I don’t hear Nick’s reply because I’m already hurrying towards Amber, the image of Josh fast asleep in his cot lodged in my head and a worry starting to nibble at the edge of my good mood.
The house is double-fronted and semi-detached. It’s in a state of acute disrepair but the two smarter versions that flank it have had a lot of money spent on them. They boast plantation shutters and black-and-white tessellated paths leading up to front doors painted in heritage shades.
Six years ago Tom and I stood outside Coleridge Street with Emily in her pram, almost speechless with anticipation, gripping each other’s hands while Sarah Wilson from Johnson Lane battled with the lock, muttering about it being an agent’s nightmare, and finally, triumphantly, pushing it open against a pile of mail that slithered out across the floor like the tide coming in. We pushed Emily’s pram into a patch of warm sunlight. Sarah kept her distance, probably aware that she didn’t have to sell it while we na?vely thought we were putting on a good show, Tom making critical remarks that sounded positively hammy, me standing with my hand cradling my modest bump, gazing up at a patch of damp where the corner of the sitting room met the ceiling. We moved through the house like small children discovering a new secret and when we came out into the garden where the birds were singing, climbing roses casting long stems heavy with buds, I flung my arms around him.
‘Can we afford it?’
Tom laughed. ‘No, but we’ll find a way.’
It was a wonderful, crazy time, camping in the rooms that were liveable, working nights and weekends with Emily crawling around in the dirt, and then with Polly as well, tiny and new. I was trying to paint windows between feeds and replace floorboards, put up curtains and restore damaged original features. I spent the long summer days in decorator’s overalls, finding cheap ways of making an impact. Growing up without a father, in a crummy seaside house that my mother filled with lodgers, we developed an impressive range of skills. Between the two of us, Mum and I can fix pretty much anything.
Tom and I put up with a makeshift kitchen for two years and walked on bare boards, but we didn’t care. We were in love with each other, in love with the future, in love with our babies and our house. I had no idea how useless Tom was at DIY, but it wasn’t all bad. If he couldn’t do anything that required a particular skill he was at least willing to sand for hours on end.
My tools are lying unused in the cellar now. I miss them.
‘Oh my God, this rain! Let’s get inside.’ Amber leads me in, checking her watch. ‘I can only give you fifteen minutes, so we’d better crack on.’
I follow her and breathe in the smell; a heady blend of old carpet and damp and that musty scent of decay. I run my fingers along the brown-painted dado rail and gaze up at the cornicing. The paint is flaking off but it is generously wide; the pattern of ridges and grooves elegant and understated.
‘Nice?’ Amber says, raising an eyebrow.
‘I love it.’
Something flits across Amber’s face, a wisp of despondency darkening her eyes. It’s only a tiny moment but it reminds me to pare back my enthusiasm.
‘Do you think this is transferral?’ she asks.
‘Sorry?’
‘I mean, do you think you’re doing this because you’re looking for an outlet for all that pent-up sexual frustration?’
She’s joking of course. ‘No. Well, maybe a little. But you know I like smelly old wrecks.’
‘Are you talking about the house or your mystery man?’
I laugh. ‘The house. Categorically.’
Amber pulls me towards the staircase, where grubby mahogany banisters lead the eye up three floors to a skylight. Even though it’s too dirty and splattered with bird shit to let in more than a milky light I can imagine how wonderful it would be on a sunny day or a moonlit night. She takes me to the kitchen, a yellowing room at the back of the house with a door to the garden and a small window. A sink clings to the wall between ugly beige units encrusted with filth. When Amber flicks the switch a strip light stutters on.
‘Thank God you didn’t bring Josh. That last couple? Their little girl was a nightmare.’
‘Their baby was asleep.’ Hiding my blushes, I bend to tease up a corner of brittle lino. Underneath, the floorboards look sound.
‘Yes. But they left them both downstairs with me. Can you believe it? I’m not a bloody babysitter. And you know what she said?’ Amber snorts. ‘Don’t take him out of his pram. As if he was too cute for me to resist. Honestly.’
My smile is strained. ‘I’ve never seen anyone coming in or out. How long has it been empty?’
‘Not long. The lady who owned it went into care last week. She’s ninety-three and reclusive, apparently. Probate’s going to take a while, but I doubt it’ll hang around. To be honest, Vicky, if you want it, you’re going to have to sharpen your elbows.’
I touch the brown wallpaper and pick at a torn edge. ‘Tom will take some persuading. If it was down to him we’d still be in the flat.’
Amber’s face falls.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
But I do and I can tell she’s offended. Robert is self-employed and they’re paying a huge rent to be in the right catchment area and haven’t been able to scrape the cash together for a deposit. It’s something I try hard to ignore, but when you start out in your career at the same income level as a friend, only to leave them behind financially, it can be awkward and you have to be sensitive. I blame my lack of tact on last night.
‘You’ll get what you want in the end. You’re the most determined person I know.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘I suppose …’
‘Come on. It’s only a matter of time.’
‘Let’s hope.’
We go into the next room and she waits while I look round. I can feel that she wants to say something, that I’ve struck an ill-judged note.
‘You mustn’t take what you have for granted,’ she says.
‘Do you mean Tom or the house?’ Her words are discomforting but I suppose I deserve it.
‘Both. You don’t know how lucky you are.’
‘I do.’
‘Then why risk it?’
‘Because I take risks! That’s why I got pregnant at twenty-one. That’s why we own Coleridge Street. We couldn’t afford it, Amber, but we just did it. You and Robert can do it too.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Amber …’ But she’s left the room ahead of me.
I follow her into the sitting room. This is in better condition, the marble fireplace grander than the one we have in Coleridge Street. A large Persian rug lies spread across wide floorboards, the gaps between them imprinted into the weave. There’s more damp above the curtain rail, but otherwise it’s perfect and I can see myself living here. I do a rapid calculation. We could do it. Mortgage rates are still low and Tom has inherited a useful amount from his grandfather. It would be a strain, there’s no doubt about that, but worth it in the long run. I’m tempted to put in an offer then and there. For the first time in days I feel excited, drawn into the romance of the place, the lure of the project.