‘It’s so beautiful here I could stay forever!’ said Simon, stretching his legs out on the sun lounger. ‘Life could be one long blissful holiday!’
‘And what exactly would you be using for money?’ asked Tess.
It had been Simon’s bright idea to come down to Cornwall for their belated honeymoon, eighteen months after their whirlwind wedding. Simon Sparrow was sixty-two and Tess was sixty-three, blissfully happy to have found each other after ill-fated first marriages.
Simon cherished childhood memories of wielding his bucket and spade on this dramatic coast; he’d started learning to surf round here, he’d got a tiny part in the first Poldark series, and he’d quaffed his first pint of bitter with his dad in The Portmerryn Arms. Simon was, as are many actors, an incurable romantic. Which is one of the many reasons Tess had fallen in love with him.
At times she did wonder why on earth he’d fallen in love with her. Tess MacKenzie from Strathcoy in Scotland, who’d come to London, married and later divorced Gerry Templar (after his ridiculous affair), had his two children, and found a lover some years later who’d unfortunately died and left her heartbroken. Tess would describe herself as being ‘quite pleasant looking’, with her green eyes and rapidly greying hair, now an interesting mix of highlights and lo-lights, thanks to A Cut Above back in Milbury, where she’d been living. But she had managed to shed two stone in order to look good at her daughter’s wedding, which was where she met Simon. He’d whisked her off her feet and married her three months later, and she still had to pinch herself that this had really happened. After all the disasters with an Internet dating site it seemed like a miracle.
‘We must explore the area,’ he said as he padded through the tiny kitchen of their (belated) honeymoon retreat, en route to the equally tiny bathroom, both of which had been tacked onto the back of the ‘genuine fisherman’s cottage’ which they’d rented for the week. The genuine fisherman had probably bought a nice semi somewhere, with an en suite and central heating. As had apparently all the other fishermen who once inhabited Fishermen’s Row, where the cottages were now rented out to tourists at exorbitant rates. But having to trundle down the narrow stairs several times a night for a pee had rapidly ceased to be a novelty for Simon.
‘It was your idea to rent an authentic little cottage,’ Tess reminded him. ‘We could have gone to a nice hotel somewhere and you’d only have had to totter a few feet to the loo three times a night.’
‘Hotels are so soulless,’ Simon said. ‘When you’ve had to stay in them as often as I have you’re happy to forego the convenience of an en suite, a hospitality tray and a fridge full of overpriced booze.’
Tess would have been extremely happy with an en suite, a hospitality tray and a fridge full of booze, whatever the price. But at least she didn’t have to go to the loo several times a night. Yet. And it was bliss to lie in bed and listen to the thundering of the surf and the crying of the gulls. She was bowled over by the competing shades of turquoise of the sea, the glorious beach and the sheer grandeur of the cliffs. She watched in awe as the surfers rode the waves, and she couldn’t help but admire the big brawny lifeguards with their wetsuits and tousled hair, and dreamed of being young again – and wished it were now. How did they manage to race across the shingle barefoot? Not that she wasn’t madly in love with Simon, of course, but some of these hunks… wow!
Then it had rained non-stop for three days and their ideas of further exploring the area in Simon’s open-topped Triumph Stag had dissolved into the grey gloom. They squelched along the beach in waterproofs and wellingtons, and got to know The Portmerryn Arms very well indeed.
The Portmerryn Arms was reputed to be an old smugglers’ inn, complete with black beams and nicotine-stained walls, and a huge inglenook in which an open fire was burning even though it was July. Horse brasses and copper warming pans were hung around the fireplace, and there were some interesting corners, one of which accommodated the domino players. There were, Tess was delighted to see, no fruit machines.
But on the fourth day the rain stopped and there were even a few tiny breaks in the cloud here and there where the sun struggled to get through. So, off they set in the yellow Stag, which was Simon’s pride and joy. And with the roof down as they wound along the country lanes – which in itself normally tempted fate – the sun finally emerged, the sea sparkled again and their spirits soared.
