The Startling Inaccuracy of the First Impression, page 1
The Startling Inaccuracy of the First Impression
A.E. Radley
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Contents
1. Woodlands Avenue
2. An Eyesore
3. Meeting Miss Forsyth
4. The End of Peace and Quiet
5. A Spoilt Kitty
6. Dinner Parties and Motorbikes Don’t Mix
7. A Spot of Gardening
8. I Was a Dolphin
9. Here’s My Number
10. Maintenance Day
11. Dinner Party Guests Meet Neighbour
12. A Knock on the Door
13. No More Bike
14. Minimalist
15. You Came Back
16. Needs a Little Help
17. Bonding Over Soup
18. Sliced Fruit
19. From the Upstairs Ogre to a Lifesaver
20. Mary Finds Out
21. A Stroll in the Garden
22. The Real Reason for Early Retirement
23. Documentaries About Murderers
24. A Visitor
25. Piles of Paperwork
26. Dining Out
27. The Return of Deanna
28. The Silent Treatment
29. Asking for Advice
30. A Terrible Date
31. A Rescue
32. The Showdown
33. Explanations
34. A Revelation
35. Am I Imagining Things?
36. I’d Like to Date Your Mother
37. Clomping Down the Stairs
38. Bulk Buying
Epilogue
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1
Woodlands Avenue
Katie Ross tucked her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and looked up at number twenty-seven Woodlands Avenue. It was a Victorian-built property, much like so many others in Greater London. The building had two floors, with three windows on the upper level and two large bay windows on the ground. In the middle of the building, in between the windows on the ground floor, were two doors.
It was the only indication that the house wasn’t one home, but rather two. One of the doors led to the downstairs apartment, and one led to a flight of stairs up to the top-floor apartment.
“Miss Ross?” a man asked.
Katie turned to him and smiled. “Yes. Please call me Katie.”
He held out a hand. “Peter,” he introduced himself.
Peter Lawton was exactly what Katie had expected. He was in his late sixties and obviously kept himself in good shape; he was tall and well-built. His face was slightly weathered and his hair white. He wore smart chinos, a collared shirt, and a thin V-neck sweater.
He held a set of keys which wouldn’t have looked out of place hanging from the belt of a prison warden. Peter obviously rented out a number of properties.
“Lovely, quiet street,” he commented. “Did you find it okay?”
Katie nodded. She’d looked it up on Google Maps before calling him to arrange a viewing.
It was too big for her, but she wanted a place in South London and everything she saw seemed to be snapped up before she even had the chance to make a phone call.
Studio apartments and small one-bedrooms were few and far between, and so she’d started to look at two-bedroom homes instead. It was more than she wanted to pay, bigger than she needed, and a little farther south than she would have liked but staying where she was currently living was becoming unmanageable. If the property Peter was about to show her didn’t have mould growing up the walls, she’d take it.
“It’s two properties,” Peter explained. “I only own downstairs.”
They stood at the end of the path, just three meters from the large, single step that led up onto the covered porch. The path was made of beautiful black and white square tiles set at an angle to look like diamonds. Very pretty, very Victorian.
“Upstairs is a lady I’ve not met, but my last tenant said she was very nice,” Peter said.
He took a step beyond the walls that separated the front garden from the public pavement. He pointed to one side of the garden; it had a small tree that needed pruning and a thorny bush that Katie couldn’t identify. Aside from that, it was mainly mud.
“This is your side—if you take the place, that is,” he said. He pointed to the other side of the garden. “That side is upstairs.”
Katie looked at the neighbour’s well-tended garden. There was a flower bed filled with rose bushes and surrounded by ornamental rocks, and a couple of conifers created a natural wall between the garden and the property next door. A large, well-maintained tree and a bush were positioned in the corner by the house. The place looked classy and loved.
Upstairs, whoever she was, either hired someone or spent considerable time maintaining her half of the front of the garden.
Peter stepped into the porch. Katie followed him, noting that the step was higher than the average step.
“Prevents flooding,” he pointed out. “Back in the day, there was a river not too far from here. This step prevented water getting into the house. We don’t have that problem these days, though; the river’s not been around for years.”
Katie looked around the porch. The entrance was a large, brick archway which led into a small vestibule. The tiled floor was an attractive mosaic, but many of the pieces had been broken over the years and the colours were faded.
