need of fresh air.
In the garden she surveyed what was in reality a jungle and slumped onto the chair. The sickly smell of the house still filled her nostrils and cobwebs clung to her clothes and she had barely touched the surface of what needed doing. Her plan had been to clear the rubbish then pack all the books, magazines and anything that appeared important into boxes which could be stored somewhere for checking when she had time. Then assess what to do with the furniture. Some might be worth keeping, like the four-poster and the big table downstairs, but most would need to be dumped. Tess hated to think what it would cost to pay someone to do this, but what choice did she have? Any prospective builders would want a clear space to view before offering quotes. And how long would it take her to sift through all the packed boxes? She groaned. It was a nightmare.
Forcing herself to go back inside, Tess grabbed a pen and paper and made a note of all the moveable furniture in each room, highlighting anything worth keeping. As she had thought, not a lot. She also needed boxes, and lots of them and went next door to see if Heather could help.
‘My! I assume you’ve started a clear-out,’ Heather said, gently removing a cobweb from Tess’s hair.
‘Yes, and it’s a thankless task. I’m trying to pack up the books and stuff piled everywhere, you don’t have any boxes do you?’ She stood on the doorstep, not wanting to pollute Heather’s clean and polish-scented home.
‘As it happens, we kept a load after we moved in and they’re stacked in Neil’s shed at the bottom of the garden.’ She eyed Tess and grinned. ‘Best if you stay there and I’ll ask him to fetch them.’
‘Thanks, you’re a star.’ Tess perched on the low boundary wall while she waited, thinking she seemed to have struck lucky with her neighbours. Assuming she did make the move. There was so much to sort out before that could happen, including a job. Just a minor problem, she told herself, pulling more cobwebs from her hair and T-shirt. She was roused from her task by the sight of Neil appearing at the door with a pile of flattened boxes and a roll of tape.
Like Heather, he grinned at her appearance and offered to carry the boxes round for her, saying there were more in the hall.
‘No, thanks, I’ll manage. Just leave them there and I’ll do it in two trips. Do you have the number of the removal firm in case I need more, please?’
Neil wrote it on one of the boxes before carrying out the second load and calling ‘Good luck’ as she took a load to her house and stacked them in the sitting room. Once she had all the boxes stacked, Tess taped a few ready to start filling them after she’d had a break for lunch. Time for the ‘meal deal’ from the Co-op and another spot of fresh air. It wasn’t long before she was back and keen to fill the boxes. As she was packing books, Tess noticed there were a large number either by or about Victor Hugo and it dawned on her Doris must have been fixated on him. Not sure whether this was a good or bad thing, she continued before focusing on papers and newspapers, not wanting to make the boxes too heavy to lift. It seemed Doris had kept every issue of the Guernsey Evening Press for years, and Tess decided to recycle them unless the headlines suggested otherwise. Black sacks soon began to fill with them and she set them outside, separate from the rubbish. It was a wonder the house had never caught fire, Tess thought, glancing at the open fireplace, one of many through the house. Without central heating it must have been difficult to keep warm in such a large house. Even though it was a mild day, now Tess was sitting still she felt the chill in the air.
Over the next two hours she made good progress packing books and throwing out old newspapers, and slower progress with sifting through reams of papers which were a mix of handwritten notes and printed sheets of references, both in English and French, relating to Guernsey and French history. Tess’s initial inclination was to bin the lot, but she held back, wondering if, together, they would explain what Doris had been researching, and for what purpose. She might need an historian to check them out before scrapping them. Local parish magazines and various organisations’ newsletters were also in the mix and these she had no qualms about binning.
By mid-afternoon Tess called it a day. Her back ached, her head ached and all she wanted to do was have a hot shower and change into clean clothes which didn’t reek of musty, ill-smelling houses. Easing herself up from the floor, she stretched and surveyed the room. Most of the books were now in stacked boxes with the kept papers and she had a clearer view of what the room could look like. The bed had been stripped of the stained bedding, now in a bin bag with the rubbish, and the room smelt slightly fresher than it had hours earlier. Result. As Tess went round closing all the windows on the ground floor, but leaving the ones higher up open, she hoped Guernsey still enjoyed a low rate of burglaries. The thought then crossed her mind that if a burglar were to come and empty the place, it would do her a favour. Smiling, she locked the front door and retraced her steps to the Pandora.
