The Cottage on Winter Moss, page 5
I waited for her to ask me what the nature of my work was, but she didn’t. She breathed in through her nose and turned her mouth down at the corners. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Two very bad mistakes already.’
Olivia lifted her head from her picture and grinned. ‘Don’t tell anyone here you’re from Yorkshire,’ she said. ‘They won’t like it.’
‘Oh, OK,’ I replied. ‘And what else?’
Olivia lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘Mummy thinks The Archers is real,’ she said, ‘and she is a bit in love with Alan. She thinks Usha is the wrong woman for him.’
‘Oh!’ I said, giving an exaggerated wink, ‘I see. And which Ambridge resident do you like, Olivia?’
She blushed. ‘I like Jazzer. Do you know, in real life the actor who plays him is blind?’
I stifled a yawn. ‘I didn’t know that,’ I said.
‘Come on.’ Marjorie pushed her chair back. ‘Go and get your bag from the car while I throw some clean bedding on the spare bed. Then you can sleep.’
Chapter Six
I slept for about five hours, and once I had showered and changed my clothes, went in search of coffee. Olivia was nowhere to be seen. Bob raised his head from a rug in front of the electric fire in the front room. Its single bar glowed redly and emitted a smell of singeing dust. Marjorie left her desk to show me where the cafetière was.
We took our coffee back to the front room because, with the aid of the little fire, it was warmer than the kitchen. From the window I surveyed the scene. In the time I had been asleep the weather had changed. Low clouds now shrouded the sky. The sea had turned turgid and brown—frankly, not particularly attractive—but the waves that rolled onto the beach were dramatic, topped with cream foam. As I stood in the window alcove a smattering of drops hit the pane. Rain.
In spite of the threatening weather, the village had come to life. The people who walked along the seafront, visited the shop and stood and chatted with each other on the roadside were far from the quirky tropes I had imagined, though. They were not characters. Certainly, they were not caricatures. They were ordinary, wrapped in thick coats and scarves, carrying newspapers and shopping bags, holding the leads of their dogs. Some few everyday cars made their way along the street, as well as the occasional tractor. Children scrambled on the play equipment in a little park.
Marjorie nodded in the direction of a shaled area opposite her house. ‘Visitors tend to park up there, and then walk along the dunes,’ she told me. ‘Even at this time of year we get quite a few at the weekend. Mrs Harrop does a roaring trade in hot drinks and she makes cakes, too, and sells those. That’s where Olivia is. She goes and helps out on Saturdays. Mrs Harrop runs the local shop. I recommend you tread carefully. She has delusions of grandeur and expects a certain amount of due deference. I must warn you she is also the town crier, so far as other people’s business is concerned. Don’t tell her anything you don’t want the entire village to know. Oh, but that’s mean of me. She’s a good sort, and I’m sure the shop barely breaks even out of season. But thank heavens for it. I don’t know what some of our older folk would do without it. The pub doesn’t open at lunchtime during the winter months. I always think that’s short-sighted of Bill and Julie. They’re the landlords. They’d get trade if they could be bothered. Who doesn’t want a bowl of soup and a sandwich after a good walk? Or a cream tea? But,’ she sighed, ‘they want to retire. The place has been on the market for three years. Frankly, it’s getting a bit tired. I hope someone will buy it off them. A village without a pub is worse than one without a church, in my opinion.’
‘You could hold a church service in a pub,’ I ventured.
‘You could,’ she cried. ‘But you can’t pull pints in a church. The bishop would never agree to it.’
‘Did you see me drive past here this morning?’ I asked on impulse. ‘Is that why you came up to the church?’
Marjorie blushed. ‘You must think I’m a nosey old do-gooder,’ she said, ‘but yes, I saw the car, and Olivia and I love a slice of intrigue with our morning cuppa so we got our coats on and hurried over.’
‘Well,’ I admitted, swallowing the last of my coffee, ‘you’ve been a lifesaver. But I must think about what to do now. Having set off on this hare-brained scheme I have to think of practicalities.’
My heart sank as I spoke the words. I wanted to stay at Roadend. It was exactly the kind of place I’d pictured. Here, I was sure, I would be able to write. But where could I stay? Not here, at the vicarage, nice as Marjorie and Olivia were. I’d seen no “to let” or “vacancy” signs along the village street.
