Page 34 of Her Fixer Upper

‘Oh, Freya, were you worrying about me?’ Charlie’s voice had softened, the huskiness of his low tones stirring a strange sense of tenderness and something else within me. I could sense him moving towards me. For a moment I longed to turn around and hug him, hold him close and feel his arms wrapped around me, reassuring me that he was still in one piece.

Instead, I spun round to face him. ‘Don’t be too flattered. I don’t want to be lumbered with converting this place solo,’ I snapped, my fear from earlier and the shock at the surprising direction my mind had just gone in converting into anger all too easily. I felt like I’d exposed yet another vulnerability to him, and I wasn’t quite sure I was ready for it.

‘Sure,’ said Charlie in his usual happy-go-lucky manner, not rising to the bait.

He set about lighting the camping stove and putting the kettle on, while my guilt increased. He’d done nothing to deserve being on the receiving end of my quick temper, which I knew was driven by my own insecurities rather than anything else.

I steeled myself. ‘Sorry,’ I said quietly, then repeated it more loudly when I thought he hadn’t heard me.

Charlie reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘Don’t worry about it. You’re absolutely right. It was a silly move on my part. Hey, what happened to you?’ He traced the scratches on the back of my hands, gently rolling my sleeves up to reveal more scratches and the angry blotches from the nettle stings.

‘I foolishly decided to have a go at the garden,’ I said, telling half of the truth. Fortunately, he was too distracted by concern about my injuries to question why I’d apparently decided to choose the wettest day of the year to do some gardening.

‘This looks really sore. Do you want me to search for some ointment in the first-aid box?’

‘It’s fine. I’ll live. I’m more worried by your antics on the roof.’

Charlie watched me closely. I could tell he was trying to work out what was really going through my head. I forced my face into a neutral expression. Eventually he shrugged.

‘I won’t do it again. At least, not while I’m here by myself. Will it make you feel any better if I promise I’m not going to abandon you to do the renovation by yourself, whatever else happens?’

I forced myself to let go of his hand.

‘Thanks, Charlie. Team work makes the dream work.’

But I couldn’t help wondering what else he might be alluding to.

ChapterSixteen

The summer term accelerated towards exam season in the terrifying way it always seemed to. At work I was spending every minute of the day coaxing teenagers to revise or trying to cheer them up as the stress got to them. I was still undecided about whether I dared go for the Head of Department job, but I felt the pressure, knowing that everything I did was under scrutiny regardless. And at Oak Tree Cottage, I was feeling the pressure too. As my workload increased, so had Charlie’s, and we were struggling to stick to the renovation schedule which I’d mapped out. As the evenings grew brighter, I was grateful for the extra few hours of sunlight to put in work on the house, but it never seemed enough. However tired I was, I always tried to do something each day, chipping away at the tasks, but every time I looked at the bigger picture, I felt overwhelmed by how much there was to sort out.

A month after we’d moved in, the electrician finally came out, checked the wiring and declared the electricity ‘moderately safe’ to use. In other words, we could boil a kettle or I could use the hair dryer, but it was better not to attempt to do both at the same time, not if we didn’t want to blow a fuse and have to trek down into the cellar through the dodgy hatch underneath the stairs to do battle with the fusebox. Given the expression on her face when she’d stated this small concession, which was only given after some gentle pushing from Charlie, we’d voted not to use the power if we could possibly help it. What was another month without lights? We’d booked her in to do the full rewiring at the start of the summer holiday, judging it would be the least disruptive time as I would be around all day, while Charlie could go and work in the library.

Still, not having proper electricity was at least saving us some money. And we needed to save as much as we could because we were burning through our meagre budget at an alarming rate. We were now playing host to a succession of tradespeople who were booked to do the essential work that it was simply not safe for Charlie and me to attempt, however many YouTube tutorials I studied. The army of skilled craftspeople all seemed to have the terrible habit of sucking air through their teeth and shaking their heads in apparent despair when they examined the problem they’d been asked to solve. It didn’t exactly bolster my confidence in the house. But although they made it very clear that they thought we were completely deluded in the challenge we’d undertaken, they were very happy to take our money, even if some of them didn’t get to work with the haste they’d initially guaranteed.

I took to wearing headphones at school when I wasn’t actually teaching, so that when I was marching around the corridors or running errands for Mr Rhys, I could simultaneously ring up the workers who’d failed to arrive when promised. I soon came to realise that the scaffolder in particular was going to be my arch nemesis. However much both Charlie and I had stressed to him that we were equal partners in the renovation and would be making all decisions jointly, he didn’t pay any attention at all to what I had to say, forcing Charlie into the horrible position of having to he-peat everything I’d said just so the scaffolder would acknowledge it. I gritted my teeth and endured it, purely because the guy had given us the cheapest quote, but I’ll admit I got my revenge in a petty but satisfying way, by pretending not to hear his frequent requests for cups of tea.

