Starting Over at Acorn Cottage

by Kate Forster

  Henry looked at her closely. ‘Really?’

  ‘What?’ Clara put her wine glass down.

  ‘Before, you nearly said a name and stopped yourself…’ He immediately regretted his words. Clara looked angry or upset or both.

  ‘I don’t know you, so why would I share that with you?’

  ‘I was about to share my chicken stew,’ he joked, wishing he hadn’t mentioned it.

  But Clara wasn’t laughing. He had touched a nerve and he wished he hadn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that; your life is your life, and I overstepped. I guess I thought we were sharing.’

  Clara looked at him, holding his stare.

  ‘I accept your apology. I need to go to bed now. I’m tired from no sleep and from helping Rachel.’

  Henry nodded as Clara stood up.

  ‘Goodnight, Pansy,’ she called out.

  Pansy popped her head out from behind the curtain that was around her bed.

  ‘Goodnight, Clara. Thank you for my fairy things.’

  Clara nodded at Henry. ‘Night then.’

  ‘Goodnight, Clara’ he said, feeling sad but unsure why. Clara shut the door to the van and he could hear her walking to the cottage.

  He hoped she didn’t take the setting up of the bed the wrong way. He hadn’t touched anything besides the bed frame. He sat in the van wondering what she thought and wondering why he felt the sudden and intense need to kiss her when he hadn’t had that need since Naomi. He also wondered whose name had she avoided saying aloud when it clearly was such a big trigger for her.

  16

  Clara stormed inside and stomped up the narrow staircase to her bedroom. Throwing open the door and turning on the light, she closed her eyes and groaned. Oh God, she thought. The bed, the little table, the roses. Damn you, Henry Garnett. You might be the perfect man and I just was rude and didn’t thank you for offering me dinner and had a tantrum because I couldn’t be honest about myself.

  Clara sat on the edge of the bed, enjoying the fact it was no longer on the floor, and picked up the teacup of roses. She examined the perfect buds and open flowers and inhaled the heady scent of the sweetness of summer tickling her nose.

  She needed to apologise but Clara wasn’t very good at apologies. Her mum had told her it was her cross to bear and she would have to learn how to offer them or she’d spend the rest of her life learning until she grew up. Clara had ignored her. Besides, saying sorry didn’t fix the unfixable in life. Sometimes things happened that couldn’t be forgiven, like Piles and Judas.

  Clara left unfinished business because she wouldn’t or couldn’t say sorry. She left friendships, she left jobs and she left home with apologies floating round her, waiting to be delivered, but there was something about Henry that made her think she didn’t want to leave him without one or thinking less of her. Perhaps she was growing up.

  She thought about Judas and Piles. She didn’t owe them an apology; they owed her one.

  She thought about her mother. She had tried to say she was sorry at the end, but did she hear? It was too late then. She was unconscious on morphine. She should have said it earlier when they first left him, when they ran away into the night.

  She should say sorry to her friends who she’d never called back or contacted after she and Piles had split. She should have said sorry to her co-workers instead of not coming back without a word. It wasn’t that she thought people didn’t deserve to hear her apologies. It was that Clara didn’t know how to say them. Ever since her father, she couldn’t apologise to anyone and she knew it was time she learned or her mother’s prophecy was right – she would spend her life trying to say sorry to people.

  Clara picked up her phone and texted.

  I am sorry I was rude. I overreacted. I’m sorry I ruined the dinner. Also, thank you for putting my bed together, and for the roses and the table and really, thank you for everything. You’re so lovely and I was so rude.

  She pressed send and lay on the bed. It felt entirely different now she was off the floor, and the task of fixing up the cottage didn’t seem so immense after all.

  Her phone chimed with a return text and she picked it up and read it.

  Check by the front door.

  Clara nearly ran downstairs, wondering if Henry would be there but when she opened it there was darkness – until she looked down and saw a plate of stew with a candle next to it, some cutlery wrapped in a napkin, and a glass of wine.

