The Banker's Niece 7: House-hunting

‘You have reached your destination,’ says the annoying voice of the annoying sat-nav lady.

    She’s definitely a lady, not a woman. That’s probably what makes her so annoying – that and her bossiness and her stupidity.

    Sat-navs are new to Jane, but she’s bought one specially for this trip. She hoped the woman would be a friend, someone to hold her hand in the ‘wilds’ of Devon, but the partnership is taking its time to gel.

    Jane slams her foot on the brake and surveys the turning. ‘Stockland Farm’ says a faded wooden sign on its back in the hedge. The entrance surface is a mixture of cowpat and stones, and the rest of the track doesn’t appear to be much better. Jane’s damned if she’s taking her beloved, new, bright-yellow, Renault Clio up that. On the other hand, does she want to leave Clio on her own by the side of the road in this god-forsaken corner of this god-forsaken part of the country?

    Let alone sat-navs, she’s not had a car for the last twenty years, what with the London traffic, the congestion charge, the impossibility of parking anywhere away from her flat and the Kafkaesque methods of the Residents’ Permit authorities. Buying Clio was a gesture, another step towards her 'new life in the country' as her friends call the move.  Much as she loves Clio, however, she’s finding her something of a responsibility – rather like a new dog, she supposes, not that she’s ever had one herself but she remembers the kerfuffle when her lovely brother Ollie and his lovely wife Lucy acquired their first puppy.

Last night she couldn’t decide whether to leave early, before the morning traffic, or late, after it. But then she woke with the light at 4am and decided she might as well make a move there and then. It was too early for coffee, even for her, so she stopped at a roadside café two hours into the journey and had one of the most disgusting beverages she’s ever tasted. How can you turn a fragrant bean into something that resembles week-old dishwater?

    The roads became smaller and smaller, more and more empty, steeper, twistier and narrower, and now here she is at ten in the morning, worn out, coffee-less and cross. She wishes she’d stayed in London.

She’s been in a mood ever since her mother’s phone call five days ago. She can’t bear being organised, especially by her mother and her mother’s ghastly friends. They have however provided her with an incentive to brave another trip to Devon, explore Moreton Courtney (without Henry), check out the neighbouring towns and villages and drop into a few estate agents for advice. It’s something she has to do and she’s been putting it off for far too long.

    So she’s booked herself into a B & B for three nights, Thursday to Sunday, and emailed the estate agent handling the cottage of William Davenport Junior.

    ‘We’ll leave the door unlocked and let you look around on your own,’ they said, obviously not keen to trek out themselves. ‘Just get in touch if there’s anything you want to know. The owner will probably be around anyway and I’m sure he’ll be only too pleased to help. You can put your questions directly to him if you prefer.’

    Not blooming likely, thinks Jane. Even though she has both the man’s mobile and his landline number – Jane’s mother was most insistent about that, making sure Jane wrote them down and then read them back to her – Jane is darn sure she will do everything in her power to steer clear of him. He’s probably some appalling tweedy brute who shoots everything that moves or – even worse – rampages through the countryside on horseback encouraging packs of rabid dogs to gang up on poor defenceless foxes while he laughs at the law. She’s met plenty of those in Kent, usually in her parents’ drawing-room.

   

She manoeuvres Clio on to a patch of flat grass next to the turning and climbs out.

    ‘Look after yourself,’ she says, patting her vehicle on the roof, ‘and don’t talk to any strange men.’

    With a sense that she’s leaving behind her last connection with civilisation, she starts to pick her way up the track, around the cowpats. They look dry on top but goodness knows what they’re like underneath. She shudders at the thought of green slime oozing over her toes and ruining her new silver sandals. The stones dig into her feet through her thin soles.

    She’s forgotten what the countryside is like. She was an idiot not to come with better footwear. Not that she has any. She has walking boots, which she uses occasionally when ‘hiking’ with friends, and a pair of pretty wellies (blue with pink spots) that she bought for wet days in the city or visiting her parents in Kent but as far as she can remember they leaked from day two. Neither would be appropriate.

    The track is lined with trees but they’re small and the sun is already high. There’s no shade and it’s getting hot. She has of course come without hat and suncream too. Weather forecasters always say that in June the sun is at its most powerful – and dangerous –  even if it doesn't feel like it and she can well believe it. Her head is already aching and the skin on her bare arms is turning red.

    She wonders not for the first time if she’s mad to consider exchanging her London life for something so different. Does she still have it in her to make such a radical transition? Has she thought it through properly? Has she considered the implications – for her career, her family, her friends?

    And why Devon? Except for one small connection nearly four decades ago there’s no logical reason for her to move to the other side of the country. What does she know about the place? Is she allowing Sharon to have too much of an influence on her? Should she step back for a few months and take stock?

    It’s all happening too fast.

  

This walk on the other hand is taking too long. After what feels to Jane like half an hour, but is probably only a few minutes judging by the directions and map that came with the property's details, a building appears on her left, a small white house with a tiled roof which she recognises from the pictures.

    As far as she understands from her mother – who’s heard it from Lavinia – who’s heard it from William Junior - it’s two farm cottages knocked into one and modernised about ten years ago. Until now it’s been let and the most recent tenant, a widow in her eighties, has left for a council flat in the village two miles away.

    Jane pushes open the front door, wondering what detritus of an old woman’s life she’s going to find inside the house. (By old woman she means a woman even older than herself.)
    She doesn't know if she could bear to buy a house found for her by her mother, and why would she want to live out here where she would have to drive both to the nearest village and to Courtney Press when she could find somewhere in Moreton Courtney and walk to work?
    She'll take a quick look round to satisfy her curiosity and to please her mother and her mother's friend (get them off her back), and then she'll head off for some proper exploration.

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