industry, forged by enough years of burly builders attempting to make me blush. Phil had never struggled but I’d had to learn how to show no fear.
‘Hello again, Mr Bywater,’ I said, offering my hand. Hannah ambled up behind me, perplexed by my sudden burst across the yard. ‘This is Hannah, one of our interns. Shall we get started?’
Bywater looked a little perturbed too. I realised I was probably overusing the power-walk.
‘Sure.’ He smiled, taking my hand. His skin was rough against mine, not smooth like James’s. We broke contact then, him reaching to casually muss the back of his hair. ‘Come on in.’
Inside this first room, whatever this room was, it was just as Adrian had described it, well-proportioned and spacious, but with nothing to punctuate the endless wheat tones of newly-plastered surfaces.
‘Blank canvas,’ Bywater said, walking in after us. His voice lost some of its smoothness as it echoed off the bare concrete floor. Other than protruding cables and the occasional socket fascia hanging off a wire, there was nothing in here to suggest anybody called it home.
‘Are all the rooms like this, Mr Bywater? Plastered, wired …?’
He folded his arms and leant back against the door reveal. ‘Pretty much.’
‘Electrics and plumbing all working?’ I asked, taking the papers from Hannah’s arms and opening them out on the dusty floor. Mr Bywater nodded. ‘Do you know if these drawings are accurate? Just the general layout, I mean.’
He moved to look down at the drawings beneath me. ‘They look right. But I’d like this and the next room to be knocked through,’ he said, crouching beside me. I followed his finger over the plans. Nearly all of his knuckles were grazed.
‘The kitchen is next door?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, but I’d like to open it out across the back of the building. I have friends over, they eat a lot. Makes sense to make all this back here bigger.’ I began scribbling notes on the drawing under us. Bywater watched as I wrote. I hated that. It always seemed to render my handwriting illegible for some daft reason.
‘Nice pen.’
As soon as he spoke, I scrawled kitten instead of kitchen.
‘Thanks. And upstairs? Are you planning any structural changes up there?’
‘I’m leaving the second floor as storage, for now. As you can see on the plan,’ I caught a waft of something faintly spiced as he reached across me to the second drawing, ‘there are four bedrooms on the first floor. The previous owners intended to make this bedroom the master, overlooking the river on the north side, but I’d like to take the south bedroom, overlooking the millpond. I know I’m spoilt for choice, but that’s definitely the best view in the house.’
I glanced over the general layout of the south bedroom. ‘Is the existing en suite in there sufficient?’
Bywater straightened up. ‘Actually, I’ve seen something I wanted your opinion on,’ he said, pulling a brochure from his back pocket. He began thumbing through it, finding his page then passing it straight over my head to Hannah. ‘What do you think?’
Hannah, surprised that he’d addressed her, studied the image. He watched her, expectantly waiting for her feedback. I hadn’t worked with very many clients who bothered to include the juniors. Often they simply looked straight through them. ‘Well, you’re on a private road.’ She shrugged. ‘Why not?’ She passed me the brochure. The room in the picture was some sort of alpine chalet, doors flung open revealing the snowy vista outside. In the middle of the scene a Nordic beauty lounged in her bathtub, looking out onto the views.
‘Showers are for office types. I’m more of a bath guy.’ Bywater smiled, burying his hands into his jean pockets. ‘So do you think we could do something like this up there?’ He lifted his chin towards the exposed beams arching like a ribcage above us.
James was definitely a power-shower kind of person, but I knew he’d drool over a bedroom tub like this. When I thought of bathtubs, I thought of rubber ducks and no-more-tears shampoo, but James was all about the lines. ‘I’m sure we could. Are we okay to go take a look?’ I asked, getting to my feet.
‘Sure. Would you like me to show you around? I can’t be in too much danger,’ he said, peered down at my shoes. I ignored him. I didn’t know why he made me so uncomfortable, other than acting like a total idiot in front of him at Cyan two days ago, which technically was my fault, not his.
It could be worse, I supposed. I could be back at the office.
‘That’s okay.’ I smiled passively. ‘We’ll come and find you when we’ve finished measuring up.’ Hannah gave him a warmer smile and followed me towards the door.
‘I’ll be in the back if you need to talk bathtubs,’ he called after us.
We’d soon found our way around the upper floors, each room offering its own astounding views over the countryside – the tumbling river, the still millpond and the woodland encircling much of the property. It was almost impossible to resist fantasising about what your life would be like to live in a place like this. Hannah had already given me the lowdown on what her friends would say if the mill were hers; I’d found myself imagining Anna here. Showing her around the endless lawns, and the playroom I’d put in next to the kitchen. It was a fantasy all right. Right now, I’d be lucky if I could show her a rational couple managing to stand in the same room as each other. And yet this was the only plan I had – pretending everything was fine, bluffing our way through it long enough to complete the adoption. We could work out all the ugly business afterwards. Simple. I just had to find a way to be around James again without wanting to kick him.
I could not lose another child. Not even a child I didn’t know yet.
*
An hour later, in possession of every measurement we could possibly need, Hannah and I stepped out into the back yard. Ahead of us, a grassy bank obscured the source of the commotion we could hear emanating from the other side of the hillock. ‘He said he’d be out back. Come on, I’m curious.’ Hannah shrugged, walking up towards the brow of the hill.
The sounds of men messing around grew significantly louder at the grassy summit. ‘Bloody hell!’ Hannah exclaimed, staring across the meadow. I watched them open-mouthed too, flying up one side of the curved structure, launching themselves into the air before careering back down it again. I counted three men, throwing themselves recklessly up and down the arrangement of ramps. A fourth person, unconcerned by the bikes whizzing past his shaggy head was sitting at the top of one vertical incline, legs hanging over the edge as if he were just perching on a garden wall.
‘Go on, Max, I can get more height on my hair than that!’ the shaggy one hooted. Max threw himself fiercely into the drop. He made it into the air next to his shaggy friend but miscalculated whatever it is that these guys with no sense of self-preservation are supposed to calculate when gravity yanks them back down to earth. Max left his bike in the air above him, crashing down onto the vertical, sliding all the way back to the bottom of the ramp on his knees. A heartbeat later, the bike followed his slipstream, slumping hard into him.
‘That is so dangerous,’ I murmured, but he was already scrambling back onto his bike.
‘That is so cool!’ Hannah yelped, edging closer for a better look. I followed, looking around to see which one of these big kids was Bywater. I knew he’d be one of them, despite his grown-up house, there was something distinctively adolescent about him. It was his eyes that gave him away, piercing beneath the shadow of his black helmet.
‘Mr Bywater?’
The shaggy spectator was still yelling his encouragement. Bywater’s black helmet whizzed past again. ‘Mr Bywater?’ I repeated, louder this time. I let him pass twice more before I felt the stirrings of irritation. ‘Mr Bywater! Could I just have a quick word, please?’ Still nothing. He manoeuvred himself through the air over above the shaggy one’s head. I thought