Hidden Cottage (14 page)

Jensen had said he hoped the weekend might cheer Madison up as the girl had just heard that her best friend was moving away and she was upset. The fact that Jensen wanted to do this for Madison flew in the face of Jeff’s perpetually poor opinion of their son, an opinion, Mia sadly had to admit, Jensen did little to disprove more often than not.

She hadn’t mentioned anything to Jensen, but she had a potential fete buddy in mind for Madison tomorrow. Beth – Joanne and Randall’s daughter – was the same age and coincidentally her best friend had moved away recently, so with this in common, the two girls might just hit it off. Unless, of course, Madison was painfully shy, in which case she might not want to be more than two paces away from her mother’s side. Which would be a shame.

Eliza’s double bed now made, Mia looked round the room. It had changed very little since Eliza had left home. Mostly because it had been as spartan as a cell when it had been occupied. A quiet, intense girl, Eliza hadn’t been the kind of teenager to cover her walls with boy band posters. Unlike Daisy, who had had a crush on just about every pretty-boy pop star going; everywhere you looked on her walls there had been a naked, hairless male chest. There had also been a lot of glitter; Daisy had been mad about the stuff, using it to decorate cards she made, old Barbie dolls, ribbons, her nails, her hair, and her clothes. Pink. Gold. Silver. Purple. Green. The stuff had got into every nook and cranny imaginable. If she looked hard enough, Mia was sure she’d find a sparkle or two in the pile of the carpet. Then somewhere along the line Daisy had moved from decorating her nails glittery pink to painting them black. That was when she discovered the Anne Rice vampire novels. Soon after, it was all things
Twilight
and experimenting with goth-chic and slamming doors when she couldn’t get her own way. Then the doors stopped being slammed and Daisy took to staying in her room. With hindsight, it was the ominous lull before the storm.

Mia was straightening the curtains at the window when, from downstairs, she heard the doorbell.

‘Books,’ Owen said, holding out two carrier bags. ‘As promised. And also as promised, I shan’t keep you.’

‘I’m sorry if I sounded rude on the phone earlier,’ she said, ‘but I’d just finished work and was thinking where to start before my children arrive; they’re home for the weekend.’

‘You have children?’

‘Three.’

‘Are they away at school?’

‘Goodness, no, they’re much older than that. My oldest had his thirtieth birthday last weekend.’

Owen shook his head in disbelief. ‘Not possible.’

She smiled. ‘I assure you it is.’

While she put his bags down on the floor behind her, Owen sneaked a look further into the hall and stairway, glimpsing an elegant antique console table against one wall with a lamp and mirror above and on the opposite wall two delicately painted watercolours. Everything looked very clean, very tidy, very polished.

It was a far cry from when his mother had briefly cleaned here for the then vicar and his wife and five children and two dogs. He remembered his mother saying that not one of the family had worked out how to open a cupboard or drawer. Nothing had ever been put away. Boots, caked in mud, had been dumped wherever the owner felt inclined to remove them. Wet towels, dirty clothes, toys, books, used mugs and plates and chewed bones and ominous stains on the carpet had been left for her to deal with. In contrast, the house today – if the rest matched the refined elegance of the hall – would be as pleasing to the eye as the current owner was. Owen couldn’t imagine this woman allowing so much as a stray hair to interfere with her orderly décor, or for that matter, her equanimity.

‘I feel bad that I’m not being as hospitable as you were on Monday and inviting you in,’ she said, ‘but I have so much to do.’

‘That’s fine,’ he said easily, ‘I quite understand.’

Her hand was on the door. ‘Will you be around tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘At the fete?’

‘I wouldn’t dream of missing my first social engagement here.’

The door began to move towards him. ‘I’ll look out for you,’ she said.

Back on the pavement, Owen looked to his left, towards the green where he saw Bob Parr at the top of a ladder outside the shop; he was tying some bunting to a telegraph pole. Bob saw him and waved. Returning the wave, Owen stood for a moment in the evening sunshine taking in the bucolic scene of old-world charm and beauty. In readiness for the fete the village was festooned with flags and bunting and almost every house, including the Fox and Goose, was now decorated with a hanging basket filled with pretty flowers. Medlar House also had matching hanging baskets either side of the front door and Owen found himself wondering if Mia Channing had done them herself or if she had bought them ready-made. He wondered also about her having a thirty-year-old son. That really had surprised him.

