It Started at Sunset Cottage

by Bella Osborne

  “That would be lovely,” said Marcus.

  “We could always get a takeaway,” suggested Tim.

  “Why, what have you heard about my cooking?” Kate was so used to Sarah’s sharp tongue she reacted before she thought. Tim looked a little taken aback.

  “No, nothing. I just don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble, unless you’re on some weird celebrity diet. I can cope with vegetarian, but I don’t have the widest repertoire of recipes,” she said grabbing a nearby pad and starting to make a list.

  “We should be okay, then. I don’t do diets and I’m a committed carnivore,”

  “Then we’ll all get along just fine,” smiled Marcus, as he surveyed two of his favourite people.

  After breakfast, Tim pottered about upstairs and made a few phone calls. When he came bounding into the living room he wasn’t expecting to be met at the door by Marcus’s outstretched arm.

  “Sorry, out of bounds. We’re working. You can have the rest of the place.”

  “I’m not a puppy,” Tim said, now feeling very left out, especially as he could glimpse Kate, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by paper and a corkboard with lots of different-coloured pins on it. He was intrigued. “I’ll be quiet.”

  “You’ll be silent and you’ll do it somewhere else in the house. Go on, away with you. We’ll see you for lunch if we take a break then.” Marcus regarded Tim over the top of his reading glasses, as he still stood there half-looking at Marcus and half-watching Kate. “Here, read this,” said Marcus, handing Tim a well-thumbed copy of Love.com.

  “Right. Okay, then. I’ll see you both for lunch,” Tim said, half to Marcus and half over his shoulder to Kate, who looked up for a moment and smiled before returning her gaze to the paper in front of her. Marcus shut the door and Tim found himself staring at the wood grain, with a book in his hands.

  When they broke for lunch, Kate gave Sarah a quick ring as she was dying to tell her about Tim and the unfortunate watering-can incident. Kate went to her room to make the call and she barrelled through the story in a hushed voice.

  “No, you didn’t!” shouted Sarah after hearing the abridged version of last night’s events.

  “I did! He was okay, just very wet,” giggled Kate, as she lay on her bed.

  “Hang on, I’ve already seen the headline. I made Timothy Calder wet. No hang on, it was the other way round – Timothy Calder made me…”

  “Behave yourself!”

  “So, is he just as pant-wettingly gorgeous in real life?” asked Sarah.

  “He is gorgeous, but no Tena Lady required.”

  “Does he have loads of Hollywood stories to impress the pants off you?”

  “He hasn’t said a lot to me, really. He’s not like he is in the films. He’s quieter. To be honest, he’s not even like he was at the charity ball.”

  “Ooh, is he broken-hearted about Lumina? Are they going to get back together?”

  “I met him a few hours ago, and Marcus and I have been working all morning, so I don’t think my relationship with Tim has got to a point where I can discuss his deepest feelings and love life!”

  “Maybe after lunch, then?”

  “Maybe,” Kate said, shaking her head.

  “Are you going to hover outside the bathroom in case he makes a naked dash to his room?”

  “No!” Sarah did brighten things up, and she was good at brightening Kate up. “Is Shaun still behaving?”

  “Yes, I saw him yesterday and he wasn’t himself.”

  “Well, that’s an instant improvement!”

  “Yeah, I guess so. He’s taking us to the zoo on Sunday,” Sarah said, with a little hesitation in her voice.

  “You mean, he’s taking Amy to the zoo. That’s good. Are you working?”

  “Er, actually no. Shaun’s offered to take me and Amy out for the day and Amy chose the zoo. She wants to know if we could repopulate the rainforest if all the animals died out. You know how she gets into stuff,”

  “Yes,” agreed Kate trying to suppress the millions of alarm bells going off in her head. “Are you looking forward to a whole day with Shaun, then?”

  “I wouldn’t have used those words exactly, but it’ll be okay. It’ll be nice for Amy to have time with both of us together.”

  “You make sure you take good care of yourself.”

  “Oh, I will. Don’t worry about me. And you lock your bedroom door. I don’t want you being seduced by Timothy Calder and ending up like that poor Lumina. Every day, she’s in some magazine weeping and wailing about him.”

