The House Swap: An absolutely hilarious feel-good romance Read online

  Cassie pressed red on her phone and looked out of the kitchen window at the sea again. Realistically there was going to be no time for a swim now.

  Right. It was too early for wine. She needed chocolate and she needed a list.

  Pros:

  Perfect book deal

  IVF – London fertility clinics

  The money

  Which would cover a lot of IVF cycles – very lucky to be able to afford

  Fab to meet up with family and friends in London

  Interesting to live in a city again

  Especially London

  Sightseeing

  Extensive in-person shopping opportunities

  Restaurants

  Theatres

  Cons:

  Don’t want to go back to the UK

  Leaving the island:

  Friends

  Laura’s 80th

  Amy’s 18th

  The animals

  House and garden

  So much hassle

  Expensive to rent somewhere nice

  It was a lot easier to think without Jennifer shouting on the other end of the phone. Writing all your points down showed you what you needed to focus on. And that was the beauty of a list.

  She stood up and opened a cupboard to grab a bar of raisin and almond chocolate.

  Clearly, if she wanted to, she could sort the logistics of a move. She might get homesick and she didn’t fancy having difficult memories triggered by being back in the UK. But actually, she should probably just give herself a mental slap and do it. Four years was a long time not to have been back.

  The book deal was very tempting. It would be a dream to add another six books to her MacDuff Twins series.

  And being close to fertility clinics was also very tempting. It would be so much easier to be staying down the road for the duration than to be on the island and having to take numerous trips to Boston, some of them overnighters and at short notice. What if she needed to go to the clinic but there was no ferry? Plus, if she did it in London she wouldn’t have to tell anyone about it. If the whole experience reminded her of losing the baby four years ago and she started to fall apart, she’d have space to get herself back together.

  God, now she was welling up. Pathetic. She put two squares of chocolate in her mouth and stood up again, to get a glass of water.

  She’d just turned thirty-seven and she’d love to have children. Given the absence of attractive men beating down her door, it was looking like IVF with donated sperm was her best option. If she wasn’t spurred into beginning treatment this year, she’d no doubt faff around for the next few months, like she had last year, and then tell herself that it was silly to start it during a snowy winter.

  She took the water and chocolate out into the garden to go and see the animals. The bloodroot blossom smelled amazing. And her fruit and veg were shaping up to be fantastic this year. But they’d be great next year too.

  Fred, the youngest alpaca, nudged her shoulder with his face and tried to snaffle the chocolate from her hand.

  ‘Cheeky,’ she told him.

  She was going to miss the animals.

  Oh, okay, wow, so apparently she was going to do it. It felt a bit mind-boggling, but it did also feel like the right decision – the career opportunity combined with how much easier it would be to do IVF in London than here.

  Jennifer’s shrill levels were going to be through the roof.

  Cassie needed to start googling rentals. Good ones. The last time she’d been to London, she’d stayed in a very cheap hotel in Streatham, which had had an infestation – either large beetle or small cockroach, it had been hard to tell – round the radiator in the bathroom, a few stray short, curly hairs on the sheets, and some grim brown stains on the ceiling above the bed. In an ideal world, she’d rent a very nice and very clean flat in an appealing area of London, except that would presumably cost a fortune, and it would seem a waste not to end up with greater financial security after agreeing a lucrative deal, because writing wasn’t exactly a consistent source of income. Maybe she should let out the house here and use that money to help pay for somewhere swanky in London. And as a bonus, if she got a good tenant, that would take care of a lot of the worry about the house and garden.

  Cassie gave Fred another hug, went back inside, opened up three tabs on her laptop and typed in London fertility clinics, Sperm donation UK and London leafy neighbourhoods.

  And… it was the middle of the day so the Wi-Fi was down. She’d have to google later.

  ‘Cassie.’ Three fifty-nine on the dot.

  ‘Jennifer.’

  ‘Made your decision?’ So loud.