Peter set about looking at his keys, muttering to himself as he questioned which one would open the large, wooden door to the right.
The door on the right was varnished in a dark mahogany wood stain. The door to the left was painted black and was adorned with a large silver door knocker and matching letterbox. It was undoubtedly the classier of the two.
Peter found the key he’d been looking for and unlocked the door. He stood to one side and gestured for Katie to enter the apartment first.
As with any property from that time period, the ceilings were high, and the floorboards were original. A wooden rail ran along the wall three quarters of the way up. Katie looked at the corridor fondly; it reminded her of her grandmother’s home.
At the end of the corridor was a wooden door with some glass panes in the top half which looked like it led into the back garden. Directly to her right was a door.
“That’s the master bedroom,” Peter said, stepping around her and opening it.
She walked inside, noticing that the bedroom had soft carpet rather than the wooden floor of the hallway. There was a large bed, a chest of drawers, two built-in wardrobes, blinds, and a dressing table with a stool. Everything was either white or pine in colour.
“All the furniture is included, unless you have your own in which case, I’ll put it in storage?” He asked.
“I’ll take it furnished, my current place is furnished so I don’t have much of my own,” Katie replied.
Peter nodded and continued to walk down the hallway, and Katie followed him. He pointed out to the garden. It was small, mainly lawn, though it had some small trees and a flower bed. There was a large brick wall to the right, and to the left was a hedge which ran from the back wall to a couple of meters away from the house.
“Like the front, you share the back garden with upstairs,” he explained. “Everything on this side of the hedge is yours. Upstairs has a metal spiral staircase outside for them to access the garden directly.”
Peter pointed to the right. “There’s the kitchen and dining room.”
Katie walked into the dining area; there was a table with six chairs. She tried not to laugh out loud at the very idea of her ever needing more than one chair. Maybe two if she chose to put her feet up.
There was a sideboard and two large shelving units, all painted white.
The kitchen was long and narrow and had a window that looked out into the garden. She walked along it, noting the toaster, kettle, fridge, freezer, dishwasher, and washing machine. Everything she needed.
She looked up at Peter and nodded with a smile. He turned and walked back into the hallway, showing her the bathroom, small second bedroom, and then the large living room.
The living room housed a large leather sofa, a leather armchair, a television bench with no television, and the biggest set of shelves she’d ever seen.
“Made that myself,” Peter said at her continued staring. “Some industrial pipes, some planed-down wood.”
“It looks gorgeous,” Katie admitted.
The whole unit was around two metres high and nearly twice that in length. The living room was big and so the shelves didn’t dominate it as they would have in another room, but it did leave Katie wonder
“Lots of light in this room,” Peter said. He lifted the wooden blinds up to indicate the front garden.
Katie dutifully looked outside. The master bedroom looked over her side of the front garden; the living room looked over the other side. The other rooms all had views of the rear garden, which meant that the apartment was light and airy. The large rooms, high ceilings, and light colour scheme made for very attractive surroundings.
Katie thought about the modern new-build house she was currently living in with Chris. It was cramped, dark, and the mismatched colours from their competing decorating themes was depressing. Or was it just that the whole situation was depressing?
She wanted out. Needed to get out.
“So, I suspect you have questions?” Peter asked.
Katie didn’t have a single question. She knew the price: affordable but more than she’d ordinarily be willing to pay. She knew the contract: twelve months rolling. And she knew that it was far, far away from Chris and her games.
Quick, she told herself, think of a question. You can’t just walk around it once and say you’ll have it.
“I like it.” She stalled, hoping her brain would give her a question to ask. “Is there parking?”
“You’ll need a permit to park on the roads around here,” Peter said. “Another way the council tries to suck us all dry! It’s thirty pounds for the year, so not that much.”
“I have a bike, well, a moped.”
“Oh, then you can just park that in your half of the garden,” he said. “It’s mainly mud, so it’s not like you’d ruin the flower beds. Might want to chain it to the tree, though.”
Katie nodded. It wouldn’t be ideal. Her current place had a garage, somewhere she could maintain the bike and keep her tools. And get away from Chris when she needed five minutes of peace.
The thought of Chris pushed aside any concerns about a lack of garage space.
She needed to get out. The sooner, the better.
“I’ll take it,” she announced.
