Starting Over at Acorn Cottage

by Kate Forster

  Clara nudged Henry who nodded.

  ‘No, I don’t know what it said to you Pansy. I apologise for being rude. I’m just jealous because the tree didn’t talk to me.’ And then to Clara: ‘Shall we talk over tea?’

  Clara felt nervous as she went into the kitchen and made a pot of tea and put out some shortbread she had bought in Salisbury.

  Henry came and sat down at the table with Tassie.

  ‘Clara talks about you often,’ he said.

  ‘As she does you,’ said Tassie and she leaned over the table and patted his hand. ‘Now, I would like to borrow your child.’

  Clara put out the cups, trying hard not to clatter or clash them so as not to ruin the moment with clumsiness.

  Henry seemed surprised. ‘Borrow her for what? I’m afraid she would be a terrible scullery maid.’

  ‘I am old,’ said Tassie, and Clara noticed she was putting on a more tired voice than usual, or was she a little more tired than usual? ‘And I want to spend some time with your little one and help her learn to read for school. I used to be a schoolteacher in the village. It would charm me no end to have some time to teach again.’

  Henry crossed his arms.

  ‘She’s attending the school in Chippenham next month – they can teach her.’

  Clara sat down. ‘Oh I think Tassie knows that; she just wanted to give Pansy a head start because she’s a year behind the others.’

  ‘Are you saying I’ve held my daughter back?’ asked Henry in a clipped tone.

  ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying,’ said Clara but Tassie put her hand up.

  ‘That’s exactly what’s she saying,’ said Tassie. ‘You have held her back to protect her and love her and ensure that she will be with you and untouched by the horrible things that happen in life but you can’t do that forever, Henry. You will give her the best gift of all by letting her read and discover the world and start school with a joy for words and numbers and art and science.’

  Henry was silent but Clara could see the muscles in his jaw twitching.

  The way Tassie presented the situation was entirely reasonable and compassionate and she watched Henry process the information.

  ‘Naomi wanted to home-school her,’ he finally said.

  ‘But Naomi is gone now, pet,’ said Tassie. ‘Sad but true and sometimes the old ways aren’t for the new times. She will understand – you can ask her later. Do you love your little one with everything you have?’ she gently asked Henry who nodded and Clara could see tears in his eyes, wetting his long lashes.

  ‘Then let her discover the world with the wisdom of her mother and the bravery of her father to guide her.’

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘And I would love the company of a little girl with a sharp mind and a taste for butterfly cakes to give me some purpose again.’

  Henry sighed.

  ‘How can I argue against any of that?’ He looked at Clara. ‘What do you think?’

  Clara shrugged and smiled at him. God, she loved him so much but he was so lost when the task was emotional and not physical.

  ‘I think it would be good for Pansy and I think it would be good for you. Practice for the longer days when she is at school.’

  Henry sipped his tea and then ate a shortbread biscuit. Clara saw him looking at the cupboard where Naomi was.

  ‘Okay,’ he said and he got up from the table, pushing the chair out with his legs, and walked out of the kitchen. They heard him climbing up onto the roof.

  ‘He’s upset,’ said Clara looking up at the ceiling.

  ‘Not with you, pet, he’s upset with life, because it gave him a bad hand the first time round but he will process it up on the roof. He’s closer to spirits up there, so it won’t take him long to understand.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure you’re a witch.’ Clara laughed.

  Tassie smiled and sipped her tea. ‘And how are you sure you’re not one also?’

  Before Clara could say anything, Pansy came running into the kitchen.

  ‘The tree said there are biscuits and I must have one.’

  Clara looked at Tassie and sighed. ‘This tree whispering is going to be an excuse for everything from now on, and I blame you.’

  Tassie shrugged and held out the plate of shortbread to Pansy before looking at Clara.

  ‘If you listen closely to her and the tree, you might learn a few things also.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Clara as she pulled Pansy onto her lap.

