‘If I dig the plants out, it’ll save me having to do it later.’
Accept the saw, you stupid, stubborn goat!
‘Maybe. But at this rate you’ll be sleeping in the shed again.’ His eyes glittered with humour.
I said nothing, an internal battle raging between my current loathing of all men and my need to get to the blasted back door before dark.
‘I’m fine.’Och, Jenny. This man is not Richard. Stop acting like a cow.‘Thank you.’
‘Your choice.’ He nodded, once, and went back inside. It was only then I wondered if he was trying to laugh with, not at, me.
I thought about the rats’ eyes, gleaming in the shadows, and promised myself I’d not stop digging until I was in the darn cottage. An hour later, I broke my promise. Exhausted, hungry, fingers numb with cold, feeling slightly deranged at the stress of my predicament, I walked the forty-five minutes through the woods back to the café, just in time to find Sarah closing up. She topped up my bottle of water and, after I drained it in one, refilled it. I also bought a banana and a slab of chocolate, eating them both on the way back.
I returned to find a huge, shiny saw propped up against one of the bushes, which looked decidedly less bushy than when I’d left. Glancing up at the ominous clouds now rolling in across the late afternoon sky, I swallowed the last piece of chocolate, along with my pride, and picked up the saw.
The blade snapped off on the second to last branch. But, as the first drops of sleet began to fall, I had no energy left to worry about that just then. Squeezing my way through the remaining spikes, I finally entered my new home.
3
Wheezing and gasping, I very quickly stepped out again. I could almost feel Mack laughing through the walls. Gritting my teeth, I leant back around the door and felt for a light switch. As soon as the lights clicked on, I ducked back out, waiting for the scrabbling sounds to die down as whatever lived in there scrambled for cover. I kicked and banged the door a few times, giving them all one last chance to disappear, took a deep breath of bracing forest air, and strode into the centre of what I supposed must be the kitchen.
The grandmother I’d heard nothing about until a few weeks ago – Charlotte Meadows – had passed away six years earlier. Mum only found out when the lawyers had tracked her down months later to inform her she’d inherited the cottage. Driven by guilt, shame and regret, she’d fled on a journey – both geographical, emotional and, it would seem, spiritual – with a final destination about as far from the self-serving socialite she’d been as it was possible to get.
So, I’d expected the cottage to need a clean. To have a few mice, spiders, maybe even a bat or two. I knew the roof might be missing a few tiles and was fully prepared to throw on a lick of paint. But, seriously, how bad could a house get in six years?
One look told me this house’s problems had started a long time before that. The sink, table, worktops, dresser and most of the floor were covered in stuff. Pots, pans, plates, mugs and other kitchen items. Also, three metal buckets, books, radios, a guitar-case, dozens of empty bottles and piles and piles of junk. I picked my way over to the fridge, opening the door to release a blast of mouldy air that made my eyes water and throat seize up. Slamming it shut, I pulled my jacket collar up over my mouth and nose, and turned towards the oven. The hob was buried under more rubbish, but one glance inside and I had to retreat to the garden and retch a few times.
Sneaking over to the outside tap sticking out of Mack’s house, I took a long drink before splashing more water over my face. I desperately needed a shower, but had a feeling that wouldn’t be happening any time soon.
The rest of the house turned out to be in much the same state. Every room jam-packed with stuff, only a narrow passage through the hoard leading between the kitchen and the living room, through to what I assumed had once been a dining room, and then to a tiny cloakroom. I didn’t think the toilet had been flushed since the last user, six years ago. More retching, more water, more deep breaths and wondering how on earth my life had come to this. On the upstairs landing I found three bedrooms, providing sleeping-quarters for yet more varieties of animal life in amongst the clutter. Another door revealed the boiler and shelves of sheets and blankets. I wrapped a musty pillow case around my nose and mouth before opening the final door into what had to be the bathroom.
Oh, my goodness.
My knees buckled.
There was dust, yes, stirred up into clouds of motes shimmering in the evening sunset glowing through the enormous window. A faint hint of mildew, the odd green fleck of verdigris on the copper taps. But stepping into that bathroom was like entering an alternate universe, where things were clean and spacious and white and clean and welcoming and lovely and … justclean. Had I died and gone to bathroom heaven? Or was the reality of the bathroom so reeking it’d knocked me unconscious, triggering a hallucinogenic dream?
Either way, I didn’t care. I crossed the wooden floor, leaving footprints in the dust, and peered into the roll-top bath. Nothing a quick swipe with a cloth wouldn’t sort out. I opened the window, sat on the closed toilet seat and wept.
* * *
I slept in the bath, wrapped up in my sleeping bag. It was marginally more comfortable than the Mini. The shower that had preceded it had been the best thirty minutes of my new life. Too tired for the gnawing in my stomach to bother me, I’d locked the bathroom door to keep out my assorted housemates, and slept for twelve hours straight.
The following day, I headed back towards the village, stretching the kinks from my neck and shoulders as I walked. Bypassing the café, I carried on along a road for another quarter of a mile or so into Middlebeck. After a few big old houses, interspersed with higgledy-piggledy cottages, I arrived at the green, an area of grass circling a pond, surrounded by the village amenities. These consisted of a pub, a quaint little church and village hall, a row of shops, and Middlebeck Primary School. The shops included a general store, bakery, hairdresser, post office and a Chinese take-away. Not bursting with potential job opportunities, then, but I only needed one.
I went to the store first, loading a basket with the barest essentials of cleaning supplies, heavy-duty rubbish sacks, an electric kettle, and various food items that needed no cooking and minimal crockery: cheese slices, crackers and bread, fruit, tins of tuna and some packets of instant pasta. A box of teabags. Counting up the dwindling notes in my purse, I then added a puncture repair kit. I also chucked in a free newspaper claiming to contain over seventy job ads.
I asked in every shop about work, as well as the pub. People were polite, but firm. I’d be better off trying Mansfield or Nottingham. Wandering back to The Common Café, I wasted the last of my change on one final coffee, and sat in the crisp sunshine to search the paper with a breakfast of apple and cheese. There were one or two jobs that seemed possible, until I considered the cost of travel, and the timings, and the fact that I would rather starve to death in amongst Charlotte Meadows’ hoard than ask my previous employer for a reference.
I decided the best thing to do was finish my final ever coffee while admiring the view, enjoy the birds soaring overhead and not think at all about the swanky flat where I’d use to live, the swanky law firm where I’d worked as a personal assistant, the swanky lawyer who I’d assisted a little too personally, or my swanky sister, who’d been the reason I’d moved to Scotland, and the reason I left.
While I was busy not thinking about Zara, or Richard, or ZaraandRichard, more to the point, a queue began to form at the café hatch. It was a Saturday, and a mix of families, ramblers with walking sticks, and dog owners were all either lining up or milling about waiting. After five minutes or so, noticing the queue hadn’t moved along at all, I walked over to see what was happening.
As I approached the building, the door burst open, releasing a small child brandishing a handful of chocolate bars and an egg-whisk, closely followed by Sarah. The boy ran past me squealing, and instinctively I reached out and scooped him up. After freezing for a moment in shock, he began beating me with the whisk, screaming while his minute yet surprisingly hard feet kicked against my hip.
Sarah, wild-eyed and red-faced, pulled up in front of us. ‘Edison, pack it in!’ she commanded.
Edison thrashed and bucked. I adjusted my grip, ducking to avoid a whisk in my eye. ‘Shall I put him down?’
