Escape to Willow Cottage: The brilliant, laugh-out-loud romcom you need to read in autumn 2018. Bella Osborne
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‘Flemish bond,’ he said, nodding at the brickwork.
‘Is he? I’m not really into films,’ said Beth, distractedly.
Leo and Doris played fetch with the ball until Doris put a large hole in it. Beth and Jack removed the other three boards and thankfully all but two of the small panes of glass were intact. Jack expertly taped some plastic over the broken ones so that they didn’t let in any rain. They both stared at the largest piece of board covering the front door, which itself was also covered by the sprawling ivy and white flowering plant.
Jack disappeared to the car boot. ‘Shall we?’ he said as he produced two large pairs of loppers.
‘Can I help?’ asked Leo.
‘Sorry, mate, these are a bit deadly but you can pull down as much of that traveller’s joy as you can.’ He pointed at the greenery covered in pretty white flowers and threw him some gloves.
Leo shoved his hands into the gloves. ‘They fit!’
Beth looked surprised. ‘They’re only those very stretchy ones; I thought they might come in handy,’ Jack said, setting to work with the loppers. Beth stood and watched. She wondered what she was doing. She couldn’t help – she’d never used loppers before and had no idea where to start, they were quite heavy and unwieldy. Every time she lifted them up they seemed to sway off to the right like some kind of giant magnet was pulling them. She put them down. The whole project was looking more and more ridiculous. Doris came up behind her and rested her heavy head against Beth’s hand, her droopy eyes making her look as forlorn as Beth felt. Beth sidestepped away from the drooling creature hoping Jack hadn’t noticed. She picked up the loppers again and tried in vain to control them as she snipped wildly at the air around the plants.
Thanks to Jack and Leo’s concerted efforts a little while later they were ready for the big front door reveal. The first thing Beth saw was more peeling paint but this time in a shade of bright pink.
‘Wow!’ exclaimed Leo.
‘I’m glad I’m wearing my sunglasses,’ said Beth.
‘It’s not all bad. It’s a pleasant style and the glass is a nice touch.’ Jack pointed to the four small panes that made a bigger square at head height. It was going to take a bit more to convince Beth.
Jack soon had the boards off the windows at the back of the house and loaded them into the boot of his car.
They grabbed two takeaway coffees and a squash from Rhonda and then set about the inside. Beth wasn’t sure if it looked better or worse now that the windows were letting in light. They both stood sipping their coffees while Leo sat on the bottom step of the stairs playing games on Beth’s iPhone.
‘Okay, boss. What are you thinking?’ asked Jack. Beth was sure she could sense derision in his voice. She was actually thinking ‘Oh shit, I’ve well and truly cocked up here’ but instead she said,
‘Number one priority is to make sure it’s watertight.’ She was pleased with the conviction in her words, she almost sounded like she knew what she was doing.
‘Lovely summer we’re having, hasn’t been any rain for weeks. How about you check upstairs for any obvious signs of leaks and damp patches and I’ll be back shortly.’
Beth didn’t have time to query what he was planning to do as he had already left, so she carefully went upstairs and started looking around. It was very difficult to identify damp patches under the general grubbiness. She exhaled loudly; how were you meant to get a house that was this dirty clean again? Would it ever be clean again? Actually, had it ever been clean? Then she thought of the photograph of the lovely smiling Elsie who was so selfless as to have taken in and raised Ernie. Beth was sure Elsie would have kept the house clean; it must have been in Wilf’s later years that things had got out of hand.
Every room upstairs was wallpapered and she had vague recollections of helping her dad as a child with removing wallpaper with warm wet sponges and a scraper. It had taken most of a half-term holiday for them to do one room, it would take for ever to do the whole cottage on her own. She heard voices outside and then an odd whooshing noise, and then she felt the sensation of ice-cold water trickling over her. She looked up to have her face washed by a steady stream of water coming through the ceiling above.
‘Shit!’ She stomped to the nearest window and tried hard to ignore the sight of the dingy bathroom that surrounded her. She struggled to open the window to shout at Jack who was merrily hosing down the roof but the window wouldn’t budge. By the time she had made it downstairs and pointed out the dripping to Leo who was lost in a game, the noise and water had stopped.
Jack sauntered into the cottage. ‘Did you find any leaks?’ he asked with a smirk.
‘You bloody idiot! I’m soaked. What if that gets in the electrics?’ Beth shook her hands and droplets of water flew off her.
‘Electrics are switched off. I assumed you’d be getting a professional to check those over before trying them.’
Beth wanted to scream. She hated pretending she knew what she was doing and she hated Jack’s smugness. He was obviously playing games.
‘Yes, the electrician is already booked but dousing everything, including me, in water is not the way to find out where the leaks are!’ She made a show of pulling her hair into a ponytail and wringing it out.
‘Okay, so how would you have done it?’ Jack looked intrigued.
‘Well, I … I would have looked for damp patches, like you said before and … gone up on the roof to check the pointing.’ She wasn’t entirely sure she’d used the right term but she had heard her dad talk about pointing before so it was worth a punt.
She noticed that Jack momentarily raised an eyebrow, perhaps she was on the right track.
‘Don’t let me stop you,’ he said. ‘The ladder is outside.’
Beth swallowed hard. She was okay with heights when she was inside and safe like in a lift or looking out on a spectacular view; then she was fine. Climbing up ladders, on the other hand, she was not good at but she wasn’t going to back out of this obvious challenge. ‘Fine, could you hold the bottom for me?’
Jack failed to suppress a schoolboy smirk. ‘Sure thing.’
The first few steps were fine. She kept telling herself it was like going up stairs, only it wasn’t. Her foot slipped a fraction. She squealed and tried to hide it with a cough. She didn’t want to fall. Beth was trying hard to control her breathing but the fear was making it speed up. She clutched the cold metal tightly and slowly moved her hands up as she took another step.
‘You okay?’ said Jack.
‘Wonderful,’ lied Beth, as she muttered a string of inaudible obscenities to herself.
Each step was a fear conquered as she went higher and higher. She was suddenly very grateful that she hadn’t bought anything taller than a cottage. As she neared the roof a thought struck her. What the hell was she going to do when she got there? She had no idea how to check the pointing. She didn’t even know what pointing meant. When her feet were at last level with what remained of the cottage’s ancient guttering, she slowly moved her head so that she could scan a section of the roof.
‘Are you getting on the roof?’ called Jack, followed by something that could have been a cough or a laugh or a bit of both.
‘Um, no, I can see perfectly well from here,’ she replied, her voice shaky.
‘What’s the pointing like?’
Beth stared at the tiles, row upon row of them. They all looked the same, all shimmering wet as the summer sunshine glinted off them. ‘I think they’re okay.’
‘Really?’
‘Well … they’re definitely all pointing in the same direction.’