Starting Over at Acorn Cottage

by Kate Forster

  ‘Does she have a boyfriend?’ she asked Tassie who shook her head.

  ‘No, no, the mother wouldn’t allow it.’

  Rachel cleared the plates and then brought Clara an eclair, so Clara seized her moment. ‘You know, I’m new here. I’ve moved to the village today, at Acorn Cottage up past the church. Do you know it?’

  The girl suddenly lifted her head, as though surprised at Clara’s words.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ she said, but Clara thought she was lying. She glanced at Tassie who raised a painted-on eyebrow.

  ‘I’m the new owner and I don’t know anyone here; it would be lovely if we could be friends. I’m Clara, Clara Maxwell.’

  The girl paused. ‘Rachel Brown,’ she said. Her voice was low and careful, and Clara felt a shiver up her back.

  ‘Perhaps we can have a drink sometime? Go to the pub? Here’s my number.’ Clara had written it on the back of a receipt from her purse and she pushed it into Rachel’s hand. Rachel scuttled away as though she had been handed an illegal substance, shoving it into the pocket of her apron.

  ‘She won’t call. She never asks for help,’ said Tassie. ‘They came fifteen years ago when the father died. Never quite made a go of it. The village was bigger then and the shops were all filled up but now, there is barely anything. I rely on deliveries as I can’t get into Chippenham. But they’re so expensive to have sent up here.’

  Clara wasn’t really paying attention as the eclair was a such a delight but she was trying to understand who gave the girl the bruise. Not her mother, surely? There must be a boyfriend. Probably a cheating, lying, absolute shit of a boyfriend who would ruin her life, like Piles tried to ruin hers. One who Rachel kept secret from her mother.

  ‘Who gave her the bruise?’ she asked Tassie, who looked over at the door as it opened, the bell giving a hollow tingle in the echoing space.

  Clara looked at Rachel as the mother came back to the shop and then she saw the flicker of fear that she had seen in her own mother’s eyes before they fled for London.

  And that’s when she knew it was the mother who gave the bruise to Rachel.

  ‘You realise the mother is abusing her?’ she asked Tassie.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Can’t we do something?’ A thousand ideas ran through her head but Tassie shook her head at her.

  ‘We can’t do anything as Rachel is an adult and Moira is her mother. All we can do is be her friend and try and help when she lets us.’

  Clara watched the mother busying about the shop and putting on a show for Clara and Tassie, all airs and graces and being super sweet to Rachel.

  Oh yes, Clara knew all of these behaviours and she felt the hairs on her arms rise and her jaw set.

  Doing nothing wasn’t in Clara’s nature but she also knew it wasn’t her place to interfere.

  She left the old woman and the bakery and drove back to the cottage, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the girl in the bakery. No, this wouldn’t do, Clara simply had to help Rachel; she felt it in her heart that girl would need her one day and that day was coming soon… but first she had to fix the hole in her own roof.

  8

  Acorn Cottage was Rachel’s dream house when she was a young girl. When she first moved to Merryknowe and was at school in the next village, she would get off the bus at the road that led to the cottage behind the church and walk through the graveyard to the cottage.

  Rachel imagined coming home to the house and sweeping the pathway and tying back the roses on either side of the front door.

  She would have put in pink flowers in the front garden and had a pie cooling on the kitchen windowsill like they did in old movies and her mother would be nowhere in her life.

  Over the years she had visited Acorn Cottage less and less as the bakery and her mother were too demanding, but it remained in her heart, a place of escape and a place to dream. She had always wondered why she loved it so much, why it drew her to it every afternoon growing up. Perhaps she would own it one day, she had thought.

  Except now it belonged to Clara Maxwell.

  Clara was older than her, probably about thirty or so, and she was so smart-looking with her striped T-shirt and jeans, with a straight dark brown bob and blue eyes with eye makeup. She had curves and wore silver sneakers. Mother never allowed Rachel to have makeup. She said it made her look cheap, but Mother’s dressing table was groaning with shadows and powders and lipsticks. Mother looked cheap. Clara looked wonderful.

