Finding Home (19 page)

Mrs Wakefield takes one look around and begins to cough.

‘Why don't we go upstairs,' I suggest. I lead the way up the narrow staircase.

At the top of the stairs, Mr Wakefield bangs his head on a low beam. ‘Bollocks!' he yells, rubbing his head.

‘Mummy, mummy, that man said bollocks!'

I cringe inwardly. ‘As you'll see, there are three lovely good-sized bedrooms up here and plenty of loft space for storage.'

The bedrooms are packed floor to ceiling with toys and oversized furniture. Everything reeks of smoke. Mr Wakefield ducks and dives under low beams, and Mrs Wakefield walks around with her nose wrinkled up like a pug dog. As we all crowd into one of the tiny rooms, Mrs Chip comes in carrying an enormous pile of laundry. I'm about to suggest that we move on when Mr Wakefield decides to get chummy.

‘Why are you selling?' he asks Mrs Chip. All of us ignore a blood-curdling shriek from downstairs.

‘My piece o' shit bloke ran off with some tart he met at the school. Me and the kids got a two-bed council flat in Yeovil.'

‘Oh,' the three of us say at the same time, for different reasons.

We take a quick peek at the tiny, grimy bathroom that stinks of potty-training-in-progress. Then we head downstairs to the war zone, where little has changed except that two of the children have hunkered down in front of the TV, and one little boy is standing on the table waving a plastic gun at us.

‘Uhh, the kitchen, airing cupboard and the sitting room,' I practically shout. ‘Lots of original features and potential for renovation.'

It feels like forever as the Wakefields explore the nooks and crannies – crunching plastic toys underfoot, opening overflowing cupboards – even the fridge. By the time it's finally over, my lip is sore from steady biting. I give Mrs Chip a curt ‘thanks', and herd the Wakefields out the door. ‘Sorry about that,' I say.

‘It's a charming cottage,' Mrs Wakefield says.

‘Sorry?' I do a double-take. They hated it – didn't they?

She shrugs. ‘Too bad it's on a main road.'

‘And thatched,' her husband adds with a disappointed tsk.

‘Yes, it is too bad.'

I hand them an extra copy of the particulars, promise to keep in touch, and as soon as they're gone, make a beeline for the peace and quiet of my car.

*

The next viewing is in Glastonbury – No. 12 Orchard Terrace. As I drive into the town, I begin to feel better – the mystical pull of the Tor works its magic. It's said that King Arthur and Guinevere are buried in the abbey. I imagine myself as a knight errant, on a quest for the Holy Grail – my first sale.

I drive past the New-Age shops selling crystals, love potions, indie music and goth clothing in all shades of black. The town centre looks lively and robust. But past the shops and cafés I turn off into a warren of less quaint streets lined with council blocks. Orchard Terrace has a tattoo parlour with three leather-clad bikers hanging around outside. The 1930s pebble-dashed semis are faded and decrepit; several have boarded-up doors and windows filled in with breeze blocks. My enthusiasm evaporates.

I park the car and check my notes. My client is a Mr Patel, a property developer. The house is a 1930s semi that was recently occupied by squatters but has now been cleared out by the police. I roll down the window to take a look.

Every window of the house is broken or boarded up, and the plywood door has a red spray-painted biohazard sign on it. I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe the police declared success a little too early, because there's a booming beat coming from inside the house.
Someone
is home.

This clearly wasn't part of the plan, but I've no time to debate what to, because just then, a big black car pulls up behind me and an Asian man in a dark suit gets out. I open my door and try to put up my umbrella but it blows inside out. I shove it back in the car.

‘Hi,' I say, ‘I'm Amy Wood, the estate agent. You're Mr Patel?'

The man frowns and nods his head.

‘Honestly, I thought the place was vacant, so I think we should reschedule...' I say the last word to his back. He's already walking swiftly towards the house.

I curse under my breath and follow him to the cover of the leaky porch.

‘Someone's inside...' I repeat.

He holds up his hand to cut me off. ‘It is of no importance.'

It might be of some importance if we get killed, but it's obvious that he's not going to be put off. ‘Okay,' I shrug, and knock hard on the door. No one answers, so I ring the bell. Nothing.

‘But you have the key?' my client inquires.