  ‘Whatever it is you need to know, Clara Maxwell. Because you stopped listening to your inner Clara a long time ago, and only you know why. But I tell you this, if you don’t start hearing the wisdom again, then it will roar in your face until you hear it, and that is never pleasant and it always comes with strong dose of heartbreak.’

  Clara sat very still with Pansy on her lap. ‘What do you mean?’ But Tassie shook her head at Clara.

  ‘No more, you know what I am talking about. Now take me home, I have to get ready for my new student.’

  39

  Clara decided to immerse herself in her rural dream. She was ready to become crafty except she didn’t know how to be crafty. For years she had read books on how to knit or sew or crochet but never actually sat down and tried so the following Saturday, Clara arrived at Tassie’s house after lunch with her needles and bag of cotton yarn.

  This was Clara’s knitting lesson and she was nervous.

  Tassie had offered to teach Clara how to knit when she had seen the jar of knitting needles in her hall cupboard.

  ‘I have a book but it’s hard to understand,’ said Clara.

  ‘You don’t learn from a book, you learn from a knitter,’ said Tassie firmly. ‘Now mind you, I haven’t knitted in about ten years, haven’t had anyone to knit for, but I will teach you how to knit dishcloths.’

  ‘Dishcloths?’ asked Clara.

  ‘Nothing like having a dishcloth you have made yourself and they wash in the machine and they are very easy to make and long-lasting. I never bought those cloths when I was first married. I made everything myself, mostly because I had to. George was a milkman and didn’t earn much and neither did I.’

  Tassie’s old hands defied their age when she cast on the cotton yarn she had instructed Clara to buy and soon she was knitting away.

  ‘The moss pattern is good for scrubbing and the one you’re doing, with the plain and purl is good for glasses and china.’

  So Clara sat in the armchair opposite Tassie and knitted slowly. Sometimes she dropped a stitch but Tassie showed her how to loop it back on and keep going.

  ‘It feels like a nice metaphor for life.’ Clara laughed. ‘Fall down once, get up again.’

  Clara watched Tassie knit. Her fingers flew and the wool formed into a pretty pattern called moss stitch according to Tassie.

  ‘Who taught you to knit?’ asked Clara, as she tried to wrangle her own needles.

  ‘My mum,’ said Tassie looking up. ‘She could knit a boat if I had asked, and there wouldn’t be a leak. Could have sailed it to Australia and back again.’

  ‘Tell me about your mum,’ said Clara.

  She doubted she could have been more at peace than she was at this moment.

  This was why she moved to the country, she thought. And Tassie was the best part. She looked forward to seeing her friend and would do little things to help her when she could or when she saw she needed help.

  Rachel was bringing her meals now instead of meals on wheels, so Clara knew she was getting proper nutrition. Henry had helped in the garden and put in smoke alarms in the house, after a horrified Clara had learned there were none.

  ‘You could die in a fire,’ she admonished Tassie.

  ‘I could also die being run over by one of those tour buses that come for Rachel’s cream puffs and rabbit pies,’ Tassie had answered back but she seemed very intrigued when Henry came on his ladder and put them on the ceiling. ‘Sometimes accidents happen. I once read about a man who was hit by
a falling turtle that an eagle high above him was carrying home for supper. A tragic accident.’

  There were many arguments Clara could have given to dispute Tassie’s reasoning and story but then she heard her own mum’s voice in her head.

  ‘Sometimes it is better to be kind than right.’ So she said nothing; besides, who was she to say why things worked out the way they did.

  ‘There are no accidents,’ Mum used to say, which didn’t make what happened any easier. She should have never said what happened to her father was an accident – no one would have believed it, certainly not a jury.

  Clara pushed the thoughts of her father away as she tried to focus on her knitting but she had lost her place.

  ‘In through the front door

  Around the back

  Out through the window

  And off jumps jack.’

  She heard Tassie remind her and she reworked the line until she had the rhythm again.

  ‘It’s harder than it looks,’ she said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The knitting,’ said Clara, trying not to put her tongue out the side of her mouth as she worked.

