Gritting his teeth, he placed his bag in the boot before moving around to the front of the car and eyeing the grubby interior of the estate, which appeared to be mainly held together with mud and rust. He folded his frame into the seat, which had been hiked forward almost as far as it could. With his knees up around his ears, Daniel fumbled under the front of the seat until he found the adjuster and carefully edged the seat back until he felt less like a sardine.
‘Belt up, there’s a good boy,’ Madeline trilled as she patted his knee and threw the old car into first. They lurched away from the kerb. Deciding that a death grip was the only way to survive, Daniel quickly snapped his seat belt closed, scrabbled for the aptly named oh shit! handle above the window and tried to decide whether the journey would be worse with his eyes open or closed.
Madeline barrelled the car blithely around the narrow country lanes, barely glancing at the road as far as Daniel could tell as she sang along to the latest pop tunes pouring from the car radio. He tried not to whimper at the thought of where he was going to end up. What the hell was this place going to be like if it was run by a friend of Madeline’s? If there was a woman in a rocking chair at the window, he’d be in deep shit.
The car abruptly swung off to the left and continued along what appeared to be a footpath rather than any kind of road. A huge building loomed to the left and Daniel caught his breath. Rather than the Bates Motel, it was more of a Grand Lady in her declining years. In its heyday, it must have been a magnificent structure. The peeling paint, filthy windows and rotting porch did their best to hide the beauty, together with the overgrown gardens.
His palms itched and for the first time in for ever, Daniel felt excited. He wanted his camera. Head twisting and turning, he tried to take everything in. A group of outbuildings and a large barn lay to the right of where Madeline pulled to a stop on the gravel driveway.
Giving a jaunty toot on the car’s horn, she wound down her window to wave and call across the yard to what appeared to be a midget yeti in the most moth-eaten dressing gown Daniel had ever seen. Not good, not good, oh so not good…
It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Mia lay on her back staring up at the large water stain on her bedroom ceiling. She squinted a little to try and work out if it looked bigger than the day before. There were many cautionary tales about money pits and impulse buys and buying sight unseen and Mia had disregarded every single one of them.
She’d thrown a large portion of her widow’s settlement into what she thought would be the perfect new start at Butterfly House. Her lip twisted at the romantic name attached to the monstrosity she now owned. Whoever had owned the place had a wild imagination to attach such a pretty name to the ugly old pile.
She couldn’t regret the purchase though, even if the reality had failed to live up to the romance of the name. Two years of inertia, surrounded by everything they had made together, their friends, their special places, had finally come to a head when she realised that she couldn’t remember a day when she hadn’t cried. She felt terrible, looked worse, and in her heart knew that Jamie would’ve hated it if he’d had any idea.
Not going there, not today… Mia gave herself a mental shake and contemplated leaving the cosy nest she had made in the middle of the double bed that dominated the small but airy room she had set aside for herself. Well she hoped it would be airy in the summer, but just now on a dank, cold February morning it was not that appealing.
Taking a deep breath, she slid her leg from beneath her flannel sheets and quickly drew it back as her toes touched the freezing cold floor. Where the hell were her slippers? Mia rolled to the side and peered over the edge of the mattress in the vain hope the slipper fairy had come through for once and left them helpfully by the bed. Nope, just cold boards still needing to be filled, sanded and waxed.
‘Bollocks,’ Mia huffed, wincing as her breath misted in the cold air.
With a mental count to three, she threw back the covers and dashed from the bed, swearing and hopping from foot to foot as she made her way across the cold floor and into the bathroom and the relative warmth of the bathmat. She grabbed her dressing gown from the hook behind the door and burrowed into it, turning her face instinctively into the collar to seek out an elusive hint of Jamie’s scent.
The man-sized garment swamped her; the sleeves were rolled back at the cuffs several times and still her hands only just peeked out. It dragged a little on the floor unless Mia hiked it up slightly with the belt from her old dressing gown. The fluffy pink belt clashed with the dark green tartan pattern but it did the job and there was no-one around to care about her bedroom attire.
She scrubbed her face until it glowed before cleaning her teeth vigorously in the hopes of generating a little extra body warmth. She spat and rinsed and then made the mistake of looking in the mirrored doors of the little cabinet above the sink. The problem with short hair, she mused, was that it just never looked good in the morning.
Wetting her hands, she made a vague effort to try and flatten the dark crop into some semblance of order but quickly lost interest. She had another dirty day ahead cleaning out the grate of the fireplace in what would one day become the dining room, so there was no point in more than basic ablutions as she would be filthy in no time.
With no more reason to linger on the little island of material any longer, Mia hurried from the bathroom and down the sweeping staircase that dominated the hallway of the house. She hopped and skipped her way down, well-versed in which of the boards were half rotten and ready to try and capture her foot in their splintery jaws.
Reaching the bottom, she dove on her cosy boots, shoved her freezing feet into their fleecy warmth, and sighed in relief. She scuffed her way into the kitchen, moving by rote as she made a cup of builder’s strength tea and gathered the bucket, brush and other cleaning implements she would need to tackle the fireplace. The worst of the old soot and rubbish had been removed from the grate the day before, but the whole thing was still stained from years of neglect.
Carrying her tea into the dining room, she paused to catch her breath as the view from the French windows caught her, as it did every time. This, this is what made her carry on when she wanted to throw in the towel and give up on the whole idea of running her own guest house. The view spread out before her: across the sad-looking collection of cracked paving in front of the window, through the weed-filled garden and beyond. Windswept dunes rolled down towards the sea. Churned to a murky green by the winter winds, it swelled and undulated like a living beast.
Dark clouds glowered above and the horizon was blurred by mist and rain out to sea. It looked dangerous and utterly captivating. Mia had seen pictures of it taken in the summer looking like a benign, soft blanket of blue edged with white lacy waves. She was determined that in a few months she would be sitting out on the patio in the sunshine with a cold glass of wine in her hand as she watched pleasure boats sailing across that blanket.
Finishing her tea, she ran through a mental list of things she had already achieved as she slowly put the house to rights. The daily exercise had become a motivational lifeline and thinking of the positives helped to offset the mountain of tasks outstanding. ‘One thing at a time, one step forward.’ Muttering the mantra, she turned back to the kitchen to fetch the first of many buckets of hot soapy water.
A couple of hours later, Mia sat back on her ankles and wiped her face on the increasingly dirty sleeve of her dressing gown; it would have to go in the washing machine that night, taking her another wash away from Jamie’s scent. It was a foolish thought; it had long ago stopped smelling of anything other than her fabric softener and, she gave a rueful sniff, her sweat.
The fireplace looked amazing; the enamel panels set into the red brick surround had come to life under her determined ministrations and were now a gentle shade of cream with a riot of colourful butterflies dancing over the deep green vines running up the centre