LITMIR.BIZ

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‘And if it’s awful, we can go home early.’

      ‘It won’t be awful. It will be fine.’ And hopefully the heat would be good for Angela’s arthritis. They’d have to make sure she had the most comfortable bed.

      ‘It had better have a shower,’ said Jade. ‘I can’t be doing with it being this hot and no shower.’

      ‘I’m sure it will,’ said Angela. ‘Marguerite has owned this place for a while. I remember her saying something about new tiling in the bathroom being done last year.’

      The directions on the phone were becoming more frequent and they all shut up so they could hear them. The road climbed and twisted and turned more frequently.

      ‘Destination on your left in two hundred feet,’ announced the map lady.

      Carrie slowed right down, thankful there was nothing behind them. The road was completely black with absolutely no sign of habitation nearby. To the left, falling away down the hill, were lights in the distance but nothing nearby.

      A horrible sense of foreboding clamped around her. Surely Marguerite’s place had basic facilities like electricity. Or maybe it was all switched off and they would need to turn on the fuse box.

      She drove slowly, still unable to see any sign of a house. ‘Destination on your left.’ The voice on the app held a note of desperation. ‘Turn left. Turn left.’

      Carrie couldn’t see anything and it was only after the car crept past, she spotted a square of light embedded into a brick wall.

      ‘At the nearest point perform a u-turn.’

      Jade tutted. ‘We’ve gone past it. You’ve missed it.’

      ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly obvious.’ Carrie kept driving, looking out for some handy place to stop, but the road was narrow with too many bends. After about a mile she spotted a driveway, pulled in and did a quick three-point turn, to return back up the road.

      This time she pulled in and realised that the blur of light was a keypad on the edge of two large gates.

      ‘Ah,’ said Angela, in sudden realisation. ‘Marguerite said there was a pass code. I thought she meant for the house. Thirty Oh Six.’

      ‘Are you sure this is right?’ Carrie eyed the wooden gates, no wonder they’d passed them earlier, they were so dark they melded into the night, their solid size and dimensions designed to repel the hordes and keep out unwanted visitors. She had visions of angry Dobermans chasing them off someone’s property.

      ‘I think so.’

      ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Put the code in, if it works we know we’re in the right place. If not, we’re stuffed.’

      For once Jade’s prosaic approach agreed with Carrie’s.

      Leaning out of the window she tapped in the code with nervous apprehension. The drive had taken it out of her and now she wanted to be there.

      To her slight amazement and utter relief, like magic, lights came on and the heavy wooden gates opened with slow, ponderous eventuality until the gap between them was wide enough to take the car.

      Carrie inched forward, not quite knowing what to expect beyond, taking a leap of faith rather like stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia, except she had no idea what was on the other side. Luckily the smooth tarmac continued and the road curved downward in a wide sweep before coiling back upwards. Solar lights lit the road like sentries posted at regular intervals along the way.

      ‘Whoa,’ Jade leaned forward, her nose almost on the dashboard.

      ‘That’s Marguerite’s little place?’

      ‘Erm … I think so. She was quite vague. Talked about the view a lot.’

      ‘You mean you heard the word ‘free’,’ said Jade laughing. ‘Mum, that is so typical.’

      ‘Now let’s not get carried away. That might be the main house and we’re in an annexe or something. I know she said it was all on one floor.’

      ‘All on one floor is somewhat different from a bungalow, Mum!’

      Carrie stopped the car and all three of them stared at the house ahead of them, sprawled across the top of the hill in a halo of light, looking rather like something out of a Bond film.

      Angela sighed with happiness, or perhaps relief, that they weren’t staying in a dilapidated cottage falling down around their ears. Even Jade, never short of words, stared, drinking in the sight in wide-eyed silence.

      Carrie drove carefully up the hill in second gear, not wanting to miss a moment of the delicious sense of anticipation. The little car wound through the landscaped grounds, lit here and there with uplighters, showing off ornamental grasses interspersed with gravel paths and evenly planted bay trees in huge pots, like sentries watching over the land.

      It seemed rather untidy to park the poor relation of a car in front of this glamorous house. There was probably a garage for the sexy convertibles or huge four-wheeled things that ought to be here. As Carrie got out of the car, stretching her legs with catlike satisfaction, the scent of herbs filled the warm night. Sod the car, they were here and had possibly fallen into the lap of luxury. Whether they were in the gardener’s cottage or the maid’s flat, judging by the size and stature of this house, they were going to be alright.

      Two enormous terracotta pots flanked the front double doors, twin concierges welcoming them, which might have been slightly intimidating if it weren’t for the whimsical touch of tiny fairy lights threaded through the miniature olive trees in each one. Carrie smiled, it softened the rather grand and very contemporary landscaping along the rest of the front of the house, where artfully grouped smaller pots held a variety of precision-trimmed shrubs, scenting the air with a cocktail of fragrances including rosemary, thyme and bay.

      Her face broke into a broad smile as she nudged her sister.

      ‘I think this might do nicely. What do you reckon?’

      ‘I had no idea it was going to be like this.’ Angela twisted her hands together, as if she couldn’t quite believe it either.

      They stood together examining the house. ‘I love the roof. Terracotta tiles. So Mediterranean. So romantic. I have a good feeling about this.’

      ‘It looks wonderful.’ Carrie squeezed her sister’s arm.

      ‘For Pete’s sake are we going inside or not? Listen to you. It’s a house. It’s flipping gorgeous.’

      Angela rummaged in her bag, pulling out the precious envelope, crumpled from the dozens of times she checked it was still there during the journey. Opening it, she pulled out the keys.

      She held the key gripped between twisted thumb and finger, eyeing the lock with the intense concentration of a surgeon about to make the first incision. Jade and Carrie hung back with practised patience, determinedly not looking at each other. It was a familiar routine, where neither acknowledged the slow, painful attempts that any fine motor skills demanded or made any attempt to speed up the process. Although Angela’s rheumatoid arthritis limited her in many ways, she never complained and had never once said, ‘why me and not you’ to Carrie.

      The door opened, light streaming out and Angela stood poised on the threshold, a triumphant smile on her face.

      ‘Looks like we’re in the right place.’

      They crowded in through the door, their feet echoing on the polished marble floor, blinking in the light thrown by a huge dandelion clock of a lighting fitting, with what looked like hundreds of brilliant bulbs. For a second they stared around the high-ceilinged hallway, larger than the whole of their semi-detached home.

      On a console table of painted wood, in a cracked glass vase, spilled a blousy, extravagant bouquet of flowers, a white card tucked into the foliage.

      Angela plucked the card and read out aloud.

      

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