  And Clara wanted to be her friend. Clara who looked like an angel when she walked into the shop. There was sunlight on her hair and a prism-like rainbow followed her from the concave window. Clara gave Rachel her number. She invited her to the pub. Rachel had never set foot inside the pub because of Mother, who said Rachel was not mature enough to drink – except Mother drank gin and wine and then slurred her words and got angry with Rachel for things she didn’t do.

  Rachel tried to imagine going to the pub with Clara and failed. She didn’t know what she would wear or what the inside of the pub even looked like.

  That night Rachel did exactly as Mother asked, and didn’t mess anything up. When Mother wasn’t looking, she put an extra sleeping tablet into the warm cocoa she made every night. This was a last resort and she had to be careful as Mother sometimes counted the tablets, but Rachel needed time to think.

  When finally Rachel was alone in her room, and Mother was snoring loudly in her own room, she thought about how she could be Clara’s friend. Mother would never allow it but she needed something more than this life.

  Maybe she could go and visit Clara tomorrow but how would she do it?

  It was impossible. She lay on her bed and stared at the dull, oatmeal-coloured ceiling.

  ‘Dad?’ she whispered. ‘If you can help me escape Mother, to visit Clara and the cottage, I would be so grateful. I look after Mother the way you would have wanted. I do everything for her. Please help me, Dad.’

  She felt her eyes fill with tears.

  She missed her father but he was a sad man. A weak man, her mother said, but Rachel understood why he did what he did. Sometimes she thought about doing the same thing but then where would Mother be? She would have no one to help her get in the bath and make a living for them.

  Clara made herself a cup of cocoa with extra sugar because Mother wouldn’t allow it usually, and she ate a Hobnob and watched The Graham Norton Show.

  It was perfectly lovely and she felt herself relax. Then after Graham Norton had finished, and she had washed her cup, put it away and turned off the lamps, she heard the door to Mother’s bedroom open.

  ‘What are you doing, you little bitch?’

  Rachel felt cold and she rubbed her arms. ‘Nothing, Mother, let me help you back to bed.’

  Mother stared at her with a snarl on her face.

  ‘I’m going to bed soon,’ she said bravely to Mother, to try and show her she was doing what was expected.

  ‘You will do nothing without me saying so. You’re just like your father.’

  Rachel stood still. Sometimes this strategy worked, as Mother’s attention would be drawn to something else that was wrong that she could abuse but tonight Rachel thought it wouldn’t.

  ‘I have to check the locks downstairs,’ said Rachel. She had already checked them but if Mother was in a mood, it was best she avoided her and took her time in the shop so Mother might go back to bed.

  ‘Leave it,’ her mother hissed. ‘I’ll go. You’ll probably leave them open and I’ll be raped and you murdered and they’ll leave with all the money.’

  Rachel wanted to scream, ‘WHAT MONEY?’ but said nothing as Mother weaved towards the door leading to the stairs down to the shop.

  ‘I can go, Mother,’ said Rachel, watching the way her mother swerved in her satin-like nightgown.

  ‘You can’t do anything, you stupid child, so stop pretending. I think something happened to you as a baby. God knows what. Perhaps they dropped you when you were born,’ Mother said a
s she opened the door and started down the stairs.

  Rachel wondered if they had dropped her, as she wasn’t good at so many things, but surely her mother would remember if she had been dropped since she was the one who gave birth to her.

  She could hear Mother muttering on the stairs, and Rachel stood still, unsure what to do. Should she should go to bed and avoid her mother or should she wait and receive more abuse when Mother came back?

  Then the sound of thumping was heard and a scream came from the stairs and more terrible sounds like a bag of flour been thrown. Rachel rushed out and saw Mother lying at the bottom of them in an awkward position that made her body look inhuman.

  ‘Mother!’ She ran downstairs.

  There was a cut on her head and blood was gushing out and one of her legs was at a peculiar angle.