  ‘Yes, I actually have. I think I’m going to do it.’ It was as though Cassie had entered some kind of parallel reality. It still felt unbelievable that she was planning to move to London for the entire summer and hopefully start IVF. ‘I’m googling rentals as we speak.’ The Wi-Fi had sprung into action suddenly.

  ‘Fantastic.’ Woah. That sound. Cassie’s ear. ‘How soon can you be here? Next week?’

  ‘Next week? Er, no? I have a lot to organise. I think I’m going to rent my house out, and I need to work out what area of London I want to be in and then find somewhere to live. Google tells me that the world’s moved on since I last got involved in renting property.’

  ‘You know what you should consider?’ Jennifer’s voice was down to just moderately hideous levels of shrillness. ‘SwapBnB.’

  ‘SwapBnB?’

  ‘As it sounds.’

  Cassie took a big, calming breath, and a big, calming slurp of her wine. She was nowhere near the end of a very long and very frustrating day.

  Working out which things she ‘required’ in the swap she was looking for and which were ‘desirable’ had been difficult and boringly time-consuming, a lot less enjoyable than choosing an actual holiday. Cassie was fairly sure that she wanted to set her books in Hampstead and around the heath there, so she should probably rent there. Although Sod’s Law she’d arrive in London, do a bit of sightseeing and discover that she wanted to set the stories around Wimbledon Common or Blackheath or who knew where – maybe somewhere she’d never heard of – and have a one hour-plus schlep every day to check places out. So maybe she should go for somewhere central. Also, she wanted to be at least reasonably close to the clinic or hospital she was going to go to for her treatment. Did she want to be in a modern block or a period mansion? Would she rather have access to a garden or be closer to the nearest Tube station? There were a lot of variables to consider.

  Writing the one-sentence blurb for the SwapBnB ad had taken the three of them over an hour, which would have been ridiculous if it had been done by some semi-literate children, and was beyond ludicrous given that Cassie was a writer and Laura a retired headmistress, and Dina, another neighbour and very close friend, ran the most successful independent dolls-house business in the world from her attic.

  ‘Okay. Read it to me again.’ Cassie closed her eyes to help herself focus. The ad needed to scream The perfect house swap for a luxurious London flat.

  Dina cleared her throat. ‘Island house off coast of Maine with private beach, panoramic sea and headland views, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, state-of-the-art kitchen.’

  ‘Do we definitely think it’s okay that I just included the animals in the photos and didn’t mention them specifically in the description? Do we think it definitely isn’t mis-selling if I’ve alluded to them visually?’

  ‘Again, yes.’ Dina’s glossy black retro-style glamour waves haircut remained firmly in place as she nodded her head emphatically. ‘I think it’s totally fine. I mean, it isn’t like the swapper’s going to have to look after them unless they want to. And people with land often have animals like deer or moose wandering around. So, if you pay someone else to feed them, they’ll just be similar to wild deer or moose at the end of your large garden. For example.’

  ‘True. And you’d think everyone would love alpacas and chickens. What about
the state-of-the-art thing, though? Is that pushing it?’

  ‘It’s a wonderful kitchen,’ Laura said. ‘My mom always wanted a kitchen like this.’ Maybe not the best indicator of modernity given that Laura was pushing eighty and had mentioned recently that it was the twenty-year anniversary of her mother’s passing at the age of eighty-five.

  ‘Well, thank you—’ Cassie smiled at Laura ‘—but I think it’s maybe just nice rather than state of the art. I can’t say “nice” in the description, though. This is so hard. I could literally have written an entire chapter in the time it’s taken to draft this.’

  ‘I think just go with it.’ Dina reached for the wine bottle and topped up their glasses. ‘I mean, it says what we want. The photos and the location will be what really sell it.’

  ‘And are we happy with the photos?’ Cassie asked. Taking the photos for the website had been a nightmare, because, obviously, you wanted to make your house look as alluring as possible while not mis-selling it, but, also, she didn’t want anyone other than the eventual swappee to be able to work out exactly where her house was or find out anything about her.