  ‘Everything is hard to start but eventually you find your own way,’ Tassie said as she pulled more yarn from the ball and kept going.

  ‘Can you sew?’ asked Clara as she worked slowly, stopping after every row to check her work.

  ‘Naturally, all women my age and from my background can sew but don’t ask me to show you because I couldn’t even thread a needle now.’

  Tassie had whizzed through her first dishcloth and cast it off and patted it flat on her knee. ‘There you go, first one down.’

  Clara looked at the neat stiches compared to hers, with a few missing ones and sighed.

  ‘Don’t compare,’ said Tassie, putting down her knitting needles and pushing herself to standing. ‘Now I will put the kettle on. Rachel has left us some lovely Monte Carlo biscuits with blackberry jam from Joe’s garden.’

  ‘I can do that,’ said Clara. Tassie seemed so frail at times, she worried she would fall and break a hip or worse. If it could happen to Moira, it could easily happen to Tassie. Then at other times she seemed fitter and faster than Clara, especially when Pansy was around. When Clara had commented on it, Tassie had laughed. ‘I am taking some of her energy, because she has yards and yards of it to spare.’

  It was true, Clara thought, Pansy’s energy was contagious and most nights she and Henry were in fits of laughter at Pansy’s antics.

  Clara made to turn on the kettle but Tassie was up before her, waving her hand at her.

  ‘No, dear, stay there – it’s good for me to move about. Before you came and before I was friendly with Rachel, I would never move about. Never felt better since I have some reason to potter about.’

  Clara finished off the row and then followed Tassie into the kitchen, where she was carefully putting the Monte Carlos onto a pretty plate decorated with violets.

  ‘Do you think Joe and Rachel might become an item?’ Clara asked, as she pulled out Tassie’s cups and saucers.

  ‘Oh, I can’t say yet,’ said Tassie vaguely. ‘Could be. I saw a little heart in my cup this morning.’

  ‘Perhaps we should seek out a Wise Woman in Chippenham and see if we can’t make a spell for them to fall in love,’ said Clara with a cheeky smile at Tassie.

  ‘Oh no, dear, you can never do a love spell for someone else, because it comes back to you.’

  Clara wasn’t sure if Tassie was serious. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If we do a love spell for Joe to fall in love with Rachel, then he might fall in love with us, and the last thing I need is a man hanging about my garden with a hangdog face. I have already had a litter of rescue dogs in my lifetime to care for.’

  Clara laughed. ‘I love that! Well, if he fell for you, it would be because you’re amazing and you are the brightest, smartest woman I know, so he’s only human if he does.’

  Tassie reached over and patted Clara’s hand.

  ‘The best thing we can do is make the conditions right for Joe and Rachel to find the way to each other. Clear the path for them to see each other. Moira was the first obstacle and since there are no accidents, then we have to believe that they will find their way to each other.’

  Clara looked out Tassie’s kitchen window at a group of crows on the fence, as Tassie came to her side to warm the teapot with hot water from the tap and also looked out at the birds.

  ‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret, never to be told, eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, ten for a time of joyous bliss.’

  Clara counted the birds on the fence. Seven for a secret, never to be told.

  She felt shiver run up her back and a sound in her ears like fingernails on a blackboard and she wondered if she could ever talk about what happened to her that night and who would ever understand.

  40

  The cinema in Chippenham was busy when Joe and Rachel walked inside.

  ‘I’ll get the tickets,’ he said and walked to the counter.

  Rachel nodded, holding on to her large tote bag. She had bought her own snacks for them because she wanted what she wanted, and she had read about someone who saw a mouse inside the popcorn machine at a cinema and couldn’t get the image from her mind.

  Sweet and salty popcorn, drizzled with honey, vanilla and salt, and homemade orange cordial in glass bottles to wash it down. And a little freezer bag with two cones of chocolate ice cream that she had made, scooped into a handmade waffle cone, and dipped in milk chocolate that she had melted on the double boiler that morning.

