Starting Over at Acorn Cottage

by Kate Forster

  Tassie waved them goodbye.

  It was nearly all falling into place, she thought, and then it would be time.

  But first dinner and a little television and then off to bed. She had another busy day tomorrow.

  51

  The bakery closed and Rachel took the cash takings to the little safe and locked them away. She had changed the code since Moira had gone, at Joe’s suggestion.

  ‘You can’t trust her,’ he had said.

  ‘Do you think she will come back?’ Rachel had been terrorised by the thought. Some nights she lay in bed and wondered if Moira could come back, if she was outside. She had changed the locks at Clara’s suggestion, but Moira was able to find a way into anything.

  Clara had helped her pack up Moira’s things into boxes and had them shipped to an address in Suffolk. She didn’t know whose address and she didn’t want to know. Moira was a survivor, Tassie said, but she took a lot of people down in her desire to live. She knew she was lucky that she had survived Moira. She wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for Clara.

  She wondered what would have happened that night if she hadn’t called Clara. She wondered if she would have left Moira on the floor or if she would have put her hand over her mouth and nose and let her fight her until she died.

  She couldn’t admit to anyone she had those thoughts until Clara told her what happened with her own father.

  Clara was worried Rachel might judge her but she said she needed to know what her business partner was capable of.

  Rachel had said nothing but held her friend’s hand and afterwards gave her some lemon cake, because lemons were good to break through sadness.

  But weeks later she’d told Clara what she had thought about the night Moira fell.

  ‘I’m glad you called me. Guilt isn’t a good thing to live with,’ Clara had said. ‘It eats you up and you spend so much time trying to remember the secrets and lies you told people. It’s exhausting.’

  Rachel held Clara’s secret close, not even telling Joe, but she did tell Tassie because it was Tassie and she needed to talk about it to someone.

  Tassie had nodded. ‘I thought it was something like that. Poor poppet. What a thing to grow up with.’

  They had sat in Tassie’s living room, with the heater on and the music on the radio, and Rachel thought about Joe coming over that night and she couldn’t have been happier.

  ‘When are you turning ninety, Tassie?’ she’d asked.

  ‘Oh, I am not turning ninety. Ninety is an obscene number and even worse when it’s someone’s age,’ Tassie had said with distaste.

  Rachel had laughed. ‘I would like to give you a little party.’

  But Tassie had waved her hand. ‘No parties, no more birthdays for me.’

  ‘Even if you don’t want to celebrate them, we can still celebrate you,’ Rachel told her old friend.

  Tassie had said nothing but Rachel wondered when her birthday was. It had to be in winter, she thought, wondering if she could find Tassie’s purse and look at her pension card or something.

  Rachel headed upstairs where Joe was waiting. They were going to play a board game and get fish and chips, with an extra serve for Tassie, and Joe would stay because Alice was at a friend’s house.

  Joe had been patient with her as she explored her new feelings and experiences – but as he said, he wasn’t very knowing either, so they might as well learn together.

  Clara had taken her to the doctor to put her on the pill and now she felt very grown up when she took one every morning.

  Rachel opened the door to the upstairs and saw Joe had decorated the room.

  White balloons covered the ceiling with silver ribbons coming off them, and red paper hearts were strung across the room from corner to corner.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked, as Joe stepped out from the bedroom in a dinner suit and Michael Bublé music started playing from somewhere.

  ‘What is going on?’ she asked, bewildered as she looked around. ‘It’s not Valentine’s Day.’

  Joe moved to her and held her as though to dance a waltz.

  ‘I don’t know how to dance the old-fashioned way,’ she admitted, trying to be heard over the loud tones of Michael Bublé singing about coming home or something.

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Joe and she saw he was very red in the face.

  ‘Come into the room,’ he said.

  She looked up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t want to.’ She felt sick.

  ‘Why?’ Joe’s face crumpled.

