To say that Micheal had never seen the house before was a lie, but he was good at pretending, and so looked at each room of the tour by the real estate agent as though with new eyes. He actually was surprised at how much the house had changed since the last time he had hidden in its walls. The plants were gone from the conservatory. He had expected that, although he still thought he could smell their dead, dry skeletons clinging to the brick walls.
"But the garden is for sale separately," the agent said, when he walked out on the patio. The mulberry, whose branches had intermingled with the rose bush, long gone wild, was now trimmed back to a reasonable tree. The rose looked as though it had never gone wild. He looked across to where the agent pointed and sighed. He had hoped to have the lower garden as well, but knew that they, he and his partner, could not afford both.
He pretended to be looking at the details of the upper patio, where he stood, nodded his head and sighed. The current owners had removed the garden furniture, so quaint, though, rusted, with new plastic furniture that had no soul at all. I will replace that with those lovely iron chairs that used to be here, he thought.
The agent was trying to draw his attention to the greenhouse, which had had no work done to it, though you could walk into it now, without having to scramble over brambles. The windows were completely gone now, and it looked as though nothing had been grown in there since he had played and hidden there so long ago. I’ll replace the windows too, with antique glass. I’m sure I’ll be able to find some.
Now if only he could get his partner to fall in love with this fallen lady. It would take a lot of work, but he knew that Brian would take pleasure in restoring it.
They returned to the house, and went upstairs. The master bedroom was bare of both furniture and rugs, and he could see where the wooden floor had buckled in the Silmar quake. He had been in that room, hiding then, though at the time, he hadn’t known there was to be a earthquake. It was just that was the only place he had to go.
The agent was going on about the fine wood, and plaster and all, and non doubt downplaying the damage to the floor, but he would have been disappointed if it had been repaired. It would have taken away from the feel of the house, and it would have felt stale. He stroked over to the corner where the memorial had stood, but though the shelves were still there, the photos were gone.
