Christmas on Rosemary Lane. Ellen Berry
It was almost roofless now, the timbers rotted, the stone walls crumbling with weeds sprouting from their crevices. ‘That’s what’s left of George and Babs’s place,’ she added.
‘Wow,’ Ivan murmured. ‘Was it really habitable back then?’
‘Just about. I thought it was wonderful – cosy and crammed with ornaments and artefacts. But according to Mum it was pretty damp and prone to flooding from the river. I don’t think there were any more tenants after them.’
‘What a waste,’ Ivan remarked, adjusting his wire-rimmed spectacles, ‘letting it fall into decay like that.’ Lucy glanced at him. She could sense his interest waning already, but he perked up again as they drove through the main heart of the village on this perfect autumn morning.
How the place had changed since she was a little girl. There were numerous inviting shops now: a greengrocer with wicker baskets of produce stacked outside, a bijou art gallery, a couple of gift boutiques and a particularly alluring bookshop, which appeared to be wholly devoted to cookbooks. The fading facades Lucy remembered had been painted in cheery colours, and the shops’ window boxes and hanging baskets were filled with late-flowering geraniums and winter pansies. Happily, many of the more traditional shops were still there, and appeared to be virtually unchanged – like the general store, and the newsagent’s where she had been allowed to spend her pocket money on comics, fishing nets, Sherbet Fountains and whatever else had caught her eye.
Simple pleasures, she reflected, enjoying a rush of nostalgia. ‘It’s so quaint,’ Ivan remarked.
‘Lovely, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. We should have come here for lunch or something …’
Lucy smirked. ‘We were kind of busy in the hotel.’
Ivan chuckled. It had been wonderful, stealing a little time away from the kids. Life was so hectic with children, it was easy to let intimacy fall away. Her age aside, she couldn’t help thinking it was a miracle that they had managed to conceive a third baby at all. These days, they only had to start kissing in bed for either Marnie or Sam to run into their room, desperately ‘needing’ something: a drink, a cuddle, reassurance after a nightmare. And soon, Lucy and Ivan would be propelled back to stage one all over again, with a newborn. A couple of her friends had recently had their third children. They seemed to have acquired a casualness about parenthood this time around that she hoped she would be able to emulate.
‘No pristine babygrows this time,’ a chronically sleep-deprived colleague had laughed. ‘If there’s food on his front, I just pop another T-shirt on over the top. Some days, by bath time, he’s wearing six outfits.’
Lucy liked the idea of being more relaxed this time, and being able to fully enjoy their baby, rather than feeling as if they were merely staggering from one day to the next. She slowed down and turned left into a single-track lane.
Ivan looked at her. ‘Where are we going now?’
‘I just want to show you something,’ she replied.
‘But what’s up here? It doesn’t look like it leads anywhere …’
‘Wait and see,’ she said, trying to suppress a smile. There was nothing at first – just trees on either side of the lane, their boughs joining to form a lacy green canopy overhead. There was an old red phone box, a stone trough at the roadside and a huddled cottage with a pale green front door. Someone trotted by on a pony. Surely, Ivan could see how idyllic it was, compared to their neighbourhood of nondescript terraced streets back in Manchester. Whilst perfectly functional, their house had only a tiny paved backyard and a bunch of party-loving students next door. They had been burgled twice, and last November someone had posted a firework through their letterbox. The joys of city life were beginning to wear thin.
‘What is this?’ Ivan asked. ‘A mystery trip?’
‘You’ll see,’ she replied, glimpsing the high garden wall now, weathered and patterned with lichen and moss. There was the cottage’s whitewashed gable end, the thatched roof, and the wrought-iron garden gate that Lucy, Hally and the Linton kids had charged through in a pack. She could almost hear their plimsoled feet slapping onto the gravel path.
Lucy’s heart was quickening now as she stopped the car. She could see the trees they’d climbed and the old wooden shed that they’d hidden behind, like kids in an adventure story. Her strongest childhood memories were here in this semi-wild garden.
And now there was something else too.
A ‘For Sale’ sign, garish red and white against the cloudless sky. Lucy turned to Ivan.
‘What’s this, honey?’ he asked hesitantly.
‘Just a cottage.’ She was beaming now, unable to stop herself as they climbed out of the car.
They weren’t here by chance. Ever since Max had taken over at Claudine, Lucy had been browsing estate agents’ websites, fantasising about a cottage in the country. This usually happened late at night, after Ivan had gone to bed, and it had become quite a hobby of hers. She had searched this whole area of West Yorkshire, then found herself homing in on Burley Bridge, just out of curiosity at first. When she had spotted that Rosemary Cottage was up for sale, she had almost fallen off her chair.
This was the reason she had suggested staying in a hotel fairly close by. She’d suspected that Ivan would have resisted coming to view the cottage; Burley Bridge was too remote for them to consider moving here while he was working in Manchester. But she hoped that, when he saw it for himself, he would at least consider taking a look inside.
Ivan met Lucy’s gaze, clearly registering her shining green eyes and the flush to her cheeks. ‘It’s a beautiful house,’ he conceded.
She pushed back her thick, long dark hair. ‘D’you think we might be able to just – you know … have a look around?’
His mouth twitched into a smile. ‘What for?’
‘Oh, I’m just curious, you know? I remember it really well. Me and a couple of local kids used to sneak into the garden and steal berries …’
‘You never told me you had a criminal past.’ He grinned at her.
‘Just a few handfuls,’ she chuckled.
Ivan turned back to the cottage. ‘Looks like it needs quite a bit of work, darling.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, but imagine us all being here. Wouldn’t it be lovely? You’ve been saying you’ve had enough of the crazy hours, the endless meetings, all the pressures—’
‘Yes, but—’
‘And wouldn’t the kids love it? Look at the size of that garden! They could have a Wendy house and a den, and the house would be perfect for bed and breakfast …’ While she might have lured him here under false pretences, Ivan did know that Lucy had fantasised for years now about running a country B&B.
‘Luce …’ He paused. ‘Are you serious about doing bed and breakfast?’
She nodded. ‘I know we’d be good at it, you and me together.’
Ivan shook his head and exhaled. ‘But how on earth could we do that with the baby coming?’
‘We’d manage,’ she said firmly. ‘We’d only be talking two or three rooms to let out to guests. How hard would that be?’
‘Yes, but newborn babies are up all night and demand attention every second of the day. You remember how it was …’
‘Sam and Marnie were both sleeping through at eight months,’ she reminded him.
‘But what if this one isn’t?’
She exhaled. ‘I just thought we could have a look around.’
Ivan slid an arm around her waist. When they’d found out she was pregnant, he had agreed that perhaps now was the time to reduce his working hours