Page 18 of Her Fixer Upper

ChapterNine

There was a certain irony in fixing our moving-in date for Friday the first of April. As we collected the bunch of keys from the estate agent, I wondered for about the fifty millionth time whether I was a complete fool to be doing this.

‘Congratulations,’ said the estate agent, dropping the keys into my grasp, before handing a bottle of bubbly over to Charlie and shaking his hand enthusiastically. The wide smile on the estate agent’s face spoke of a man who was happy to be collecting commission on a place he’d probably never thought he’d be able to sell.

The keys felt heavy in my hands, the tarnished metal cold to my touch. These were keys that had been handled by several generations, worn smooth by the comings and goings of different families over the years. They even smelled old. I closed my fingers around them, savouring the moment. These were my keys, heavy and old-fashioned as they were, they were literal keys to my future. Or rather they wereourkeys, Charlie’s and mine, keys to our separate futures. And between now and that hoped-for future, there was an awful lot of hard work to be done. I reckoned similar thoughts must be going through Charlie’s head because his face had the slightly dazed expression that I was pretty sure mine had.

I worked a set of the keys off the loop and handed it over to him.

‘Here you go. Yours and mine. We’re really doing this.’

‘We really are.’ He grinned. Then suddenly he reached forward and picked me up, throwing me over his shoulder before spinning us round in a circle whilst whooping wildly.

‘Put me down,’ I said, half squealing and half laughing as I tapped his arm to reinforce my plea. ‘I’m practically as tall as you are. Carting me around like this will do your back in, and we can’t afford fifty per cent of the restoration team being injured before we even start work.’

Charlie did one final spin before he gently let me back down. I ruffled his hair in revenge on my way back to the ground.

‘I can’t believe that this is really happening. Hutch and Humph, the Terrible Twosome, actual joint home owners. How amazing does that sound?’

‘Pretty damn good,’ I agreed. ‘After all the stress of getting to this point, I can’t quite believe we’re finally doing it. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll really accept it until we put the key in the lock and let ourselves in. How do you feel about heading off to our house and getting settled in? I think the estate agent’s neighbours are going to call the police to move us on if we continue making an exhibition of ourselves.’

‘Lead on, partner,’ said Charlie, clapping me in the middle of the back so enthusiastically that I staggered forward.

We made our way back to Charlie’s long-suffering Land Rover, which thankfully was still parked up where we’d left it. I say thankfully because it was packed to the roof with our worldly belongings, the essentials that would keep us going during these first few crucial weeks in the house. Despite my misgivings about living in a building site, we were moving in with a large collection of second-hand tools, our clothes, a camping stove, kettle and pots, plus a couple of inflatable mattresses and sleeping bags to tide us over until the place became habitable enough for actual furniture. My parents had already promised to donate a sofa they no longer needed, as a very generous house-warming present, while Charlie said he’d got a few odds and ends of furniture stored in a barn at his parents’ farm which we could take our pick from.

I’d made this journey in my imagination so many times over the last few months, but I couldn’t quite believe we were actually doing it. As we rounded the corner into the village and bumped our way down the street, the watery late afternoon sun finally emerged from the clouds, sending soft rays down onto the wreck of a building which was ours, all ours. Well, ours and the bank’s.

‘Doesn’t it look beautiful?’ said Charlie. The pride of new ownership made both of us look past the flaws to see only the wonder of the warm stonework and the soft green of the mossy slate roof. He stopped the engine and we got out, silent as we experienced this special moment. Somewhere in the distance a blackbird was singing to its mate, but aside from that and the gentle creaking of the branches of the oak tree, everything was quiet. It felt like a delicious balm to the soul after all my years of renting in the city. I was finally at a place I could call my own. I reached out and pressed my palm against the stonework, disturbing a couple of spiders who scurried out of the gaps in the render.

‘Shall we?’ said Charlie, gesturing to the front door. ‘I know being country folk we should traditionally use the back door, but it feels like for this first entrance we should go through the front, and cross the threshold in a proper way.’

We picked our way up the tumbledown steps and pulled out our keys. For a couple of moments we dithered over who should have the honour of ceremonially unlocking the door, each of us too polite to say that we were desperate to be the one to do it.

‘Let’s Rock, Paper, Scissors for it,’ I suggested after an awkward few rounds of ‘No, after you, I insist.’

‘Bring it,’ said Charlie.

‘Three, two, one, go,’ I said, racking my brains to see if I could remember from childhood which way Charlie normally went. I spread my hand out flat to signify paper, while he bunched his fingers into a fist and moved his thumb up and down.

‘I win, paper beats rock,’ I said triumphantly, wrapping my hand over his.

He continued moving his thumb, tickling the centre of my palm until I removed it.

‘Wrong, that wasn’t a rock, it was a flame-thrower, which definitely beats paper.’ He made a swooshing sound and then mimed my paper going up in smoke.

‘You’re so infuriating, Charlie Humphries. Since when was a flame-thrower part of the weaponry in Rock, Paper, Scissors?’

‘Sticking to three items is boring,’ said Charlie. ‘I distinctly remember you inventing a hand grenade gesture when we were in Year Five. I sulked for days.’

‘And this is your long-held resentment coming to the fore? Fine, if you’re that desperate, you open the door,’ I said, elaborately gesturing for him to go ahead, fighting to keep the stern expression on my face.

Charlie grinned at me, then stepped forward and ran his hand over the ancient wood of the front door, as if asking its permission for entry. Then he turned back to face me.

‘Hand me your keys. I’ll turn the lock but do it with your key. That way we’re both involved,’ he said, suddenly serious.

I passed it across and then Charlie brushed the cobwebs away from the metalwork. He examined the set of keys and chose the biggest one, pushing it into the lock.

‘Here we go,’ he said. He started trying to turn the key. ‘It’s a bit stiff. We might need that WD40 your granddad gave us.’ He scrunched his face up as he twisted harder.

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