  Rachel felt stupid and childish but she had to be honest with him.

  ‘I’m afraid of balloons. I have been since I was a child and Moira used to blow them up and pop them to make herself laugh.’

  Joe gasped and quickly ran into the bedroom and turned off the music and ran out to Rachel. He closed the door to the room, and stood at the top of the stairs with her.

  ‘I am so sorry – I should have known,’ he said.

  ‘Why should you have known? It’s not something people talk about is it? Hello. I’m Rachel, how do you feel about balloons?’

  Joe shook her head at her. ‘But I should know what Moira did to you and I don’t.’

  Rachel sat on the top stair and Joe sat next to her.

  ‘The thing is, Moira did a lot to me. Some of it I have forgotten but then sometimes I will see something and it will jolt an old memory and it’s not nice but it goes away. I can’t tell you everything she did because I can’t remember it all off the top of my head but when it comes I will tell you if I want to, but sometimes I might not want to open that all up again.’

  Joe nodded and took her hand.

  ‘So what was that about?’ She nudged him with her elbow.

  ‘It was my badly thought out attempt at a marriage proposal,’ he said and she looked at him and saw he was serious.

  ‘Oh, Joe, you don’t need all that to ask me to marry you; you just had to ask.’

  But Joe looked downcast. ‘I did a lot of reading about it, and people said I needed a grand gesture.’

  Rachel laughed but not unkindly. ‘I don’t need grand gestures. I would just like you, so if you want to ask me…’ she encouraged.

  Joe stood up and pulled her to her feet. He then got onto one knee and pulled a black ring box from his pocket and opened it. Inside was a beautiful ruby ring with tiny seed pearls around it. It was exactly what Rachel would have chosen if asked.

  ‘Rachel Brown, will you do me the honour of being my wife?’

  ‘Yes, Joe, I will,’ she said firmly, and then he stood up and pulled a ring out of box and slipped it onto her finger.

  ‘Mum had fat fingers,’ he said, as the ring was a little large on her thin hands. ‘But we can get it resized.’

  ‘This was your mum’s?’ she asked, feeling overwhelmed.

  ‘Oh yes, and she would have loved you. Always loved a baker and a woman who had her own mind and business. She was clever like you, Rach, and I am sorry you never met her.’

  Rachel felt her throat constrict with tears and she kissed Joe for a long time.

  ‘Now get rid of those balloons please,’ she asked, ‘or I will have nightmares for the rest of our married life.’

  52

  Clara and Pansy stood in the clearing between the oak trees as Henry dug a hole in the ground. Pansy had one hand closed tightly, and the other hand was holding Clara’s.

  She watched her father dig the hole with his spade. He was wearing a suit, something she hadn’t seen him in before, and it looked strange when he came out of the van wearing it.

  The van was back but Pansy didn’t really want to be in it anymore. They had a sofa with a long bit that Pansy could lie on like she was a queen and Clara had given her blanket shaped like a mermaid tail, which she loved playing with.

  Daddy had said she could play in the van whenever she wanted but she hadn’t wanted to yet.

  Pansy felt Clara squeeze her hand and she looked up at her. Clara looked sad but Pansy didn’t really kn
ow why – maybe she was sad for her and Daddy.

  She squeezed Clara’s hand back as she saw her father put down the spade and wipe his brow.

  Daddy had told her to wear her best dress, which she did, so she was wearing her new school dress. She loved it so much she couldn’t stop looking at herself in the mirror. It was yellow checked with a white collar and buttons down the front. It had a zipped pocket for special things and right now it was holding a piece of chalk, a silver button that Clara had found in a button jar in the spare cupboard from the lady who used to live here and a cowrie shell that Tassie had given her from the bowl of shells at her house.

  Clara had on a red dress and a black shawl and red lipstick. Pansy thought she looked like the beautiful doll from Spain that her grandmother had sent her in the post.