  “I’ll be fine. He’s not going to be interested in someone ordinary like me and I’m afraid I’m not interested in men at all.”

  “That’s good news, as it leaves more for me. Gotta go. Love you. Bye.”

  “Love you too. Bye.”

  As Sarah put the phone down she found she was biting her lip. She sensed that Kate was worried about her and, to be honest, she was a bit worried herself. Since Christmas, Shaun had kept to all the agreed days for seeing Amy and had only been late for pick-up or drop-off twice, which was quite remarkable for him. He had been increasingly less of a bully and a few times Sarah had seen a glimpse of a Shaun she remembered: cocky and carefree. She didn’t want to hate Shaun, he was Amy’s father and, for her sake, it was much better if they could put the past behind them and get along.

  Andy ached all over; it felt as if even his aches had aches. He’d been working flat out renovating his house and, with his day job picking up, he’d found himself working until late every evening since the New Year. Now his body was protesting. He thought putting in the supporting RSJ today had probably been the last straw and his body was now fighting back.

  Andy wandered into the bathroom and started taking off his dusty clothes. He went to switch on the shower, but then a thought struck him. Weren’t baths meant to be good for aches and pains? He thought. At least that’s what his grandparents frequently told him. He looked at the bath; he looked at the shower. Andy couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a bath. He always just dived into the shower, it was quicker. He picked up the lone bottle of golden liquid on the edge of the bath – Gel Moussant, read the label in neat capitals. Andy guessed that was the posh name for bubble bath.

  As he was all alone at Kate’s house, Andy decided he would treat himself to a good old-fashioned soak. Nobody would know, so why not? He filled the bath, poured in a good slug of Gel Moussant and watched the bubbles mount up. He couldn’t help feel a little bit excited at the prospect of sinking into the hot water. Andy got in and, despite that initial feeling of burning in his toes and other sensitive parts of his body, he soon settled down with an involuntary “Ahhhhhh”.

  He lay in the bath surrounded by a beautifully delicate scent of orange blossom and more foam than an Ibiza nightclub. He lay still, with his eyes closed, for some time, being engulfed in the warmth of the water and the blanket of sweet-smelling bubbles. The experience was immensely enjoyable and his tired muscles were enjoying it too. It was a big bath and he was able to stretch out his six-foot-four frame in it comfortably. He made a mental note to get a similar bath himself when he eventually made it to the fixtures-and-fittings stage with his own house.

  The peace and relaxation was suddenly shattered by a bang and the bathroom door swung open. Andy jumped and foam and water went flying in all directions as he spun around to take on whoever had just burst in. He was rather surprised to see Marmalade the cat swinging from the door handle. As the door swung into the bathroom she gracefully alighted to the floor, where she flicked her paws in disgust at the wet tiles they’d encountered. The fluffy ginger cat sauntered over to a dry patch, sat down and stared at Andy.

  “You gave me a hell of a fright,” he said to the cat, who was staring at him with big amber, unblinking eyes. “Okay, time to get out and get you some food, I guess,” he said, as he pulled the plug out and stood up. As the water quickly swirled away Andy realised
that the towel was on the rail on the opposite wall, but before he could even step out of the bath he heard a blood-curdling scream.

  “Madre de Dios…! Ave María Purísima,” said a very startled Concetta, as she stared open-mouthed at one particular part of Andy’s anatomy. Andy thought the rough translation was something like Mother of God and the start of a Hail Mary, neither of which was good. Andy put his hands up in apology, then quickly decided they were better placed somewhere else and tried to cover his modesty but, what with the gentle lapping of the warm water, that was not that easy to do… Andy looked around for something he could cover himself with and he reached for the Gel Moussant bottle and held that over the offending area. Concetta gasped, as all that had done was provide a magnifying effect!

  At this point, Concetta spotted the cat. She shrieked again and clamped her hand to her already-open mouth. She turned her back on Andy and side-shuffled into the bathroom, her flamboyant dress swaying to the rhythm of the shuffle. She scooped up Marmalade and then side-shuffled back again whilst muttering the same Hail Mary under her breath. As Concetta reached the door, she paused for a second to have one last look at Andy and a quick glance at what he was trying to cover. Concetta shook her head, turned Marmalade away from the shocking sight and scuttled off.