  Picking up the items, she carefully balanced them and carried them into the cottage and put them on the kitchen table.

  It was the most caring thing anyone had done for her since before her mum became ill.

  Giles had never cooked for her, claiming he was all thumbs in the kitchen. In fact, he didn’t really do anything in the home. She had done the washing and the cleaning, because in the end it was easier than arguing and she had decided that arguing over whose turn it was to iron was not the hill she wished to die on.

  Clara sipped the wine and sat at the table, the candle flickering in the darkness. The stew was simply delicious and the wine a lovely pairing, with a hunk of crusty bread to soak up the rosemary-laced gravy from the stew.

  As Clara ate, she felt a warmth inside that she hadn’t felt since before her mum died. Her eyes stung as she walked upstairs with the rest of the wine and the candle and climbed into bed in her clothes.

  She missed her mum more than she could explain and Henry made her feel cared for, as though someone loved her for the first time in a long time. Someone looked out for her and had her back.

  Clara finished the glass of wine and then sent a text.

  That was so perfect and undeserved. You are a truly lovely person. Thank you.

  A text came back.

  You are too hard on yourself. You’ve had very little sleep, have helped a relative stranger and been dealing with a child who might be a future world dictator. It was my pleasure to feed you. Goodnight, Clara.

  Clara felt her body respond to him using her name when he wrote goodnight.

  She imagined him lying next to her saying that very phrase.

  ‘Goodnight, Clara.’

  ‘Goodnight, Henry,’ she would say.

  And they would sleep with their feet touching and in the morning they would lie tangled together, his finger tracing patterns on her skin until they kissed and…

  The phone chimed again.

  I need to talk to you.

  She looked at it with hope for a moment and then saw it was from Piles.

  He wanted to talk to her? Her fantasy of Henry had been broken by this absolute traitor of a man to tell her she should speak to him, as though that should mean something.

  In fury she typed back.

  Never text me again. Go and be with my ex-best-friend. I hate you. I’m now blocking you.

  And she did block him because Piles and Judas could go to hell. She lay in the dark trying to summon the vision of Henry next to her until she fell asleep just as their feet were touching.

  17

  Rachel was up earlier than usual. She had slept deeply and dreamed of cakes and a wedding and Clara and Pansy. It was nice to have someone else to dream and think about as she slept and worked. She used to dream about her mother a lot and they were anxiety-filled with a recurring one with Mother chasing her through a forest.

  Last night Mother wasn’t in her dream at all and she woke up humming a tune that Clara had played on the radio. She showered and dressed, then put on a pair of sneakers that she had bought in Chippenham with Clara. They were so soft and felt spongy when she walked, as though she was walking on actual sponge cakes.

  The sun was slowly waking up still, when a knock at the back door of the bakery interrupted Rachel. She was kneading the pastry for the rhubarb and strawberry tarts she was planning on making for the day.

  The mini carrot cakes with little iced carrots on top were ready and there were butterhorn rolls to go with the lovely pea and ham soup or minestrone
she had for lunch.

  After wiping her hands on her apron, she opened the door, to see Joe the butcher standing in the dusk, the champagne light wrapping around him as though he was wearing it as a cloak.

  ‘Morning, Miss Brown,’ he said, not looking her in the eye. Joe was a shy redheaded man who was a few years ahead of Rachel at school. She doubted he remembered her but she remembered him because he had been kind to her when others were not, and he always pushed back on Mother when she tried to barter on the meat prices.

  ‘Your mam said you wanted lamb backstraps.’ He held out the packages in white paper.

  ‘No, I want braising steak and kidneys,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Your mam didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘I’m telling you now,’ said Rachel, feeling stronger than she should. ‘I will take these for tomorrow but if you have any steak and kidney I would appreciate it. I can pay you cash.’

  There were so many options to make for the bakery and tearooms and without Mother telling her to buy the cheapest cuts and put the plainest sweet items on the menu, she felt as though she could finally use her skills in the kitchen.