  Simon, her ex, was a classic case of wanting what he couldn’t have, and still tried to track her down occasionally via her cousins and friends, and she didn’t want to speak to him. And fans of her MacDuff books and TV series were also sometimes keen to track her down, and Cassie didn’t want to be famous.

  ‘We totally are,’ Dina said.

  ‘Yes, I think we’re done on photography for now, sweetie,’ Laura said.

  Yep. None of them had come out of the photo shoot happy. It had been fun at first but it had gone on for a long time. Laura had had to go home next door for a nap halfway through. Dina had had her nails shellacked during a trip to the mainland last week for her thirty-sixth birthday, and had broken four of them climbing up a tree for an ‘aerial view’ of the beach, and then one of the alpacas had pooed on her flip-flopped foot while she was herding it out of the way of a blueberry bush for a garden shot. And Cassie had got no work done all day and had ruined one of her favourite tops while crawling along the roof for another aerial shot. She should have got changed first.

  ‘Okay. I’m doing it.’ Cassie pressed Upload. She felt her heart rate pick up. Maybe she’d get hits immediately. Or not. ‘Maybe no-one will be interested,’ she said, while the computer did its thing, slowly.

  ‘They will.’ Laura patted her hand.

  ‘Of course they will,’ Dina said. ‘Look at the hordes of summer tourists we get. And the house and garden are beautiful. And the beach. To die for. I mean, of course you will. No-one can resist a private beach. The question is whether you’ll like any of their places enough to do the swap.’

  They weren’t going to find out any time soon.

  ‘It’s frozen.’ Cassie waved the mouse around ineffectually. ‘Maybe I should try uploading in “Small”, “Medium” or “Large” instead of “Actual”.’

  ‘No, the photos are important. I think you need to have them in high def. I think you’re going to have to do the three a.m. thing.’ Dina cut more slices of blueberry pie and placed them on their plates. She was right. The one bad thing about living on the island was that if you needed to use a lot of broadband you had to make sure you did it when no-one else was competing for the gigas or megas or whatever. Cassie had forgotten to include that in her list yesterday. London pro: unlimited broadband and Wi-Fi. London con: no easy excuse for avoiding your emails or social media. ‘You could maybe get away with two o’clock. It’s been a bit better recently.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a sign that I shouldn’t do it.’ Cassie closed her laptop. ‘Maybe the broadband gods are telling me just to stay at home. Tell me about your Saturday date instead. We’ve spent far too long talking about me moving. Let me get us some more wine.’

  ‘Later. For the date lowdown, not the wine.’ Dina eye-swivelled in Laura’s direction and then raised her eyebrows suggestively. Cassie laughed. Dina liked an explicit conversation, while Laura did not. ‘And no, the Wi-Fi is not telling you not to do it. Plus, haven’t you signed the contract with the publisher?’ Dina pulled the laptop over and re-opened it. ‘But we should take the opportunity to re-check the ad. Laura and I both have nearly as much invested in this as you. We all need good neighbours.’

  ‘I need to go home and check my online orders and sleep.’ Dina looked at her watch. Laura had left them to it about an hour ago, saying that she thought she’d left her TV on and needed to switch it off. ‘Wow. It’s later than I thought. Nearly twelve thirty. The Wi-Fi might be working already. Try again?’

  Cassie opened her laptop and started clicking. Yep, the island’s normal-speed Wi-Fi had started early tonight. She had the photos uploaded within minutes.

  ‘You all done?’ Dina asked.

  ‘No. I can’t press it. It’s too nerve-wracking.’

  ‘But what’s the worst that can happen?’ Dina did a big hands-raised gesture, palms upwards. She had a very good point. The worst that could happen was that no-one wanted to swap with Cassie.

  ‘Do it, do it.’ Dina liked a chant when she’d had a bit too much wine.

