“Perhaps you could look later, then.”
Ronnie joined them as she dried her hands and cut to the chase. “Why do you think he went off, Pauline? Was it the financial problems? Had you had a row? Have you been having other trouble?”
Ronnie might have been small but hers was clearly the kick-the-door-down kind of approach and Elise tried to warn her off with a look but Pauline laughed, a loud, harsh bark, and swept her cup around her world.
“You mean apart from living in this? He promised me we’d be in the big house last year but nothing’s been done for months and months. And he’s spent the money for my pool cabana. Bloody Charlie! Sorry, but marriage is never a picnic, is it?”
“Tell me about it.” Ronnie smiled. “What is it with men? I think mine’s starting to smell of wee. What’s that about?”
“It’ll be his prostate, dear. Charlie’s got the same trouble. It’s meant an end to sex.”
“Well, that could be a blessing,” Ronnie said.
“Not where I’m concerned. I’m a woman with needs.”
“Had you argued about it?” Elise said quietly.
Pauline flicked her eyes away. “My needs or the house?”
“Either . . .”
“No,” Pauline muttered, and made to stand. Show over.
“When did you buy the place?” Elise walked over to a window to look up at the building. There was a story here and she felt more alive than she had for weeks—she was nowhere near ready to be shown the door. “I heard it used to be a hotel. It’s very impressive.”
She’d seen it before of course, rising above the trees like the opening shots of a costume drama. But now she could see part of it had been closed off with security fencing and there was metal shuttering on some of the lower windows. The lettering on the many trade signboards was fading but it looked like there was work for the local builders for years to come.
“Five years ago.” Pauline came to stand beside Elise. She was animated, almost girlish, for the first time. “No, it must be six. Anyway, it was love at first sight. Look at it!”
Elise tried but she couldn’t see beyond the decay. The house looked as if it could have been harboring an ax murderer.
“Do you want to see inside?” Pauline said, grabbing a key from its hook by the door, her missing husband apparently forgotten.
The damp was like two-day-old bruises on the walls, and when Elise touched one of the mottled green patches, plaster crumbled onto the floor.
“I remember the first time I saw it—it blew my mind,” Pauline was trilling. “It’d been empty for a while but it just needed some TLC.”
“It might have been kinder to put the whole place out of its misery,” Ronnie murmured, but if Pauline heard, she ignored it.
Living in denial might have been the only way for her to cope, Elise supposed. The alternative was too devastating. They must have plowed all their money into it.
“It definitely needs some work,” Pauline said when the silence grew. “But that was reflected in the price. It’s got a resident ghost and a grand salon.” She threw open double doors like a telly-makeover-show reveal and Elise tripped over a plastic bucket catching drips from the ceiling. “The pipework still needs finishing. The plumber let us down,” Pauline muttered, guiding them past another three containers of varying size.
“Ted’s got some old buckets in his shed you can have,” Ronnie said, but Pauline was on a roll.
“Look, you can see the Isle of Wight! I love it.”
“And does Charlie feel the same way?” Elise asked.
“Oh, Charlie!” she muttered. “He kept on about the roof and how long it’d been on the market. He wanted to buy a smaller place but I won him over.” And she twirled a lock of dyed hair.
“How old is he?”
“What? Oh, seventy-four next month. Ninth of the ninth . . .”
“What did he do before you retired down here?”
“Goodness, this is beginning to feel like a cross-examination.” Pauline laughed uncertainly. “He made his money with regeneration projects in west London, as far as I know. We had a lovely home when we got married. And we had such plans—we were going to put a cinema and sauna in the basement but first the neighbors objected—and then there was the business about the money.”
“What business?” Elise said.
“I think that’s enough personal questions, don’t you?” Pauline snapped. “That’s all ancient history. It was a silly misunderstanding that was put right.”