Peter blinked in surprise but soon recovered. “Wonderful! I have some paperwork for us to fill in. Let me go and get it from my car. When would you like to move in?”
“As soon as possible.”
Peter nodded; a kind look in his eye. As a landlord, he’d presumably met plenty of people like her, people in situations they wanted to move on from. He was quite likely experienced in handing over keys, not only to new homes but to new starts in life.
“Right then, let’s get that paperwork,” he said.
2
An Eyesore
Verity Forsyth turned from the high street and started walking down Woodlands Avenue. She’d been out far longer than she anticipated, having gotten stuck at the local bookstore.
She lifted her arm and peeled back the cuff of her sleeve to reveal her watch. She tutted. If she’d known that trying to find a book on learning to play the piano would be so difficult, she wouldn’t have embarked on the lengthy task.
Every single book the large store had was for children, and Verity had no need nor desire to learn how to play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Nor did she want some cartoon character patronising her page after page.
Albert, the store owner, had attempted to be helpful as usual. Sadly, he just ended up tripping over himself as he followed her around the store. She was probably his main source of income these days.
She picked up the pace, eager to get home and get a few things done before heading out again to pick up Callum. She didn’t mind picking up her great-nephew at all, but sometimes she did wish there were more hours in a day. Especially when people like Albert insisted on wasting one of them.
There was still a slight chill in the air. It certainly wasn’t warm enough to be out without a coat yet, but it was warmer than it had been for weeks. Spring was definitely on the way.
The few trees that were dotted along Woodlands Avenue were starting to sprout green leaves again. She wouldn’t miss their eerie, empty branches.
She had a to-do list a mile long when it came to her garden. Watching the autumn and winter roll in and prevent any maintenance was tiresome, and she’d been itching to get back out there.
Soon, she reminded herself.
As she approached her home, she noticed the front wall could do with a little care and attention. She paused and ran a gloved hand over the concrete coping that sat atop the hip-high wall. It needed a layer of paint. Not bad for something that was over one hundred and fifty years old.
She peered over to the other wall, the one owned by the downstairs landlord. It also needed some tidying up. She’d have to find out who owned the downstairs apartment these days. There was no point in only doing half the wall, even if it was split in two by the entranceway in the middle.
She started to walk up the path and stopped dead. There was a bike in the garden, and it was chained to the tree.
“What on earth…”
She stepped closer, carefully placing a boot onto the mud and looking at the bike. It was a moped of some type with a large storage box on the back, similar to ones that couriers used.
She turned and looked around, wondering who had dumped the vehicle in the garden. Parking was at a premium in the area, and she wouldn’t put it past someone to sneakily put the bike in the garden to avoid paying a fine.
Taking a step back, she looked at the two windows of the downstairs apartment. The blinds were down and closed as they had been for weeks since the last tenants moved out.
There was a possibility that she had a new downstairs neighbour, though she wasn’t happy at the thought that they owned a motorbike and thought nothing of parking it in the garden. It was an eyesore, and chaining it to the tree just seemed wrong somehow.
With a shake of her head she stepped back onto the path and entered the entrance vestibule, getting her key out of her pocket. She’d keep an eye on the situation with the bike. If it didn’t disappear in a day or two, she’d report it to the council. If it did belong to her neighbour, well, then she’d politely suggest removing the eyesore from their shared garden space.
Hopefully it was a temporary measure, and whoever had placed the vehicle there would soon see sense.
She unlocked the door, stepped inside, and picked up the post from the floor. She closed the door behind her, secured the latch, and then made her way up the stairs towards her apartment.
As she climbed, she sorted the post into boring administration and anything that might be interesting. As usual, the boring pile was twice the size of the other. She placed the bills and statements on the table at the top of the stairs with her house keys and started to open the other envelopes.
The information on the writing retreat had finally arrived, and she itched to read it cover to cover. Instead she placed it on the coffee table to read that evening. No point in getting too excited when she’d spent time reading about the process of writing but had yet to put a single word down on paper.
Besides, she’d promised herself that she would focus on the piano now that she had taken the plunge and spent the money, and would soon devote floorspace, on getting an upright piano delivered.
She looked around the living room, remembering that the deliverymen would be coming the next day with the large musical instrument. She needed to make space; wherever they put it would likely be where it stayed. The second-hand, large, wooden beast would likely be immovable for her.
