Meet Me at Wisteria Cottage

by Teresa F. Morgan

  She grabbed some tissue off the loo roll, blew her nose, wiped her face and threw it down the toilet, angrily pushing down on the flush. She went from feeling hurt to rage.

  Men!

  After Connor, she’d sworn she wouldn’t let this happen again. It just went to show she had no control over it.

  Why did it hurt so badly?

  Because she’d let Harry in. Without realising, she’d let him into her heart.

  She’d tried keeping him at bay, but it wasn’t until you lost someone that you realised how much they meant. She’d become reliant on Harry, he’d helped her through the fire, he was always there of an evening, and now he was gone, and she needed to find the strength to do this on her own.

  The grey clouds were making the evening darker than normal, so Maddy trudged between the two houses while it was still light, clearing her belongings out of Harry’s place and placing them back in her own.

  Then, still unable to contemplate going to bed – on her own – she cleaned her bathroom. She did what she’d thought about this morning, she cleaned, wiped, dusted. She brought over Harry’s bleach and cleaning products, as she had none – everything in her kitchen had been emptied into a skip, not that any of it had really been salvageable. The heat had distorted or destroyed most things. She would replace anything she used, so it didn’t feel like stealing. Which was ridiculous, because if Harry had been there, he would have insisted she used his stuff. Turning her thoughts to Harry was really bad. She became saddened, and as if paralysed, the tears and grief would start up again.

  Things had to get easier, right?

  Eventually exhausted, but satisfied the stench of smoke, however mild, was now gone, Maddy climbed into bed. As she’d done in Harry’s bed earlier, she hugged the pillow he had used the night before. It had his scent on it. She breathed it in like a child would use a comfort blanket, and fell asleep holding onto it.

  ***

  ‘Did you hear from him?’ Valerie asked as Maddy walked into the gallery the next morning, later than she’d intended. Her sleep had been broken, and when she was due to get up, she hadn’t the energy.

  Maddy shook her head at Valerie.

  ‘The man may have his reasons,’ Valerie said, frowning. ‘Later on, if you get to speak to him – which you will, he lives opposite you for Christ’s sake! – he may have some legitimate excuse. And then you can decide how to react to it, to forgive him, or not.’

  ‘True.’ Maddy had thought of this last night. Maybe Harry just needed some time. Maybe this had all gone too fast too soon for him as well. But then he’d instigated most of it …

  Men, they never knew what they wanted.

  Valerie shrugged her shoulders, huffed and said, ‘But it could have been worse. This could have been eight months or two years down the line when he disappeared on you. At least it’s only been two months. You’ll survive, my darling. Whatever happens, you will survive.’

  Gloria Gaynor singing I Will Survive popped instantly into Maddy’s head. How many times had she sung it with girlfriends at a karaoke night? But she’d always thought those song lyrics had been poignant every time a boy had dumped her through school and college. And when things ended with Connor, when he’d belittled her, telling her she wouldn’t cope without him. But she had coped, and was coping, and would continue to do so. And the same would apply in Harry’s case, too.

  Maddy straightened up, holding her head higher, Gloria Gaynor inspiring her. ‘You’re right, Val, this could have been so much worse if he’d done this later on. And even so, although it hurts, we women always survive. Right?’

  ‘Yes, we do. Cup of tea?’

  ‘Coffee, please. I think I need the caffeine.’

  ‘That’s my girl.’ Valerie put her arm around Maddy’s shoulder, giving her a reassuring hug.

  ‘Shame we haven’t got any Baileys to go in it.’

  ‘I can always get some.’

  Chapter 29

  As long as she was surrounded by people, Maddy was fine, absolutely fine. When she was kept busy in the gallery, with customers and Valerie chatting, her mind remained focussed on her work, her paintings, her passion for art. But the minute she got home, the loneliness crept in and she felt lost and empty. A blackness would creep inside her, consuming her, and tears would form out of nowhere. She would stand in her bedroom or in her kitchen and shout to herself in frustration, ‘I don’t even know why I’m crying,’ while her tears would fall.