‘Hi, how are you? You haven’t changed a bit!’ Colette beamed at Tess as she opened the door.
‘I’m good, thanks. And you...you’re pregnant! Congratulations.’ Tess smiled at her friend who, being short, looked especially rotund at her obviously advanced stage. Eight months, she guessed.
‘Thanks. We’re thrilled, particularly Jonathan, poor lamb, who’s hitting the big four-oh this year and desperate to be a dad before then.’ Colette giggled, giving Tess a hug before ushering her inside.
The house, a traditional Guernsey cottage in Rue de Bordeaux, was near where Colette had lived as a child and not far from Tess’s old family home. It was as if the years since she’d left had melted away and they were giggling schoolgirls again. Laughing, they linked arms as Colette led the way to a modern conservatory facing a large garden mainly given over to lawn. As they entered the room, a tall, bespectacled man rose from an armchair and came forward, a broad smile on his face.
‘Hi, Tess, I’m Jonathan and very pleased to meet you. Colette’s been bursting with excitement since you got in touch so you must be someone special.’ He kissed her cheek and she saw the dance of laughter in his eyes.
‘I don’t know about special, but we were great friends as children and as we haven’t seen each other for yonks, we’ve a lot of catching up to do,’ Tess said, grinning at Colette, who punched her husband playfully on the arm.
‘I’ll leave you to it as I’m in charge of the kitchen this evening, to give Colette a break. Dinner should be ready in about thirty minutes.’ Jonathan kissed the top of his wife’s head and left.
‘Make yourself comfortable and I’ll get you a drink. Wine okay? I’m stuck with juice, thanks to this,’ Colette pulled a face as she patted her bump. ‘Can’t risk even a little glass with two doctors in the house, can I?’
‘Oh, Jonathan’s a doctor, too? I didn’t know. And wine’s fine thanks, dry white if you have it.’ Tess couldn’t help thinking he might be a useful contact.
‘All my local friends know he is, so I assume everyone knows,’ Colette said, pulling a bottle of white wine and a carton of juice from a small bar fridge in the corner. ‘We met years ago as he’s a friend of my brother, Nick, but we didn’t start going out until I split with Scott and Jonathan was also single.’ She poured a glass of wine for Tess before filling her own glass with juice and sitting down awkwardly on a nearby chair. ‘I feel like a beached whale now, and there’s a month to go. Men get the easy bit, don’t they?’ She grinned at Tess.
‘Sure do, but there’s nothing to beat knowing you have a little person growing inside you. Or so I’ve been told,’ Tess replied, a little wistfully.
‘Ah, no-one special around at the moment?’
‘No, I’ve given the latest his marching orders and now I’m young, free and single again.’
‘Well, if you do return here to live, which would be fantastic, I’ll have to draw up a list of eligible guys.’ She screwed up her face, then giggled. ‘Can’t think of any at the moment, but give me time.’ Colette sipped her juice, looking enviously at Tess’s wine. ‘What’s the house like? Able to move in?’
Tess shook her head.
‘It’s a mess. Doris hadn’t touched it for years...’ she went on to describe what she had found and Colette’s jaw dropped.
‘Oh dear, that sounds as if it needs masses of dosh spending on it. Like my brother Nick’s place. Although actually it was his wife Jeanne’s cottage, inherited from her grandmother. It’s gorgeous now with the most fab garden, down in Perelle. I–’ she was interrupted by Jonathan sticking his head round the door to announce dinner was ready. He came in to help her out of the chair and Tess followed them into the dining room, next to the kitchen and overlooking the side garden.
‘Love the flower arrangements. I guess that’s your department, Colette?’ Tess sniffed the delicate bowls of freesias on the table, set among sparkling plates and cutlery.
Colette eased herself into a chair, beckoning Tess to sit beside her while Jonathan ferried in the food.
