Chapter 10

Jen and I took the early cross-country train on the Wednesday morning, and got to Temple Meads station in the centre of Bristol just before eleven.

It was a bit of a hike from there up to Clifton, almost three miles, so we hopped on a bus for most of the way.

We found Caledonia Place quite easily, and followed the numbers until we found their bell. Sheila stuck her head over the first floor balcony, and told us that Adrian was on his way down to let us in.

The terrace of stone buildings was amazing, Georgian or early Victorian five-storey town houses with railings, with a basement, a wonderful wide front door just above street level, a beautiful white painted wrought iron balcony on the first floor, and two more floors above. But they had clearly been neglected over the years, and their division into flats had left ugly clusters of plastic doorbells where the original brass plate would have been, and the door badly needed sanding down and repainting.

There were several skips on the street; it was obvious that this area was on the up, which presumably was why the twins' father had invested his money here.

Caledonia Place was lovely, a really wide street with trees and a decent bit of grass behind low iron railings in the middle of the two lanes of road.

Adrian opened the front door, and led us up the stairs into their flat, where we dropped our grip and sleeping bags, and I introduced Jen to the twins.

I had shaken hands with Adrian, and given Sheila a (very quick) grade three kiss on her open mouth; I was pleased to see that Jen kissed both of them briefly on the lips.

We looked around us.

The flat was in one hell of a mess!

It had clearly been lovely, and could be again, but it had been divided up into tiny rooms, and the evidence of several days worth of demolition lay all around us. Even in the tiny hall between their front door and their living room, grotty wooden cupboards dominated the space. Adrian had already taken the doors off all of them, and a hot water tank leaned drunkenly in the middle one.

The hall led into a large sitting room overlooking the street, which had three wonderful floor to ceiling sash windows from which you could get out on to the balcony. There was a small kitchen alcove in the corner, but it had clearly been a very impressive reception room in its time.

"It's probably a good thing and has saved them from damage, but some idiot has nailed plywood over all the period features - we've found a gorgeous fireplace, and when we took the plywood off the front wall we found the shutters were still in their boxes!"

There were two decent sized bedrooms and a bathroom at the back - or rather, there would be, once the work was finished. It was better not to think why the previous owner had made four absolutely tiny bedrooms; presumably just as places to throw a mattress.

The twins showed us what they had done so far - it was impressive. They had clearly been working hard, and there was a huge pile of broken plasterboard, plywood and lino in the corner of the living room.

As Sheila plugged their electric kettle in to a very wobbly looking socket to make us a cup of tea, Adrian explained what he hoped we could help them achieve.

"We've been sleeping on the floor in here so far, and we need to get going on the bedrooms now, to clear them ready for decorating. We've got a skip coming in the morning for all the rubbish, and hopefully a couple of beds being delivered tomorrow afternoon. The electrician will be here tomorrow as well, to make everything safe. Mum and Dad are now coming down on Friday night with another car full of stuff and Gran's dining table and chairs on the roof; the last lot they brought is under the dust sheets in that other pile there!'

We drank our tea, and Sheila announced that she was going round the corner to a sandwich shop for some lunch.

"The fridge socket isn't working yet, so we are living hand to mouth and having to eat out. Please don't even look at the cooker; Mum went a funny colour when she opened the oven door, and sent Dad straight down to the Gas Board to order a new one! I don't think the last people ever cleaned it."

Jen looked a little awkward.

"I need to spend a penny, please!"

"The bathroom door doesn't lock, but we won't burst in on you if the door is closed. Don't look too closely at the state of it, remember 'what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over'! We are going to have a new one as soon as the plumber can come."

I took the opportunity of Jen being in the bathroom to give Sheila another hug and a kiss, whispering in her ear.

"I've really missed you, darling, I was so sorry not to be with you at Sian's!"

"I've missed you too! I'll tell you all about it later!"

When Jen came back in, I suggested that she go out with Sheila to have a look round the shops and help carry the sandwiches back, while Adrian and I set about removing the partition studs and ripping the remaining plywood off the bedroom walls. This was a two-man job, as one of us had to twist the upright to expose the nails, while the other one pulled them out with the claw hammer.

I took the opportunity of explaining to Adrian in private the real reason why I had brought Jen with me.

