Twenty years earlier…
‘It’s too good to be true.’ The words trotted off Amanda’s tongue as she looked around the old house on Swift Square. ‘No, Richard, I don’t care what you say, houses like these, they just don’t come up for sale anymore and at this price…’ She walked over to the elaborate pink marble fireplace. ‘This room is amazing; you can see it was a double sitting room.’ She pointed towards the shoddy partition wall, and the room beyond with its matching fireplace. ‘Oh, yes, I could see us growing old here, toasting our toes in front of a roaring fire,’ she said, snuggling into Richard.
‘That’s a long way off yet,’ Richard said, kicking his foot against a rotting skirting board. ‘Anyway, we’ll have underfloor heating here, no need to be dragging coal buckets around the place, we’re having the very best.’
‘Oh Richard,’ Amanda walked to the window, ‘it’s such a lovely view.’ She looked out across the Square, she could imagine it once someone began to take an interest in it – it would be beautiful again. ‘I could paint here,’ she said, waving her hand to indicate the roomy bay window. ‘There’s plenty of space and light for my easel, maybe I could go back to using oils again,’ she murmured, lost in her creative element.
‘Oh, don’t be daft, Amanda. You won’t have time for any of that silliness anymore. You’ll find very quickly you’ll have much more important things to do than play around with paints and brushes.’ Richard laughed and Amanda wondered at how he could see her art as so utterly meaningless, but then she supposed she’d never been as successful as him in commercial terms.
‘It really is an exceptional property, so much potential and you won’t come near it for price.’ The auctioneer was standing in the doorway behind them.
‘It’s a bloody good price because there’s a sitting tenant downstairs paying ten bob a week and refusing to move,’ Richard said loud enough for the auctioneer to hear, but Amanda knew he wanted the house as much as she did. ‘I’ll offer twenty under the asking and if they want it they’d better come back to me before Friday, because I have my eye on another place out in Dalkey.’
‘I’m afraid, Mr King, the sellers won’t accept that. This house,’ the auctioneer was warming up, ‘it’s a unique piece of Dublin architecture, it’s…’
‘It’s a dilapidated standing ruin and you know it and unless the seller is a fool, he knows it too. My price is more than fair.’ Richard put his arm around Amanda’s back and they stalked towards the door. ‘Let me know either way, I’m settling on a property this week, so it’s either this place or…’ Richard called over his shoulder.
In the car, they laughed about the estate agent. Richard called him a dimwit and Amanda crossed her fingers that they hadn’t played it all too hard. They parked opposite the house and watched him leave. Once he was gone, Amanda convinced Richard to walk past the property once more. Amanda stood at the bottom of the heavy railings and it was then they met the woman who lived downstairs.
‘So, you’re thinking about buying this place, are you?’ Tess Cuffe regarded them with the kind of practiced eye that said she’d seen plenty of potential buyers come and go over the years. ‘This place has been on the market for nearly ten years now, no matter what they tell you.’
‘It’s a lovely house,’ Amanda said warmly.
‘It’s lovely all right, it has everything you could want and more,’ the woman, said casting her glance up towards the elevated front door. ‘Oh, yes, there’s any amount of dry or wet rot, ancient pipes, mice-chewed electric wiring and, of course, enough holes in the roof to give you an unfettered view of every jumbo jet that flies out of Dublin airport.’ The agent gave an impression of a kindly old dear, but there was nothing old or kindly about her. Amanda guessed she was hardly forty-five and you would have to be naïve not to see that this woman was strong and smart and in no hurry to leave, no matter what Richard might believe.
‘Nothing money can’t solve though,’ Richard said smugly, he was kicking his foot against the old rusting railings.
‘Oh, well for some then,’ Tess said. ‘But there’s one thing that no amount of money will buy you, sonny, and that’s the basement.’ She cackled loudly as she walked towards her front door.
Amanda stood, stunned for a moment. ‘I think I see why this place is such a bargain now,’ she managed finally, trying to make light of the old woman’s comment.
‘Don’t worry about her, we’ll have that basement too, just you leave it to me.’
‘It’s lovely without the basement, Richard, and you never know, she could be like a live-in granny someday, if we do end up here.’ Amanda knew it was unrealistic. The old bat seemed far too prickly to be a grandmother, or a mother either, no matter how much Amanda might hold onto the idea. ‘Yes, it could work out well for all of us.’
‘You know what I learned a long time ago,’ Richard waved towards the window where they could see the shadow of Tess watching them. It didn’t seem a friendly gesture to Amanda and she had a feeling it wasn’t meant as one. ‘Money talks, and if that doesn’t work, there are other ways to get her out.’
‘Come on, we should be getting along.’ Amanda put her arm through Richard’s to guide him away from the house. It was as she turned that she finally really noticed what could be the jewel in the crown of this whole square. ‘Oh,’ she whispered, dropping Richard’s arm distractedly, ‘what a lovely garden.’ She made her way over to railings that were rusted to the strength of lollipop sticks.
‘It’s a bloody wilderness,’ Richard laughed as he tried to train his eyes through the thick growth of hedges and brambles.
‘It needn’t be though, this could be beautiful someday, Richard. Goodness,’ she peered into the wilderness, ‘we just have to get this house, I have the strangest feeling this is where we belong.’ Amanda could suddenly see her children playing here someday. She could imagine being part of a family again and now she wanted this house more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. ‘God, I hope we get it.’
‘I told you, leave it to me, babe, you just leave it all to me,’ he said with confidence, and that’s exactly what she did, she was happy to spend her life backing him up, they were a couple. Nothing could stop them as a united front.