The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club(58)

‘This is a beautiful house, so much potential. I’m sure there will be lots of interest.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, potential is a very dangerous word these days. There’s a lot to be done with it, really, if you wanted to bring it up to its former glory. I suspect if I put it on the market it’s likely to be flattened, perhaps turned into a second supermarket with a car park across the back garden.’ Elizabeth tried not to think of that too much. The notion of the families of birds she’d watched for years being turned out to find a new home was enough to instil the kind of doubt she couldn’t afford now. ‘Anyway, I haven’t even put it up for sale yet…’ She smiled.

‘Well, you know, if you did think you wanted to sell, I’m sure there would be lots of interest…’ Dan inclined his head slightly. ‘It would be perfect for a big family with roots here. If it was a few years down the line, I might even have a stab at it myself.’ He laughed softly at that.

‘Really? You’d consider moving here permanently?’ Elizabeth looked around her kitchen. She couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to settle here at such a young age and alone. ‘Surely, you must be getting bored by now. A single man – London must be calling out to you.’

‘No, I’ve had my fill of bright lights for now. I’ll stay here until I have my book finished and then who knows.’

‘You’re lucky to have secured the cottage. You couldn’t help but be inspired there.’

‘Yes, but it’s just rented and…’ he looked out at the garden again ‘…there’s no real future there, much and all as I love it. I mean, the views are spectacular,’ he said softly.

‘They are pretty nice here too. From my bedroom window, I’m looking right across at the lighthouse. At night, if I leave my curtains open, you can catch the faint shadows of it against the bedroom walls.’

‘That must be lovely,’ he said and if he wanted to take a look, he was much too well-mannered to suggest it.

‘It’s soothing really, I mean, in the storms you can hear the crashing of the sea and all year round you have the bells from the church. It’s perfect really.’ She laughed a little. It was a tinkling sound to her ears, the kind of laugh that she remembered as hers from many years earlier. Then she cleared her throat slightly. ‘Of course, if you were really serious about taking it on, there are a few things that are not quite so perfect.’

‘Oh?’

‘Well, yes, there’s the roof for starters – I imagine it’s going to need a whole new roof. The rafters are on the point of collapsing and I’ve lost slates over the years, so there’s probably a bit of damp up there too.’

‘That’s to be expected. I mean, the house must be up on two hundred years old.’

‘It’s that, easily, and of course, that means you can’t actually do anything you like with it. It’s a protected building, so everything has to be run by the planners.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘It’s one of the reasons my husband was reluctant to do much with it when he was alive.’

‘I can understand that. Back home, you can be tied up for months in red tape and still not get anywhere.’

‘Yes. It’s all very well, but now they want everything to be fuel-efficient and A-rated this and ecologically sustainable that. To be honest, there isn’t a scat of insulation in the whole house.’ She shook her head sadly.

‘Do me a favour?’ He leant forward slightly.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Don’t become an auctioneer?’ He smiled and seeing the funny side of it, they both laughed. ‘You’re talking yourself out of selling it for all the wrong reasons.’

‘It’s a big house for one,’ she said softly. But as she said it, she had a feeling it would suit Dan if he were to stay in Ballycove. There was that same solidity to him as there was to the house. It was substantial; the kind of property a successful writer should be living in, rather than a poky little lean-to on the side of a hill. Actually, when she thought about it now, it would suit him perfectly, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was single and it was a bit of a ramble of a house if you were here alone. ‘And—’ she pointed towards the end of the garden ‘—there’s all of that. Those stables and the coach house at the end, I mean. They are as big as some of the cottages on the other side of town, you know.’

‘Why on earth didn’t you move the doctor’s surgery down there?’ He asked the same question that she’d asked herself a million times over.

‘I’m afraid my husband wasn’t one for change. Once he settled in, that was that.’

‘Pity, because they could be just perfect, all that exposed brick? And you’d have untold privacy if you did things right. Doesn’t that end face out on Garden Square?’

‘Yes, I suppose it all makes sense, but it’s a bit late now, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, Elizabeth, it’s never too late to change.’ He leant back on his chair and surveyed the long garden stretching away from the house. Of course, she thought, it was all pie in the sky; he wouldn’t really want to settle here, would he?

‘It would also make a lovely writer’s shed,’ she said laughing.

‘That’s more like it.’ He smiled.