always pretends to faintly disapprove of his mum, who grew up in the music scene of the Swinging Sixties, and who nowadays still manages to look top-drawer yet bohemian, her hair and figure still pretty much as it was circa 1964. She still wears the style of moderately short, A-line dresses and pale stockings and flat shoes of that era.
“All I’m suggesting,” she said mildly, “is a gap summer . If you can’t spare a whole summer at this juncture of your life, more’s the pity.”
I think it was the idea that he’d reached a “juncture” which finally got Jeremy on board, as if the whole world was telling him that he’d come to an important crossroads. So, Jeremy said that if summer was our target gap time, then in the springtime months before it, he’d work like mad to clear his schedule, preparing his clients to work with Rupert, the young guy in his office who was being groomed by Jeremy anyway.
As for me, I was the kind of freelancer who invariably ended up working when other people didn’t want to, like holidays and summers, so the idea of actually having a whole, luxurious summer vacation really was a grand indulgence.
“I think it fits right in with the Plan,” I said.
“And at the summer’s end,” Jeremy said, warming to the idea, “we can sort out all the other things we need to decide.”
Now, I want to say, here and now, that I was all for getting away from London and taking time off, even before Lydia appeared on the scene, literally darkening Jeremy’s doorstep. But now that she’d shown up, I figured we had all the more reason to vamoose.
Fortunately, since Jeremy was clearing the decks to take this time off, his work required him to do even more of those quick business jaunts to Brussels and Frankfurt and Antwerp, to schmooze his clients and prepare them for his hiatus. This kept him out of his bachelor apartment, and out of Lydia’s reach; and whenever he was in town, we always met at my flat. I was managing the trust when Jeremy was away, and I was counting the weeks until the auction.
I began to feel that we were on a lucky streak. The townhouse deal wasn’t easy, but Martin and I managed to pull it off with just a few minor skirmishes involving other buyers who finally backed off. The other apartments weren’t really filled with the kinds of “mod-cons” that buyers in this part of town expect. Doris and her husband, who lived upstairs, had such a small kitchen, and a leaky roof, that we were able to get a good price for it rather quickly. And downstairs, Gladys and her husband, inspired by the sale of Doris’ place, were now eager to sell and then move into their daughter’s house, rent-free, in Canada. Gladys’ ground-floor flat had old-fashioned plumbing and fixtures, which desperately needed updating, so this kept the selling price a bit lower than it might otherwise have been. The accountants and lawyers were actually a big help here; I think they felt protective of us now.
Jeremy and I e-mailed each other and commiserated over what needed to be done to bring the townhouse into the twenty-first century. To me, the house represented our future careers, and I sensed that, in launching an independent enterprise, how you end up depends a lot on how you begin. Therefore I wanted to make the place really work for us, by reviving the lovely, old-fashioned period detail yet making certain it had all the vital things we’d need to work from there. The wiring was ka-fluey, for instance. (All of it. Phones, electric, Internet.) And of course, whenever you’re remodeling, sooner or later somebody suggests knocking out a wall.
In this case, it was on the first floor, and it would combine two small rooms into one nice large sitting room, perfectly positioned between my office and Jeremy’s. I envisioned this big room as the place where we’d catch up with each other at the end of the day, as a bridge between our work and our personal life. And finally, Jeremy could have his
“All I’m suggesting,” she said mildly, “is a gap summer . If you can’t spare a whole summer at this juncture of your life, more’s the pity.”
I think it was the idea that he’d reached a “juncture” which finally got Jeremy on board, as if the whole world was telling him that he’d come to an important crossroads. So, Jeremy said that if summer was our target gap time, then in the springtime months before it, he’d work like mad to clear his schedule, preparing his clients to work with Rupert, the young guy in his office who was being groomed by Jeremy anyway.
As for me, I was the kind of freelancer who invariably ended up working when other people didn’t want to, like holidays and summers, so the idea of actually having a whole, luxurious summer vacation really was a grand indulgence.
“I think it fits right in with the Plan,” I said.
“And at the summer’s end,” Jeremy said, warming to the idea, “we can sort out all the other things we need to decide.”
Now, I want to say, here and now, that I was all for getting away from London and taking time off, even before Lydia appeared on the scene, literally darkening Jeremy’s doorstep. But now that she’d shown up, I figured we had all the more reason to vamoose.
Fortunately, since Jeremy was clearing the decks to take this time off, his work required him to do even more of those quick business jaunts to Brussels and Frankfurt and Antwerp, to schmooze his clients and prepare them for his hiatus. This kept him out of his bachelor apartment, and out of Lydia’s reach; and whenever he was in town, we always met at my flat. I was managing the trust when Jeremy was away, and I was counting the weeks until the auction.
I began to feel that we were on a lucky streak. The townhouse deal wasn’t easy, but Martin and I managed to pull it off with just a few minor skirmishes involving other buyers who finally backed off. The other apartments weren’t really filled with the kinds of “mod-cons” that buyers in this part of town expect. Doris and her husband, who lived upstairs, had such a small kitchen, and a leaky roof, that we were able to get a good price for it rather quickly. And downstairs, Gladys and her husband, inspired by the sale of Doris’ place, were now eager to sell and then move into their daughter’s house, rent-free, in Canada. Gladys’ ground-floor flat had old-fashioned plumbing and fixtures, which desperately needed updating, so this kept the selling price a bit lower than it might otherwise have been. The accountants and lawyers were actually a big help here; I think they felt protective of us now.
Jeremy and I e-mailed each other and commiserated over what needed to be done to bring the townhouse into the twenty-first century. To me, the house represented our future careers, and I sensed that, in launching an independent enterprise, how you end up depends a lot on how you begin. Therefore I wanted to make the place really work for us, by reviving the lovely, old-fashioned period detail yet making certain it had all the vital things we’d need to work from there. The wiring was ka-fluey, for instance. (All of it. Phones, electric, Internet.) And of course, whenever you’re remodeling, sooner or later somebody suggests knocking out a wall.
In this case, it was on the first floor, and it would combine two small rooms into one nice large sitting room, perfectly positioned between my office and Jeremy’s. I envisioned this big room as the place where we’d catch up with each other at the end of the day, as a bridge between our work and our personal life. And finally, Jeremy could have his
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