  Her father cleared his throat and held a wooden box, which had been sitting on a table that he had carried outside before he dug the hole.

  ‘Naomi Roberts Garnett. Today is the day we place you at rest. I know you wanted to be in a veggie patch but it’s not possible, so this is the next best thing. We will place you among the oaks, and let you be with the beautiful trees you loved so much.’

  Pansy watched as he kissed the top of the wooden box and then he stopped for a moment and then put the box into the hole in the ground.

  Her dad looked down at the ground where the box was.

  ‘I am grateful to have loved you, darling, and for our beautiful girl.’ Pansy saw him glance at her and she smiled at him. Poor Daddy. He cried a lot lately, she had told Tassie, but Tassie said it was good to cry because if you didn’t cry you got blockages in your heart and then you would burst and explode, or something like that.

  ‘And I am grateful for you bringing me to Clara’s cottage and for us finding a home here.’

  Pansy swung on Clara’s hand. She was happy to have the pink house as her own also. And she was happy to have her own room, which Daddy had painted for her and she had white furniture and a desk and a whole bookshelf and a doll cradle that Daddy had made for her and her toys.

  Clara had put down a rug that was red with white dots that looked like a toadstool and she had fairy stickers on the roof that only showed when the lights were out.

  Daddy was still talking to the ground, as Pansy looked around the trees and she saw the owl again.

  She saw a baby owl next to it and she smiled.

  Mummy and baby, she thought. She used to see her mum all the time. She used to sit with her on her bed at night and sometimes she told her stories about when she was a baby. But that hadn’t happened for a while now.

  Part of Pansy missed her mother’s visits but part of her also was forgetting her. Clara talked about Mummy but Clara didn’t know that Pansy thought that she was very good at being a mummy to her. She knew how she liked her toast cut – triangles, thank you. And she helped her make a fairy garden under the big oak trees where her swing was. And she practised reading the books with her that Tassie gave her.

  Last night a bird had come into the cottage and Clara and Daddy had tried to catch it but it flew upstairs and sat on top of the on the stairs. They had laughed a lot but Pansy was scared of the bird. It looked at her with its dead beady eyes and she felt like something bad was going to happen. She had stayed hidden under her covers with the doors shut while Daddy opened every window and he and Clara eventually got the bird to leave.

  Now Daddy was crying again and he threw some dirt onto the box in the ground.

  ‘Your turn,’ said Clara to Pansy who looked away from the owl and to Clara.

  ‘What do I do?’ she whispered.

  ‘Just put some dirt on the box and if you want to say something you can – or not, it’s up to you,’ Clara whispered back.

  Pansy dropped Clara’s hand and walked to the hole in the ground. She picked up some dirt in her hand and placed her hidden object into the dirt. She dropped it into the hole and then went back to Clara and wiped her hand on Clara’s dress as she didn’t want to put dirt on her school dress.’

  Clara put some dirt into the hole and then Daddy filled it in with the spade and they were all quiet for a moment.

  ‘Amen,’ said Pansy very firmly, just like she had seen on a television show about a lady who was a priest or something.

  Henry and Clara laughed but she didn’t know why. It felt right to say. She looked up to see the owl and baby but they were gone.

  ‘Bye, Mummy,’ she whispered and she felt her eyes hurt like she was going to cry. She remembered what Tassie said about crying and so she let it out and she hugged Clara for a long time, while she let all the tears out.

  Later on, Rachel and Joe and Tassie came for afternoon tea, and Rachel had made a jam and cream sponge cake, and there was lemonade and everyone hugged a lot and Pansy had fallen asleep on the sofa.

  And when she woke up, it was morning and someone had put her into bed, and she was still wearing her school dress and she jumped out of bed to run down and check for eggs, because today was Pansy’s favourite day.

  53

  The end was close. Tassie felt it down into the marrow of her bones. She wasn’t pretending when she said to Rachel she wouldn’t have another birthday. She had decided she’d had enough of living. The last few months had been more exciting than anything she had experienced before, even when George was alive.

