Robyn Hogan

With the aid of a rough sketch they located the little house, jostling its mate up against the fortress walls of Spain’s old Peniscola castle. Five storeys tall, one room wide, with a balcony jutting above the dusty lane.

Impulsively, Katie grabbed Ian’s hand, almost skipping with excitement. ‘Isn’t it cute?’

‘Not so fast,’ Ian cautioned, freeing his hand from hers, opening the briefcase, locating the keys and selecting the one that would fit the bright blue door. ‘Talk about flush with the street! Not even a doorstep.’

For years, on and off, they had dreamed of owning a holiday house in Europe. The dream had first emerged in Ireland’s County Clare on their honeymoon. ‘Castles, towers, dolmens, druids’ altars and broken down churches! Everywhere! What a country!’ Katie had declared, standing in the ruins of a castle. Sunlight, alternating with the showers, poured through the windows of the one tall, surviving wall at the base of which a couple of sheep camped, chewing their cuds.

‘Plenty of scope: nothing is exactly in prime condition,’ but Ian smiled indulgently at Katie’s enthusiasm.

‘Oh, to live in a place like this!’

‘Katie, Katie, my little romantic.’ Ian had picked her up, swung her round and the sheep merely shifted their cuds.

Later that day they met up with some Americans. Noisy Americans who had bought a round tower and screeched their difficulties in making it habitable.

‘We could do that,’ said Katie, ‘renovate something interesting, turn it into our own holiday house.’

‘Maybe. But I don’t think Ireland’s the place,’ Ian replied, ‘for starters, there’s no plumbing to speak of and getting pipes through those monumental stones is probably impossible. No, darling Kate, not here, not this time.’ Her crestfallen face made him add ‘Not here, dearest, but somewhere, some day.’

Katie and Ian held onto the dream. They chatted at dinner parties, conferences and charity cocktail evenings. ‘Ah, Katie, you and your nesting instincts,’ teased her friends. Sometimes they ran into people who had actually bought and renovated: a farmhouse here, an old church there and it felt, to them, like striking a mother lode. Katie asked after all the little details, her eyes glittering; Ian sought information on the practicalities of foreign house ownership.

They made the first move in the early seventies, in Tuscany before it became trendy and twenty years before books of renovation stories were all the rage. The first house they inspected lay down a driveway where the pine trees were dropping dollops of snow on the worn earth. A house with thirteen rooms, twelve of which were piled with stale smelling bedding. Mattresses, pillows, stuffed quilts, cushions and covers. No sign of a kitchen and the only evidence of a bathroom was a tap on the outside wall. The wonder was no one seemed to be camping in it. Their “man of business” had, quite seriously, taken them into the nearby village to look at stoves and bidets and such things until Ian put an end to what he called ‘pure foolishness’.

Recently, flipping through a glossy Villas of Tuscany in the doctor’s waiting room, Katie thought she recognised it. “Sleeps ten with a swimming pool” — and a rent to match.

There had been other places in Italy too but the restrictions and reservations had made purchase too difficult in Ian’s eyes. As he was fond of saying: ‘And there’s no guarantee they won’t put a super highway or an airport through the property.’

The best house they had considered, in Katie’s opinion, was also in Tuscany, a little way outside Castellina in Chianti. The slopes around were covered in olives and vines and the towers of San Gimignano sat on the horizon. This traditional aspect was not shared by the next door neighbour who obviously struggled for holiday lettings. ‘A dragon woman’, Ian had called her, convinced she had stirred the Italian bureaucracy into objection after objection to their plans. They had even been told to preserve the lean-to animal shelters; they were ‘heritage’. ‘Her place is buried in a tight, cold little hole; she doesn’t want a rival business with a better view nearby,’ Ian had ranted as they gave in on that particular dreamhouse.

That was the first time Katie had realised Ian was seeing this house buying as business. She had shivered at the realisation; was wary of it now as she looked from the sunshine into the darkness behind the open blue door of the Spanish terrace.