He walked home, deciding not to take the main road as he had before, but to take the footpath between Medlar House and St George’s. According to the Ordnance Survey map he’d bought, combined with his memory, the path would lead him up the hill, curving round towards the allotments. He would then be able to cut through the woods – the bluebell woods as he remembered them being called – and dropping down the hill in a westerly direction, he would then come to the perimeter of The Hidden Cottage. It was the route he had taken as a child when he’d visited and had become friends with Gretchen and Lillian Lampton.

It was Gretchen who had opened the door to him that day when he’d plucked up the courage to knock. At first he’d been petrified and had let out a gasp of shock when the door had opened. They’d been right at school: witches did live here! Gruesomely ugly witches. So horrible he could hardly bring himself to look at this one. Her face was hardly a face at all, a sort of squashed face, the features blurred together with a mouth that was pale and almost flat, as if her lips were missing. She was dressed entirely in black, a dress that had no real shape, and her hair was hidden beneath some sort of turban. She looked old, all except for her eyes, which were dark and strong and looked so much younger than the rest of her. He couldn’t see her hands; gloves hid them. No, not gloves, but peculiar cotton mittens. She was leaning on a walking stick; it was wooden and knotty. All this he observed in a heartbeat. But if there was one thing his mother had drummed into him, it was manners, and it was politeness that he fell back on as he stood rooted to the spot, too scared to move.

‘Hello,’ he said, his voice scarcely more than a wobbly squeak, ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but I just wanted to say . . .’ His words trailed off. Just what had he wanted to say? He looked at the woman’s wooden stick and wondered if she might beat him with it. ‘I wanted to say how much I like your garden,’ he forced himself to say. ‘And the lake,’ he added for good measure. ‘The lake is the best bit.’

She stared at him, her strong dark eyes unblinking.

He tried to think of something else to say, but couldn’t. And then he remembered the music. ‘And I like the music that comes from inside the house. I’ve never heard music like that before.’

Still staring at him, still leaning on the stick, she said, ‘Strictly speaking it’s not large enough officially to be classed as a lake, but I’ll let that inaccuracy pass since you seem a polite enough young man. What’s your name?’ Her voice wasn’t what he’d expected. It was normal. Not croaky or scary. Just perfectly normal. But posh. Oh, it was definitely posh.

‘Owen,’ he said, trying to make his own voice sound more refined and grown up. ‘My name’s Owen Fletcher.’

‘Good afternoon, Owen Fletcher, it’s good finally to meet you properly. Lillian and I have watched you often.’

‘You’re not cross that I’ve been coming here, then?’

‘It might have been courteous for you to ask permission, but I shan’t hold that against you. Would you like to come in and meet Lillian? She’s curious to meet you and it would brighten her day. We seldom have visitors. We’re not the sociable sort.’

She shuffled aside to let him in.

He hesitated. Stranger danger, his mother’s voice warned in his ear. But then he heard music starting up and he stepped inside, thinking that his mother was wrong; it wasn’t strangers he had to be frightened of, it was the danger that lurked in their own home that was the real threat.

Putin was waiting for him on the lawn when he got back. He had that look on his face again, the disapproving one that said,
What have you been up to?

Ignoring the peacock, Owen went down to the jetty; he fancied having a play in his new toy – a twelve-foot wooden clinker rowing dinghy built of mahogany and oak and finished with natural oil and varnish. He had been out in it every day since it had been delivered. He loved to row around the lake, checking out the wildlife and the state of the banks and deciding what work needed to be done in the way of getting the undergrowth under control and cutting down trees that had grown too big. There were times when he lay in the boat with the sun on his face and drifted with not a care in the world, just thinking how happy he was.

He thought that now as he untied the rope from the mooring post and stepped into the boat and pushed it away from the jetty.

Pulling on the oars, he hoped his next new toy would be delivered in the morning – a sit-on mower. The lawn was badly overgrown and needed to be sorted out sooner rather than later.

