A New Beginning by Barnes Miranda

Author:Barnes, Miranda [Barnes, Miranda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2014-12-22T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Joyce was right. Being practical did help. It helped a lot. Instead of feeling at the mercy of ocean currents and winds she couldn’t influence at all, Kirsty began to feel more in control of her own life again. She stopped dithering. She took decisions. Even if she didn’t know where she was going in the long run, there were still things she could do right now.

The first thing she did was exactly what Joyce had urged her to do. She put her mother’s house up for sale. The agent who valued it surprised her, suggesting a figure far higher than she’d expected.

‘Are you sure?’ she said dubiously.

‘Oh, yes. We’ve had a couple go around here in recent weeks. It’s a nice area, and people know it as such. You won’t have any difficulty selling this one.’

‘It seems a lot of money.’

He laughed. ‘That’s an unusual point of view,’ he said. ‘Most people think they’ll be robbed if they sell at the price we value the house at.’

Mr. Edgar, from the estate agent “Edgar, Edgar and Son”, based in Newcastle, was a dull, middle-aged sort of man who had probably been born in the Harris Tweed jacket and moleskin trousers he wore. He really did look the part. Kirsty felt he was exactly the right man for the job, and she trusted his judgement implicitly.

‘People, eh?’ Kirsty said, smiling at last. ‘What do they know? Well, you must know what it’s worth. I’m very lucky.’

‘It’s a nice house in a good location,’ Mr. Edgar re-affirmed. ‘It wants a bit doing to it, of course. Nothing serious. Updating, mostly. Decorating. New windows, maybe. New kitchen. Possibly a new bathroom, as well. That sort of thing.’

Kirsty nodded. She had expected that. The house her mum had been happy with for forty years wasn’t one many twenty-something, newly-wed young things would want today.

‘But that’s nothing out of the ordinary,’ Mr. Edgar concluded. ‘You can pretty well say the same thing about any house that comes on the market these days. A lot of the so-called improvements are unnecessary, in my opinion, but most people feel they have to make them.’

‘Really?’

He nodded. ‘I blame these make-over programmes on television. All the young ones want this month’s fashion. Then, in a year’s time, they want what was there originally. So they go hunting round architectural scrap yards – “salvage” businesses, they call them – looking fruitlessly for the marble fireplaces they threw out when they first bought the house. So then they buy new Victorian fireplaces – made in China last week.’ He paused, shrugged and added, ‘We’re fast losing our traditions.’

‘You’ll be more aware of that than most of us,’ Kirsty said, trying to be agreeable, but wondering secretly if there was anything at all worth salvaging in her mother’s house. Now she’d collected her moth-eaten teddy bear, with its one remaining ear, she couldn’t think of one single thing. And she didn’t think even Mr. Edgar would count Teddy as an architectural treasure.

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