  She moaned and Rachel ran to the phone in the shop. She called triple nine and gave the ambulance service the address. Rachel sat on the bottom step and looked at her mother. She knew she should do something to make her comfortable but her leg was almost twisted behind her back and there was blood everywhere on the floor surrounding her head.

  Rachel started to rock as she sat on the stairs. It was comforting but Mother often told her when she did, it proved she was the village idiot like everyone said she was.

  She wondered what Clara would do in this moment. One thing was for sure, she would know what to do. Rachel carefully stepped over her mother and, pulling the number from the cash register where she had hidden it under the tray, she dialled and waited.

  Clara answered almost immediately. ‘Hello? Clara speaking.’

  ‘Clara? It’s Rachel Brown, from the bakery. I hope I didn’t wake you.’

  ‘Oh hey there, how nice that you rang. No, it’s only nine-thirty. How are you?’

  Rachel paused. ‘I’m okay but Mother fell and I’m waiting for an ambulance. I was wondering what you would do in this situation.’

  ‘God, is she bleeding?’

  ‘Yes, from her head. There’s quite a lot of blood.’

  Even to Rachel, her voice sounded very calm, almost uncaring, but that couldn’t be right – she was supposed to care about this moment. Perhaps she was in shock, like they said in the books she read.

  Clara was speaking. ‘I’ll be there in a moment.’ And then there was silence on the end of the line.

  Rachel put the phone down and looked at Mother. She was pale, she looked almost blue and there was a large pool of blood spilling out onto the lino floor.

  She knew she should do something, but she wasn’t entirely sure what. More than that, she didn’t know if she wanted to do anything for her mother ever again. For a brief moment, she wondered if her dad had pushed her down the stairs so she could be friends with Clara, just as she had asked.

  9

  Clara – aged 10

  Clara had a ritual she would run through before her dad came home from work.

  If she washed her face and hands and brushed her hair, then he would come home on time.

  If she did all her homework, he wouldn’t be drunk.

  If she cleaned her bedroom and tidied up the papers from the kitchen table before Mum came home from work, then he wouldn’t be mean to Mum at dinner.

  And if she did her reading without missing a word, then Mum and Dad would sit and watch television and she would go to sleep with the sounds of Strictly Come Dancing instead of yelling and the thump of Mum hitting the wall.

  Checking the time, she worked out how long she had before Mum came home from the grocery store where she worked. Sometimes she brought home sausages from the delicatessen that hadn’t sold, and she would fry them up with eggs and beans and toast and HP sauce and Dad would tell jokes that made Clara and Mum cry with laughter.

  Other times, when Mum brought the smoked cod home, and there was a letter from the bank on the table, then Dad would just make them cry.

  Clara couldn’t remember a time when her mum and dad didn’t fight. Sometimes she wanted to run into Mum and tell her to not argue with him, that she would never win. Why did Clara know this but her mum didn’t understand?

  She would worry about it in school and if she had a test the day after a big row she would barely pass. Other days, when Dad told jokes and told her she was his clever Clara, she would score a ten out of ten.

  It was so confusing.

  Especially in the mornings when she woke up and Mum would be making Dad eggs on toast and coffee, and they would act like nothing had happened, as if Mum didn’t have a black eye or a split lip.

  Sometimes she wondered if it was a dream or if she was imagining what had happened the night before. But the hole in wall was evidence it wasn’t a dream and the broken cups in the rubbish were as real as the mouth ulcer that Clara kept putting her tongue into when she was nervous, which seemed to be a lot more lately.

  So, Clara created a new ritual. At night, in her bed she would lie in the dark and work out a plan to get her and Mum away from Dad and they would only see him when he could be nice to them.

  She would save all the money she found, and she would buy them a little house, just like in the book she was reading with the girl who found an abandoned cottage and made it her home. Clara had so many dreams of her and Mum leaving in the night-time, bags packed, being quiet so they didn’t wake Dad. His drunken snores were a sign he was out for the night but you couldn’t be too careful. Once she thought he was asleep but when she walked past him, he grabbed her on the arm so tightly that he left finger marks and Mum was called into the school to explain.

