In which Helen views the house and feels the pain
The two acres of garden are quite different from what Helen had imagined over the last few weeks. The concept had intimated to her a sprawl of tended lawns and shrub beds with perhaps a rockery or kitchen garden nearer the house and some deep borders of annuals and perennials from which to gather flowers for vases.
The reality, viewed with leisure since the house is now empty and awaiting the exchange of contracts, is beyond her wildest dreams. Had reality been as she imagined it, she would have been satisfied. But nothing can prevent shock waves of astonishment and then pure excitement rolling through Helen again and again as she stands amazed at the sight which greets them from the gates.
‘Malcolm!’ she breathes. ‘Just look at that!’
And they do; for moments on end they simply stare at the expanse of traditional English woodland that opens before them behind the towering beech hedges surrounding the property. The house itself, narrow but tall, stands, detached and gabled, amid sprawling beech and pine, the tangles of bramble and fern encroaching nearly to the verandah, which protects three sides. Sunlit threads mingle in the undergrowth and light up the roofs and attic windows with a welcome that catches Helen’s breath.
‘We can… afford that?’ she asks.
‘It’s not that expensive,’ he admits. ‘No one wants the bother of travelling in from here. And it’s away from the out-of-town shopping too. But yes, it is worth having and I can afford it… You do like it?’ Malcolm sounds uncertain for the first time that Helen can recall.
‘The garden’s out of this world. Let’s look at the house,’ she suggests, moving at long last to break the trance-like immobility that has gripped them.
Walking up the gravel path to the front door is like wandering up to a fairy castle in a children’s make-believe world. ‘Where do the cars go?’ she asks.
‘Round the back. There’s a double garage. Thought you’d like to make a proper entrance from the front.’
‘You knew, didn’t you?’ she accuses. ‘You saw it when you came down last week.’
‘I saw it on the day of the interview, actually. And it still looks stunning today. But it is just a house after all. You don’t live in the garden.’
‘I shall,’ Helen vows.
And Carla? the voice in her head whispers. I thought you weren’t going to move when the time came?
‘Careful!’
Malcolm’s shout startles her and she jumps back just in time from a bramble sticking across her path. He is already unlocking the barred and studded door. Rather like the doors at Holy Wind, on a smaller scale – but that is an original and this is definitely reproduction, though rather fitting in such a woodland setting.
Inspecting the lower floor first, Helen keeps hearing the accusing voice and cannot any longer take such joy in the house. The three rooms look smaller than she had imagined, and then the upper floors seem ordinary. Even the attic does not hold the attraction she envisaged from outside: it is just another room when viewed from inside, apart from the dormers, which she admits are satisfying. There is nothing wrong, she tells herself firmly; just that the sun has gone behind a cloud momentarily.
And that you have a choice to make, the voice insists.
A choice between Carla and this house.
Between Carla and Malcolm.
Between being herself and free, and being what someone else wants her to be and therefore reduced again to a lifeless facsimile.
And which choice represents which? she asks herself endlessly as they descend to the ground floor together, Malcolm chatting away – rather unusually for him – and she forcing herself to answer.
They go out to view the back garden – if such is an appropriate epithet for the extent of woodland that confronts them – and agree that the privacy it affords is a bonus. There is enough proper garden behind the house, cleared of weeds but standing barren, for them to create a pleasant area to sit in.
‘Red brick,’ Malcolm moots, his do-it-yourself eyes growing distant as the vision grips him. ‘Red brick and a matching loggia.’
‘With wisteria rambling over it,’ Helen adds, ‘and a ledge for the drinks and glasses.’
Beyond this area, they can actually take walks in ‘their’ forest and perhaps even barbecue and eat in the tiny glades they stumble across. Wild and safe, something neither has dreamed of, they know from the look they share. Two acres of woodland to call their own.
‘Happy?’
Malcolm is waiting, expectant. Helen swallows hard and says, ‘Sort of.’ At his quizzical, partly disappointed expression, she hurries on, ‘But I do wish Carla were here to see it. She’d love it.’
‘Hardly sensible to make the girl jealous,’ he says brutally. He is right. How could she even invite her down? It’s the same choice again, insinuating itself painfully on her consciousness. Either she stays up north with Carla or she moves on in life with Malcolm. There is no middle course of action.
