Bill and Adela waited for two years before they married. Adela wanted to finish her degree and Bill wanted to make sure he had enough savings to begin married life in a home of their own.
Tucked up in the chill of Adela’s Marylebone bedroom they talked of their future.
‘Do you think we can afford to start a family straight away?’ Adela had asked hopefully, her face pressed into the warmth of Bill’s chest.
‘How much do babies cost?’ he had asked.
‘Not much. I’ll ask around the family for the essentials. I’m sure my old pram is stuck in the attic somewhere. We can use the kitchen sink as a bath and I’ll feed the little mite myself so …’
She heard his laugh rumbling in his chest as he tightened his arm around her.
‘What are you laughing at?’
‘Your practicality and frugality. Most women would want brand-new everything.’
‘Well, I don’t. And I have a few books of Green Shield stamps that I’m sure would get us a cot.’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘And where would we live? This garret of yours is fine for us but it would be a squeeze for three of us. And I don’t fancy carrying the pram up and down three flights of stairs.’
‘I always imagined us going back to Cornwall,’ she said quietly. ‘My parents have spotted a tiny place in Trevay, on the harbour.’
As she lifted her head to check his reaction to this piece of news, he saw the longing in her.
‘I’m not having handouts from your parents.’
‘No, no. Nor me. And I hadn’t said anything to them about looking for something. Honestly.’
‘Then how do they know about it?’
‘My mother sent me something.’ Adela shifted herself from her arms and slipped out of bed. She tiptoed across the icy lino and reached for a newspaper stuffed into her handbag and got back to the warmth of her bed as fast as she could. ‘Here, look.’ She turned to the properties page and handed it to him. ‘There.’ She pointed.
He scanned the small advert and blurry picture.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, tucking herself around him again.
‘It’s a derelict shop.’
‘An old chandler’s, actually.’
‘But not a residential home.’
‘That’s why it’s such a good price.’
‘No indoor bathroom? No bedrooms? No kitchen and no heating? And it’ll be freezing.’
‘But, stuck between those two houses as it is, it will keep itself warm.’
He said nothing.
She pressed on. ‘Bill, it’s so pretty, and I don’t mind living in a building site and I can do lots of labouring for you. Between us we could build the home we really want.’
He held her anxious gaze. ‘You really like it?’ he said.
She nodded, her fingers crossed under the eiderdown. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Hmm,’ he said, wanting to keep her in suspense. ‘We could go down this weekend and take a look at it?’
She sat up clutching her hands to her chest. ‘Could we?’
‘Why not?’
To their delight, the second-class train compartment was empty. Bill put their small, shared suitcase up in the netted luggage rack while Adela opened up their packed lunch. ‘It’s only egg sandwiches and ginger nuts, I’m afraid,’ she said, fussing over the greaseproof-wrapped packages and passing him one. ‘Oh, and I’ve put the last of my chicken soup in the flask.’
Sitting together, watching as the smoky London scene beyond the glass began to morph into suburbia then farmland, they munched and chatted and did the Guardian crossword until, leaning their heads together, they fell asleep to the rhythm of the train.
Newton Abbot, Exeter and Plymouth sped by in a drowsy haze until the guard, in a comforting West Country voice called along the corridors, ‘Bodmin Parkway next stop. Next stop, Bodmin.’
As the bus rattled onto Trevay Harbour and came to a stop, Adela and Bill collected up their bits and jumped off.
‘There it is,’ Adela said with renewed energy, pointing at a very tall, thin building, ‘I can see the estate agent waiting.’
They hurried across the road, past the Golden Hind pub and turned left into the narrow lane where the building stood, squeezed in between its neighbours.
It was at least a hundred and fifty years old. Dressed in clapboard, its white paint peeling, it carried two floors above the front door. The estate agent greeted them.
‘Mr and Mrs Tallon, I presume? Tim Baynon.’
They all shook hands.
‘Welcome to the Old Chandlery …’ Mr Baynon began his spiel. ‘There’s been a lot of interest in the property, I can tell you.’
‘Really?’ asked Bill incredulous.
Adela glared at him and addressed the agent: ‘I’m sure. It’s absolutely gorgeous.’
Bill shot her a murderous look. And as Mr Baynon took a set of keys from his pocket and put them in the rusted lock of the warped front door, Bill pulled his wife aside and whispered, ‘Don’t act too keen. He’ll bump the price up.’
Adela tutted, and whispered back, ‘I want him to know we are serious buyers.’