  ‘Okay. Doing it.’ Cassie pressed Submit, and discovered that the Wi-Fi was still working, just as if they were on the mainland. She was ‘live’. ‘Quick, let’s log in from our phones and view me.’

  They had the website up on their phones within seconds.

  They both stared at Cassie’s house’s web entry. For ages.

  ‘Well,’ said Cassie eventually, ‘I kind of thought that something would happen immediately.’

  ‘Honey, think about it. We’re being stupid. It’s the middle of the night here and still early morning in Europe,’ Dina said. ‘Things will definitely happen when they all get out of bed. By midday tomorrow you’ll have so many wonderful offers you won’t know which one to choose.’

  Three

  James

  Ten o’clock on Saturday morning and James was barricaded, literally, in his apartment, screening his calls, with one eye on the angry emails piling up in his inbox and the other on the lucky, carefree joggers out in the park below. Probably on their way to get morning cappuccinos and brunches with friends.

  It was looking like his breakfast might have to be the remains of Thursday’s Deliveroo beef and shiitake mushroom in oyster sauce, which had been moderately nice at the time but probably wouldn’t be that great this morning. If he went out now to buy food, though, there was the risk that Emily would be waiting for him outside the building or might even have got back inside again. He’d had the lock changed on Thursday but he wasn’t fully convinced that that was enough to stop her.

  He looked round his kitchen-living room. It was an estate agent’s fantasy. Shiny appliances, greige paint, walnut floors, floor-to-ceiling windows with uber desirable views of Holland Park. And then there was the view he had through to the hall, of the armchair he’d wedged against the front door and the spaghetti ladle that he’d pushed through the key chain to stop Emily getting in.

  Living the bloody dream.

  Good to have finally found a use for the spaghetti ladle, though.

  His phone was going nuts. So many messages.

  They weren’t all from people who wanted to kill him. For example, there was one from his sister Ella, and she was never anything but polite to him. He didn’t feel like talking to her right now, though. Truth be told, since Leonie, his other sister, had died, he never felt like talking to Ella. Hearing her voice, so like Leonie’s, stirred up too many emotions, plus there was the worry that she’d want to talk about Leonie. He didn’t want to upset Ella, so normally he’d call her back and have a politely distant conversation; today, however, he couldn’t face a duty chat. He’d speak to her in the next few days.

  Another text landed. Matt. Yes. James hadn’t told him about Wednesday evening yet but he did now feel like talking to his best friend.

  Mate. I hear you ruined Emily’s entire decade if not her life by not pr
oposing the other night. Also hear she lost it. How’s your face?

  What? Unbelievable how news travelled. Surely Matt didn’t know anyone who’d been at the party. Probably some Facebook thing. Matt was big on social media. James wasn’t.

  He took his phone into his bedroom and closed the door. He was pretty sure that the front door was soundproof, but just in case. If Emily was outside, he didn’t want to make her even more homicidal. If she damaged his front door he could obviously ask Dee to find someone to fix it, but there was every chance it would involve a lot of hassle. He’d thought that Emily was done after Wednesday night, and she hadn’t been back on Thursday, but yesterday evening there she’d been again, and she’d also knocked twice this morning. The building security guys were great for banter and taking deliveries and letting tradespeople in but not so hot on actual security.

  Emily had sounded so out of control last night that he’d genuinely wondered if she’d be coming back with some kind of weapon or tool to get inside. Fortunate that your average Londoner would probably struggle to lay their hands on a gun or chainsaw first thing on a Saturday morning.

  Matt answered on the first ring. ‘So what happened at the party?’

  ‘Basically, she thought we were in a serious relationship and I didn’t realise. And also, she’s a little unhinged it turns out.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve seen the video on Facebook. Did she draw blood?’ Video. Marvellous.

  ‘Yep. She has very strong nails.’

  ‘You going to have a permanent scar?’

  ‘Yep, think so.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Yeah. Then she turned up here after I got home and let herself in with a key that I didn’t know she had.’

  ‘Woah. Mate. What then?’