They’d only driven the short distance along the coast road towards the pub when, for the first time, Simon noticed a narrow turning up the hill opposite.
‘Seagull Hill!’ he exclaimed, stamping on the brakes and making a violent turn up the steep, potholed lane.
That was the thing with Simon: he could never resist lanes, streets, avenues or roads with birds’ names. When Tess first met him he was living in the townhouse in West London which was now their home, bought purely because it was situated on Goldcrest Road, and never mind that it didn’t have a garage or even a parking space. It was close to the Tube station, though, and had a large back garden which wasn’t overlooked, both big plus points in London.
Now, as they bounced their way up over the potholes, Tess muttered, ‘Not much up here!’ And it was then, at that exact moment, that they saw the ‘For Sale’ sign at the entrance to a rhododendron-lined drive, although no house was visible through the trees. ‘Shall we have a quick peek?’ he said.
And that was how they found Over and Above. It stood there, in splendid isolation, a large Edwardian heap in an overgrown garden, blinds down, empty and forlorn. It had a steeply pitched roof, some impressive chimneys sited halfway down the slope, a multi-paned front door and sash windows through which they could see little. When Tess peeled a loose layer of paint off one of the front windows with her fingernail, a chunk of wood fell off as well.
‘Just for a start the windows are rotten,’ she remarked.
Simon, as if in a trance, seemed not to hear her. ‘Let’s walk round and see what it’s like at the back.’
They navigated their way with difficulty, past overhanging rampant blackberries and knee-high nettles, until they came to the rear with its rotting French doors and damp façade.
But neither of them noticed any of that because they were completely seduced by the vision of blue sea and Atlantic surf which took their breath away. And probably their common sense with it.
‘Wow!’ said Tess, as they both stood mesmerised by the view.
‘Imagine waking up to that every morning!’ sighed Simon.
When they eventually turned round to look at the house again Tess said, ‘Just look at that wisteria! This must be its second flowering!’
Covering most of the damp around and above the French doors was an enormous and very prolific wisteria, cascading tassels of misty mauve still trailing from its gnarled boughs. It was three times the size of Simon’s at Goldcrest Road.
‘Yeah, that’s pretty impressive,’ he agreed, before turning back to admire the view of the Atlantic. ‘And this has to be one of the best views in North Cornwall!’
So, on that day in July, two mature romantics fell in love with a dodgy house with a very spectacular view.
The estate agency, Michael Millhouse Properties, was situated miles away, near Bodmin. As the yellow Stag sped along the country lanes in search of the A30, Simon said, ‘It won’t do any harm just to get the particulars to see what it looks like inside.’
Tess had her doubts. ‘I suppose not.’
‘And I’d love to know how much they want for it,’ Simon said. ‘Not that we’d be interested, of course.’ He gave her a sideways glance.
‘Of course not,’ Tess agreed. ‘Anyway, who’d want to live away down here for more than a couple of weeks a year?’
‘Exactly,’ said Simon,
The agent, chubby and balding, said, ‘Call me Mike.’ He shook their hands heartily. ‘Ah yes, Over and Above, with that wonderful view! Needs a teeny bit of work, of course.’
‘Of course,’ echoed Simon.
‘Been looking for properties long?’
‘We weren’t looking—’ Tess began.
‘Not long,’ Simon interrupted.
‘You won’t find another house with character like this anywhere,’ enthused Mike, ‘or with a better view. Now, let me have a butcher’s at the diary. I’m tied up today but I could do tomorrow afternoon about four o’clock to show you around, if that suits you.’
‘Well—’ began Tess.
‘Perfect!’ said Simon.
‘We are most definitely not going to be buying that house,’ Tess said as they sped off in the Stag.
‘Of course not,’ Simon soothed. ‘But no harm in having a look.’
