Page 57 of Her Fixer Upper

I knew this was the moment where I should tell him that I’d decided to go for the job, but it felt safer not to prolong the conversation. I needed to protect myself from further pain.

‘Right,’ said Charlie.

‘Good. I’m glad that’s all sorted. I’m going to change, and then I might get started on the dining room.’

‘You might want to wait until the plaster has dried,’ he called after me.

‘What’s that?’

‘You didn’t ask what work I’d been doing while you were at school. It was plastering. I’ve done the dining room. And with your permission, I’ll take a look at your bedroom tomorrow.’

‘No need,’ I said. If this was his way of trying to make up for not returning my feelings, then he shouldn’t bother. The last thing I wanted was to lie in bed at night and have the image of Charlie plastering the walls filling my head.

Charlie looked rather hurt. ‘You haven’t even looked at the dining room yet. I wouldn’t reject my work out of hand.’

‘I’m sure you’ve done a fine job, Charlie, but you plastering my bedroom is hardly following our new “Divide and conquer” tactic, is it? I’m sure I’ll manage fine by myself. We’ve got to be pragmatic about this.’

And then I ran up the stairs and shut the door of my room behind me, so he couldn’t see how much the speech had cost me.

ChapterTwenty-Six

Over the next few weeks, I spent every waking hour either working at school or flogging myself with renovation tasks, driving myself to the point of exhaustion. I was on edge all the time with the strain of trying to pretend that everything was okay, when it really wasn’t. It was like just before Granddad’s fall, when Charlie and I had been walking on eggshells around each other, only this time it was so much worse. Because every time I saw him, I pictured him holding up the framed copy of The Rules, and I felt mortified all over again, stumbling over my words, failing to respond to his attempts at banter with anything but awkwardness, and basically making a complete fool of myself. And so I made a point of arranging that I very rarely saw him.

But one day, he caught me when I was about to sneak off to work early, having signed up to supervise the breakfast club. I’d pretended to Leila that my sudden enthusiasm for helping with extra-curricular activities at school was down to my eagerness to get the promotion, but we both knew it was a convenient excuse for me to hide from my house partner, who I feared was also becoming wise to my scheme.

‘Are you avoiding me again, Freya?’ said Charlie, sitting on the worksurface in the kitchen, where he’d obviously been lying in wait for me.

‘Don’t sit on the worksurface. It could scratch it and it’s not very hygienic,’ I said to deflect his question, then hated myself for saying it.

He folded his arms casually. ‘Nothing’s going to destroy this granite, as you well know.’

‘I still don’t think you should do anything to damage the house value.’

A look of exasperation crossed Charlie’s face. ‘A home has to be lived in. It’s only natural to expect it to have a few scratches and scrapes. They’re signs of character. Anyway, you still haven’t answered the question, Hutch.’

‘It’s Freya,’ I snapped, suddenly unable to bear the nickname that reinforced my position as his mate and nothing more. He raised an eyebrow in response, but I pretended not to recognise the surprise in his expression. ‘And why would you think I was avoiding you? Funnily enough, my life doesn’t revolve around you and what you’re doing. It doesn’t even cross my mind half the time what you’re up to. I’m very busy with school, and when I’m not there, I’m very busy making sure this cottage achieves its potential so that we can both get a return on the significant investment we made. We’re restoring a house, not making a home here, as you’ve made very clear. I’m not quite sure what more you want from me.’ I thought he was going to say something, but I ploughed on. ‘Allow me to try to regain a bit of dignity in this situation. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bus to catch. Some of us can’t hang around chatting all morning.’

And with that, I stomped out, slamming the door with enough of a bang that I could hear Ted whimper in surprise inside. I was angry with myself for acting this way, so crotchety and over-sensitive, but it was an act of self-preservation. I’d thought that if Charlie couldn’t be my partner, he could still at least remain my friend, but even that seemed to be sliding away from me. We couldn’t pretend that everything was normal, that we could go back to how things were. I was beginning to accept that it was going to be far too painful to continue in this way, seeing the gradual destruction of everything that I’d held dear while all the time not being able to stop myself adding fuel to the fire.

I spent the day at school stewing over the early morning conversation. The situation couldn’t carry on this way. It was making me miserable, and Charlie couldn’t be much happier, stuck with a bad-tempered, resentful house partner who was struggling to get past her disappointment. Perhaps it would be better to cut our losses and move on, allowing us to escape from this increasingly difficult arrangement. The house was in a much better condition than it had been, and while it was still a long way off the finished article we’d spent so long talking about, it would surely have gained enough value to put both Charlie and me in a stronger financial position. And now we had at least six months of mortgage payments under our belts, we’d be seen as better prospects as individuals, much more likely to be able to succeed if we decided to go it alone. Maybe we’d be better off selling up now. If I could be certain that we’d added enough value to the house to benefit both of us, then that could be the ideal solution. It would set Charlie free, so he could have his own life and not feel obliged to the old schoolfriend who’d got in way over her head. And it would mean that I could move on too, put the intensity of the last few months behind me and start building my own future, whatever that might hold.

Before I could change my mind, I disappeared to the bike sheds to make a phone call in private. Trying to keep my voice steady, I rang up the estate agent who’d originally sold Oak Tree Cottage to Charlie and me, and arranged an appointment for him to revalue the house. He was surprised to hear from me so soon, but when I described the work we’d done so far, his voice grew more interested and he booked the meeting for the weekend, the earliest opportunity he could make. I’d hoped that when I ended the call I’d feel better, having taken a positive step forwards. But I just felt hollow inside.

As the week went by, I wrestled with whether or not to tell Charlie what I’d done. On the one hand, he had every right to know. It was his house too, after all. But on the other hand, wouldn’t it be better to wait until the valuation had happened, then I could present him with the facts, rather than a theoretical situation?

After my outburst, Charlie was making an extra effort to be polite on the now rare occasions we encountered each other in the house, while I could only survive by pretending to myself that he was a distant acquaintance and treating him accordingly, which was making me feel worse. Even when we’d bumped into each other at the pub for the first time in years, things hadn’t been this stilted and uncomfortable. I was basically living in my bedroom, working hard at its transformation, only sneaking out to get meals or to do a bit of painting in the living room when I was sure the coast was clear. It felt important to keep working on the house, but the joy had gone out of it, and I feared it was being reflected in the standard of my work.

The rooms Charlie had taken charge of meanwhile were looking far better than the ones I was doing in my ‘Divide and conquer’ plan. When I snuck a look at the dining room, I was astonished by the smoothness of the plastering, almost wondering if he’d secretly paid someone to come and do it for him. My own efforts in my bedroom were dire in comparison. Despite having studied the technique closely, my first attempt ended with the plaster literally falling off the wall, and I feared my second try was going to go the same way. I was too stubborn to ask for Charlie’s help, and it irritated me that I was letting the side down. If the house valuation was lower than hoped for, I only had myself to blame.

The day of the valuation arrived, and despite it being a Saturday, when Charlie would normally be heading off to his side hustle at the estate agent in Harrogate, he showed no sign of going.

I’d had a rare lie-in after spending most of the night awake worrying about whether I was doing the right thing, and wandered into the kitchen to fix myself a late breakfast, still feeling groggy and confused.

‘Morning, Freya,’ said Charlie, making me jump. ‘I’m making veggie sausage sandwiches. I thought we could spend the day together.’

Ted beat his tail on the floor in approval of the plan.

While nothing would make me happier, I knew it would also be a form of exquisite torture. Why was he pushing this? I needed to harden my resolve.

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