Vacant possession

A short story by Elly Griffiths

- Elly Griffiths

'You've almost certainly got bats.' Eric, the local ecologist, sounds as if I'm to be congratulated but I feel anything but lucky.

Nathan is certainly not going to be delighted with this news. He's already texting me on the hour asking how preparations for the move are going. Have I spoken to the surveyors? What about gas and electricity? Find out about access to the lane leading to the church. Check the land registry. Ask about rising damp and falling water levels. Are we in the catchment area for a good school?

'It's churches, you see,' says Eric. 'Bats love old churches and seeing as this used to be the vicarage.' He shrugs.

Nathan and I have always wanted to live in the countryside. I grew up in suburbia, very safe and secure, row upon row of small, smug houses, all with a neat square of garden and room for a small, smug car. But Nathan grew up in real poverty, on the tenth floor of a high rise in London. His father left home when he was five and his mother worked day and night to provide for the family. It's no wonder that Nathan can be a little overzealous at times. He just wants everything to be perfect.

And The Old Vicarage in Drakesford is perfect, a Queen Anne box built of Cotswold stone with outhouses, an orchard and a lawn that slopes down to the river. A secret gate leads to the Norman church next door. The hedges are foaming with cow parsley and swifts circle the three chimneys. I'd only seen the house online before and, in solid reality, it takes your breath away. It's a pity Nathan is in Dubai and can't share the experience.

'I'll commission a full potential roost inspection,' says Eric. We're standing in the hallway, which is panelled and dark after the sunlight outside. Eric has just ventured into the loft where, apparently, he has seen telltale bat droppings.