The Holiday Home. Fern Britton
its high ceiling and generous window seats either side of French windows opening on to the terrace. Looking out, Trevor saw the broken piece of handrail lying innocently on the stone. Feeling a frisson of fear, he immediately turned his back on it, trying to put it out of his mind.
After measuring the drawing room he turned his attention to the study, followed by a charming morning room with an inglenook fireplace, and an intimate dining room with a plaster frieze of grapes around the corniced ceiling.
At the far end of the kitchen, which surely hadn’t been updated since Queen Victoria’s coronation, a tongue-and-groove door with a wrought-iron latch stood ajar. He went to it and saw it led to an old pantry or larder with original worktops made of slabs of marble. This, he imagined, was where butter, milk and meat would have been stored in hot weather. Again he set to work with his notebook and measuring tape, talking to himself as he recorded the details.
When he finished measuring and checked his watch, he was surprised to discover that almost three hours had passed since he had left the office. And he still had the garden to do.
Locking up the front door and pocketing the key, Trevor fought his way through the thicket of dead grass and brambles, round to the sea-facing side of the house. How wonderful it looked from this angle, with the setting sun reflected in the windows, making the house glow as if it were illuminated from within and full of life.
Never in his brief career had Trevor been asked to measure a garden of this size. His puny tape measure was clearly inadequate for the task, so he decided instead to stride round the perimeter, counting each step as a metre.
He hadn’t gone far before he lost count, the number falling from his memory as soon as he saw the old fortified wooden door in the side of the house. Natural curiosity and the desire to faithfully record every room led him to descend the four stone steps to the door. Half hoping to find it locked, he was surprised when it opened easily, releasing an aroma of sea damp and age that seemed to envelop him. The interior was pitch-dark and he could hear the distant sound of the sea coming up from below. In the light of the setting sun he struggled to make out the odd-shaped room, which seemed almost cave-like. As he stepped over the threshold, he felt a prickling at the base of his spine. Not fear, quite, but a warning not to go any further. After his unnerving experience on the balcony, Trevor decided it might be wise to let the surveyor check this one out. Closing the door behind him, he scampered up the steps away from the gloom and into the daylight.
On the drive back to the office he rehearsed the story he would tell Trish. Best to leave out the brush with death and the dark forebodings, he decided. As far as Trish was concerned, the house was a gem. In need of renovation, but a unique opportunity to acquire a charming period home with stunning aspects. Yes, that should do nicely on the particulars.
As the wind whipped at her silk scarf, Dorothy struggled to tighten the knot that secured it under her chin. Although it was a sunny day with clear blue skies, it was bitterly cold. Not the ideal weather for motoring in an open-topped car.
Henry took his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at her. ‘Not too cold?’
‘A little.’ She shrugged herself further down into her sheepskin coat.
He smiled, not hearing her. ‘Jolly good.’
They had set off from their house in the Home Counties that morning, en route for Cornwall and a property described in the Country Life advertisement as:
An unmissable and rare opportunity to purchase this perfect Cornish Holiday/Family house. Accommodation comprises six bedrooms, two bathrooms, drawing room, dining room, morning room and study. Spacious original Victorian family kitchen. The master bedroom, with dressing room and en-suite bathroom, has its own balcony offering panoramic ocean views. All rooms on the ocean-facing side of the house boast equally stunning aspects. Set in half an acre of mature cliff-top gardens with private access to the public beach of Treviscum Bay. The property is in need of some modernisation. Despite its age (built circa 1720) it is currently unlisted.
‘Take the next left,’ Dorothy, fighting with the turning pages of her road map, shouted above the wind as her husband sat grinning at the wheel of his new Aston Martin Virage Volante.
‘What?’
‘Next left. To Bodmin.’
‘Left here?’
She nodded vigorously and pointed with her gloved hand at the signpost.
He smiled. ‘Righto, Number One.’ He slowed the V8 engine to a throaty rumble and took the exit.
Henry couldn’t believe how wonderfully his life had turned out. Who’d have thought he’d rise to this, given the dire straits he’d found himself in a decade ago.
On the death of his father, Henry had inherited Carew Family Board Games. Unfortunately the firm that had been his father’s pride and joy was by this time a dinosaur in a shrinking market. Nobody wanted to play board games any more, even if they did have beautifully hand-crafted pieces and block-printed boards. Henry had been left an albatross, complete with a mountain of debt, a loyal workforce he couldn’t afford, and a factory with outdated machinery making parlour-game staples such as Ludo, Snakes and Ladders and Draughts. Settling the death duties on his father’s estate had left him with no means to pay his own mortgage, let alone bail out the firm. In despair, he invited his bank manager out to lunch, hoping that a sumptuous five-course meal would secure him an extension to his business loan. It took the manager less than fifteen minutes to turn down the request. Indeed, if the current overdraft wasn’t reduced forthwith, Henry’s factory and machines would be repossessed by the bank.
‘But my father was with your bank for more than forty years. Please, if you just bear with me a while longer, I won’t let you down,’ pleaded Henry.
The bank manager, a fat man who enjoyed golf and making his customers squirm, shook his head sadly.
‘Henry, your father was a close friend and a good man, but he didn’t move with the times. Unless you can give me a sound business plan, some reason why the bank should reinvest, my answer has to be no.’
Henry took a deep breath and looked the smug slug in the eye. ‘I have an idea for a game that will knock Trivial Pursuit, Cluedo and Monopoly into a cocked hat. I can’t say more because our competitors must not get wind of it.’
‘My dear boy, what is it?’
‘I told you, I can’t say. But if I were to offer you my house as collateral, would you let me have the money I need?’
The slug stirred an extra spoonful of sugar into his coffee, thinking.
‘OK, I’ll authorise the loan – but only for six months. After that …’ he continued stirring, his lips curving upward in a smirk, ‘… the bank moves in.’
The relief Henry had felt at securing the loan evaporated at the prospect of this odious man and his bank getting their hands on his home and Carew Family Board Games. Unfortunately there was a major flaw in his new business plan. The top secret game that was going to take the world by storm didn’t exist.
Henry drove back to the factory and locked himself into his father’s old office. How could he have been so rash and stupid? How the hell was he going to invent a blockbuster of a game in a year, let alone six months?
He pulled out the bottom drawer of his father’s desk and found the bottle of Scotch Dad had always kept there. He opened it and put it to his lips with a silent prayer: Dad, I need your help. I’m in the shit and some of it’s your fault. Give me an idea, a way out of this mess.
He sat back in the tilting revolving wooden chair and put his feet up on the desk.
What am I going to do, Dad? I’m going to lose the factory and my home. A hundred people will be out of a job. People who loved you and trusted you.