Contents: British English and grammar.
Write your own ending if you must.
***
Link detached
English housing construction used to fall into four simple categories. Detached: you can walk round all four sides. Semi-detached: you can walk round three sides, but have a party wall with your next door neighbour. Terraced: a common wall both sides. You can walk right through, but only have windows at the front and back. And apartments; often called flats.
Then along came a new one. A house, with its own garage, which was usually attached (integral), to the house. And that garage had a party wall with next door's garage. So, you could still walk around four sides, providing you went through your garage. It saves a little brickwork for the builder and gives the estate agents an exciting new description: link detached.
A short road of link detached houses was built just south of the park. Willow Avenue was probably the last good location within walking distance of the town centre and Northside shopping centre. Twelve houses, all with an integral garage. When I married Roisin (pronounced Ro-sheen) my parents cashed in most of their shares and savings, and bought one of them for us as a wedding present. Not quite true; they bought it for me and the grandchildren to come. Before the big day they had a serious talk with me.
"Edward, we don't want to give you the impression that we do not trust, or approve of, Roisin." my father said. "And we will not burden you by insisting on what they call a pre nuptial agreement. But we do want to ensure that the house will pass to our grandchildren. And hope that what we say next does not offend you."
"No offence." I assured them. "You hardly know her, so I do understand. With my current job, I couldn't afford a house like that for the next ten years. So any restrictions you place on the ownership, are fine by me."
My mother took over.
"You won't be the owner. Your father owns this house, as you know. Our plan is that the new one in Willow Avenue shall be in my name. Clauses in the ownership deeds will prevent me from living there or taking any income from it. You will have unrestricted use of it, and merely need to discuss with us, if you need to improve or sell it. If you should die, in non-suspicious circumstances, Roisin will have similar free use of it until your child or children are twentyone. Then it becomes theirs."
"With you so far."
"But if you divorce, the house will remain in my keeping. And if that divorce is Roisin's fault, she gets nothing but her personal possessions, and anything she can show was purchased jointly. The property subsequently changes to your name only, one year after the settlement."
"I can see what you're trying to achieve with this, and have no arguments."
"There's a but isn't there?"
"Yes. I wonder if I need to tell Roisin at all. She's Irish and has a fiery temperament. And I'm not sure she needs to know. After all, it's a long time into the future before the house goes to any offspring. And by then she won't object to ownership passing down the line. So it never needs to crop up unless we divorce."
"Or unless you need to move." added my father.
"Hmm. We'll cross that bridge if we come to it."
There were many times I almost broached the subject with my wife, but life kept getting in the way. Then Rose joined us. Roisin is from classic Irish stock; deep auburn hair and green eyes. And a healthy crop of freckles from May onwards; which I love but she hates. Inevitably we called our daughter Rose; as that's the translation of Roisin. Rose was blessed with brown hair, with red highlights. Big relief: I wouldn't wish ginger hair on any kid these days. Now, come what may, she was going to inherit our house in Willow Avenue. There seemed no reason to bring the subject of ownership up with my wife. Life was good.
Like the other garages in Willow Avenue, ours was accessed from three sides - the front, the back garden, and the kitchen. But unlike most, ours always housed the car, rather than getting filled with junk. The car comes out onto our front drive most Sundays, to get washed. It's only a second hand Ford Escort, but that's all the more reason to look after it properly. There is certainly no reason to leave it out on the front for the neighbours to admire.
The house itself has a main bathroom and an en suite off the master bedroom, and soon an interesting pattern emerged. Roisin spent so much time in the main one, helping Rose to shower, making sure she brushed her teeth properly, that she ended up using it permanently. She also said she preferred to have a bath occasionally, whilst the en suite only had a shower. So, effectively, I had my own bathroom.
It was bliss! I'm tidy, but my wife is not. Not dirty you understand, but not especially houseproud. I don't mind; we keep the place clean enough. It's our home, not a showhouse. Sadly, our daughter is turning out the same way as her mum. So my bathroom became a tidy oasis in a desert of toys and girls' stuff... with the toilet seat left up! Naturally they used mine sometimes and I used theirs but, generally speaking, the system worked well.
I think Roisin just assumed I had a well-paid job. She was aware my parents had given us the house as a wedding present, but never asked if I needed a mortgage as well. She just got on with life, never asking about money. Which I must admit was a relief. When Rose was five, she started primary school. Roisin got a part-time job; nine to two thirty. Those hours meant she could take our daughter to school, go in to the office, and leave in time to pick her up. And do it all on foot, as we only had the one car. Her pay wasn't much but allowed us a few luxuries. And she liked the work, and the change to her motherhood routine.
Over that first year, we got on well with the other residents. I'd always been concerned they might look down on us. Not that we looked any different to the rest of the neighbourhood; we were hardly scruffy or anything. But simple observation of our lifestyle and jobs, and the car of course, put us in a different social class to the other home-owners. But it never happened. They were all as nice as pie. We were just Ed and Roisin Peterson. And quickly got friendly and comfortable with all of them.