‘I think this house may be far too small for us.’ Ian waved her into the narrow passageway ahead of them.

‘Nonsense!’ Katie laughed over her shoulder. ‘I’m getting wonderful vibes about this place. It’s somewhere that’s been lived in by a Roman soldier; a house that has seen Hannibal land his elephants.’ She tried to twirl like a teenager but her shoulder grazed the passage wall.
‘That French house, the one in St. Flour, that you were so keen on, was small. You remember? The carpenter’s house, built into the side of a derelict church, you didn’t think that was too small – just the woodworm would have been a bit hard to live with.’

‘We were younger then.’

‘You know, every house we looked at in France had woodworm; the country is churning with it. Or plaster seeping with dampness. Or both.’ She was thinking particularly of the rambling Dordogne house along Richard Lion Heart’s route. The upper floor of that was one great hole; the commemorative frescoes in the nearby church, also for sale, were melting into mildew and moss.

‘Yes. But we are not in France now. Today we are looking at a house in Spain right now. Move on, Katie, move on.’ There was impatience where once there might have been indulgence in his tone.

Ahead, in the old thunderbox space, was a modern toilet, a pedestal no less. And the donkey’s stall was now a smart shower recess.

‘Nice and clean,’ Katie murmured and Ian merely grunted.

The next room, up narrow, straight steps, was the kitchen with a circular bench built onto a wall and a heavy, sawn-oak table positioned to complement its curve. The meagre cupboards were small and a bit tatty but, so what? Shoulders brushing against the walls of the narrow, spiral staircase, feet dipping on the worn treads, they ascended room by room. A raised alcove, a storage area, was a feature in the first room above; jutting benches in the next. A small band of bright red and orange tiles acted as skirting boards at the base of the gleaming, white washed walls. That seemed to be the end of the original house as the next two rooms were wider with higher ceilings and airy windows, the uppermost with a balcony; the stairs between these rooms open and wider.

The climb onto the roof was a little difficult, the access being a trapdoor. Ian grunted as he heaved himself through and Katie, being slimmer and smaller was, truth to tell, a little nervous of falling as she scrambled upwards.

‘Hugo said he’d insert a proper doorway. He’ll have to,’ Ian declared but Katie wasn’t listening. The view from the flat, red rooftop was magic. Beyond the castle keep rolled a sparkling sea dotted with earnest trading ships; tacking yachts circled distant islands. Majorca? Looking the other way was the bay, waves curling into a sandy beach fronted by modern high-rise apartment buildings and swaying, carefully positioned, palm trees.

A multi-million dollar view going almost for free.

‘Wonderful! Beautiful!’ Katie was ecstatic, twirling full circle twice before sobering.

‘I have my doubts about being able to rent it out easily. Take a look at those fancy flats,’ Ian waved towards the bay, ‘they’d be our competition.’

Katie stifled a sigh. ‘Didn’t Hugo say the Brits just go for these authentic properties?’ She swallowed hard. ‘Mind you, though, at the price we have been asked to pay we don’t have to rent out. Just keep it for ourselves and Aussie friends.’ She tried to sound upbeat.

The barbecue and clothesline grabbed her attention, causing a frown. ‘How could you carry food up here? And washing?’

‘Not a problem. There’s a pulley system.’ Ian, leaning over the low wall, demonstrated his find. ‘Quite neat. Strong too. That concrete bench must have arrived here by pulley.’

‘You mean I would be in the kitchen and put the meal or the washing in a basket and you would heave it up?’ She shook away the quick mental picture of the labour involved.

‘Yep! And by the time you got up here I’d have things organised.’ Another mental picture that didn’t quite gel. Ian crossed the rooftop, sat on the bench bright with mosaic stones, red, orange, yellow and white, his arms stretched along its back. Katie joined him and together they lounged soaking the adventure up, in their differing ways, imagining themselves doing just that for days on end. The heat of the golden sunlight was relieved by a soft, salt-tinged zephyr and the sea, rolling and thudding against the castle walls, the only sound. They could have been Roman soldiers or elephant keepers relaxing.