According to the brochure there were four large airy reception rooms downstairs, plus six bedrooms and one bathroom (ouch!) upstairs. The grainy photographs were mainly of the outside, with only a couple depicting the interior: one showing what looked like a bedroom with a fireplace, and the other an enormous room with French windows overlooking the sea. Both rooms were empty.
All evening, back in their fisherman’s cottage, Tess thought about Over and Above and that view, and the wisteria. She knew one of them had to be practical here, and it wasn’t likely to be Simon. The ‘needs some updating’ and ‘a teeny bit of work’ worried her; you bet it does, she thought.
They were sitting in the cottage’s tiny back garden, which was wedged between the added-on bathroom and the beach, sipping some chilled rosé wine, when Simon said, ‘There was just something about that house, Tess, wasn’t there? And I like the price.’
Tess sighed. ‘We’re in Cornwall, darling. Of course property is going to be cheaper than in London!’
‘But if we got a good price for our house in London we’d probably be around a hundred thousand in pocket.’
‘We’re not going to be selling Goldcrest Road,’ Tess said, thinking of the thousands they’d lavished on the kitchen in their London home this year alone.
‘Of course not! Just saying.’
‘Anyway, what would two sixty-somethings like us want with a great big house like that?’
‘It would be perfect for our retirement years. We’d have plenty of room for friends and family to stay!’
‘Are you kidding? And what exactly would you be doing? I can’t imagine there’s much call for sixty-two-year-old actors round here.’
‘There’s not much call for sixty-two-year-old actors anywhere,’ Simon said sadly. ‘I’m Simon Sparrow, not Simon Callow.’
Over the past year since they’d married there’d been just a couple of voice-overs and one bit part, which had necessitated him growing a beard and which he now refused to shave off. If, perchance, they were relying on Simon’s financial input, they’d have been on the breadline months ago. And that was in spite of his many sidelines while ‘resting’ which, over the years, had included trying to farm culinary snails, painting plant pots and being a children’s entertainer, to name but a few. It was Tess’s income which mainly supported them. She was an established dressmaker with a boutique in Surrey, which she ran with her friend, Orla. They made flattering outfits for outsized ladies and, with Tess’s expertise in cutting and sewing, and Orla’s ability to sell anything to anyone, they’d set up a very successful business. ‘But we’re getting too old for all this palaver,’ Orla groaned every morning as they opened up the doors to a line of large women waiting to be measured and fitted. And Tess was beginning to agree, particularly as she now had the beginnings of arthritis in her fingers and her wrists.
‘But we could always rent out a room or two if we really needed to – and we’d have that nice lump sum from the difference in house prices, don’t forget.’
‘This road’s not designed for sports cars,’ Tess remarked as they rattled their way up Seagull Hill again the following day.
‘It’ll be OK when I work out where the worst holes are,’ Simon said. ‘But really you’d need an off-road vehicle if you lived around here.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Tess. ‘I hope you’re not getting ideas about Land Rovers and Labradors?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Simon retorted.
Mike had got there ahead of them and was sitting, rooting through some papers, in a brand-new Range Rover.
‘He must be doing something right,’ Simon muttered as they parked alongside in the old Stag.
‘Probably selling overpriced heaps to idiots like us,’ Tess replied.
‘Hi, folks!’ Mike emerged from the Range Rover. ‘Great cars, these old Stags!’ He ran his hand over the car’s dusty yellow bodywork. ‘Not so practical round here, though!’
‘But great on a day like this,’ Simon said, squinting at the sun.
‘Hope the hood’s in good nick,’ Mike said cheerfully, ‘’cos it rains a lot in these parts.’
They followed him up to the front door where he fumbled around for a few minutes with an enormous bunch of keys. ‘Must be here somewhere,’ he muttered as he inserted one after another into the lock. Finally, he succeeded and the door creaked open. They followed him into a large hallway with a ceramic black-and-white tiled floor and an impressive wooden central staircase.
‘Who does this house belong to?’ Tess asked, looking around and, in spite of her reservations, impressed.