  Joe had asked her to the movies on a Sunday afternoon, and Clara and Alice said they would look after the shop, which was mostly tourists wanting Devonshire teas on a Sunday. Everything was going smoothly inside the bakery and tearooms when Joe picked up Rachel in his butcher van.

  He seemed nervous but he couldn’t be as nervous as she felt. Her hands fumbled with the seatbelt and Joe had to help her pull it so it then clipped with a sharp snap to let her know it was in place.

  Joe had leaned across her to pull the belt out and she noticed he had a dry scalp. Mother would have said something but she didn’t because she couldn’t understand why you would point out negative things about people other than to make them feel sad about themselves. He also had acne scars on his skin but he smelled nice. Like soap and black pepper. It reminded her of her dad and she wanted to kiss his neck.

  He was the first man she had ever wanted to kiss who was in close proximity and not on the television or in a book.

  Her romantic interests had been confined to Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Bublé, Ed Sheeran and Mr Rochester but Mother reminded her the first time she wore lipstick that she was as plain as a scone and no amount of jam would make her appetising to any man.

  Rachel was trying to not call Moira Mother but she found it was hard to remember. Old habits die hard, as Tassie reminded her.

  Joe came over to where she stood pretending to be interested in a poster for a horror movie.

  ‘You like horror movies?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Not really,’ said Rachel. ‘You?’

  ‘Oh, I hate them,’ said Joe. ‘I spend all my days cutting up carcasses so why would I want to watch that for entertainment. Give me a good action movie or a nice romantic comedy and I’m happy.’

  Rachel felt relief at his words but she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was all the pain and abuse she had from Moira? She wasn’t sure but she knew she didn’t want to see that on any screen or live it again. She wanted a quiet life with the tearooms and the bakery and to save enough money to do them up one day.

  ‘Do you want snacks?’ Joe asked.

  ‘No, I brought us some things,’ said Rachel, anxious he would think less of her, as though she was frugal in the wrong ways.

  ‘Oooh, I’m excited now,’ said Joe. ‘I’m sure they will be better than anything you would buy. Now
I think I’m more excited about the snacks than the movie.’

  Rachel walked with him into the cinema and Joe checked the tickets.

  ‘L twenty-two and twenty-three,’ he said peering at the letters and numbers in the little brass plaques on the floor.

  Soon they were in their seats, and as the lights went down, Rachel pulled the container of popcorn out and handed it to Joe to hold, while she opened them an orange drink each and handed him one.

  The movie started and soon Rachel was swept away into the glamorous world of spies with impossibly beautiful women and exotic locations that seemed remote and unlikely for her to visit, doing things she could never dream of doing.

  But as she handed Joe the ice cream in the middle of the movie, and he looked at her in the darkness of the film and whispered, ‘You’re amazing,’ she felt a thrill as though she was as beautiful as the girls on the screen, and in the most exotic place in the world, instead of a tired cinema with soft-drink-stained carpet and God-knows-what-stained seats.

  Their arms touched on the armrest and Joe took her hand. It felt like the most natural thing in the world and her hand felt right in his.

  Joe the butcher. Now away from the barbs of Mother, Moira, she self-corrected, she could see him clearly away from the snide comments about his skin and his intelligence. Joe the butcher was an idiot, Moira used to say. But Joe wasn’t an idiot.

  He had finished school. Then he took over his dad’s shop when he had a stroke. He raised Alice when his mum died and his dad had a final and devastating stroke. She understood responsibility and guilt and grief. He had no time for anything but work and Alice but now he had time for Rachel.

  In fact, she realised he’d always had time for her. The timing of his deliveries were mostly when Moira wasn’t there. He always brought her the best cuts of meat. One time he had brought her a bunch of daffodils because he said they made him sneeze but now she wondered why he had daffodils in the first place. Rachel had told Moira that a customer dropped them off for her, and Moira had put them proudly on the table upstairs and mentioned them whenever she passed, commenting on how many admirers she had.