  But she did know. She feared loneliness.

  She’d managed to overcome this feeling after Connor had gone, because although the ending of their relationship had brought some relief, there had still been that fear of loneliness. In fact, her life had been getting back on track, and the feeling of missing someone and the need to be loved had diminished — and then the fire had happened. And so now, here she was, having to get used to it all over again. She needed to find the strength to be a single woman again, relying on no one but herself. From past experience, she knew time would heal her, but she also knew it was like riding a wave, up until the point when time had done its healing. If only there were a fast forward button to ease this awful, depressing mood.

  Luckily, she tried to reassure herself, her relationship with Harry had been shorter, so getting over him would be easier and quicker. But cooking for one was no fun, and her motivation would go as soon as she set foot in her house and wondered what to eat. She’d either have a couple of slices of toast or a bowl of cereal, rather than cook herself something. These were the hardest moments when she realised how much she missed him. No one to go for an evening stroll with, or share a bottle of wine.

  A part of her wished she was still staying at Wisteria Cottage, so she didn’t have to step out of her front door and see Harry’s empty house, with no pickup truck parked up, getting in her way.

  Sookie sensed her sadness, or so Maddy presumed, because her cat was being very attentive and loving. Maybe she missed Harry too?

  The end of the school holidays approached. It would be September in a few days, and Harry had been gone a couple of weeks now, with not a murmur from him. No texts, calls, absolutely no sign of him. One minute Maddy would feel sad, then the next minute she’d get angry, because if he could treat her like this, and feel it was acceptable behaviour, then he was not worth it. She deserved better than a man who gave her no thought at all.

  On the days when she wasn’t feeling so angry, Maddy would let herself into Harry’s house and check his mail, and pile it neatly on his dining room table. She would water the plants in his garden, but she didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t know if she should do these things anymore, either. Maybe he wouldn’t want her meddling help. But what about his business? Should she call his customers? She didn’t have the first idea where to start, so decided to leave it. Harry was a grown man and responsible for his own actions.

  With her kitchen almost completed, she was able to live perfectly comfortably in her own house again, and was getting back into her old routine. Bits and pieces still needed tidying up, and she would sometimes find basic utensils and pieces of kitchen equipment missing when she went to use them. On the way home from the gallery one afternoon she had to make a detour to the kitchen shop to purchase a cheese grater and a salad spinner. She restocked her new cupboards with food supplies and tried to keep her brand new oven clean. (How long it would last was another thing.) Her new fridge freezer had been delivered a few days ago, so she could now store fresh food.

  All of this meant that she had no need for Harry’s house anymore. And eventually, she’d learn to live without him in her life, if that was what he wanted.

  The worry remained, though – when he did return they would have to face one another every day as neighbours. How would that make her feel?

  Chapter 30

  Harry virtually lived in his old bedroom at his parents’ house for the next few weeks. In fact, he actually wasn’t sure how long he’d been there. An itchy beard had grown, but he co
uldn’t even be bothered to shave. And he hated facial hair. Years in the fire service, where he had to be clean-shaven so the masks fitted securely, had made him that way. His mother would bring him food and cups of tea, and occasionally he would go downstairs for dinner, but he found it hard to make conversation with his parents. His father had picked up the remains of his phone, rescuing the SIM card, and contacted his clients, and yet Harry had ceased to care about the business he’d worked so hard to build. He missed Maddy, but believed this was for the best. If he stayed away, she’d get over him and move on, and his feelings for her would lessen too. They had to, eventually.

  Time was a good healer. He’d been told this frequently after Karin’s death, and in part, he knew it was true. But in part, it wasn’t. Because here he was, more than two years later, still traumatized by memories of the day she died.

  And he couldn’t get Maddy out of his head.

  But she deserved better than him.

  Lying on his bed, hands behind his head with his eyes closed, and wearing an old grey T-shirt and a pair of jogging bottoms, Harry tried not to think about what Maddy would be doing at this time of day, or if her house was finished and she’d moved back in …

  He hoped she no longer went to Wisteria Cottage, so Simon couldn’t wheedle his way into her heart.

