It Started at Sunset Cottage

by Bella Osborne

  Tim was in the back of his car with Terry, hurtling up the M1, when his mobile trilled into life and Marcus’s name flashed on screen. “Hello,” said Tim casually.

  “Tim, thank God. Where are you?”

  “On the way to my mother’s.”

  “Tim, I’m so desperately sorry. Kate’s just told me about Bernie’s death. You must be utterly bereft. And those poor darling children, devastating…”

  Tim stopped him mid-sentence, “Ah, hang on, Marcus. It’s not Bernie who’s died.”

  “What?” Marcus’s voice conveyed his complete confusion.

  “Bernie’s not dead, it’s Barney. Barney is dead. He was run over by a car.”

  “The bloody Labrador?” roared Marcus into the phone.

  “Hey, I love that dog. I’m really upset about it. We all are. He was one of the family.”

  “Good God, dear boy! I doubt very much that you are as upset as Kate is right now. I went to see why she hadn’t been down for dinner and found her crying in her room. Bloody hell, Tim! Kate was in tears because she thought you had lost your brother.”

  “Shit. There must be a slight mix-up over names, I think; Bernie, Barney…”

  “Then why the hell didn’t you put her straight?”

  “There was a nanosecond where I realised and where I had that one chance to say something,”

  “And you didn’t take it?”

  “By the time I’d realised, the moment was gone and it was always going to be awkward after that.”

  “Awkward! Awkward!” bellowed Marcus.

  “Marcus, hold on. It’s the first time we’ve really connected. She understood my pain. She cared enough to let her guard down, Marcus, and it felt great.”

  “Tim, you prize imbecile! She cared because she has been to hell and back because of the grim reaper and she thought you were feeling that same pain. You have to tell her. And tell her now!”

  “I know, I will.”

  “Well, if you don’t, I will. You have until tomorrow to sort this out.”

  “Okay. But when I tell her, she’s going to hate me.”

  “If you’re lucky, she’ll only hate you. I’d kill you. You daft bastard.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Give my love and condolences to the family,” said Marcus, his voice returning to its usual balanced tone and volume.

  “Thanks. I will. Bye.” Tim slumped back in his seat and saw Terry glance in the rear- view mirror. He recognised the look in Terry’s eyes, too. He really had buggered it up this time. The only time it had really mattered and he’d royally buggered it up.

  Chapter 18

  Marcus knocked for Kate on his way to breakfast, but there was no answer. A phone call revealed she had left early. So he was relieved when he found her huddled in the script corner of the set frantically scribbling away.

  “Darling girl,” he said quietly, so as not to make her jump, but she jumped all the same, “What are you doing?”

  “Writing. It’s what I do,” she smiled sadly at him. “It’s quite perverse what triggers the ideas, isn’t it? Book five is coming on a treat,” and she flicked the completed pages of her notebook in front of Marcus. Marcus sat down next to her. She was wearing a pretty summer dress with a yellow cardigan and looked her usual elegant self, but the sadness in her eyes told a different story.

  “Have you heard from Tim?” Kate said, putting the notebook down.

  “I spoke to him last night. Has he not called you?”

  “No. How was he?”

  “He’s fine. Still a complete idiot, but fine.” Kate looked a little askance at Marcus’s slight on Tim at this grave time. “He’s going to talk to you today. It’s for him to tell you, not me. But when he does, just remember he’s an idiot and he’s not malicious. Okay?”

  “Okay, but none of what you just said made any sense at all, Marcus. Are you okay?”

  “Not really,” and he hugged her.

  Kate was back to scribbling in her notebook when she had one of those moments where you involuntarily have to look up, and far across the other side of set, she saw Tim. He was standing with his hands on his hips, wearing a plain black t-shirt and jeans. His hair was a mess and, even at that distance, she could make out that he hadn’t shaved. He looked awful and anxious. Kate wanted to rush over, but knew that the last thing he needed right now was to be crowded or coddled. He needed space. She’d told him she was there if he needed her and she’d meant it. They looked at each other, their view only broken by the crew members walking across the set. A large panel was being manoeuvred, which blocked Kate’s sight for a moment and when it was gone, so was Tim. Kate took a deep breath and carried on watching the comings and goings as everyone else got things ready for the day’s filming.