‘Let’s have another look-see,’ Ian, on his feet now, was wrestling with the trap door. ‘Hugo will have to put a proper entrance in. We’re not putting up with this arrangement.’ Ian, through the trap-door, stretched his arms up to help Katie down and they steadied themselves along the stairs. ‘He also said he would put guard rails in for us if we wished; I think we wish.’

‘Mmm…this would be our bedroom?’

‘Probably.’ Ian picked up the briefcase he had left by the stairs, opened it and took out a notebook and measuring tape. ‘Here, hold this Sweetie,’ and he scampered along the nearest wall, reeling the tape out, then the wall with the window and balcony. Making a rough sketch of the room, he jotted the figures down, before again swinging his eyes round the space. ‘We’d have to put the bed here.’

‘In front of the window and balcony? No, Ian, it should go against this wall so we can lie in and look out to the sea and stars.’

‘The room is not wide enough that way.’

‘How big a bed are you thinking of? I mean I think,’ she clasped and unclasped her hands, ‘one of those futon things that folds up into a sofa would be ideal.’

‘No way! And where would you put a wardrobe?’ Ian turned slowly round studying the bright white walls.

‘We’d have a chest. A good camphorwood one. And you could sit on it to take your shoes off.’ A tremor flooded through her cooling her excitement; he did have to be careful of his back. They’d had to leave the IVF program because of his back.

‘You’d put my suits in a box? Anyway, futons, chests, they’re peasant furniture.’

‘Ian, this is a peasant house. That’s its charm. Hannibal passed by here —’

‘ — Darling, really. We have to be practical.’ With a hand against the wall, he descended to the next level; Katie, becoming rapidly more subdued, followed him.

The dimensions were the same as the one above. ‘We could make this our bedroom and the room above the sitting room.’

‘Makes more sense, actually. There’d be room to hang my suits.’

‘Why would you bring suits to a holiday house?’ Katie frowned, genuinely puzzled.

‘We’re thinking of opening an office in Barcelona. It’s the place to be since the Olympics.’

Katie’s eyes widened. She said nothing; followed him down the stairs.

‘This room could be our study.’

Of course, Katie thought, the seeds of rebellion gathering in her throat. After all, each Sydney home upgrade had brought ever more studies and dens.

‘Pity about the built-in bench.’

‘It’s the way they furnished things,’ she murmured then brightened. ‘Remember that place in Greece where they put the children to sleep on shelves?’

‘We haven’t got children. And that bench is hardly a good position for watching television. We’d need solid lounge chairs.’

‘The television is rigged up in the kitchen.’

‘Umph! You don’t expect me to spend much time in that bleak little space.’

Katie felt a flash of anger; held her breath and, turning to the stairs, the narrow, spiral flight now, she carefully made her way down a floor, feeling Ian stumbling behind her.

‘This room,’ announced Ian as he joined her, ‘is quite impossible. Pokey, more plaster shelves,’ he gestured towards them then to the cave-like alcove, ‘and as for that. What on earth did they use that for. Storing babies?’

Colour suffused her neck, her face, up to the roots of her greying blond hair. She felt dangerously calm. ‘What would you know of babies?’

Choosing to ignore her, shoulders touching both walls, he began to measure his feet against the treads of the winding steps leading to the kitchen. ‘Interesting, isn’t it, how climbing stairs is easier than going down. Probably says something about life generally.’ He walked on, out into the arid street, Katie following. As she joined him he draped an arm round her shoulders, the slender briefcase under his other arm. ‘It was a nice dream, our biggest dream, owning a European home.’ His fingers dug into her. ‘But, I fear, it is a dream too late. Come on, Sweetie, let me shout you a glass of Spanish wine.’

Katie wrenched herself away from his squeezing hand. ‘It was not our biggest dream,’ she hissed, ‘not mine anyway.’

***