‘Well, on that front, I think I have a possibility,’ Marjorie said. ‘Mrs Harrop has a holiday let, out beyond the church. She doesn’t usually have holidaymakers in the winter months and I happen to know her Christmas booking cancelled. So, the place is available until Easter. Would that suit you?’
I could have wept. ‘It sounds perfect,’ I said. ‘What is it like? Not that it matters. I’d take anything, more or less.’
Marjorie shook her head. ‘I have no idea. I’ve never stepped foot inside. But how bad can it be? Families come back to it year after year for their holidays.’
Suddenly I was impatient to be off, to close the deal with Mrs Harrop and to see the house. I assumed it was a house although of course it could just as easily have been a damp old caravan or a spider-strewn bothy.
Marjorie must have sensed it. ‘Come on,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Let’s go and see, shall we?’
Roadend’s village shop and Post Office had been fashioned from what I took to be an old dairy or other ancillary farm building that was attached to the farmhouse. Roadend Farm was situated up a sloped, cobbled access. The farmhouse itself was older than the one I had seen at the beginning of the village, stone-built, and much larger. It might have been Georgian—quite grand, with a porticoed porch and sash windows. With the demise of the edifice on the hill it must have become the most affluent house in the village. It had the highest site in the otherwise flat plain of the village and as such commanded a considerable view of the street, the beach and the other houses. All this provided suitable illustration of Mrs Harrop’s sense of superiority and entitlement. Stepping through the tinkling door of the shop was indeed like stepping into an august presence.
Mrs Harrop was a tall, angular woman, with closely cropped grey hair and gimlet eyes made hawkish by the half-moon spectacles she wore perched on her beaked nose. Clearly, she had been expecting me. Although she did not deign to move from her swivel chair in the Post Office cubicle her attention swooped from whatever she had been fiddling with and fixed itself onto me, taking in at a glance my face, figure and apparel.
‘And so,’ she crowed, looking down on me from the height afforded by her stool, ‘looking for somewhere to stay, are you?’
I decided to meet her direct manner with equal candour. ‘I can see you like to get straight to the point, Mrs Harrop,’ I said. ‘Yes. And I believe you have somewhere that might suit.’
She sniffed. ‘I might,’ she said. ‘I haven’t decided yet.’
‘Oh,’ said Marjorie in a peremptory tone, ‘I do beg your pardon. I understood from our telephone conversation that you were very open to the idea. Never mind. I’ll take Dee down to see Mrs Ford. She has that nice little apartment above the studio.’ She seized the handle of the shop door and wrenched it open, setting the bell jangling and a carousel of cards spinning.
Clearly, Mrs Harrop hadn’t anticipated this gambit and her smug air of having something that somebody else wanted evaporated. Her mouth fell open. Marjorie raised a questioning eyebrow and waited for Mrs Harrop to make her move.
At that moment Olivia emerged from some nether region of the shop, carrying a plate of iced buns. In truth they were rather inexpertly iced but I was sure they would be fresh and I understood some delay was required to enable Mrs Harrop and Marjorie to face each other off across the shop.
‘Oh! Hello again Olivia,’ I cried, taking the two or three steps required to bring me to the counter. ‘Those buns look delicious! May I buy three of them, please?’
Behind me, Marjorie approached the Post Office counter and uttered a few sotto voce sentences through the grille. Olivia found a paper bag and used a pair of tongs to manoeuvre three of the buns into it.
The shop was small, its shelves crammed with goods, from tinned peas to padded envelopes, firelighters, fancy goods, toiletries and tobacco. A huge refrigerated unit took centre stage, with homecooked hams, pies and confectionery. The carousel of greetings cards stood awkwardly just inside the doorway. The floor beneath the stand shimmered with a haze of trodden-in mica—glitter, which, over the years, had dropped from the cards leaving only a gluey shadow where sparkle should have been.
Negotiations complete, Marjorie stepped back from the grille and Mrs Harrop said, to the shop at large, rather than specifically to me, ‘Easter’s late next year. First weekend in April. I’d need you out by then.’
‘That suits me,’ I said, not turning, pushing some coins across to Olivia. Then, in a casual tone, ‘What are you charging?’
She named a figure that, at Hackney prices, would barely have covered three months’ rent, let alone the five months that would take us to Easter.