  Kate decided to get herself a cup of tea, where she found Marcus going over the running order with Dennis. When there was a pause in conversation and Kate was idly dipping her tea bag, she said, “Tim’s here”. Marcus handed the clipboard he’d been holding to Dennis and charged out of the room. As Kate wandered back to her little corner, she saw Pippa and Lumina talking. Neither looked happy and Horse was interjecting with the odd agitated yap. Lumina handed Pippa the pink dog-carry pouch, but Pippa wouldn’t take it and marched off, leaving Horse to bark after her.

  Kate heard Marcus’s voice first and then realised that he and Tim were not too far away and were also having a heated discussion; she couldn’t remember hearing Marcus ever raise his voice before. She wandered through the sets to Patrick’s apartment, which wasn’t being used today and there she found the pair. The exchange wasn’t exactly enlightening – Tim just kept repeating the word “bugger”, which he repeated as he saw Kate. A gentleman and two small boys joined them in the room and Kate smiled. Tim and Marcus both stopped arguing and stared at the man.

  “I said wait in the sodding car!” said Tim, crossly, to the man.

  “But the boys were driving Terry crazy. They were desperate to see the set.” The man had dark hair, slightly unkempt, a little like the way Tim’s went when it hadn’t been coiffured and treated with the latest designer products. The man was quite broad, with a jolly face, and wore what appeared to be a very old beige jacket and threadbare navy trousers. He turned to Kate, smiled and offered his hand to shake, “Hello, I’m Bernie, Tim’s brother.”

  Sarah woke up and was grateful that Amy had a teacher-training day and that she didn’t have the mad rush to get her up, dressed and driven to school. Staying at Kate’s was lovely but just a little too far away from Sarah’s neighbourhood to make it work on a daily basis. Of course, Sarah could always set the alarm for earlier, but she was operating on minimum sleep right now, anyway, and Amy was always very grumpy if she was woken up.

  Sarah lay there, enjoying the cool, white cotton and the weight of the duck-down quilt hugging her body. She decided that she would like to swap lives with Kate, but she would cut out the sad bits, obviously. She listened and she could hear that both Andy and Amy were awake and laughing downstairs. Sarah closed her eyes and tried to file this moment in her memory; she might need it for when everything went pear-shaped, as it inevitably would, because this was Sarah’s life and that’s what always happened.

  She must have dropped off to sleep again, as she was brought back to consciousness by a knock on the door, before it was gently pushed open. Sarah sat up and watched as Andy hovered behind Amy, who came shuffling in wearing her Tinkerbell nightie and carrying a large wooden tray. On the tray was a plate of buttered toast, which was sliding one way and then the other, as if on the high seas in a very bad storm. Amy was biting her lip with concentration and inching her way to the bed, where she almost dropped the tray with relief.

  “I made you breakfast, Mummy!” said Amy, excitedly clapping her now-free hands together. “Andy helped; he made you a coffee,” which Andy presented to Sarah.

  “Thank you, this is lovely. What’s the occasion?” asked Sarah, quickly adjusting her Snoopy pyjama top to make sure tha
t nothing inappropriate was on show before taking the hot mug from Andy.

  “We thought you could do with a bit of fuss,” said Andy, flopping down on the bed. Sarah clutched the mug as the hot liquid bounced around inside. Amy joined them and scurried up the bed and under the covers between the two adults. Andy gently ruffled Amy’s hair and she giggled.

  “This is lovely, but shouldn’t you be getting to work?” Sarah asked, sipping her coffee and then flinching as she realised it was too hot to drink.

  Andy shrugged. “I’m okay for a bit. They’re not expecting me until later. So I thought I’d let you have a lie-in.”

  “Thanks.” Sarah smiled at him.