  She knew people thought she was stupid; she wasn’t, but fear of being hurt made her quiet. Taught her how to hold her tongue, taught her how to turn away at the last minute so the back of her head caught the slap so it wouldn’t leave a mark.

  ‘Actually, can you return the lamb back to me minced, and I’ll make cottage pies with it, and bring me the steak and kidneys, Joe? I’m sorry if it’s a lot of trouble,’ she said politely. She hated the way her mother had spoken to people who she deemed were beneath her, which was everyone but herself.

  ‘Mum not around today?’ he asked, peering over her shoulder into the kitchen.

  ‘She’s in hospital. She hurt her leg,’ was all the information she offered.

  Joe nodded, seemingly satisfied with her answer, and went back to his van to drive to the next town to fill her order and bring it back.

  Rachel set about finishing the tarts and then carefully writing on the blackboard outside the bakery, telling everyone who passed the specials in-store. Before her mother had not bothered with the blackboard but Rachel thought it was a lovely chance to wish everyone a good day, so she went and checked the weather and then came back and carefully added the weather forecast and wrote:

  Have a wonderful day.

  She stood back and smiled at the sign, pleased with her work.

  It was entirely too exciting, she thought as she placed the cakes and tarts into the glass cabinet. It felt like she was starting a new life.

  Joe returned with her order and she had the cottage pies in the oven in no time. Soon they were browning beautifully and ready to be served with the special tomato chutney she had from last summer, all labelled and preserved in the pantry.

  The bakery opened at midday but Rachel was ready twenty minutes before, so she opened it anyway, ready for the customers she hoped would come.

  She had even brought Mother’s radio downstairs and put it on in the tearoom, playing classical music that Dad used to play before he died.

  She remembered the music about the planets. Jupiter and something else. She would ask Clara, she would know. Clara knew everything.

  Rachel picked up the phone in the bakery and dialled Clara’s number and heard it go through to voicemail so hung up again.

  She didn’t want to leave a message. What would she say? Call me back about some music my dad used to play?

  The sound of the bell above the door stirred her from her worrying about messages and music and there stood a woman and what looked to be her elderly father.

  ‘Hello,’ said Rachel brightly. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘We would like some tea and an early lunch,’ said the woman.

  Rachel seated them, glad for the soft shoes she wore instead of the laced-up ones Mother insisted she wear and talked them through the soups, and pie options.

  With an order of pea and ham soup and a steak and kidney pie, and a pot of tea stewing, Rachel thought she couldn’t be happier.

  As the afternoon wore on, she was busy and sold everything but two cottage pies and a steak and kidney and two carrot cakes.

  She had over-catered but perhaps she had meant to, and when she closed the shop at just after three and cleaned up, she saw the hospital had called four times.

  Instead of calling them back, Rachel packed up the food, put it into the basket on her bike and rode up to Clara’s cottage.

  Clara was in the garden when she arrived, Henry was on the roof pulling down the thatching in one area, and Pansy was running on the lawn with dolls set up in a row as though to watch her.

  She rang the bell on her bike as she jumped off. ‘Hello,’ she called.

  Clara looked up from pulling weeds and smiled as Henry waved and Pansy greeted her with a cartwheel.

  The three of them smiling and looking so happy made her heart sing. There was something about this she loved but she couldn’t put her finger on it. It felt like everything was right with the world.

  When she had visited Acorn Cottage in her teens, this was what she had hoped for but now, it all made sense. That was when she realised she had to make Henry and Pansy stay and Henry simply had to fall in love with Clara.

  ‘I brought some things from the shop to say thank you,’ she said standing outside the gate, holding the package.

  She noticed the sign on the front had been painted and looked fresh compared to the rest of the cottage. Henry must have done it, she thought.

  ‘Come in,’ called Clara, pushing up from the ground and stretching. She was so pretty with her dark bob and her large blue eyes. She looked like Snow White, so it was perfect she lived in a cottage.

  Rachel unsnapped the gate and stepped inside.

