Blue Comes Through

Chapter Ten

The blue front door is wide open when I arrive at the lodge just before One the following day.

Will is fast asleep in the pushchair, tired after lunch and a swim this morning.

My nerves are fluttering a bit. I'm embarrassed to see Finn after falling asleep on him, nervous the housekeeper will like me and worried the job won't be as perfect as he described last night.

I'd thought about it a lot after I'd gone back to bed and the more I thought about it, the better it seemed. I'm almost excited. My current reserve is urging caution too. I can't get ahead of myself.

I walk into a small square entrance hall with a black and white tiled floor and push open a glass door which takes me into the main house. My first impression is of bright airy rooms, blonde wood and neutral colours. The floors and woodwork are all light oak. It looks as though Finn's bought up the Farrow and Ball neutral shelf. I recognise 'Elephant's breath' on the hallway walls. I can smell furniture polish and hear the low murmur of a news channel.

To my right is a small sitting room, the door is open to reveal a couple of squashy brown leather sofas and a fluffy teal blue rug. There's a low table, with a neatly arranged fan of newspapers and on the far wall a bookshelf is stacked high with paperbacks and magazines.

A long narrow hallway stretches in front of me, with a wide light oak staircase rising up to the upper floors. An alcove with a reception desk is to my left.

As I quietly close the glass door, a woman comes down the stairs. She's carrying a tin of furniture polish and a yellow duster. She smiles in greeting and shoves the duster into a pocket of the tabard she's wearing. She's aged anything between fifty and sixty, she's got a bouncy blonde bob, just a shade short of brassy and underneath the tabard she's wearing a pale blue t-shirt and faded jeans.

"Hi. You must be Maddie." She holds out her hand. She's tanned, her nails are immaculately painted red, but the palm of her hand as I shake it, is slightly calloused. This woman has worked hard.

"I'm Cheryl, Finn's housekeeper." She laughs. It's a warm throaty laugh. "He calls me the housekeeper. I'm the cleaner really. He said you'd be calling in. He just went to shower."

She looks down at Will. "This must be William. Oh he's sleeping. Look at him. Bless his little heart. Come through, love. I'll make you a coffee whilst we wait."

She points out various rooms as we walk. "We call that the quiet lounge. That's his office," she gestures towards the reception area. She rolls her eyes.

"Look at the state of it. How he finds anything I don't know."

I glance in and can only agree. The desk is piled so high with papers, you can barely see it, there's also a computer, a printer and a credit card machine. There are book shelves on the rear wall with a few files and also similarly piled with paper. The anal accountant in me recoils in horror. Cheryl must notice, as she chuckles. "I'm not allowed in there. He says there's order in the chaos." She shakes her head. "I don't believe a word of it."

She turns left into a huge bright room that stretches the length of the house. The walls are painted another neutral shade and are decorated with surf pictures and other seascapes.

The top end of the room has two leather sofas and two leather arm chairs arranged around a huge TV. The remainder is full of wooden dining tables and chairs. No two are identical but it's an attractive mismatch. They are various shades of duck egg and blue. Two long tables have church styles pews as seating. I wonder if this is all Finn's work. Did he throw it all together and it worked or was he going for the shabby chic look? It looks good.