The Dream House Read online

  ‘Poor you,’ he said. ‘What an awful day. At least the children are all right. They look so peaceful asleep now, don’t they? Sam seems to have every soft toy he possesses tucked into bed with him.’

  ‘Let’s hope he’s not sick in the night, then. Half of them you can’t put through the washing machine.’ Kate got up to fetch dessert from the fridge – a large bowl of trifle that they’d plainly be eating for the rest of the week. She sat down and spooned out a large helping for him and picked out half a dozen bits of fruit from the jelly for herself. Cream always brought her out in spots, never mind what it did to her hips – she had never lost that last extra half-stone after Sam’s birth, and she knew she looked enough of a mess as it was. She pulled her fingers back through lank, tangled hair. Her blouse and skirt were crumpled and she picked at the pink Calpol stains on the skirt, souvenirs of the last seven hours with two sick children.

  ‘When I finally got to the hospital, you can imagine what a state I was in,’ she said. As they’d waited in traffic, she had confessed to the cab driver that she had no means of paying him. Amazingly, he had not thrown her out onto the street there and then. ‘My kid was ill once like that,’ he had said grimly. ‘Scared the life out of us, I can tell you. Come on, let’s beat this traffic.’ And with the determination of a tank driver going into battle, he’d manoeuvred his way through the jams, zipped up and down tiny side streets until they turned neatly into a miraculous space just outside the hospital. ‘Here you are, love. Hope she’s all right, your little girl. Nah, don’t worry about the money. I was on me way home anyway. Just you run along now.’ And jabbering her thanks, Kate had torn into the Accident and Emergency reception and through to the bright, toy-strewn children’s section.

  ‘I just blubbered something at the receptionist and she had to make me calm down and explain. And then they took me through to a side room and there was Daisy, sitting with her teacher, and oh, Simon, she gave me this huge Daisy smile. I just hugged her and hugged her. The doctor said it was only a rash, but she was being sick with the bug so it was confusing. You can’t imagine the relief . . .’

  ‘I know, I know. I’m really sorry you couldn’t find me. I don’t know why Zara didn’t just buzz me on Gillingham’s mobile. She knew I was out with him, silly girl.’ By the time Simon had got Kate’s frenzied call for help the crisis was over. He had accidentally left his own mobile on his desk.

  ‘Poor Tash will have two sick kids to look after tomorrow. It’s not really fair on her. Simon, the ends are just not meeting at the moment, are they?’ Kate covered her face with her hands.

  Simon pushed back his chair and came round the table. ‘Poor darling.’ She felt his warm breath in her hair as he kissed her. Then he released her abruptly and turned away, his hands diving into his trouser pockets to rattle his loose change.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ she asked. Fidgeting was always a sign of anxiety with Simon.

  ‘Perhaps this isn’t the best time to tell you, Kate, but it’s the reason why I was so late. Staff meeting. Riot Act read. There are no bonuses this year and some people are being let go. No, not me, I don’t think – this time,’ he responded to Kate’s sharp intake of breath. He pressed his lips together in what passed as a reassuring smile.

  They were silent for a moment, both remembering the past. Simon and Kate’s thirtieth year had been a testing time. Daisy was on the way and Simon ended up being without a proper job for nearly a year, which had put a lot of pressure on the marriage, more pressure than Kate liked to think about. It was worst after Daisy’s birth. Kate developed severe post-natal depression, from which she took many months to recover because, the doctor said, of her psychological history. When Kate was seventeen, her elder sister, Nicola, had been killed in a car accident. Now, the trauma of a difficult birth and the shock of finding herself responsible for a small baby had ripped open emotional wounds that had never properly healed.

  Then, just when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse, Simon’s father, newly retired from his country GP’s surgery, had dropped down dead of a coronary on Boxing Day. Simon’s mother had been distraught. Simon was their only child and he and Kate found themselves going back and forth from Suffolk for months to be with her.

  Things had gradually improved. Simon finally got permanent work, if not with the prospects of his previous job, Kate’s treatment started to take effect and the corner was turned.

  Kate had been nervous when she’d found herself pregnant again eighteen months later, but her doctor was encouraging and, in the end, her baby blues with Sam were more manageable. She still had patches of depression and went to counselling occasionally. One of the things the doctor had warned her against was too much stress, but ‘too much stress’ exactly described her current lifestyle. Simon not getting the hoped-for bonus was yet another blow.