  ‘He’s back to how he was two years ago.’ He could hear his mother talking to his father outside the bedroom on the landing. ‘I really don’t know what to do. Maybe I should call the doctor. I was hoping he’d come through it in his own time …’ She was speaking softly, an edge of worry in her voice, probably assuming Harry was asleep.

  ‘You should tell him what you know, April,’ his father replied more loudly, probably hoping Harry would hear. And he had.

  Harry sighed, rubbed his face and got out of bed. He opened the bedroom door and stood, leaning against the doorframe for support, catching his mother and father in the hallway where they were not exactly being very discreet. ‘Tell me what?’

  His father, Arthur, was similar in height to Harry, although Harry was half an inch taller and they’d always teased each other about it. It was obvious where Harry had inherited his genes from – with bright blue eyes and wavy black hair, showing flecks of grey now, his father, like an older model of Harry, was standing arms folded, facing his mother. He gave Harry a look as if to say, ‘I’ll let your mother deal with this’. Arthur, much like Harry, kept his emotions tucked away.

  ‘Go and sit down in the kitchen, let me make some tea first,’ April said, shooing Harry with her hands. Barefoot, with heavy steps, he went down the stairs. He needed to shower and shave, he thought as he rubbed his hairy chin. But not wanting to leave the house, it hadn’t felt necessary. He’d lost the motivation to care about his appearance and doubted he smelt pleasant either.

  April made the tea and placed a plate of biscuits in front of him. He’d not been eating much, he’d lost weight, and his muscle bulk had reduced. His Dad would soon be teasing him that he was the bigger of the two.

  ‘So what was Dad talking about? What is it that you should tell me?’

  ‘I bumped into Karin’s mother a couple of months ago.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’ve had a terrible time of it, you know. Karin’s father has never been quite the same since, and poor Elsa has had to deal with both the grief of losing her daughter and her husband’s illness, which was probably brought on by grief too. It’s so sad.’

  ‘I didn’t realise Jim had got sick.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t have, would you?’ April frowned lovingly at Harry, reaching across the table for his forearm and squeezing it. ‘You weren’t much better yourself. But yes, apparently he went downhill with one thing or another. He’s now in a home. She couldn’t cope.’

  ‘Maybe I should go and see her?’

  ‘Elsa would like that. She feels she lost a son-in-law as well the day Karin died.’

  ‘God, I didn’t even think about them.’ Harry rubbed his face and itched his chin, disliking the feel of the prickly hair growth.

  ‘Harry, you can’t blame yourself. What you witnessed, well, it wasn’t fair, but I need to tell you something, about the accident.’

  ‘What about it? Because I know what happened, Mum. I was there!’ Harry said, clenching his fists. His heart raced, and he tried to shake off the image of the accident, of finding Karin trapped in her car. He needed to calm down too because he could see his mother’s apprehension. She loved and cared about him so much; he knew that. She wasn’t trying to hurt him. And getting angry at her wouldn’t help matters.

  ‘Look, after the funeral, and once she felt ready, Elsa went through Karin’s things, the things I’d taken over from yours, and she found a diary … did you read the diary?’

  Harry shook his head. ‘To be honest, Mum, I can’t remember. You sorted most of the stuff. I couldn’t bring myself to look at anything.’ And the rest was now in boxes at his house in Cornwall.

  ‘No, you’re right,’ April said, with a gentle rub of his back, as if recalling the events. ‘One of the diaries was recent. She was depressed, Harry.’ His mother stared at him, meeting his gaze. ‘Suicidal.’

  Harry shook his head again, but could feel a growing ache in his sternum and his eyes stinging with tears. ‘No. Karin was happy. She had mood swings and was sometimes withdrawn, but she always told me it was the time of the month.’

  ‘She hid it from us all, Harry. Elsa said she’d suffered with depression when she was a teenager, but even they thought it had been a phase and she’d got over it. It was just her A-Levels getting her down … It was no one’s fault. You can’t blame yourself for what happened, Harry, because Karin caused the accident deliberately.’