As did things between he and Nicole. He’d actually managed to get a text out of her this morning, a brief message saying she’d been busy with work all week. He knew that she was always busy with her job as a head-hunter, but he wasn’t fooled; her silence meant one thing and one thing only. He’d texted back to say he’d ring her this evening. Part of him wondered why he should bother. If they each really cared about the other, surely this situation – and the prolonged silence from her – wouldn’t have arisen. He couldn’t speak for Nicole, but as far as he was concerned, and without him consciously realizing it, their relatively short relationship must have reached a critical stage: its natural end.

He’d done a complete circle of the lake when he decided now was as good a time as any to make that call to Nicole. Pulling the oars in and resting them either side of him, he let the boat slowly drift towards the bank and took his mobile out from his jeans pocket.

It was a while before she answered and when she did, he could hear music and chatter in the background.

‘Hi,’ he said in his best affable tone.

‘Hello, who is it?’

‘Nicole, it’s me, Owen.’ Come on, he thought, don’t play games, you know perfectly well who it is – my photo would have shown on your screen when the phone rang.

‘Hi,’ she said flatly, ‘it’s not really a good time; I’m out with the girls.’

‘Shall I try later?’

There was a pause. ‘Hang on a minute and I’ll see if I can find a quiet spot.’

With a loud rustling in his ear, he waited for what seemed an age and when eventually he heard her asking if he was still there, he said, ‘Yes, I’m still here. How are you?’

‘Oh you know, it’s been one of those weeks, manic at work.’ Her voice had a dull, uninterested edge to it. Normally she sounded so animated and upbeat.

‘Is that why you didn’t answer any of my calls?’ he asked.

His question clearly took her by surprise. ‘Actually, Owen, no, that’s not the reason. Guess what is?’

‘You’re still cross with me, is that it?’

‘Cross? Not even close. I’m furious. I just don’t understand how you could do what you did to me. And all behind my back. I thought you were one of the decent guys. Now I know better.’

He could have tried arguing that he hadn’t set out to do anything to her directly, but he couldn’t see the point in labouring a point he’d gone over many times already. ‘So how long are you going to stay furious with me?’ he asked.

When she didn’t reply, he said, ‘Look, I can see it from your point of view, really I can, but why don’t you come here for the weekend and we can talk properly. There’s a fete on in the village tomorrow, it’ll be fun, and I’m sure once you see the house you’ll fall in love with it and understand why—’

‘I’m busy this weekend,’ she interrupted him.

He took a deep breath. ‘And will you be busy next weekend?’

‘I might be.’

‘Nicole,’ he said with great patience, wondering why he’d just suggested she come for the weekend, ‘we’re both too old to play childish games. If you want to end things then let’s just get it over and done with.’

‘You know what, Owen, that’s the first sensible thing you’ve said since you bought that bloody stupid house. I hope you’ll be very happy there all on your own. Goodbye.’

The line went dead in Owen’s ear. He slipped the phone back in his pocket and tried to decide whether he was relieved or disappointed. He picked up the oars and, after pushing the boat away from the bank, he concluded that all things considered, he was relieved. Because let’s face it, if Nicole had really mattered to him, he would have shared his dream with her about coming here to The Hidden Cottage. She had every right to be angry with him; he hadn’t been fair with her. And if he was absolutely honest, he hadn’t really missed her since he’d arrived.

He sighed and in the fading light, the only sound the steady swish of the oars, he rowed thoughtfully back to the jetty.

Chapter Seventeen

Madison opened her eyes and lay very still.

With butterflies fluttering inside her stomach, she felt like she did when she woke on Christmas morning or her birthday. It was a sort of muddled feeling of happy excitement and nervousness, because what if the day didn’t turn out as well as she hoped? Mum said she worried too much, that she should trust her feelings of happiness more. She tried to. She really did. But whenever she looked forward to something, there was always that little voice in her head telling her something would go wrong and spoil the day.

They had arrived here last night and everything was just as Mum had described it – the pretty village, the cottages with their funny straw roofs and the big house where JC used to live and which was the colour of creamy fudge. On the way they’d stopped off at a train station to pick up one of JC’s sisters – Daisy – and her friend, Scott. It was a bit of a squash in the back of the car, and pressed against the window, she had noticed Daisy next to her touching Scott’s hand every now and then. The way she did it made it look as if it was a secret touch, as if no one was supposed to see. Madison didn’t think they were just friends.