Unfortunately, yes. I fish out the envelope with the keys from my handbag. I unlock the door and shout hesitantly: ‘Hello, anybody home?'

Mr Patel pushes past me. He pulls out a laser tape measure. He immediately starts zapping the walls with the little red light, tapping the measurements into his BlackBerry. Cosmetically, the place is trashed – grimy wallpaper hangs off the walls, the carpet is black and ripped, the walls and ceiling are covered with spray paint. I glance at Mr Patel. He's making all sorts of satisfied noises. Surreptitiously, I rip up a tissue to make earplugs. They do nothing to drown out the din.

Mr Patel finishes in the hallway and opens the door to the main reception room. The room has no floor, just joists with rubble beneath. Steadying himself against the wall, he steps out onto the joists. ‘Be careful,' I plead, but he ignores me. He skips across the boards, laser measure poised and ready in his fist.

‘There are some fine features here that could be restored,' I shout half-heartedly. ‘I'd say this house has loads of potential. The rooms are good-sized, and so is the garden. It could be a lovely family home – a real bargain at the price.' It's almost true. Beneath the graffiti, the room does have some nice crown mouldings and an original fireplace.

A rat scurries between the floor joists. I let out a little yelp. Unfazed, Mr Patel keeps measuring. Beyond the remains of the kitchen is an overgrown garden. Rain is streaming in through a gaping diagonal crack in the exterior wall. Mr Patel zaps the crack.

His phone rings and he proceeds to carry on a conversation for (yes, I time it) – seven minutes. Each moment ticking away increases the likelihood that I'll be late for the Rosemont Hall viewing, not to mention the possibility of getting killed.

Finally, Mr Patel puts the phone away. ‘Okay, now the upstairs,' he directs.

Clenching my teeth, I go first up the rickety stairs. A board gives way beneath my feet and I nearly tumble to the bottom. Mr Patel goes past me, brandishing his laser. At the top of the stairs there's a bathroom caked with excrement, and two bedrooms filled with pipes and tubes that resemble a home laboratory. The Chip cottage looks positively pristine in comparison. ‘Lovely good-sized bedrooms,' I say. Mr Patel responds by zapping them. He walks to the door of the main bedroom. The music hammers like a ravenous beast trying to escape.

‘I think we should skip that one,' I say. ‘I can email you the dimensions from the office.'

Mr Patel completely ignores me and throws open the door without knocking. For an instant, I'm terrified. Do I have some kind of liability if he gets murdered? He steps inside the room. I creep over to the door and look inside.

Four very large, very tattooed and pierced men are lying on various filthy sofas and chairs. My heart is in my throat until I realise that their eyes are all closed – they're drunk, or asleep, or stoned, or dead.

I rush over to Mr Patel and grab his arm. ‘We need to go,' I shout.

He shakes his head.

Unbelievably, he takes out his laser measure and starts doing his thing. He stands on a sofa next to one of the passed-out men and measures a ceiling rose. I'm feeling panicky and the smell in the room is making me gag – sweat and booze mixed with cigarette smoke and incense. Just then, the CD comes to an end and everything goes quiet. Mr Patel goes to the bay window and measures it, knocking a syringe off the sill in the process. It clatters to the floor and rolls to the feet of one of the men. The man groans and opens his eyes.

‘Let's get out of here,' I hiss.

Mr Patel calmly taps the keys of his BlackBerry.

I grab his arm and pull him out of the room.

‘What the fuck!—' a loud male voice—

I slam the door and steer Mr Patel away. We successfully navigate a gaping hole in the floor. Mr Patel pauses at the top of the stairs. For an awful second I think he's going to measure something else.

Heavy footsteps; the door handle turns.

‘Come on!'

We half tumble down the stairs together. I drag him through the hall and out the front door, slamming it behind us. I scramble for my key and lock the deadbolt from the outside. There's a sudden commotion of voices from inside the upstairs bedroom. An angry face appears at the window.

‘Can I see the garden?' Mr Patel stops me with a hand on my arm.

‘Ring the office,' I shriek. ‘—Schedule a second viewing.'

I drag him to the street and bundle him into his car. As the door to the house opens and four angry giants spill forth brandishing beer bottles, I jump back in my own car, shaking all over. I turn on the ignition and floor it.

