House of Echoes. Barbara Erskine

raised his head at last and looked down. Joss was crying.

      ‘Sweetheart, what is it?’ Contrite he wiped the tears with a gentle hand. ‘Did I hurt you?’

      She shook her head. ‘Take no notice. I’m all right. I don’t know why I’m crying.’ Sniffing she wriggled away from him and slid off the bed.

      Pulling down her skirt she went to retrieve her tights from the dusty boards. It was as she was putting them on that the sound of a bell pealed through the house.

      Luke stood up. Pulling his sweater on over his head he padded across to the front window and looked out. ‘There’s someone at the front door!’ He smothered a laugh. ‘How embarrassing! Our first visitor and we’re caught in delicto!’

      ‘Not caught!’ She pushed her feet into her shoes and smoothed her hair. ‘Go on, then. Let them in.’

      They couldn’t. Of the front door key there was no sign. By dint of shouting through the two-inch keyhole, Luke directed their visitor to the back door and it was in the shadowy kitchen that they received their first guest, a tall distinguished-looking woman, dressed in a heavy woollen coat, swathed in a tartan scarf.

      ‘Janet Goodyear. Next-door neighbour.’ She extended a hand to them both in turn. ‘Sally Fairchild told me you were here. My dears, I can’t tell you how excited the village will be when they hear you’ve arrived. Are you seriously going to live here? It’s such a God-forsaken pile.’ Pulling off her gloves and throwing them on the table she walked over to the range and pulled open the door of one of the ovens. She wrinkled her nose cheerfully. ‘This kitchen is going to need at least twenty thou spent on it! I know a brilliant designer if you need one. He would make a really good job of all this.’

      Luke and Joss exchanged glances. ‘Actually, I want to leave the kitchen as it is,’ Joss said. Luke frowned. Her voice was ominously quiet. ‘The range will refurbish beautifully.’

      Their visitor looked surprised. ‘I suppose so. But you’d do much better, you know, to swop it for a decent Aga. And God help you when it comes to the roof. Laura and Philip were always having trouble with the roof.’ She turned back from her poking around, her smile all warmth. ‘Oh, my dears, I can’t tell you how lovely it will be to have neighbours here. I can’t wait for you to move in. Now, what I’ve actually come for is to ask if you’d like to pop over for lunch. We live just across the garden there; in the farmhouse.’ She waved a vaguely expansive hand. ‘My husband owns most of the land round here.’

      Joss opened her mouth to reply, but Luke was ahead of her. ‘It’s kind of you, Mrs Goodyear, but we’ve brought our own food. I think on this occasion we’ll take a rain check, if you don’t mind. We’ve got a lot of measurements and notes to take while we’re here.’

      ‘Twenty thou!’ He exploded with laughter when at last they had managed to get rid of her. ‘If she knew that we are going to move in here without a penny to our name she would probably have us struck off her Christmas card list before we were ever on it!’

      ‘I don’t think she meant to sound so frightening. I quite liked her.’ Joss had pulled open one of the tall cupboards. ‘She’s right in one way, though, Luke. There is a lot to do. The roof – presumably – water, electricity; we don’t know if it all works. And the stove. I suppose we could get it going –’ she stared at it doubtfully ‘– but it is going to gobble fuel.’

      ‘We’ll cope.’ He put his arms round her again and gave her a hug. He was, she noticed, looking happy for the first time since he had found out about Barry’s treachery. Really happy. ‘For a start there was a massive amount of coal in one of the sheds in the courtyard, did you notice?’ he said. ‘And there will be logs. We’ll manage, Joss. Somehow. You’ll see.’

       5

      An empty beer glass had left a wet ring on the pub table which Joss was busy transforming into a figure of eight with variations when David Tregarron fought his way back towards her from the bar carrying two spritzers and a bag of nuts.

      The head of the History Department at Dame Felicia’s School in Kensington, David was thirty-eight years old, two years divorced and, as house master and second head lived above the job, over four dormitories of unruly little boys, in a Victorian flat with minimal mod cons. His divorce had been an unpleasant messy business, and Joss had been one of his anchor points at the time. She and he might not agree over teaching methods but her loyalty to him as his marriage had unravelled had been unswerving. She had comforted him as his wife took off into the sunset with her new man, propped him up in the staff room with coffee and Alka Seltzer and cheerfully agreed with all his maudlin lamentations over a woman she had never actually met.

      When once, some time after the divorce was made absolute, he had grabbed her hand and said, ‘Joss, divorce Luke and marry me,’ he had realised as soon as he had said it that he was only half joking. He had seen the danger in time and pulled himself together. Being fond of Joss was permissible. Anything more was totally beyond the pale.

      ‘So, how is Luke taking all this new-found wealth?’ He lowered himself cautiously onto a plush-covered stool and passed her one of the glasses.

      Joss gave a wry grin. ‘Amazement. Relief. Disbelief. Not necessarily in that order.’

      ‘And you?’

      She sighed. ‘Roughly the same. I’m still pinching myself. So much has happened to us in the last few weeks, David! I don’t think even in my wildest dreams I ever imagined anything like this happening to us!’ She sipped thoughtfully from her glass for a moment. ‘It was nice of you to call and ask me out. Do you know this is the first break I’ve had away from the house in days. There has been so much to do. The firm going under has been a complete nightmare.’

      David grimaced. ‘I was so sorry to hear about it.’ He glanced at her. ‘Are they making Luke bankrupt?’

      Joss shook her head. ‘No, thank God! The mews cottage has saved us. Luke’s grandfather bought it after the war when it was worth a few hundred pounds. When Luke’s father gave it to us as a wedding present he handed us a fortune, bless him.’ She gave a sad, fond smile. ‘It’s going on the market for a lot of money. If I ever get my hands on Barry I’ll throttle him personally if Luke or the police don’t get to him first. Our lovely little house!’

      ‘That’s really tough. But now you have your stately roof in East Anglia to fall back on.’

      She gave a wry grin. ‘I know. It sounds like a fairy tale. It is a fairy tale! Oh, David, it was so beautiful! And Luke is full of plans. He’s going to turn his hand to restoring old cars again. He is a trained engineer after all, and it’s what he always loved doing best. I think he was pretty sick of spending all his time on management and paperwork. And they’ve let him keep some of the machinery and tools from H & G – it’s out dated by other people’s standards apparently and the buyer didn’t want them. He’s retrieved lathes and boring and gear-cutting equipment and all sorts of stuff. I hope he’s right in thinking he can make us some money that way, because we’re going to be awfully short of cash. Next summer we can live off the garden, but it’s a lousy time of year to be starting out as gardeners! Do you realise we’ll be moving in only a few weeks before Christmas!’

      ‘Joss, I’ve had an idea.’ David edged himself out of the way of a crowd of noisy drinkers who were settling around the table next to theirs. ‘That’s why I persuaded you to come and have this drink.’ He paused and gave a theatrical sigh. ‘I know you and I didn’t always see eye to eye over history and its teaching!’

      Joss laughed. ‘Always the master of understatement!’

      ‘And we’ve had the odd tiff.’

      ‘Ditto.’ She raised her eyes