  “Lo siento!” called Andy to her retreating back. He didn’t know much Spanish but he thought that that meant “sorry”.

  Sarah was surprised to find herself standing by the window with Amy on Sunday morning, peering out as they waited for Shaun to arrive. When they heard a distant rumbling and spluttering heading in their direction, they both looked at each other.

  “Nanny Irene’s van?” asked Sarah, and Amy nodded. Sarah sent up a little prayer, to a God she didn’t believe in, that it wouldn’t be Irene driving it. But as she heard tyres screech against curb she knew her worst fears were realised and pledged to find a religion she could believe in so that maybe she’d get better results.

  Amy was already in the hall, excitedly layering on scarf, coat, hat and gloves whilst Sarah was desperately thinking of a way out without Amy knowing she was lying. Sadly, nothing came to mind before she saw two silhouettes at the front door. She pasted on a smile and opened the door. Shaun was wearing his usual battered black-leather jacket, but with a thick, black woolly hat. Next to him stood the dramatic and breathtaking sight (but not in a good way) of Irene, who had a cigarette drooping out of her thin lips and appeared to be wearing a red sleeping bag that doubled as a full-length coat and clashed wondrously with her orange hair. Her hair was escaping from underneath a magenta-pink crocheted hat with a crocheted flower on top. A matching magenta scarf was wrapped a number of times around her scrawny neck, making her look like the meanest cupcake in the shop.

  “Daddy! Nanny!” shouted Amy. Thank goodness for small children to break the silence, thought Sarah.

  “Hiya, Amy, Sarah,” said Shaun.

  “Hi,” said Sarah, whilst she tried to unpeel her eyes from the horror that was Irene dressed for cold weather.

  “I thought we’d make it a family day out,” explained Shaun. “My van can’t take all of us, so Mum’s kindly brought hers.”

  “Are you going to drive, Shaun?”

  “Nar, he ain’t used to its ways like me. I’m drivin,” answered Irene, her estuary English echoing up the street.

  “Um, doesn’t it have just three seats in the front?”

  “Yeah. But I’ve got two fold d’arn seats in the back. That’s where you’re goin.” Irene let out a plume of smoke and a short burst of a hacking cough. Shaun smiled at Sarah.

  “We could take mine,” said Sarah hopefully.

  “Nah, yours is unreliable. The van’s fine. Come on then, my girls, I’m buying the ice creams. Let’s go!” Irene rolled her eyes like a shark does just before it bites. Sarah reluctantly put on her winter apparel before taking her daughter’s hand and resigning herself to a day of torture with Irene. “I don’t think there will be any ice cream today as it’s winter,” Sarah pointed out, for Amy’s benefit.

  “If Daddy says he’ll get you an ice cream then he will,” said Irene with a barely disguised scowl.

  The journey to the zoo was the hour of interminable hell Sarah thought it would be. It turned out that the fold-down seats in the back were just that. Irene had somehow managed to fit two ex-cinema seats into the back of the van. As she pointed out, with a very yellowing pointy finger, they were bolted in and had seatbelts, although the seatbelts were, in fact, bolted to the side of the van so, should there be an emergency, Sarah suspected she would be garrotted before anyone found her. Whilst there were many downsides of the cinema seats, the main ones that came to mind throughout the hellish journey were that Sarah was alone in the back, there was no heating, the seats faced backwards, which made her more than a bit queasy, and, best of all, it was a van, so there were no windows. Therefore she’d spent the entire time in the dark. So, when the van finally stopped and the sliding door was opened, she was blinded by the daylight and she had no clean answer for the question Shaun asked her.

  “That was alright, wasn’t it?” At least now she knew what it would be like to be kidnapped.

  The next few hours were spent trudging around a zoo full of animals that were all huddled up in their respective homes, as most of them were traditionally from warmer climes, which was exactly where Sarah wished she was. Although pretty much anywhere without Irene would have been fine. Amy was on good form and was engrossed in ticking off the animals on the list she’d made. She really came into her own at the “Ask a Keeper” session, where she grilled the poor man mercilessly about their captive breeding programme.

