HOME SWEET HOME
Adrian Sturgess
Copyright Adrian Sturgess 2012
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Cover Art: Beti Bup
Home Sweet Home
Though the sun’s golden rays
were mellowed by the haze
of the dream mists,
that rose up from the edge
of the chasm of night.
It was a beautiful sunny day in early April and the Marigold family were on their way to view a house that was for sale on the outskirts of the small village where they had been renting a cottage for the past two months. Mr Marigold’s employer was footing the bill for the rented accommodation and there was pressure on the family to quickly buy their own home.
It was only a short walk from the centre, out to the edge of the village and under the vivid blue sky, a row of terraced cottages they passed took on the vibrancy of a child’s painting in pink, yellow and blue.
They were all in a fine mood and their mood further improved when they spotted the house. It was a good-sized, detached, house with bay windows and a gabled front. Its fresh white paintwork fairly gleamed and sparkled at them in the spring sunshine.
They walked up the front path past wonderfully manicured borders and perfectly clipped shrubs to the big white front door, which promptly opened to reveal a middle-aged couple who beamed at them from the hallway.
'So you must be Mr and Mrs Marigold, come to look at the house, well I’m Doreen Smith and this is my husband Jim and … my oh my, what wonderful children. How old are you and what are your names?' She stooped down and flooded them with a radiant smile, only to be rewarded with a diffident shuffle of the feet. Finally, Jackie composed herself enough to respond, 'I’m Jackie, I’m fourteen and this is my brother Ben, he’s thirteen.’
'Well, well, what lovely names, now please do come in, no need to take off shoes, it hasn’t rained for days has it?' The adults exchanged pleasantries whilst the children just stood looking around the hallway and across through the partially opened door towards rooms at the back of the house.
'Well, go ahead and take a good look about and Jim and I will be sitting out in the garden, so take your time and we’ll talk again in a little while.'
The family wandered approvingly around the house and Mrs Marigold immediately fell in love with the kitchen, which looked out directly onto the rear garden.
'Darling, look at this, we could have a dining table in here and just look at that lovely view out onto the rear lawn.'
Doreen and Jim could be seen sitting side by side in deckchairs facing the garden and gesturing contentedly towards a group of sparrows that flitted to and fro nearby.
Mr Marigold murmured his approval at the size of the kitchen but the kids hardly heard him because they were already moving ahead excitedly to discover what surprises the rest of the house had to offer. They looked into the drawing room but found it a bit gloomy and not terribly interesting, before moving on to the sitting room, which was right at the front of the house and had a huge bay window and long white curtains that draped down and caressed the polished oak floor. Eventually, their parents caught up with them and “just adored” the sitting room. But as they turned to leave the room, the sun sunk behind a cloud and the room lost its warmth and colour and suddenly seemed so unappealing that Jackie had to suppress a shiver and scurried as quickly as she could out into the hall. But the moment quickly passed and the upstairs of the house was also perfect, containing as it did, four good-sized bedrooms, a study and the required en-suite bathroom.
Finally, the family stepped out into the sunshine to join the owners, who then took them on a tour of the grounds. Mrs Smith stopped by the high timber fence at the far end of the garden and explained that the lower road out of the village passed to the rear of the property and that very few cars used it and consequently it was no nuisance.
Meanwhile, Jackie and Ben had gravitated toward a large apple tree in the corner of the garden and looked up longingly at the massive gnarled branches, whilst day dreaming of climbing and of tree houses and apple pie and custard.
'It’s a lovely tree isn’t it.' Mrs Smith called over to them. 'We get beautiful apples in the autumn, like nothing you’ve tasted in the supermarkets and I’m sure, if you asked him nicely, your dad would hang you a swing off that low branch.'
'Oh daddy would you?' They both called excitedly and then Ben, on a bit of an opportunistic roll continued, 'And daddy, would you build us a tree house too?'
Mr Marigold smiled politely and muttered a few non-committal words, whilst inwardly he was quite annoyed with Mrs Smith. She really had overstepped the mark in making such a rash comment, because he knew from deep experience that once children got an idea fixed in their heads, they’d work on you remorselessly until you either went mad or gave in.
Mrs Smith showed no sign that she had noticed Mr Marigold’s irritation however and said, 'Yes, we’ll miss the apples when we’re gone from here.' And then she gave a sigh, which for the briefest of moments hinted at a valley of sadness that she normally kept hidden away behind her cheerful facade of bonhomie.
They said their goodbyes and the family made their way back down the front path, whilst the Smiths’ stood beaming and waving and looking for all the world like doting Grandparents.
On the way back, the children skipped and jostled along together excitedly, whilst their parents walked along more serenely, holding hands and discussing what they had just seen. After a while they lapsed into almost complete silence, their senses totally engaged in soaking up the picture-postcard qualities of the Village, which seemed so radiantly joyful in the bright spring sunshine.
As they approached their rented house Mrs Marigold broke the enchanted silence that had hung over them both for the previous few minutes.
'Oh darling, isn’t this just the perfect house in the perfect village? It’s made for us.' Her husband looked over at her with a grin that made him look ten years younger and said, 'Yes, it is perfect, isn’t it? We mustn’t lose that house.'
Later that afternoon after brief negotiations through the Estate Agent, a sale was agreed. They had finally bought their dream house and to mark the occasion, they celebrated with Champagne and the entire family toasted their future and their luck in finding such a wonderful home.
Several weeks later Jackie and Ben were coming back from the playing fields a mile or so outside the village. They were kicking a ball along as they went when Ben kicked the ball too high and it sailed straight over a fence at the side of the road.
'That was stupid,’ said Jackie, ‘how are we going to get it back?' Meanwhile Ben had been searching for a gap in the fence when he suddenly made a connection.
'Wow, Jackie, this is the house we are buying, I’m sure it must be. I’ve never thought of it before but this is the lower road out of the village and the garden backed onto it and I definitely recognise that huge apple tree that we saw in the garden.'
Jackie thought for a moment and then said, 'Well I suppose we can go round tomorrow and ask for our ball back.' But Ben wasn’t really listening.
'Hey Jackie, these two panels are loose, I’m going to try and squeeze through and get the ball, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind anyway, even if they see me and I doubt if they will ‘cos it’s nearly dark.'
Jackie was apprehensive but bolstered a little by her brother's rock solid confidence she agreed to wait by the fence while he popped in and retrieved the ball. She watched as he prised the panels apart and
slipped through and then all she could hear was a gentle swishing of leaves as he presumably forced his way through the shrubs at the end of the garden. Then all was silent and she gazed around, with heightened senses, across the open fields that lay just to the other side of the road from where she was standing. The evening had almost turned to night and under the overcast sky she could make out the silhouettes of trees way off in the distance. The occasional harsh caw of the distant wheeling crows, crashed against her fragile senses, sending butterflies shooting through her stomach. She looked back at the fence and thought, 'Where is he? It can’t take that long to find a ball, surely.’
In truth, he had only been gone a few minutes but in her strained state, it seemed an age. Then, in desperation, she pulled at the fence panels and pushing her head through the gap, hissed as loudly as she dared.
'Ben, Ben, where on earth are you? Come back, I’m scared.' There was a sudden noise and then something or somebody crashed solidly into her, knocking her backwards almost into the road and there was Ben standing over her, panting and gasping and almost beside himself with terror.
'Jackie come on we’ve got to run.'
Then he came to his senses enough to see