  ‘I suppose we should have seen that one coming,’ she said.

  ‘Yup. Last month’s figures.’

  ‘So we’re stuck here.’ Kate’s voice was wobbly. She looked round the small room, festooned with the children’s paintings. Despite the bright lighting she imagined for a moment that the walls were moving in on her.

  ‘Well, we won’t be able to get somewhere bigger in this area, will we?’ said Simon, his voice sharp with disappointment.

  A lot had hung on the hope of a bonus. Three bedrooms weren’t enough now, with Tasha living in. And the single reception room – the knocked-through living room – seemed so small, especially with two children and increasing numbers of large plastic toys.

  Kate stared out of the window at the scrubby bit of garden, the bare terracotta pots huddled together in the November chill. She didn’t exactly dislike their house, which was in one of the residential roads leading off the Fulham Palace Road, but somehow it had never entirely felt like home. At first it had seemed huge after the tiny flat in Shepherd’s Bush she had rented with her friend Claire, but now it had magically shrunk with three adults and two children jostling for space.

  Simon had always said they would look for somewhere as soon as capital was available. It never was.

  Sometimes Kate felt frustrated at her husband’s carefulness with money, but in her heart of hearts she was relieved that he was sensible. Some of his other City friends had got into serious trouble by taking out huge mortgages, then being made redundant and unable to keep up the payments.

  Simon started to go through that morning’s post in his methodical way. The first envelope contained a bank statement. He cast his eyes over the figures, folded it back into the envelope and tucked it into a letter rack on the dresser. The second envelope contained an estate agent’s brochure. He laid it on the table between them and they pored over the prices of local four-bedroomed homes as they had many times during recent months. The difference now, of course, was that they were having to lower their expectations even further.

  ‘We just can’t do it, can we?’ Kate slumped in her seat.

  ‘Not if we stay round here, darling, no. It’s a bit better south of the river, look.’ Simon pointed out a couple of properties in Wandsworth. ‘Lower council tax, too. Still tiny gardens, though.’

  ‘They’re both right on the main road,’ said Kate, ‘and my journey to work would be even longer.’ With one change on the tube from Putney Bridge it took her nearly an hour each way now; Simon, with his direct route, only a little less. ‘I can’t ask Tasha to work a longer day, and I hardly see Sam and Daisy as it is.’

  ‘Well, we’ll only get something significantly bigger if we move even further out. Into Surrey, for instance, near your parents.’ Kate looked at him and shook her head firmly. They visited her mother and father, Major and Mrs Carter, once a month for Sunday lunch, and it was always a stiff, claustrophobic affair.

  ‘OK, somewhere else, then. Look, we’ve had this discussion before and it seems to go round and round.’

  ‘I suppose I could change jobs. Or give up work altogether. But I can’t imagine not working. And we�
��ve always needed the money, though most of my salary goes on Tasha.’

  ‘You could get something part-time, maybe,’ he suggested. ‘Did you ask at work?’

  ‘Yes, but Karina hasn’t got back to me. I think by her face the answer’s no. She wouldn’t be allowed any more staff to make up. Anyway, Simon, then Tasha would have to go, and that would be a shame. The children love her.’

  As they sat thinking, Kate picked up a pencil and started doodling on a piece of scrap paper. She drew a box house, like children draw, with curtains at the windows, smoke coming from the chimneys, jolly flowers in the garden. She added a little stick woman with a smiley face and two little stick children dancing on the grass with a tiny stick dog

  She was suddenly aware of Simon studying her. He cleared his throat.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about that idea I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I know it’s crazy, but wouldn’t it be great to move right out – to the country . . .’

  Kate said nothing. She drew the figure of a daddy with a briefcase marching up to the garden gate, a big smile on his face.

  ‘Yes, like that.’ Simon laughed. ‘’Cept you’ve got the hair wrong. Look, you dope, you can’t draw faces, can you? Here, gimme.’ Giggling, they both snatched at the pencil, which rolled onto the floor and away under the dresser.

  They both gazed at Kate’s picture. Kate spoke first.

  ‘Suffolk, I suppose you mean.’

