Page 51 of Sisters Making Mischief
Isabel picked up a little china figurine of a hunter with his dog and stroked it regretfully.
‘I suppose so. Now then the watering cans, what shall we do with those?’
We lined them up, and I filled some with greenery, others with dried flower heads. Then I tied some of the scraps of lace ribbon around some of the handles, and tricolour ribbons,left over from some Bastille Day celebration, around others. It looked really colourful and attractive.
There was a small, wooden cupboard painted with flowers that Isabel had found in a skip and repaired. We put that by the entrance and, to hide the worst of the scratches, propped the door open with a cast iron doorstop in the shape of a cat. Then we filled it with artfully draped linen sheets and embroidered hand towels.
‘Marvellous,’ Isabel said, ‘much better than I could have done. Now we deserve a treat for all that hard work. Let’s pop into town and buy something nice for dinner. The supermarket stays open until seven. And on the way I want to stop off somewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘You’ll see. It’s a surprise.’
We locked up the barn, gloating over our new display, Isabel picked up a sturdy brown paper bag of tiny new potatoes she had collected, and then we drove up the drive, turning left when we would normally have turned right.
‘I’m not sure I like your surprises,’ I said after a few minutes, ‘I remember my tenth birthday when you gave me a frog in a shoebox.’
Isabel laughed. ‘But you still remember it after all these years, don’t you? I bet you’ve forgotten all the bath cubes and handkerchiefs you were ever given.’
‘Stephen gave me three tins of undrinkable tea and a new iron for Christmas once,’ I said.
Isabel roared with laughter.
‘Romantic fool,’ she said, ‘didn’t he know you should never give any woman a present with a plug?’
We turned off again after a mile, and headed down a rutted road with grass growing down the middle, until we reached a gateway, and Isabel drove confidently in.
‘You’ve brought me to a building site?’ I asked, looking around at the cement mixer, the random piles of stone and the skip, filled with pieces of broken wood.
‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘Surprise.’
As we got out of the car, Luc came out of the front door, in the familiar blue boiler suit, which was splattered with white paint, and I felt myself blushing.
‘What on earth are you playing at?’ I muttered.
‘Felix had the idea,’ she said.
‘Look, I’m just going to say something stupid, I know I am.’
‘Naughty! We don’t use that word, don’t you remember what Vanessa said?’ Isabel grinned. ‘And anyway sisters and friends don’t let you do stupid things alone. Hello there, Luc, I promised you some of my new crop, so here you go. Potatoes from Potato Farm.’
She handed over the paper bag and stood looking hopeful.
‘Can we come in and see how you are getting on?’
Luc looked at first bewildered and then slightly worried.
‘Of course,’ he said, stepping to one side. ‘But please be careful, some of the paint is still wet.’
Inside there was the crisp, clean tang of new plaster and paint, and underneath, the more subdued smell of old stone. A small hallway led into a large room painted a restful green, where there was a wood burner tucked into the chimney breast already set with paper and logs. It would just take a match to start the fire, and in minutes the thick stone walls would ensure that the room would be warm and welcoming. Two candlesticks on a large wooden beam above it served as a mantelpiece. Therewere shelves built into the alcoves on either side, empty, but ready for his books.
I could easily imagine the room furnished with a comfortable sofa, perhaps a leather armchair next to the fire where he would sit in the evenings, reading a book perhaps, a glass of whisky on a small table next to him.
The floor was still covered in canvas dust sheets and there was a folding workbench in the middle of the room with an impressive toolbox on top of it.
Stephen had possessed something similar, because he said a man should have such a thing, but I don’t remember him ever really using it. Other than to put a couple of nails in the wall to hang pictures. This sort of activity was on another level.
Actually, I had always thought that simple DIY was something I would quite like to do, but Stephen had insisted it was his job, which meant that more often than not it wouldn’t get done. Perhaps when I got home, I would watch some YouTube videos and at last fix the window blind in the bathroom that kept falling down and replace the grouting behind the sink. Why shouldn’t I? It couldn’t be that difficult.