  “You’re welcome. Stinkerbell here wanted to get you breakfast in bed. She said you missed out on Mother’s Day because she couldn’t manage it on her own.” Sarah felt a lump in her throat and was pleased that Andy started to tickle Amy, which caused a distraction. Unfortunately Amy’s writhing did jiggle the bed about, so Sarah held on tight to her mug. Amy squealed with laughter and managed to gasp out a couple of words.

  “I’m Tinkerbell. That tickles!”

  “It’s meant to, Stinkerbell.”

  “Daddy!” squealed Amy not realising her mistake. The pair carried on the tickle fight and Andy gave Sarah a brief look. Sarah saw the pride in his eyes; he had got really close to Amy. Sarah swallowed hard and for the first time caught sight of her reflection in the full- length mirror at the end of the room. Sarah took a small gasp, but a voice inside her head screamed at the fright that looked back at her. She must have forgotten to take off her make- up last night, as her eyes looked as if they had been coloured in black, very similar to how Amy had looked when she’d had her face painted as a panda at the summer fête. There was a definite dark stain across her lips, having drunk too much red wine last night. The pièce de résistance was the hair – she looked like an electrocuted pineapple. Great tufts of blonde hair, which apparently were hers, were stuck out in a multitude of random directions.

  “Are you okay?” asked Andy, seeing Sarah’s look of alarm.

  “I think I need to go straight in the shower, see if it has magical powers and can make me look human again.” Sarah scurried out of bed and into the en-suite bathroom, only to be faced with another large mirror.

  “Kate is a sadist,” she muttered to herself as she sorted through the small basket of hotel-sized toiletries that Kate kept for guests to use.

  “Sarah, if you’re sure you’re okay, I’m going to head off to work now. Amy is going to watch cartoons downstairs and I’ll lock you both in, okay?” said Andy to the wood panelling of the en-suite door.

  Sarah opened the door a fraction. “Thanks, for everything. I’m making the food for Amy’s party today, but I’ll cook something nice for dinner, too.”

  “That would be good. If anything happens, you call me, got it?”

  “Yes, sir!” Sarah said, letting go of the door and saluting Andy. Andy leaned in to tickle her with one hand, but missed.

  “Later, I’ll get you later,” he laughed as he shut the door and headed off with a spring in his step.

  Tim’s eyes flitted from person to person, as the nightmare played out in front of him. Kate stood transfixed, literally open-mouthed, and looked as if she’d seen a ghost, which she clearly thought she had. Kate heard the smash, but it took her a few moments to realise that it was made by her mug of tea. She was jolted back to the situation and surveyed the mess.

  “I’m so sorry.” Kate looked around for something to clear it up with.

  “It’s okay, you missed me,” said Bernie cheerfully, brushing down his trousers and guiding the children away from the spillage. Tim opened out his arms wide and strode forward to embrace Bernie.

  “You’re alive!” Tim announced to a bewildered-looking Bernie, who patted Tim on the back whilst Marcus covered his eyes and shook his head. Kate stopped trying to mop the floor with her single tissue and stood up, which brought her very close and side-on to Tim. Her expression changed and her eyes burned into him. Tim let go of Bernie, who seemed rather overcome by the affection his brother was openly displaying, and turned to Kate with what he hoped was a conciliatory look on his face.

  “I’m sorry, Kate. It was a simple mistake. Bernie is my brother, Barney is… was our Labrador; it was him that was run over yesterday.” As he heard the whimpers from his nephews, he briefly turned to them, “Sorry, boys”. Kate said nothing, but looked accusingly at Marcus, who held up his hands and pointed at Tim. She shook her head and turned and walked out of Patrick’s apartment, slamming the door behind her, which made the frame shake and the handle pop out and land on the floor.

  She strode off the set, out onto the lot and away from people before bursting into tears. The relief was immense. She hadn’t even known Bernie, but the whole episode had again brought to the surface feelings she had been keeping at bay for such a long time. Thankfully, Kate found a small patch of grass behind some storage units and she just sat there and cried. She wished she hadn’t wasted her only tissue on the spilt tea.

