I can imagine the scene in Hunter’s Alley, before NUG realized it was a problem and closed it down, so there was nowhere my family could meet. I bought the house because it was such a pretty place in such a squalid area, of storage warehouses and car-part dumps, and seemed a good investment (those were the days). I thought the boys could always make use of it as they grew older and wanted to be nearer the heart of the metropolis, and, frankly, away from what I saw as Victor and Venetia’s rather stifling home life, but still near to Polly and Corey and the girls. More fool me. It’s three up, two down, bathroom and kitchen, and had stood for three hundred years or so, so why should it give up now? Or so the estate agent told me, rubbing his hands as the old fool me approached. I haven’t been there for a couple of years, but Polly goes in to keep an eye on things. But her eye, I suspect, after years with Corey, is not as sharp or as stringent as it used to be.