‘Well,’ said Mike, ‘a young couple own it now but they haven’t been near it for ages ’cos he got a job in Dubai or somewhere. They’d all sorts of plans for it but lost interest when he got this posting.’
‘They certainly don’t seem to have done much updating,’ Tess murmured, looking around.
‘Think they might have bitten off more than they could chew,’ said Mike. ‘But they fell in love with the rooms at the back, and the views, which I’ll show you shortly.’
‘Love the floor,’ said Simon.
‘How long has it been empty?’ Tess asked, sniffing the damp.
Mike took a noisy breath through his teeth. ‘Ooh now, let me see; must be a couple of years.’
‘And it’s been up for sale for all that time?’ Tess sounded incredulous.
‘Yeah, pretty much.’
‘So how come nobody’s bought it?’
Mike shrugged. ‘Just needs the right people to come along and realise the potential.’
Waiting for idiots like us to come along, Tess thought, but oh, it could be so wonderful. Really lovely.
She could frame the view with beautiful fabrics; wicker sofas on the terrace piled high with sumptuous cushions. She could imagine herself sitting out here with a gin and tonic. OK, time to get back to earth. ‘Perhaps the price is too high?’ she suggested.
‘Not at all!’ Mike pushed open the door on the right. ‘You get a lot of house for the money. Lovely big kitchen, though it needs a teeny bit of doing-up of course.’
A teeny bit! Tess looked round in dismay at the yellowed walls, the 1940s cabinet, the ancient electric cooker. At least there was a butler’s sink, even if the wooden draining board had almost rotted through.
‘There’s a nice little scullery, too,’ Mike said, opening a door at the far end.
‘Boot room,’ said Simon, peering in the door.
‘Since when did you wear boots?’ Tess saw a metal sink and some dusty shelves. ‘Utility room.’
They crossed the hallway into another large room at the front.
‘Dining room,’ announced Mike, consulting his particulars. ‘Lovely big room. You could seat a dozen or more people in here. Think of Christmas! Fire blazing!’ He indicated a hole in the wall, from which a fireplace had obviously been removed at some point. ‘You’d get a nice big log-burner in there. Great potential!’
‘Potential’ was the only honest word you could use in this house, Tess thought.
He wanted them to see the six bedrooms next. They clattered their way up the wooden stairs, their footsteps echoing eerily. Four of the six bedrooms all had their original fireplaces and all had wooden floors. Two of them also had large damp patches on the ceilings and upper walls.
‘Needs a bit of an airing,’ said Mike cheerfully. ‘And just look at these floors! Just need to sand them down and polish them up a bit!’
Tess could see the potential up here, particularly when he led them into the two large rear bedrooms with their breathtaking views of the ocean which was crashing against the rocks below the house. She then groaned when she saw the antiquated bathroom but could see that the roll-top bath could be painted and there was plenty of space for a shower. She’d already worked out that they could sacrifice the two smaller bedrooms to perhaps make en suites for the other four.
Mike had them clip-clop their way downstairs again and led them with a flourish to the rear where the two large rooms with their French doors overlooked the patio, small lawn and the drop to the ocean. The panoramic views were just visible through the cobweb-festooned doors.
‘We could put bi-fold doors right the way along that wall,’ Simon said dreamily.
‘I told you it had great potential,’ said Mike.
Tess gazed for a long time through the dust and the cobwebs at the sea which sparkled and smiled in the late afternoon sunshine. Damn it, she thought, this place has got to me, and I’m supposed to be the practical one! My common sense has gone through the roof, or escaped out of this window into the ocean! It was at that moment when she just knew they were going to be buying this house.
‘We can’t possibly offer the full asking price,’ Tess said as they ate supper in The Portmerryn Arms, ‘because it’s going to cost an arm and a leg to get that place the way we want it.’
‘We can do a lot of it ourselves,’ said Simon.
‘Are you kidding? Look, we’re talking about replacing windows, fixing the roof, putting in a kitchen and bathrooms, central heating, wood-burners. A hundred thousand will go nowhere! And we haven’t even got Goldcrest Road on the market yet! Not only that, we should have a survey done on the place.’
