Daughter of Ashes

SIX

‘I’ve often wish’d that I had clear, For life, six hundred pounds a year; A handsome house to lodge a friend, A river at my garden’s end, A terrace walk, and half a rood Of land set out to plant a wood.’

Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace, Book II, Satire VI

On the first long weekend we spent at Our Song, every day was a treasure hunt. While Paul worked out back in the shed, evaluating the rusting tools and deteriorating equipment that Julianna Quinn’s late husband had left behind, I sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor in front of a spacious cabinet, sorting through her pots and pans.

‘Chattels,’ the contract called them. I had to look it up: ‘An item of property other than real estate,’ the dictionary explained.

Fortunately for us, when it came to chattels, Julianna had had good taste. I now owned a complete set of All-Clad stainless-steel cookware, for example. At one hundred and fifty dollars upwards for a saucepan – not including the lid – All-Clad was a luxury I could never manage to afford at home, even with a twenty-percent-off coupon from Bed, Bath and Beyond. Now I was cradling a three-quart steamer to my breast and chanting, You’re mine, all mine!

I’d nested the smaller frying pan into the larger one and was sorting lids, trying them on the saucepans for size, when I heard tires crunch on the gravel outside. I reached up, grabbed the edge of the kitchen counter and pulled myself to my feet, my knees popping. ‘After forty it’s patch, patch, patch,’ I muttered to myself, quoting the embroidery on a decorative pillow I’d also inherited from Julianna.

I leaned over the sink, flipped the curtain aside and peered out the kitchen window. A white Ford pickup with a toolbox in the bed had pulled up out front. By the time I’d reached the side door, opened it and called out, ‘Paul! Someone’s here!’ the truck’s driver was already through the gate and standing at our front door, reaching for the knocker.

‘You must be Dwight Heberling,’ I said stupidly when I opened the door, since Heberling & Son, Construction was painted on the door of his pickup in red block letters at least three inches high.

As I spoke, a younger man roared up behind the pickup on a black Harley chopper. He braked hard and dismounted, then engaged the kickstand.

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Heberling whipped his ball cap off to reveal a sensible graying buzz cut, tucked the cap under his arm and extended his hand. He nodded in the direction of the motorcycle. ‘And that there is my son, Rusty.’

Rusty removed his helmet and hooked the strap over one of the handlebars. I guessed immediately where he’d gotten his nickname. His copper hair was drawn back behind his ears and fastened at the nape of his neck in a neat ponytail. He wore a Beatles T-shirt belted into a pair of faded jeans that fit him like a second skin. When he lifted the toolbox out of the Ford, his biceps flexed like an ad on TV for exercise equipment – the ‘after’ view, not the ‘before’ – and his pecs rippled impressively all the way from John to Ringo.

Paul suddenly materialized at my shoulder, wiping grease off his hands with a paper towel. ‘I was just tinkering with an outboard,’ he said. ‘Give me a minute.’

‘Come in, come in,’ I said, opening the screen door wide. ‘Please excuse the mess. We’re still getting settled.’

Starting in the entrance hall, Paul and I toured the house with Heberling, trailing like bridesmaids after the contractor and his son – who was tapping notes into his iPhone.

Dwight blessed the kitchen plumbing – ‘New, I’d say. Last couple of years anyway’ – but the plumbing in the bathroom was a different story. ‘Copper,’ he tsk-tsked, and pointed to the cabinet under the sink. ‘Well water in these parts is acidic. See those green spots? Pinhole leaks in the making. Pinholes can cost you big time if they let go.’

Dwight lifted the flush tank lid on the toilet and invited us to look in. ‘See those blue-green deposits? Sure sign your copper pipes are corroding.’

As his father explained about pH and extolled the virtues of upflow calcite neutralizers and soda ash feeders, Rusty bent at the waist to photograph the offending pipes. I must have been observing this manoeuver appreciatively because Paul jostled my elbow, bringing me instantly back to a discussion of the merits of PCV piping.

Our Song had no basement, so the breaker box had been installed in the utility room. Since the utility room was a new addition, I was hopeful Julianna Quinn’s contractor had rewired the rest of the cottage at the same time. As we clustered around the electrical panel awaiting Heberling’s verdict, he peered at the circuit breakers, studied the hand-lettered breaker guide on the inside of the panel door and to my great relief grunted his approval.