I did swivel towards her then, my bag of buns clutched in my hand. ‘That sounds fair,’ I said. I struggled to keep my voice level but my amazement must have shown in my face.
‘Of course, it will include all utilities,’ Marjorie put in quickly, ‘plus logs and coal and so on.’
Mrs Harrop frowned. ‘Mrs Ford wouldn’t do as much,’ she muttered, but she did not disagree.
‘But Mrs Ford doesn’t need the peace of mind, does she?’ Marjorie observed. ‘She can see from her kitchen window that all’s well. Having Dee at your place will mean you won’t have to worry about the place, empty, all through the winter. Wasn’t there a burst last year? Or a leak in the roof? I can’t remember now, but by the time you found out …’
‘Cost me a new landing carpet,’ Mrs Harrop admitted.
‘Is there broadband?’ I asked. ‘Or a decent phone signal?’
Mrs Harrop fixed me with a beady eye. ‘If you’re going to be picky …’
‘Oh no,’ I forestalled her. ‘I just wondered.’
‘There’s a box with a blue light on the hallstand,’ she told me.
‘It’s called a hub,’ Olivia said. ‘Jamie set it up, didn’t he? But,’ with a heavy sigh, ‘to be truthful, none of us gets very good bandwidth.’ She shook her head apologetically. ‘We have no fibre.’ A mischievous glimmer in her eye invited me to share her joke, the image of Roadend’s populace: limp, insubstantial, and susceptible to moral dissipation.
‘I’ll need three months in advance,’ Mrs Harrop said, getting us back to business. ‘You can pay with a card. I have a machine.’
I hesitated. I hadn’t even seen the place. What if it was awful? Why, exactly, had the Christmas guests cried off? But my determination to follow the flow of narrative as it unspooled in front of me made me push my reservations away. I set down the buns and reached for my purse. ‘I’ll need a few groceries,’ I said, looking round me at the dusty tins and packets. ‘A few staples, to get me started.’
‘To get you started?’ Mrs Harrop sniffed. ‘Waitrose doesn’t deliver here, you know.’
‘I can make up a box,’ said Olivia. ‘Do you like chocolate?’
‘I do,’ I told her, ‘but I was thinking more along the lines of fruit and vegetables, eggs, milk …’
‘Gin,’ Marjorie offered, ‘if you hope for a visit from the vicar.’
I smiled. ‘Gin then, and whatever the vicar likes with it.’ I looked doubtfully at the shelves. ‘Do you have ground coffee?’ I ventured, ‘and Earl Grey tea?’ All I could see were some inferior brands of instant coffee.
‘Certainly,’ Mrs Harrop shrilled. ‘We keep those in for Her Ladyship. Olivia, you’ll find the things the lady wants at the back of the storeroom, on the top shelf. Make a careful list, mind. Don’t let anything slip in there that won’t get paid for.’
‘Don’t you usually offer a welcome hamper for your guests?’ Marjorie said mildly. ‘I would have thought the first box of supplies might be included.’
‘Not if she wants premier brands,’ Mrs Harrop snapped. Clearly, she felt she had given quite enough in allowing the utilities.
‘I’m happy to pay,’ I said, proffering my debit card, ‘but not through the nose.’
‘Oh,’ Marjorie said, in a fulsome tone, ‘Mrs Harrop cuts her margins to the quick. As I told you, the older residents would be lost without this shop. She’d be the last person to take advantage of anyone.’
The shopkeeper narrowed one eye as she slipped my card into her machine, not quite sure if she’d been insulted or praised.
‘Jamie will collect your groceries and bring them out to you,’ Olivia said, and I thought I discerned a blush on her smooth, round cheek.
‘She won’t want him getting his feet under the table,’ Mrs Harrop countered hotly, handing me the machine for my PIN. ‘Although,’ addressing me, ‘if you find yourself in real need, I expect he’ll help you out. He’ll be your neighbour. But the apple never falls far from the tree, so you can’t expect much …’
‘He’s a perfectly pleasant young man,’ Marjorie said.
I tucked my card back into my purse.
‘What time do you finish here, Olivia?’ I asked. ‘These buns won’t eat themselves.’