  ‘Did you bring cake?’ Pansy asked as she ran towards her. ‘I love cake, it’s my favourite.’

  Rachel laughed at Pansy. ‘I did, I brought carrot cake.’

  ‘Carrot cake? It sounds like it’s cake for rabbits.’ Pansy made a face.

  ‘Pansy, don’t be rude. Say sorry to Rachel.’ Henry sighed.

  ‘Sorry for being rude about your rabbit cake,’ said Pansy, dancing away.

  Clara laughed. ‘Come in, mind the mess though. I’ve been trying to work out what goes where, and I have a man coming to put on the internet so I can be a modern person.’

  Rachel followed Clara inside, stepping over unrolled rugs and boxes half unpacked.

  The kitchen was looking disorganised and very messy, with paper everywhere and bubble wrap on the floor.

  ‘How’s your mum?’ asked Clara as though it wasn’t a big deal.

  ‘Fine, doing well,’ said Rachel with a smile.

  She avoided Clara’s searching look.

  ‘You’ve been gardening?’ she said, changing the subject, looking at Clara’s hands.

  ‘Yes, the cottage seems too overwhelming and the sun is so nice. I love being outside.’ Clara looked out the open front door, as though she was dying to get out again.

  Putting the items on the table, Rachel looked around.

  ‘Can I unpack your kitchen? I love organising and I want to help you after what you did for me the other night.’

  Clara looked taken aback. ‘Really? That seems like a very big ask; I mean people hate unpacking and organising.’

  ‘Not me, I love it. Yes, really. I do like that sort of thing.’ Rachel hoped Clara would let her because it was true, she did love an organised kitchen.

  Clara laughed. ‘If I don’t have to do it, then go on ahead. I trust you completely.’

  Rachel smiled. ‘Go on then, into the garden with you.’

  So Rachel Brown went to work, finally fulfilling her dream at Acorn Cottage, but this time it felt better doing it for Clara, as though she finally had some value and she could feel the little cottage humming with purpose again. That’s all we ever want in life, she thought. To have a purpose.

  18

  Ra
chel not only cleaned Clara’s kitchen, but she also unpacked the remaining boxes of kitchen items and put things away in cupboards and drawers and made the kitchen feel loved and warm, and as though it made sense. She’d found all manner of things left by the previous owner including tablecloths that just needed a wash, some mismatched plates and cups, a collection of buttons in a large jar, which she knew Pansy would love to play with, and a mousetrap with the skeletal remains of a long-passed creature.

  It was nearly Clara’s favourite room in the house but right now it was the bedroom because Henry had been in it and had placed the roses and it was where she imagined their feet touching every night.

  After Rachel had finished her work, they had all had afternoon tea together, set up by Rachel again, who had put out the cakes and cups and saucers and they all had a lovely time. Pansy had declared the Rabbit Cakes yummy and not just for rabbits.

  Henry had asked Rachel about schools. Pansy had looked at him in shock and then choked on the cake until Clara had patted her back until it passed.

  School? Was he staying? God, she could hardly bear to think about what that meant. Why did he want to stay? How long would he stay? So many questions but gosh, she had a huge crush on him.

  Nothing had changed between them but he was in her thoughts all the time.

  And Rachel. She was in her thoughts too but in a different way. The girl she met the night of the accident was not the girl who excitedly showed her where the mugs and tea were kept close to the kettle.

  Rachel rode her bicycle home and Pansy had waved from the laneway until Rachel was out of sight, and Clara and Pansy went back inside to tidy up.

  Henry’s face peered through the door. ‘Hi, you want to bring the pies to the van for dinner later?’ he asked.

  ‘Love to, what time?’ Clara smiled at him. God, she wanted to kiss that mouth.

  Henry nodded. ‘Six-ish? I need to have a shower.’

  Don’t even think about him in the shower, she told herself.

  ‘Your van has everything, doesn’t it, even a shower?’ Clara wiped her hands on the tea towel that Rachel had hung on the hook next to the dish rack.