She pushed past him and followed the agent, who had given the door a couple of kicks to open it, leaving a lump of damp and rotting wood on the mat, into what had been the shop.
‘As you see,’ Mr Baynon was all pomposity, ‘all the original fixtures and fittings are still intact.’
Bill looked at the empty shelves lining the walls and the shop counter covered in dust. ‘Seen better days,’ he said.
‘So much character,’ countered Adela.
Mr Baynon continued his tour into the room behind the shop which housed an old Raeburn range and a large butler’s sink. ‘And beyond is the garden.’ Grandly he lifted the latch of the old back door and showed them a patch of wasteland no bigger than a couple of wheelbarrows. ‘Sun all day.’
Adela could see that Bill was losing interest. ‘Can we see upstairs?’
A steep and narrow staircase took them up to the first floor which housed two small rooms back and front. The second floor was the same.
Adela felt certain that Bill would never agree to live here. As he and Mr Baynon chatted on the tiny landing, she walked towards the window of the uppermost front room, her heels knocking on the bare floorboards. She rubbed the dust and grime from one of the small square panes and looked out. Trevay and its harbour were laid out before her like a drawing from a child’s picture book. She tried the rusty latch and after a couple of thumps with the heel of her hand it opened. Sunlight, sea air and the call of gulls flooded the room. She almost laughed at the simple joyousness of it all.
She heard footsteps behind her, followed by Bill’s hand on her waist as he stood next to her.
She laid her head against his shoulder. ‘Someone will make this into a lovely home,’ she sighed.
‘Yes, we will,’ he answered.
She looked up at him, all alert. ‘What?’
‘I’ve put an offer in. My Baynon is going to let us know in a couple of days.’
She hugged him, then pulled away and pummelled him. ‘You bugger! I thought you hated it.’
‘Just my poker face.’
‘Oh, darling.’ She kissed him, then a horrible thought crossed her mind. ‘You didn’t offer him a stupidly low price, did you? We’ll definitely lose it if you have.’
‘I’ve offered what it’s worth to us. Which is more than it’s worth to anyone else.’
‘I love it.’ She hopped from one foot to another.
‘I love it too. It’s mad. It’s too much work. It’s totally impractical. Who buys a building that’s as tall and thin as a pencil?’
Adela laughed and leant on the filthy window sill to look out at the amazing view.
‘That’s what we’ll call it. Pencil House.’
They got the keys and moved in within three weeks. The Raeburn only needed a good service and soon warmed the house through. Bill, always good with his hands, made the old shop counter into a kitchen unit, and built a sturdy kitchen table top out of the shop’s shelves. Adela started upstairs. She swept, she washed and she painted everywhere and everything. Slowly, Pencil House was becoming a home.
At weekends they would take themselves off on bus rides, discovering seaside towns and hidden coves and simply immersing themselves in each other and life they were building.
It was about four months into their arrival that Adela began to feel sick in the mornings. The doctor confirmed her pregnancy and the following spring their daughter arrived.
Bill and Adela were as besotted with her as they were with themselves.
‘What shall we call her?’ asked Bill holding her for the first time by Adela’s hospital bed.
Adela smiled. ‘I would like to call her Sennen,’ she said.
‘Sennen?’ asked Bill, puzzled. ‘Why?’
She grinned. ‘Remember that evening on Sennen Cove last summer?’
‘Oh.’ Bill remembered. ‘When I … when we …’
She nodded. ‘Yes, darling. Your daughter was conceived on Sennen Cove.’
A few days later Bill went to collect Adela and Sennen from the hospital. He’d bought himself an ancient red Ford Anglia for the occasion. ‘Oh, Bill, it’s wonderful,’ exclaimed Adela when she saw it. ‘Can we afford it?’
‘For my wife and daughter, nothing is too much.’ He opened the door for her and got her settled with Adela wrapped in her arms.’
When they got to Pencil House he told her to stay in the car while he opened up and took the bags in, then, when he was ready, he scooped Adela, who was still cradling Sennen, into his arms and carried them both over the threshold with Adela laughing and protesting until he placed her on the sofa.
‘Welcome home.’ He bent and kissed her. ‘I am so proud of you.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘For making Sennen for us.’
‘Well, it took both of us.’
‘But you did the hard work.’ He knelt by Adela’s knee and lifted the shawl his mother had knitted from Sennen’s face. ‘Hello, my darling. We are three – and nothing and nobody will ever tear us apart.’