  Last night Dad and Mum were yelling because he was flirting with a girl at the pub. She hated it when they talked about things like that. Once she had seen Dad with a lady she didn’t know at the park, and he was holding her in a way she hadn’t seen him ever hold Mum. She knew not to say anything to Mum though; that sort of thing was for adults, not for children to tell secrets about.

  But Clara didn’t like to think about those times. Instead, she imagined a little thatched cottage with a little dog all of her own and chickens in the yard, and she and Mum making cakes in the kitchen.

  She would have a best friend like the little girl in the book she read who lived down the road and they would have all sorts of adventures together.

  Oh yes, this was the perfect plan. She just had to work out a way to escape from Dad somehow.

  So, night after night, Clara planned their escape, writing it all down in a notebook by torchlight under the covers. Her Safety Book, she called it, hidden away behind the skirting board where Mum or Dad couldn’t find it and where all of Clara’s wishes lay, waiting for her to make them come true.

  10

  Clara had been lying in her cold bedroom on her mattress with her old wooden bedframe lying outside on the long grass when Rachel called. Clara prayed the rain would stay away but English summers were always unpredictable.

  She had cleaned the bedroom as much as she could, which meant she’d swept, dusted, washed the windows and sills and skirtings, and scrubbed the bathroom as much as she could but the pink tiles and pedestal basin needed better cleaning products than what she had. Thankfully the last owner, Sheila Batt, according to Tassie, had put a working toilet inside, the one she hadn’t died on according to Tassie again, and Clara had cleaned it but it was certainly not the dream space she had imagined.

  There was no television, no internet, and Henry and Pansy had retired for the night into their van. Henry had offered for her to stay in the van but honestly, she had no idea where she would fit, and besides, she didn’t want to intrude. No, she had made her bed, so to speak, and she had to try and sleep in it.

  Henry had popped off to the local chippie and brought back a selection of fried treats for dinner and served them all in the little van. Pansy was thrilled about the dinner, telling Clara that she thought that when she grew up she would own a fish and chip shop.

  The van was cute, with a little bunk bed for Pansy and a double bed for Henry below. There was
a galley kitchen and a sofa, which Henry said turned into a bed, and a sweet little bathroom. The style was cute and homely and probably was put together by Henry’s wife.

  ‘Your van is what I would like my cottage to look like,’ she admitted, after Pansy was in her bunk with the iPad watching her favourite TV show before bed.

  ‘It was all Naomi,’ he said and Clara inwardly acknowledged her instinct for seeing the woman’s touch. It was in the cushions and the rugs and the sweet curtains and the teacups with pink polka dots on them.

  Clara sipped her beer and ate a chip.

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘Ovarian cancer; it was quick and it was ruthless. Spread everywhere. She thought she was pregnant at first but it was already on the march when she was diagnosed.’

  ‘What a shit of a disease,’ said Clara shaking her head. ‘Completely rubbish, isn’t it? You think about all those idiots who are wasting their time in life and then you think about your wife, and the snuffing of her candle far too early when she probably had a lot she still wanted to do.’

  ‘She did,’ said Henry leaning forward over the small booth table. ‘She had so much left to do – we had things to do together.’

  Clara nodded and sipped her beer. ‘Life brings some absolute turds sometimes, doesn’t it?’

  Henry laughed. ‘It has its moments.’

  They were silent for a moment, and Clara felt something shift between them. She wasn’t sure what it was but it was something unusual and special, a connection perhaps. Nothing too big but at least it was an understanding.

  ‘I should go to my crumbling castle now, and you said you were giving me a quote and list?’

  Henry went to the pile of papers on the small desk and pulled out a folder with embossing on the front.

  ‘Take it and read it and we can chat in the morning,’ he said.

  Clara touched the front of the folder.

  HENRY GARNETT AND DAUGHTER

  THATCHER, HANDYMAN, ARTIST, GARDENER.

  ‘Do you do all of these?’ she asked, looking up at him.