  “Don’ she take after our Shauny?” said Irene, leaning a little too close to Sarah, her ashtray breath stinging Sarah’s eyes.

  “Because she’s good at torturing people with words?” replied Sarah, under her breath.

  “Eh?”

  They left the “Ask a Keeper” session and ventured into the frosty air outside.

  They bought hot drinks and sat in the corner of the restaurant, eating the sandwiches that Sarah had made.

  “Was this?” asked Irene peering inside the sandwich she’d chosen.

  “It’s pâté,” explained Amy, as she munched happily on hers.

  “Looks like road kill to me,” sniffed Irene. “Ain’t you done nuffin better? There’s not many of ’em ’iver.”

  “No, Irene, sorry. I didn’t know you and your delicate palate would be coming along today.” Irene sniffed again, put her crocheted hat and scarf back on, and sloped off for another cigarette.

  “Hope you don’t mind me mum coming. She was really excited when I said it was a family day out – and she is family,” said Shaun, making Sarah almost feel sorry for him.

  “It’s okay. I’m not looking forward to the ride home, though.”

  “I’ll go in the back, if you like,” offered Shaun. Sarah had already considered this option, but that would then put her in the front with Irene and she’d have to witness the treacherous driving, rather than just feel it. So she opted for nausea in the dark instead.

  “No, it’s okay, but thanks for offering.” She smiled at Shaun and he smiled back. Just for a moment there was a glimpse of something between them and then it was gone.

  “I’ll buy us all ice creams later,” said Shaun.

  “Yay!” cheered Amy.

  “I don’t think anywhere will be selling them, though,” said Sarah giving Shaun a stern look. She hated it when he built up Amy’s hopes and then dashed them, even if it was just an ice cream.

  “You need to trust me, Sarah,” said Shaun, reaching out a hand that stopped just short of her own. But look where that’s got me, thought Sarah.

  Amy had studied the zoo map and instructed them that the next animals to be visited would be macaws and penguins. The latter were obviously not from the rainforest, but they were Sarah and Amy’s favourite because they never failed to make them laugh. So, when Irene returned,
the odd little party headed off on the next leg of their exploration. Sarah found the afternoon bearable, and was pleased when Shaun gave Amy some money to buy a toy penguin and a book about the rainforest.

  Before too long Sarah found herself back in the dark van, lurching around whilst she tried to sing songs to herself to take her mind off the torture. The van suddenly stopped and she was thrown back into her cinema chair (with handy cup holder) and then forwards, to be half strangled by the seatbelt, exactly as she had predicted. The van door slid open and the light hit her eyes once again.

  “Ice-cream stop,” said Shaun triumphantly. Sarah unbuckled her seat belt and stepped out of the van and discovered that they were in a lay-by, where, of all things, there was an ice- cream van. Shaun put something in his coat pocket and then took four large, swirly ice creams from the large, unshaven vendor before coming back. Amy opened the passenger door and eagerly took her ice cream as he handed them all out.

  “Thanks, Daddy. What did the man in the ice-cream van give you?” asked Amy

  “What? My change?” said Shaun, zipping up his jacket to the top.

  “No, something else, you put it in your pocket. Is it for me?”

  “Oh, yes, it is for you. It’s serviettes!” said Shaun, pulling one from his trouser pocket.

  Sarah sat half in the van, her frozen fingers holding the cone in a death grip. She was already so cold and she wondered why on earth someone would be selling bloody ice cream in the middle of winter and why she was fool enough to eat it. She watched the ice-cream van drive away.

  Chapter 9

  Another cold February day passed at Sunset Cottage and Kate found she was a little more relaxed in Timothy Calder’s company; he was just ‘Tim’ now. He was not like his Agent X character or the person she’d read about in the press. She had known that was just acting and journalism, but it was odd when all your assumptions crumbled.

  Kate came out of the bathroom in her turquoise bathrobe and a white towel in a turban on her head as Tim was coming out of his bedroom.