  ‘Well, yes, in that Mother’s there and we both know the area.’ Simon’s parents had moved nearer the Suffolk coast from Bury St Edmunds after Dennis Hutchinson’s retirement. ‘It’s a beautiful part of the world and it would be great for the kids to have a country childhood.’

  ‘It’s so far away from London and everyone we know, though. What about our work?’

  ‘Well, I could keep going at Pennifold’s. It’s an hour and a half from Diss to the City on the train. Not much more than now really. If it got bad, well, I could look around locally, I suppose, though the money wouldn’t be great.’

  ‘What would I do there?’

  ‘You’d find something – freelance publicity, or you could train as a teacher. You’re good at lots of things. And our friends could all come and stay. We’d be able to get this great big house.’

  ‘Like this one, you mean?’ Kate yawned as she waved the picture.

  ‘Yes, but with straighter walls. Now, I’ll make us some tea and then we’d better get to bed.’

  While Simon stacked the plates in the sink and made the tea Kate sat deep in thought. It had been such a horrible day, even with the relief that her two children were asleep happy and nearly healthy upstairs. But she dreaded work tomorrow. It was the tiredness, she supposed, and the pressure everyone was under all the time. Never seeing the kids, that had to be the worst thing.

  ‘You’d have more energy and time for the family. Think about it,’ Simon broke in as he put the milk back in the fridge. ‘I get worried about you sometimes, darling. You don’t want another patch of the blues.’ He put two mugs of tea on the table and ruffled her hair. Then, tidy as ever, he bent to fish out the pencil from under the dresser.

  ‘I’m not saying no to the whole idea of moving out,’ said Kate carefully. ‘It’s just there is so much to weigh up.’

  ‘We need to draw up a chart of pros and cons,’ Simon said crisply, reaching for the estate agent’s envelope.

  ‘Not tonight we don’t,’ Kate said in a weary voice, taking the pencil and envelope out of his hand. ‘You’re not in the office now, and anyway, you’re getting way ahead of me.’

  ‘Well, at least we can look at some house prices when we’re down at Mother’s at the weekend,’ Simon said. ‘Do some sums.’

  ‘If the children are well enough to go,’ Kate said. ‘Hope so.’

  Then she scribbled something under her picture, laughed at her efforts, and went to pin it up on the noticeboard. She had written The Dream House.

  Chapter 2

  Suffolk, November 2002

  By Friday both the children were their usual perky selves and the Hutchinsons left Fulham for Suffolk at nine o’clock on the Saturday morning. A steady drizzle of rain followed them all the way, but by midday, when they turned off the Lowestoft road, away from the coast towards Halesworth, a pale torchbeam of sun had begun to penetrate the misty cloud.

  Kate slowed right down at the speed signs by the new development of detached redbrick homes. Soon the road widened out into the centre of the village. There, two dozen cottages, some thatched, were built around a small green. In the summer, they overflowed with flowers, but now the houses looked shut up, the gardens glum and dripping with rain. Out on the far side, the fourteenth-century church within its walled graveyard rose out of the mist, then they passed the Victorian redbrick primary school, a post-office-cum-stores and two pubs. Each pub vied with the other over offers of real beer, one advertising live music on Fridays, the other home-cooked food every day except Mondays. Kate remembered her mother-in-law, Joyce, telling her the pubs were owned by two brothers. Quite an opportunity to play out old sibling rivalries, she smiled to herself, feeling the cares of the week begin to fade.

  ‘Muuuum, are we there yet?’ Daisy asked, as she had asked every mile for the last twenty.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kate joyfully, as they turned left down an unmarked lane, her spirits rising. ‘We’re there.’ She parked at the dead end, by the only building in the lane, a large thatched flint cottage with a white picket fence, a coil of smoke rising from the chimney. It was picture-postcard perfect and Kate loved it.

  As she jumped out to open their doors, Kate was nearly knocked over by a barking hairy bundle of black and white, Joyce’s springer spaniel, Bobby, ecstatic to see his favourite pet humans.

  Over bouncing dog and dancing children she saw Joyce walking stiffly up the garden path towards them; Simon’s mother was a tallish woman in her late sixties wearing an elegant white polo-neck and a navy skirt, a silver Charles Rennie MacIntosh pendant over the jumper and matching dangling earrings showing beneath her neat short silvered hair.