Chapter Seven
By the time we’d had tea and eaten the buns and I had manoeuvred Bob and the boxes of groceries into the MG, it was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. The earlier showers had concentrated themselves into a steady downpour. The sky was leaden, the sea a roiling brown soup. The village inhabitants had retreated into their houses; the carpark was empty.
I waved to Marjorie and Olivia and pulled off their drive feeling thoroughly optimistic in spite of the weather. I had been directed over the cattle grid past the churchyard, up Winter Hill and told to look for a gate at the top of the gravel track which would lead me to my new abode, Winter Cottage. What could be more auspicious for a writer seeking a winter retreat? It was meant to be. The keys to the cottage dangled from the overdrive switch on the dash.
The MG rattled over the cattle grid and I proceeded cautiously up the track. The wipers did their best to keep the screen clear but the rain was heavy, a grey curtain, obscuring the rough heathland to the right, the dunes to the left. The burned-out ruins at the top of the hill were invisible. I concentrated on the track, hearing the brush of grasses beneath the car’s low-slung chassis, fearful a protruding boulder might impale the exhaust or ruin the prop shaft. Slowly, we climbed. If the day had been clearer, I would have liked to have stopped, to have looked back down at the village from this vantage point, but there was no possibility of that. The rain pounded the roof of the car. It was like being inside a drum. Bob regarded me with anxious eyes. I kept in a low gear, quelling wild misgivings. What had I been thinking of? The MG could not possibly handle this kind of terrain on a regular basis without incurring some severe damage, and winter was coming. Things could only get worse. Unless I was prepared to walk, Roadend might be all but inaccessible to me from the cottage, wherever that was. Again, I had not enquired; it could be miles away.
My reverie was interrupted by the sudden glare of headlights, the scrunch of tyres on gravel and the pounding of a horn. Another car was coming down the track. There was no passing place and the banks were too high to allow any vehicle to mount, certainly not mine, not even the four-by-four, which is what I took the on-coming vehicle to be. It ground to a halt in front of me. I stopped, of course, but with a redoubling of anxiety as I doubted I’d be able to get going again. The track surface was so slippery, running with rainwater, as well as the small shower of stones the other car’s tyres had dislodged. I could barely make out the other driver. His windscreen was so much higher than mine. I had a much better view of his snarling radiator grille, but something told me it was a pretty good representation of the driver: irritated, impatient, entitled. He must have thrown his car into reverse. It began to pull back up the slope, throwing more stones against my bumper. The speed and violence of his manoeuvre confirmed all my suspicions—there was one angry man. I put my car into first gear and, mercifully, felt the wheels grip as we continued up the way.
In fact, it wasn’t very far, not more than twenty yards. The slope plateaued out onto a smooth, close-cropped area of short turf. The four-by-four—a Range Rover, I made out, top of the range—waited for me to pull onto the grass and then roared off down the hill, not seeing—or at least not acknowledging—my wave of thanks. Across the grassy common, to the seaward side, the stone walls of the tumbledown house reared up. They were blackened by the rain and also by fire. The one or two remaining windows stared at me blindly, fringed by weeds that had somehow become embedded between the stones and managed to grow, bedraggled and windswept, in that unpromising situation. Of course, the tragedy of its demise, its forlorn isolation, the possible romances of its history all intrigued me, but I could do no more than make a mental note to research its history. I had to get myself and Bob installed in our new home.
I looked around me. Ah! There, almost straight ahead, was the gate.
I must say it was far grander than I had anticipated. A tall, ornate, wrought iron affair with gilded finials, flanked by stone columns. The stones looked old, as old as those of the derelict house, but the orbs on top were new, large, and rather showy. A drystone wall stretched out to either side of the gate. To the right, the landward side, it skirted the common and disappeared into a scrubby copse. A handful of sheep cowered in the lee of the branches that overhung the wall. I felt sorry for them, and sorry for myself—desperate now to be indoors, sheltered, to have arrived at last. Through the gates I could see trees—not ancient ones but young, not much more than saplings—struggling to contend with the wind and weather, their semi-denuded branches whipping backwards and forwards in a frenzy. There were several tended shrubs and some modern sculptures, a gazebo from where, I imagined, the last rays of the setting sun would be visible, should it ever emerge from its shroud of cloud. A driveway curled elegantly around these features and dipped out of sight over the brow of the hill.