I put some miles between me and Glastonbury and pull over in a lay-by to catch my breath. I feel like I've aged a hundred years in the last two hours. The last thing I want to do is another viewing. Even – and perhaps, especially – Rosemont Hall.

Thanks to Mr Patel and his laser, I'm running late. The A39 is a red sea of brake lights. By the time I drive through the rickety gates and begin the ascent of the long, winding drive, my heart is in my throat.

The towering monolith of Rosemont Hall, its four chimneys scraping the grey sky, looks forbidding – and lonely. The East Wing is like the skeleton of a vast, beached whale, the burnt rafters slicing the sky into jagged pieces.

The clients should be here by now, but there's no car in the drive. A knot of tension tightens in my shoulders. Are they late too, or have they already come and gone? Or just not bothered to turn up?

I grab my papers and jump out of the car. After the events of the last few hours, I'm now desperate for the loo. I run up the stairs to the front door and wrench the key in the lock.

According to David Waters' report, there's only one working loo in the house. For once, I don't stop to say hello to the girl in the portrait as I dash up the stairs into the Rose Bedroom – which, I assume, was Mrs Windham's.

The bathroom has the same avocado green suite as my parents' bungalow, which makes me feel right at home. But in this loo, the bath is grotty with soap scum, the tiles mildewed, and there's a large hole next to the bath where the floor seems to have collapsed under years of wet feet.

After using the loo, I go to the sink to wash my hands. There are slick strips of rust behind each of the taps, where water is slowly dripping like excruciatingly arrhythmic Chinese water torture. The first tap doesn't turn, and the second tap lets out a trickle of water, and then won't turn off. Worse, the drain seems to be blocked, and water slowly begins to pool in the basin.

With a sigh, I wipe my hands on my trousers and go back out into the bedroom. Even if I tried, I couldn't make it look more dated, faded, and dreary than it already does. The furnishings are a 70s mismatch except for the huge wooden canopy bed that takes up half the room, hung with curtains in a rose chintz pattern.

On the bedside table is a tattered book and a box of tissues. Frowning, I peek at the title of the book. It's one that I know well:
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
by Anne Brontë. I'm almost positive that it wasn't there on my previous visit. Then I notice that on the bed, the blankets and satin coverlet are rumpled. My skin crawls with the thought that someone might have been sleeping in a dead woman's bed.

As I'm about to leave the room, something else catches my eye: the door cut into the panelling. I remember David Waters saying that it was a closet of some kind. I walk over and pull on the door, wrinkling my nose at the anticipation of the smell of dead mouse or mothballs.

Instead, to my surprise, when I open the door, the smell of potpourri wafts out. It's strong, but not unpleasant. I flip the light switch and a bare bulb comes on.

The closet goes back about fifteen feet. It's completely filled with clothing zipped in clear plastic bags, and there's an upper shelf full of hats and even a few elaborately coiffed wigs. The clothing in the bags is like something out of a Victorian pantomime: flouncy gowns, a clown suit, a gentleman's cloak and dagger, a pirate's outfit. A huge spider scurries away from my feet. The whole thing is a bit creepy.

Just as I'm about to switch off the light, I see it: a pink satin dress on a padded hanger; an exact replica of the dress in the portrait. I unzip the plastic and run my fingers over the pale, supple fabric that seems as fresh as the day it was made. The scene in
Rebecca
pops into my mind where Mrs Danvers tricks the second Mrs de Winter into dressing up like one of the paintings for a costume ball, in a similar costume to that worn by the ill-fated Rebecca. The whole party is sent into an embarrassing uproar. And as for Henry's party – well, that ended in a tragic fire. Did the costumes belong to Arabella Windham? Why would Mrs Bradford keep them in such good order when the rest of the house is such a wreck? My neck crawls with goosebumps like I'm intruding on private memories and carefully kept secrets.

I switch off the light and close the door.

The tap is still dripping in the bathroom. I go back in and give it one last good twist to turn it off. As I do, it comes off in my hand. There's a deep gurgling noise, and the next moment, the whole thing erupts and I'm doused head to toe with freezing brown water. I let out a little scream and frantically try to put the broken piece of metal back on. Luckily (if anything about it can be considered lucky) the water fizzles out quickly, and subsides to the original drip. If the house doesn't want its plumbing disturbed, then who am I to argue?