  Joyce put her arm round Simon, who had gone to open the car boot, and kissed him.

  He looks like a little boy, putting up with being kissed, thought Kate, not for the first time. As she hugged Joyce, she felt a pang that she could never hug her own mother like this, for Barbara Carter shied away from demonstrations of affection. Even when she had held Daisy and Sam as babies, it had been as though she was worried about dropping them.

  ‘A good journey? All well?’ asked Joyce anxiously. Kate nodded, and Joyce turned to open her arms to Daisy and Sam, who were shoving at each other and Bobby to get to Granny first. ‘Darlings, I’ve got you both,’ she cried, encircling one with each arm and hugging them to her.

  ‘Granny! We’ve brang you some chocolates. Can I have one now?’ gabbled Sam.

  ‘How lovely. Come on in. Lunch is on the table and after that you can have a chocolate, darling. No, Simon, leave unpacking till later, won’t you, dear? I’m sure you’re tired and the soup is ready.’

  ‘It won’t take a moment, Mother, don’t fuss.’

  ‘But it’s raining again and you’re not wearing a coat.’ Indeed, it was starting to pour as Kate hurried the children inside while Simon set about bringing in the bags, a familiar stubborn set to his face. It was strange how Joyce and Simon slipped back into what must be the old childhood pattern – Joyce mollycoddling Simon and Simon sullenly going his own way.

  ‘I’ll get you an umbrella, then,’ she heard Joyce say from the path. ‘Do mind that puddle.’

  Kate let them get on with it and, while the children rushed upstairs to inspect every corner, she wandered across the hall into the large living room.

  Paradise Cottage was just the place for a cosy winter weekend away. The living room was crowded with big comfortable chintz armchairs around a roaring log fire. The air smelled of applewood smoke and lavender polish, and Kate sat for a mom
ent looking at the old beams, the china dogs on the mantelpiece and the prints and photographs on the walls. She could hear the children’s footsteps overhead and the slow tocking of the grandmother clock against the wall. Home, she thought, and Bobby, throwing himself onto the hearthrug in a mock show of exhaustion, clearly thought so, too.

  Already, their dark house in Fulham, too near the main road, the long squealing grind of lorries braking, the grim lines of smoke-coughing cars, the dirty rain that tasted of iron and soot, her grey office with the flickering fluorescent light, all seemed to be rushing away into oblivion . . . A log shifted, sighing in the fireplace, sending up a spray of sparks.

  ‘I could live somewhere like this and be myself,’ Kate whispered to Bobby, who wagged his tail, but as soon as she’d made this statement the doubts started to rush in. How could you possibly know what it felt like, actually to live where you went on holiday? What would she truly miss most about city life? Her work had to come top of the list. It was what she did – it helped define her. Just how much would she miss it, if she didn’t have it any more? The thoughts whirled round and round in her head.

  Simon is right: we need a list of pros and cons, Kate thought as Joyce put her head round the door to call her in for lunch.

  ‘We’ve never done Norwich, have we?’ said Simon, cheerful over post-lunch coffee. ‘It’s a bit wet for the beach or walks today, kids. Look, it’s only half-past one. Why don’t we zip up in the car for a couple of hours? What do you think, Mother?’

  ‘There’s a castle,’ Joyce said to the reluctant children as she passed round the chocolates. ‘And a big market.’

  ‘I’ll come if you buy me a treat,’ said Sam, then seeing Granny put on her ‘cross face’ and withdraw the chocolate box from his outstretched hand, he said, ‘OK, I’ll come.’

  Parking was a nightmare in Norwich on a Saturday so close to Christmas, but they eventually found somewhere near the cathedral, which they decided to visit. Joyce led them round the simple Gothic edifice of mellow Normandy stone. Whilst Daisy and Sam ran round the huge cloisters, ignoring Kate’s attempts to interest them in the coloured bosses on the vaulted ceiling, Simon went off to inspect the treasury. When Joyce took the children to the shop, Kate strolled around by herself, reading the inscriptions on the tombs of long-dead bishops, trailing her hands over the carved choir stalls, hearing the heartbreaking swell of organ practice stopping and starting above. She found a little chapel tucked away by the great south entrance. The modern glass door bore a whorl of lettering – some words of T. S. Eliot: Reach out to the silence/At the still point of the turning world.