The sorting of the scaffolding coincided with the start of the summer holidays. Once it was in place, a builder got to work on the precariously teetering chimney stack, while a team of fitters began replacing the rotten windows, i.e. all of them, with shiny new ones. Indoors, the electrician set about drilling into the walls, replacing wires and rejuvenating a system which looked like it had been originally installed when electricity was first invented. Although I was pleased we were finally making tangible progress, the constant banging, crashing and smashing was utterly draining, and now I had nowhere to escape to. I tried to continue with other tasks such as ripping up carpets and working out the best layout for the new kitchen, but I felt like I wasn’t really making any difference.

Charlie meanwhile was spending more and more time out of the house. I understood and completely accepted that during working hours it made sense for him to go elsewhere so he could concentrate on keeping his business going without the distracting soundtrack of building work in progress. But despite his promise to pull his weight, he was also starting to disappear at other times of the week, not just on Mondays for his dance class, but for a couple of hours every Thursday too, and sometimes on Sundays. When I’d asked if he’d been picking up some extra shifts at the estate agents, he’d been rather cagey and changed the subject, leaving me speculating what he was really up to. I reminded myself that he didn’t have to account to me for what he did in his spare time, but I couldn’t help wondering if the woman in the sports car had something to do with it. I told myself that my sense of grievance was down to the fact that I was growing tired of being by myself in a building site, but if I was being truly honest, there was a niggling voice at the back of my mind that said part of the reason I was so disgruntled was that I was a bit jealous. Jealous that Charlie seemed to have a much better social life than me, just to be clear. When I moaned about it on the phone to Leila, thinking I’d get some sympathy from my friend, I was rather surprised by her response.

‘Have you talked to him about it? Have you told him that you feel he’s being unfair?’

‘No, but I would have thought it was obvious.’

‘Ah, but what is obvious to one person can be a complete mystery to another. And if there’s one thing you’re very good at, Freya Hutchinson, that’s keeping your feelings to yourself when you choose to. We’ve been mates for years, and even I don’t know what’s going through your head half the time. I mean, I can make a good guess at it, but I don’tknowknow. And that’s okay, you’re entitled to your privacy. But equally you can’t expect Charlie to psychically glean what’s on your mind. Yes, you were best friends when you were little and apparently shared everything, but friendship when you’re ten years old is a lot more straightforward than as an adult, even if it doesn’t seem it at the time. If you’re unhappy that he’s going out and leaving you to it in the house, then I suggest you sit down with him and have a chat about it.’ She paused, as if she was trying to find the right words. ‘But I would also say that he has been running his own business from Oak Tree Cottage while you’ve been going out to school, so the poor guy is probably a bit sick of being surrounded by the same old tumbledown walls. It’s not really unreasonable that he’s popping out for a few hours a couple of times a week to get some me time, now the tables have been turned and you’re the one at home all day.’

She had a point, and I made a real effort not to feel frustrated that he was disappearing. But I still couldn’t help wondering where he was going and who with.

After one such Thursday evening vanishing act from Charlie, he returned to Oak Tree Cottage to find me peering in despair at the bank balance on the app on my phone.

‘Penny for ’em,’ he said, in the cheery voice of someone who had spent several hours having a lovely time away from our building site.

‘Yes please, that would help boost the total in my account, and frankly at this stage, every penny counts,’ I said. ‘Once all these bills have been paid and the deposit has gone out on the rewiring work, I have precisely £16.37 left to see me through until next payday, at which point all my wages will disappear out of my account in less than twenty-four hours on yet more vital stuff we need for the renovation. And they’re only the very basics. There’s so much more to do on top of that. I don’t know how we’re going to manage.’ As if to reflect the sinking feeling I was experiencing, my phone bleeped a warning that its battery was getting low.

‘That’s approximately ten pounds more than I have. The trouble with running your own business is that customers aren’t always as proactive about paying their invoices as they are about demanding the work is done. We always knew we were going to have to live off beans on toast for a while,’ said Charlie. ‘We’ll find a way. We might have to go for the budget paint rather than the super swanky stuff.’

‘If only it was down to simple stuff like economising on paint. But we’ve got bigger issues than that. Think how much it costs to fill up your car with fuel so you can get to the library to work. And the bus driver isn’t going to transport me for free to the supermarket to do the weekly shop. How are we even going to get anywhere to charge our phones until the electrician finishes? You know the sockets in this place aren’t to be trusted yet. And don’t suggest that solar panel charger thing of yours again.’

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