  ‘No!’ The police had said Karin had been to blame for the accident. But Harry couldn’t believe she’d caused it deliberately. It had to have been an accident.

  ‘Harry, she wanted to die.’

  ‘But she was carrying my baby! Our baby!’ He physically hurt now, as if someone was punching him from the inside out.

  ‘I know, love, I know.’ Harry could see his mother’s eyes welling, too.

  ‘I should have saved her!’ His throat tightened, his own pain ready to spill out, remembering talking to Karin, promising he’d get her out of the car, but it had been futile.

  ‘Harry, you did all you could, sweetheart. You can’t go on blaming yourself. And you can’t stop yourself being happy with someone else. Karin wouldn’t have wanted that. Maybe we all failed her for not spotting the warning signs and saving her, but whatever was going through that poor girl’s mind, you must carry on and live your life, Harry. Please …’ His mother had tears streaming down her face, as she sobbed into the back of her hand. Maybe she feared the same fate for Harry, worried that Karin’s depression had somehow transferred to him after the accident. Which in some ways it had: he’d been prescribed drugs to suppress the anxiety and depression, to ease the nightmares and the insomnia, the guilt. It had been working until lately. He had always promised himself that he’d get help if things ever got to a stage he couldn’t deal with. That’s why he’d returned to his parents in the first place because now the nightmares featured not Karin’s face, but Maddy’s. Being frightened of loving someone and losing them engulfed him like a cloud of thick, choking smoke, not allowing him to be happy again.

  ‘Why didn’t Elsa say something sooner?’

  The chair scraped the tiled floor as April got up from the table and grabbed some kitchen roll. She blew her nose, dabbed her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘She was very apologetic that she hadn’t been in touch sooner. She hadn’t realised you’d suffered like you had, and by the time she’d found the strength to look at the diary, Jim had started his downhill struggle. I don’t know where the woman has found the strength, to be honest.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you’d seen her?’

  ‘Harry, when I met Elsa, as far as I was aware you were happy with your li
fe in Cornwall. You were happy in your new home and your business was keeping you busy. I wasn’t sure you’d want all this trauma about Karin to resurface, so I left it. Then suddenly, you showed up, holed yourself up in your old room and I’ve been waiting for you to … I don’t know, show some sign you’d be ready to digest this information. I wasn’t sure whether it was something you needed to hear or not. But your father is right, you do need to hear it so you can move on.’ April’s voice trembled, and she held her hand to her mouth to compose herself. ‘What happened to Karin is deeply sad, and we’ll never forget her, but you only have one life, Harry, one life. So make the most of it, don’t waste it, for goodness sake. You’re still young.’

  Harry rose to his feet and hugged his mother, and she sobbed into his shoulder. He let his tears fall, too. As if suddenly granted permission, he cried in his mother’s arms. They held each other. Harry felt like the small child he once was, running to his mum for comfort after grazing his knee, or trapping his fingers in a door. She smelt the same, and felt the same, only he was so much larger and stronger now, his head resting on her shoulder rather than in the softness of her bosom.

  At the time, he was not aware Karin was so ill. But looking back, seeing how others behaved in certain circumstances, to how Karin reacted to the same situations, it was clear to him now that she had shown signs of depression, only he hadn’t recognised it at the time when it mattered. He would have to live with that. And live with the fact he couldn’t save her from the injuries she suffered in the accident. He would always carry a burden of guilt for that.

  However, his mother was right; he couldn’t waste this opportunity to start afresh. He had moved on. Cornwall was treating him well, and Maddy was amazing. He wasn’t sure if he believed in all that soppy crap about everything happening for a reason, but Maddy had been placed in his path and he was going to snatch the chance. Who knew what the future held, but he was certain Maddy was a very different woman from Karin. She had a much happier disposition – even with the house fire, she took each day as it came, soldiering on. She was a strong positive force who would envelop him, and carry him along with her.