  As the thoughts and feelings bounced around her head, she realised the sadness was only partly related to losing James. It was also that whatever she had had with Tim was now broken. After a while she was able to regulate her breathing and the noisy sobs stopped. She was glad there was nobody around to hear her. She wiped her face with her hands and resolved that the toilets would be the first port of call when she went back inside.

  She was pleased with herself that she was going to go back inside. There had been a brief moment of temptation to just walk out completely and go home, but Kate was no quitter and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let Timothy Calder spoil what, so far, had been an amazing experience.

  Kate took in some more deep breaths and felt the anger surge through her; she’d never lashed out at anyone in her life, but right now she could understand how it happened. Kate didn’t want to think about what had been Tim’s motivation for leading her to believe his brother had been tragically killed. The best solution now seemed to be to ignore Tim and focus on the job at hand. She stood up, gave her face one last wipe, brushed some stray grass off her dress and left her little patch of grass.

  When Kate walked back in, they were filming, so she scooted off to the ladies to sort herself out before anyone saw her. She studied herself in the mirror. She was a little pink and puffy around the eyes, but it could have been a lot worse. She wondered why you had to look so hideous when you cried, as if being upset wasn’t enough. You also looked a total mess. Kate dabbed her eyes with some damp tissue and washed her hands, then popped a couple of clean tissues up her sleeve, just in case. Taking one last look at herself, she smoothed down her hair, which she’d let hang loose today, straightened her dress, pushed back her shoulders and walked out with confidence.

  Kate managed to ignore Tim for the rest of the morning, which was fairly easy as he was filming most of the time. She gleaned from Marcus that nobody else knew what had happened, so at least she was spared the humiliation of being the butt of everyone’s jokes, but unfortunately, it also meant that Tim had avoided being seen as the heartless tosser he clearly was. Marcus was equally, if not more, cross with Tim than Kate was, which made her feel better, although there was a small part of her that wished that Marcus had come and told her as soon as he’d realised her mistake. But it was very hard to stay cross with Marcus. He had felt that it was down to Tim to put the record straight, which was hard to disagree with.

  At lunchtime, Pippa joined her in the queue and they sat down together to eat.

  “So, you’ve escaped from the dog-sitting, then?” said Kate, pouring the salad dressing onto her lunch.

  “Not completely. Lumina is a bit rubbish at remembering to take him out for… you know, the toilet.”

  “Pippa, do I detect a bit of puppy love creeping in there?”

  “No! It’s just not fair on him. He can’t exactly cross his legs, can he?”

  “So you’re taki
ng him for sprinkles, voluntarily.”

  “Just now and then, if Lumina forgets. He still yaps at me, the ungrateful little fur ball, but not as much as he yaps at Tim.”

  “That I understand,” said Kate, with feeling. If she was a dog she could have happily bitten Timothy Calder and if the result was that she had to wear a muzzle forever, then so be it. It would be worth it. Kate pulled her bizarre train of thought back to Pippa. “So the rest of your time is still spent wet-nursing Tim?”

  “Of course. He’s had me ordering masses of flowers this morning to go to some mystery address. I hate to think what he’s up to now. He’s in a weird mood today, but it could be because he’s got his brother and nephews on set. He didn’t bother to tell me they were coming, so I had last-minute passes and clearance to sort out for them this morning.” There was a pause in conversation while the women enjoyed their respective lunches. Kate had gone for a simple Greek salad, which was as good as it looked, and Pippa had chosen a jacket potato after checking in a small book how many points it was on her current diet regime.

  “Lumina and Tim seem to have settled down, but knowing them, I think it’s the calm before the storm,” said Pippa.

  “I don’t think ‘settled’ is a word often used in the same sentence as Timothy Calder.” Kate speared two olives firmly and ate them.

  “Lumina is full of the joys; I think she thinks she’s taming him. And, to be fair, he has been different of late, but it doesn’t stop him buying gifts for other women.”

  “Oh, do tell,” Kate said full of interest.

  “I can’t. Client confidentiality.”

  “You’re not a doctor, Pippa.”

  “No, but it’s the same.” Pippa took a large forkful of jacket potato and waved it on her fork, “He has no idea the effect he has on women”.