We particularly liked Carter and Liz across the road from us, and Chas and Rosalind who shared our garage wall. Carter and Liz were older than us and had a son Jamie at university in the city. He came home most weekends with the washing, which Liz still did for him; lazy bugger. Chas had bought their place outright and extended the garage to encompass a laundry room and sunroom / greenhouse. He still kept his Lexus on the drive though, and Liz's Audi out on the road. The rear of their place had beautiful decking and a hot tub. He also set up security cameras on the front of the house, after a dispute with a delivery company. The houses on that side of the road were slightly more expensive because their gardens faced south.
We got most friendly with the Thorntons though. Chas was in the army, stationed nearby, and on his final posting. He'd met and married Rosalind whilst in Germany. Their Audi looked pretty cool, but was left-hand drive. "You have to be careful overtaking lorries." he told me. Chas looked pretty much like me - tall and slim - but our wives could hardly have been more different.
My Roisin, is a petite redhead, and can be hot-headed when provoked. But Hannah was tall, blonde and busty, and very placid. She hailed from Dortmund, though her English was faultless and accent free. Every time I looked at her, I imagined her wearing a dirndl, with a low-cut peasant blouse under it. And carrying four steins of beer in each hand. Ironically, her name also means rose.
Willow Avenue has three link-detached pairs of houses on each side. Chas and Rosalind were separated from the next pair by a small path. It led to the local park and was rarely used. But it did have an incongruous white line down the centre. One side had that bicycle logo painted at both ends. A bit over the top really; separating dangerous pedestrians from the even more dangerous cyclists. We residents named it Park Lane, after the upmarket location in London, and the second most expensive property on the Monopoly board. I've walked down there to the park with Rose many times, but have never seen a bike.
Almost as if we'd planned it together, the Thorntons next door, installed a small swimming pool, and I built a barbeque. We couldn't really afford to buy one, but digging up our back garden - the plan was for potatoes and carrots - revealed a lot of left-over bricks. I'm not a DIY expert, but cleaned them up and laid them; a metal tray for coals, and a grill, and we had a barbecue. I was rather proud of the result.
Chas and Rosalind came round and christened the bbq one evening, bringing some huge German sausages. My daughter was delighted to find we could also cook burgers on it. McDonalds, over in Northside mall, was a treat reserved for birthdays and so on. 'High days and holidays' as my mum calls them. When Rose ran up to me and shouted "Daddy, daddy, this is much better than a Big Mac!" - for a moment there, I filled up.
The next addition we actually did plan. Every house had a six foot high larch lap fence between the back gardens. The panels were set into concrete posts, four feet apart. A gap at the bottom let the wind through, and kept the wood off the ground. And there was fancy trelliswork on top of each panel. Across the back of the gardens it became an eight foot high fence. The far side of which was heavy gorse bushes. And just beyond them, a row of high conifers. The idea was to make the rear of the properties secure.
I removed the panel which was attached to our garages and replaced it with discreet hinges and a near invisible magnetic catch to keep it closed. High up I fitted a brass lock with an old-fashioned key. Roisin asked why we had to lock it as we were so friendly with the Thorntons.
"Because we don't want Rose wandering through unnoticed and trying out their pool. That's why the lock is five foot off the ground. Don't worry, there are two keys. Either one of us can lock or unlock it. Just remember to keep the key safe so they can't wander through and see you sunbathing topless!"
"With the tits Rosalind has, I can't imagine Chas would be interested in my little buds!" she laughed.
Now we had a 'secret' door, and could move freely from one garden to the other without having to carry beer and food round the front of the garages. Often we would leave it open on a weekend; barbequeing food at our place, then relaxing in the pool at theirs. Keeping a weather eye on Rose, of course.
Then Chas was told he would get promoted to Master Sergeant, if he signed on for another three years. The economy was in decline, he had no work in civvie street lined up, and it would mean a decent payrise. So he extended his service and immediately got a two year posting back to Germany. Rosalind thrilled. They came round one evening armed with cans of German white beer and a bottle of riesling. We were indoors, and Rose was in bed.
"We need to ask you a favour." said Chas. "Can you please keep an eye on our place while we're away?"
"Sure. Are you renting it out?"
"No. We really like it round here, and even if I don't get posted directly back to this location, we'll still settle in this area when I'm demobbed."
"No problem, we'd be happy to."
"The thing is, if you do this, we can just leave it as is. No farting about putting stuff into storage - you can even finish off what we leave in the fridge; in fact we insist you do!"
"Turn it off when it's empty?" I asked.
"No, we can still keep stuff in the freezer - leave it on."
"OK."
"We'll keep in touch of course, and let you know when we're coming back for a visit. If we leave you some cash, pehaps you could stock up with essentials before we arrive. You know, milk bread, eggs."
"Of course."
"One last thing. Feel free to use the fence door to swim in the pool whenever you want. But if we leave you the keys, can you please check the place out, using the front door? Say, once a week?"
"Yes. Can I ask why?"
"Security mate. I'll feel happier knowing people sometimes see you going in and out. I don't really want to advertise the fact that it's not inhabited."
"Tell you what." said Roisin. "I'll open lots of windows once a week, when I check in the daytime; air the place out, check your fridge and so on. I'll even give a dust round when it needs it. Then Edward can turn lights on and off on a different evening when he goes round."
"Perfect!"
"There's a price to pay though." I said seriously.
"Name it." said Chas.
"Bring back more weissbier and bratwurst!"