‘It’s about all I feel like doing at the moment. I’m mentally and physically well below par and I think my staff were glad to see the back of me this week. I hired a new chef to cover for me while I’m away but I’ll pop in every day to keep an eye on everything.’ She sighed. ‘You know, starting up my restaurant was a lot easier than being pregnant, even though it was a huge gamble and I had to work eighty-hour weeks.’
Tess patted her arm.
‘Hey, it’s normal to feel like this in the last weeks. You’ll get back to your usual dynamic self once the baby’s born. And sleeping through the night,’ she added, with a grin.
‘That’s what I’ve told her, Tess, but it doesn’t cheer her up,’ Jonathan said, bringing in the final dish.
Colette rolled her eyes.
‘Honestly, two flippin’ doctors! What chance do I have? Shall we eat and you can tell us all about what you’ve been up to, Tess.’
They piled up their plates with chicken casserole, mash and vegetables and as they ate Tess gave them a short version of her life since qualifying.
‘I decided early on I wanted to be a GP and have nearly finished my hospital training prior to taking up a post in a medical practice.’ She paused, and took a sip of wine. ‘Now that I’ve inherited a house here, it’s made me think about looking for a post here. What do you think, Jonathan?’
He had been looking thoughtful as she spoke and Tess hoped he wasn’t going to pour cold water on her hopes. Without a job she couldn’t come back. Her stomach clenched at the unwelcome thought.
‘Well, I think your timing might be fortuitous. I’m at the St Sampson Medical Practice and one of my colleagues is due to retire in about three months. We’d ultimately be looking for a new partner, but might be prepared to take on a newly qualified doctor on a trial basis, with the option to become a partner later. It’s a plus that you’re local and we don’t have to faff with housing licences.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’d have to check with my partners, of course, but would you be interested if everyone agreed?’
Her stomach turned over. Would she be interested! She’d be mad not to be.
‘You bet! I’ve got two months to complete in A & E in Exeter and then I’m free. Oh, thanks, Jonathan, this could be wonderful.’ She gave him her brightest smile.
Colette looked from one to the other of them, her eyes shining in excitement.
‘Wow! I can hardly believe it. I’d hoped you two would become friends, but I never thought of you working together.’
‘Nothing’s agreed yet, darling, so don’t get too excited. We’ll need to see your CV, Tess,’ he said, turning to her, ‘and then, if the partners are happy, we’ll arrange an interview. Are you coming back soon?’
‘In a couple of weeks. I need to sort out a builder for the work on the house so if you have one of those up your sleeve as well...’ she laughed.
‘Well, I don’t but our friend Andy knows the best builders. He’s an architect and would be useful for you to meet anyway. Give you some ideas about your house.’
‘Ooh, yes, Andy’s lovely, and so is his wife, Charlotte. They have a little boy and we’ve become great friends. In fact there’s a bunch of people I can introduce you to if – when – you move back.’
Tess, swept away by Colette’s enthusiasm, was already imagining herself enjoying a vibrant social life on the island. Her long and unsociable hours as a hospital doctor had meant a fragmented personal life, hence the lack of a serious relationship. Few men were prepared to play second fiddle to her work. And she couldn’t blame them. But here, in Guernsey, as a GP, all that would change and a bubble of excitement welled up inside her.
‘All this sounds marvellous and I can’t wait!’ She smiled at Jonathan. ‘I’ll email my CV to you on Tuesday. I’m here until Monday late afternoon and it would be great to meet Andy before I leave.’
‘I’ll call him tomorrow morning and ask him to get in touch with you asap. Right, has everyone finished? There’s pudding if you have room.’ He stood and began collecting the plates as the girls said they’d finished and would like some pud.
The rest of the evening was an enjoyable mix of good food, wine and company for Tess and she realised she hadn’t enjoyed herself as much for months. It helped that she wouldn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn the next day and work a twelve-hour shift. Although whether that was worse than clearing through Doris’s accumulated stuff was debateable. But as she waved goodnight to her friends before slipping into the taxi, Tess was hopeful her life was about to change. As long as she passed muster with the local medical practice.