  The tea leaves couldn’t hold the truth back any longer and Tassie knew that, even if it hurt her soul to know, it was coming to an end.

  Clara and Rachel were filled with life and filled with lives yet to come. So many generations to create. She might have missed having biological children but she had been a teacher and a mother and more to hundreds of children through her life, and Pansy Garnett was her last and most important student.

  That girl was meant for something bigger than all of them; she was sure of it and she knew Naomi would keep her safe as she grew up.

  She moved about her little house, straightening up the cushions on the sofa, and pulling the curtains closed.

  Joe and Rachel would pop over soon with the news about the engagement. She had seen the balloons taken from his van when Rachel was in the shop. She could have told him they weren’t necessary but he hadn’t asked – however, she was sure it would be fine. Joe and Rachel were just fine.

  She turned on the television and sat down to watch the news. More sadness and anger and pain. So many people losing their homes and countries. What was the world coming to, she wondered. No wonder people wanted a simple life when the world was so complicated.

  As though they had heard her thoughts, a knock at the door told her Joe and Rachel were there and she turned off the television and opened the door to their joy.

  This was the only sort of news she wanted, she thought as she looked at their shiny, happy faces.

  They didn’t stay long, as they wanted to see Clara and Henry so she smiled at them and sent them on her way.

  It wasn’t far away now, she thought as she sat down again. She didn’t turn on the television, she just sat in the quiet, listening.

  The clock on the mantel stopped ticking as though trying to be quiet and she counted the second before it started again. Clocks couldn’t bear not to tick. Not ticking was like holding their breath, and she looked around the room.

  George was here. That’s why the clock stopped. Time stops when the dead come back.

  ‘Give me some more time, pet. I have some things to see off first,’ she said aloud.

  The clock stopped again. She counted the seconds, one, two, three, four, then the clock started back again.

  Four more days, she counted and then she was going to die, and for the first time since old age had captured her in its grasp, Tassie McIver felt sad she couldn’t see it all happen.

  She wanted to see the tearooms finished and she wanted to see Joe and Rachel get married, and she wanted to see Henry and Clara’s faces when she realised she was pregnant with a little boy. Why else would she have told Pansy to put acorns
under Clara’s mattress? And she wanted to see the oak tree grow from the acorn that she had told Pansy to put on top of Naomi’s ashes. There was always something to look forward to in life, if you looked hard enough and blocked out all the bad news that you couldn’t change.

  She had time left but not as much as she would have liked and that night she slept fitfully, her mind drifting to everything she had to do before she died.

  In the morning, she drank tea and wrote a list in her little pocketbook.

  The first thing she needed to do was see a man in Salisbury. She rang the taxi company in Chippenham to arrange one to take her and bring her back.

  ‘You sure, love? That will be expensive,’ the man at the taxi company had said on the phone.

  But Tassie didn’t mind. It was only money after all, and as George used to say, there are no pockets in shrouds.

  Tassie dressed carefully, putting on her good coat and hat and changing over her handbag to the patent leather one that she had bought when she was first married.

  She had polished it through the years so the leather was still supple and she could see her reflection in the side.

  After closing the door behind her, she waited for the taxi to arrive. The bakery wasn’t open yet so she knew Rachel wouldn’t see her leaving. The less people knew right now, the better, she thought, as she saw the cab come down the road and turn to pick her up.

  She chatted to the taxi driver who was a very nice man and who was happy for the large fare to and from Salisbury. Tassie felt pleased she could help him, especially when she found out he had twins at home.

  ‘I taught several sets of twins when I was a teacher. Are yours identical?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, twin boys.’

  ‘Then be careful, as they have their own language,’ she warned. ‘They will get into trouble in ways you never dreamed they would and you can’t do anything about it, because their language is all in their minds. They’re very clever – twins. They are essentially one person.’