‘What’s the point, darling? Just lining some surveyor’s pocket to tell us what we know already?’
‘It’s what most people do, Simon. I mean, how many kinds of rot could be lurking in the walls or somewhere? There’s dry rot, wet rot—’
‘We’re not most people,’ he interrupted airily.
That much is true, Tess thought. She’d fallen in love with Simon because he was different: romantic, optimistic, cheerful, imaginative, amusing… but at times like this she would like it if he could just adopt some down-to-earth common sense.
Simon covered her hand with his. ‘You do want it, too, don’t you?’
‘Yes, damn it, I do!’
‘Well, then. It’ll make money for us. We can rent out the rooms, make it an upmarket boutique bed and breakfast hotel, guesthouse, whatever you want to call it, adults only, charge ridiculous prices…’
‘I’d like the grandchildren to be able to come sometimes, too.’ Tess thought fondly of six-year-old Ellie and Joshua, her eighteen-month-old brother. And that was something else; what would Amber and Matt think about their mother and stepfather moving miles away? How would her best friend Orla react and what would happen to the shop they ran together? Curvaceous it was called, because of the large ladies. They’d spotted a gap in the market and, with Tess’s expertise as a dressmaker, and Orla’s as a saleslady, they’d hatched a very successful business.
The few acting parts Simon was offered were normally in London. In any case, Simon didn’t have the same family considerations as she did; he only had the one son: Damien. Damien, the so-called guitarist, touring around with The Shambles, the aptly named group destined to play their outdated punk music in scruffy clubs and pubs. He’d appear on their doorstep every so often, begging a bed for the night, and then take himself into the spare room to strum chords on his guitar and smoke pot.
‘He’ll grow out of it,’ Simon had assured her.
At thirty-six years of age Tess doubted he had a lot of growing up still to do. Well, at least he wasn’t likely to be landing on their doorstep down here very often.
At least her own children had homes and jobs, thank goodness. Tess adored her two grandchildren, of course and, although she didn’t mind occasionally babysitting, it had become a regular occurrence as time went on. Looking back, she realised that was why she’d joined the online dating site – to find a different life.
Dating! At her age! What had she been thinking of? It had been Orla’s idea, of course. Orla was her best friend, business partner and mentor, and it was she who’d come up with the idea of joining MMM, ‘Meetings for the More Mature’. And, just when she’d given up the will to live and love, along came Simon! He was a guest at her daughter’s wedding and she’d fallen in love with his voice first, when he’d read out a poem at the reception. Then she’d rapidly fallen in love with the rest of him. But she’d known from the first that she was going to have to be the sensible, practical one of the partnership, with Simon doing the charming and the soothing of the way.
The following day they put in an offer of £30,000 below the asking price and subject to survey, which Tess had finally persuaded Simon to have done. There was some grunting and sighing from Mike before he finally agreed to put the offer to the vendors in Dubai.
‘You must understand,’ he said, ‘if someone should come along with a similar, or better, offer, and they’ve already sold their place, I’m going to have to take it.’
‘Well,’ Simon said, ‘if it’s been sitting here for a couple of years without a single offer, it would seem highly unlikely that someone else might suddenly show up now.’
‘Stranger things happen,’ said Mike, tapping his nose.
‘I don’t want anyone else to make an offer on that house,’ Tess murmured as they drove away. In spite of her initial misgivings she now felt excited at the prospect of what they were going to do, despite the work that needed to be done.
‘Nobody else will put in an offer,’ Simon said. ‘That’s just estate agent’s patter to get us moving.’
As a result of this conversation Simon suggested they should head back to London the very next day to sell their property. A desirable three-bed townhouse in West London should sell quickly, of that Tess was certain.
When they got back she gazed at the beautiful open-plan living area, at the luxury kitchen, at the desirable bi-fold doors leading to the patio. What are we doing? she wondered, as sh. . .
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