The Difference a Day Makes Read Online Free PDF Page A

insists. ‘How can you possibly deny me this chance to grab a new lease of life?’

Chapter Seven
     
     
     
    W hich is why I find myself less than three months later standing outside Helmshill Grange, a sullen monstrosity of a house, deep in the Yorkshire moors. It’s July and it’s raining. The clouds are down by my knees. In London it’s probably 90 degrees. Our furniture lorry has gone missing - our tables and chairs are probably on their way to Lithuania or somewhere. Jessica is crying again. I feel like joining her.
    ‘We’re going to live here ?’ she wails in horror. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
    ‘Yes, darling.’ I hug her to me.
    ‘But it’s spooky!’
    ‘It’s got character,’ I correct. And probably a couple of ghosts.
    Tom is wide eyed with horror. ‘How will our friends come and play here?’ he wants to know.
    ‘With great difficulty’ is the answer I fail to give.
    I look at the house again and my heart sinks. What was Will thinking of? What was I thinking of when I agreed with him? Except I didn’t agree with him. Not really. It’s just that I allowed him to get swept away with this ridiculous plan for a new life for us when we were all perfectly happy with our other life. That’s nowhere near the same as agreeing, is it?
    ‘Will I still be able to do ballet classes here?’ Jessica asks tremulously.
    ‘We’ll try to find a class just as soon as we’re settled.’ Which is my way of saying, ‘Probably not.’ This does not look like a place that has a wide range of leisure activities on every corner.
    The house is double fronted and, once upon a time, it was probably very lovely. Now it looks like it needs several grand spending on it simply to make it habitable. The couple who lived here previously had been here all of their married lives and were, I think, a hundred and eight years old apiece and hadn’t decorated since their early twenties. They’re now snuggled up in purpose-built sheltered accommodation with gas central heating and double glazing in the nearby market town of Scarsby, and I can certainly see why that might be a more attractive proposition.
    All the windows need replacing. And the roof. And the front door. The house needs re-wiring, re-plumbing, re-pointing and re-painting. Or bulldozing.
    Will bought it over the internet without us actually having been here, purely on the agent’s recommendation. Which is so unlike him, as he’s previously spent our married life being as reliable as the Swiss rail network. In spite of that, the silver-tongued salesman managed to convince my husband that it was a very desirable property in a very desirable part of the world and that it wouldn’t remain on the market for more than five minutes. That bit was true enough. Three minutes later and it was ours.
    The picture on the worldwide web was clearly very flattering. We have exchanged our comfortable, well-appointed home in Notting Hill for a house more suited to the Addams Family in the wilds of fuck-knows-where.The gate is hanging off its hinges and the front garden hasn’t been troubled by a mower in a very long time. My daughter could go in there and never be found again.
    Jessica cries some more and, frankly, I don’t blame her. Perhaps she’s thinking the same thing as me.
    Behind the house is a large open barn in a tumbledown courtyard. The garden stretches out as far as I can see into the surrounding moors, and there’s an orchard that might well be ours.
    ‘Look at this!’ my husband cries - but in a happy way. ‘Isn’t it marvellous?’
    Mental note to self - I must get myself some of those rose-tinted spectacles he’s started wearing since his wobble. I would so like to be able to see life as Will sees it.
    When I remain silent, he adds, ‘Admittedly it needs some work, but we can do it up slowly. Together.’
    I am still stunned into speechlessness. It may surprise you to learn that I haven’t the slightest urge to renovate an old wreck. I