"Adrian, Jen is off to Reading, and she talked to Julie about losing her virginity before she goes, but she hasn't found anyone suitable at home. Would you please do her a great favour, and help her out? She's on the Pill, and she's very keen to do it."

He hesitated before replying, then nodded.

"If you are both sure, of course I will. Sheila and I owe you far more than we can ever repay for the way you and Julie helped us out, and the very least I can do in return is introduce your sister to the pleasures of the flesh to the best of my ability. But can it please wait until tomorrow, when we will at least have a bed to do it on? A sleeping bag on a grubby floor isn't the most romantic place on Earth!"

"Yes, of course! Julie will be also here by then, which will help Jen feel more comfortable. The two of them were awake most of the night exchanging confidences when Jen came to Cardiff! I suspect she knows a great deal more about my sex life than I'm really comfortable with."

"My sister knows one hundred percent of the details of mine! But then, I know all her sordid secrets as well, so it's probably fair!"

"Yes, but your relationship is a little bit different to ours!"

We got on with the demolition. The twins had suspected that there would be original fireplaces behind the plywood in both rooms, and sure enough they were right. There were also many years of soot, rubble and birds nests, most of which fell out on the floor in great lumps. Adrian found some old sacks, and we quickly filled them with rubbish.

Jen and Sheila came back with sandwiches for all of us. As I'd hoped, they had also enjoyed a good natter as they explored the local area, and they seemed to be getting on very well.

They were pleased with what we had done with the bedrooms, especially when they saw that we had completely finished ripping out the modern stud walls which had divided each bedroom into two tiny cubicles, to reveal relatively undamaged original pine floorboards below.

"We'll need to do something about the fireplaces so we don't get draughts in the winter, but they'll clean up beautifully, and the mantelpieces will look great. The built-in bookcases will also look really good once we've repainted them - puce just isn't our colour. And don't the windows look so much better now that they aren't cut in two by the partitions?"

We washed our hands under the cold tap in the old kitchen sink; the bathroom sink and its pedestal were lying on the living room floor ready to go in the skip as soon as it arrived.

Jen and Sheila had said some more very bad, but very understandable, words about the filthy state of the toilet, but we had the sense to leave it there until the plumber was ready to put in the new one!

Shall we agree that it wasn't 'clean round the bend' as it should have been if the previous occupants had been using 'Harpic' as much as the advertisements said they should, and leave our description at that?

Back to more wholesome matters.

The sandwiches from the local shop were excellent, fresh crusty bread, made to order with plenty of filling, washed down with a mug of tea.

"You two will be getting very tubby if you live like this all the time!"

"No chance; we can't afford it!"

Jen grimaced; I think she had been a little astonished by the price of a posh sandwich!

We all worked hard until six, then we took turns washing and changed into something half-decent, and then went out for a simple but delicious supper at a small Italian restaurant round the corner.

We had a glass of beer at a pub on the way back, more to help the two girls get used to the taste before they started at Uni than because we actually wanted a drink, and then went back to the flat and sat down on the floor of the sitting room for a cup of tea.

"So what next, twins?"

"An early night, I think! Twin, do you have a preference for which bedroom is yours? No, neither do I. Tell you what, we can always swap later, so if you take the one next to the bathroom, I'll have the other. The floors are clean enough now for the sleeping bags, so if you take Jen in with you, Jon can come in with me."

We moved our stuff into the two rooms, and all got ready for bed and into our sleeping bags.

I could hear the muffled sound of the two girls chatting; they seemed to be becoming good friends already, as I'd hoped. Adrian had warned Sheila what Jen wanted, and I knew that Sheila would be doing her best to put Jen at her ease.

"You'll have to put some carpet down, but these will be nice rooms. I think your Dad has chosen very well."

"Yeah, we think he's played a real blinder over this; we didn't know he had it in him! We're really impressed. When Gran died last year, he hung on to most of her stuff because he knew we were going to need it if he got us a flat. It's her kettle we are using, her mugs, her toaster, her fridge waiting to be plugged in, and all the towels and bedding were hers. It's saved us a bomb!"

"And how did the holidays go? Did the two of you manage to control your natural urges?"

"Pretty much so, though we had a couple of close calls! That fortnight at Sian's was a huge relief in more ways than one, though it was a real pity that you were working and couldn't come over to assist, as the three of them very nearly wore me out!"