The living-room fireplace, however, was another matter. Dwight stood in front of it for a long time, poking experimentally at the stones with a screwdriver. He knelt and peered up the chimney, grabbed hold of the damper handle and tugged. ‘Stuck, dammit. Probably hasn’t been properly cleaned in years.’ He jiggled the handle more vigorously and it suddenly gave up the fight. Before Dwight could pull his arm away a cloud of soot descended and covered his arm.

‘Hmmm,’ he said, just hmmmm, not something you want to hear from either a doctor or a contractor. ‘Let’s look at it from the outside, then,’ he said, leading the way. ‘Got a ladder?’

I reviewed my mental list of chattels, came up blank on ‘ladder’ and turned to Paul. ‘Do we have one?’

‘I’ll check the shed.’ A few minutes later he stuck his head out the door of the shed and called for Rusty to help him lug an extension ladder over to the side of the house. While we waited below, with Rusty steadying the ladder, Dwight climbed and poked at the chimney at various points on the way up with the screwdriver he pulled out of his back pocket. More hmmmms. He examined the roof while we waited below with me trying to convert every ‘hmmmm,’ ‘what-the-heck,’ and click of the tongue into dollars and cents.

When he’d finished and returned to ground level, wiping his hands clean on his khakis, I asked, ‘How old is the house, do you think?’

Dwight paused, considering. ‘See those windows?’

I nodded.

‘Six over six. That puts ’em before 1884 when the railroad came and they were able to bring in larger panes of glass. The gambrel roof was popular in this area between around 1730 and 1770,’ he continued, ‘but it’s the chimney that tells the tale,’ he said, patting the bricks almost affectionately.

‘How’s that?’ I wondered.

‘Around 1770 they began building semi-outside chimneys, like yours. See how it’s sunk half into the brick end of the house?’

I did.

‘So even if I didn’t know that the main part of the house has been around since Josiah Hazlett first settled here in the 1750s, I could date the place to sometime shortly after 1770.’

‘Amazing,’ I said, impressed with his knowledge.

‘So, what’s the verdict?’ Paul asked after a moment, cutting to the chase. ‘On the renovations, I mean?’

Dwight considered Paul soberly. ‘Got any coffee?’

‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘Decaf?’

‘High octane if you got it.’

‘French roast OK?’

‘Perfect.’

Rusty had just rejoined us after putting the ladder away. ‘How about you, Rusty?’

‘Diet Coke, if you’ve got one.’

Back in the kitchen, I fired up the Keurig, laid out a selection of K-cups and managed to locate a cold Sprite, with which Rusty seemed content. After the coffee brewed, we settled around the kitchen table to discuss the work.

While Dwight ticked off the tasks that needed to be done, Rusty tapped notes into his iPhone using both thumbs. ‘I’ll be back to you in a couple of days with a written estimate,’ Dwight concluded at last.

‘No particular rush,’ Paul assured him. ‘We can manage for the time being, but the sooner you can get started the happier you’ll make my wife.’

‘I won’t take long.’ Dwight stood, pulled the ball cap out of his back pocket and, using both hands, adjusted it on his head. ‘I heard you made a bid on the Matthews’ place.’

‘It fell through,’ Paul said simply as we walked the contractor and his son to the door.

Dwight grunted. ‘Not surprised about that, considering the agency you’ve been dealing with.’

‘Oh, Caitlyn Dymond’s been a pleasure to work with,’ I was quick to point out. ‘It’s that other woman, Kendall Barfield, who I’d like to strangle.’

Dwight laughed out loud. ‘You’d be standing at the end of a long, long line.’

‘It sounds like you know her pretty well, Mr Heberling.’

‘Could say that. Used to be married to the woman.’

‘Gosh, sorry,’ I mumbled. Open mouth, insert foot, as my mother used to say.

‘No need, ma’am. When it was all said and done, I didn’t like Kendall all that much, either. Best thing to come out of that relationship was Dwight junior here.’

The tips of Dwight junior’s ears flushed as red as his hair. I’d been wondering if the young man was intellectually challenged until he addressed me directly for the first time and drove all misapprehension away. ‘Just so you know, Mrs Ives, you’ve gotta watch out for Mom. She’s a card-carrying bitch.’