Chapter 29

Shortly before the middle weekend in September, Andrew telephoned Toby one evening to ask if he would be free on Saturday morning to lend a hand with the items that they wanted to move down from “Hill House” to their new flat in Bristol. Toby, who had done nothing but work, eat and sleep ever since Amber left, was pleased for the chance to do something different, even though it meant that he would have to face the Monies house with the knowledge that Amber was not going to come bouncing out through the front door to greet him. Early on Saturday Toby was collected from home, not as he had expected by Tom and Andrew in the firm’s van, but by Natasha and Emma in Tom’s Volvo estate car. Natasha explained that they had realised that there would be too much stuff to pack into the van alone, so they had decided to see if they could get the overflow into the back of the car to save two separate journeys. Toby wondered aloud where he was going to sit on the way down and Emma informed him that she intended to travel with Tom and Andrew in the van. Toby, who had had a ride in it before, wisely said nothing. Andrew and his father were already at “Hill House” when they arrived and had begun the job of demolishing “La Retraite”. Toby looked round sadly at the room which held so many happy memories for him.

‘So, where’s this famous rug?’ demanded Natasha who had obviously heard something about it.

‘Ahah,’ replied Toby, running his hand up and down her back, ‘It has pride of place at the foot of my bed now. I would be pleased to show it to you whenever you like though.’

‘He’d be pleased to demonstrate how good it feels too,’ giggled Emma, ‘I should watch him if I were you Tasha. He’s got that hungry look in his eye nowadays. It’s remarkable what doing without nookie for a couple of weeks can do to a man.’

Natasha laughed.

‘And a woman too. You must remember I don’t see much of old Brucie during term-time.’

‘Now let’s see,’ said Toby, pretending to count on his fingers, ‘It would only take me about ... um ... an hour to get down to Bristol from Nalchester and I could bring the rug with me in the boot and if we didn’t hang about too much once I got there I could actually make it back home in time for supper. Hmm.’

‘Don’t tempt me,’ warned Natasha and Toby was rather interested by the tone of voice in which she said it.

After they had stripped all the furniture out and loaded it into the van, Toby set to work with a hammer and screwdriver to remove all the tacks that were holding down the carpet. After a while he commented that he would never have nailed it down so well if he had only realised that he would have to take it back up again himself.

“La Retraite” was soon finished and they then turned their attention to the house. The men had obviously been up from the garage, because only the things that the Stevensons were taking had been left behind.

‘Doesn’t it seem enormous without the furniture,’ observed Toby as they walked round the empty downstairs rooms.

‘That’s what we think about the flat at the moment,’ said Natasha, ‘Though I suppose it won’t seem as big when we actually move everything into it.’

Toby was surprised when he went upstairs to find that there were three beds to be moved.

‘I thought that you were only having Amber and Alan’s divans.’

‘We were originally, but then we decided that we’d have the double from the spare room too.’ explained Andrew. He winked. ‘Em and I paid for that ourselves.’

‘Oh I see,’ laughed Toby, the reason for the purchase needing no explanation.

‘I can’t see how they’ll ever get any work done,’ sighed Tom, rolling his eyes expressively, ‘They already spend the whole time in bed screwing the arse off each other as it is.’

‘How dare you, father,’ complained Andrew primly, ‘I’ll have you know that my relationship with Miss Knight is purely platonic.’

‘Then you’re no son of mine if it is,’ chuckled Tom. He put his arm round Emma and squeezed her. ‘Emma, my dear, I think that one day you and I should have a cosy little chat.’

Emma reached up and kissed him on the end of the nose.

‘Poppa dearest, I think that would be very nice.’

‘Here,’ laughed Andrew, ‘Don’t encourage the poor old fellow. It’s bad for his blood pressure.’

His father took a swipe at him with a pillow.

‘Bully,’ cried Andrew, moving hastily out of the way, ‘Lay a finger on me and I’ll tell Mummy that you tried to seduce my girlfriend.’

‘You vile sneak,’ laughed his father, ‘I believe that you would too.’

‘Children, children,’ chuckled Toby, ‘This isn’t getting the furniture moved.’

Tom and Andrew slipped the mattress onto the floor and turned the base onto one side so that Toby could unscrew the legs. While they were doing that the girls started to load the electrical equipment into the car. As Tom surmised, they were just able to squeeze everything into the two vehicles and they closed up the house before setting off for Bristol.

As he went to get into the car Toby took one last longing look back.

‘Missing her?’ asked Natasha gently as they moved off down the drive behind the van.

‘Terribly,’ replied Toby, ‘I felt as if my life ended when I said goodbye to her for the last time.’

‘I sympathise,’ said Natasha, ‘I’ll never forget the day when Bruce went off to Newcastle for his first term. I cried so much that I thought I was going to die. It was ridiculous really because it wasn’t even going to be that long until I saw him again.’

‘It was such a shame that he didn’t get that place at Birmingham.’

‘I’ll say. Even Birmingham and Bristol would have been far enough apart from each other, but Bristol to Newcastle is just hopeless.’

‘You never see him during term time, do you?’

‘No, it’s just not really worth the effort, not to mention the cost.’

‘The reunions must be nice though.’

Natasha laughed.

‘Very passionate,’ she agreed, ‘But the trouble is that at first we kind of feel like strangers to each other. It seems to take almost the whole holiday to get back to where we used to be and then we both go back off to our separate little worlds.’

‘Makes you envy Andrew and Emma, doesn’t it?’

‘They have the perfect relationship, those two. I keep telling them how lucky they are.’

‘You get on all right with Bruce despite the separations though, don’t you? I thought you seemed very happy together.’

‘Well yes, I suppose we are. We argue more than we used to though. He has got very involved in politics since he went up to Newcastle and I’m afraid that we don’t see eye to eye on that subject at all.’