The Secret of Orchard Cottage

by Alex Brown

  Gingerly, April tried to lift her left foot, but nothing happened. She tried again, but it was well and truly submerged in the quagmire. Instead, she shoved her other foot forward, but lost her balance and skidded backwards, and ended up planting both palms in the mess to stop her whole body from getting covered. Ugh. She wiped the worst of it off down the front of her jeans, but then without thinking, touched her cheek so she now had a streak of the stinky stuff on her face. There was nobody around, so April quickly lifted the front of her top to use as a cloth to clean her face as best she could. She was a muddy mess, and the sooner she got into Orchard Cottage to clean up properly, the better. Although it was highly likely that her aunt might mistake her for some kind of vagabond living off the land in the depths of the woods, given the now disgusting state of her. Even her hair was a sight, the curls conspiring to form an unruly big bale of hay, having been buffeted about in the summer breeze.

  April persevered, making a conscious effort to breathe in through her mouth in an attempt to avoid the smell wafting all around her, as she waded towards the cottage. Then, after batting away a tangle of blackberry bushes, she made it to the kitchen window and with her filthy hands up to the side of her head, but not quite touching her skin, she used the sleeve-covered part of her forearm to push her bushy hair back and pressed her nose up close to the window.

  And gasped.

  Oh God!

  How on earth had things got so bad that it had come to this?

  Aunt Edie was slumped on the quarry-tiled kitchen floor with her snow-white curly-haired head inside the big oven part of the sunshine-yellow Aga. And her left arm was draped in the top of the two small adjacent ovens.

  April’s pulse raced as she took in the scene. Not one to normally panic, she pushed up the sleeves of her top as a call to action, dumped her handbag in the long grass (not giving the gunk a second thought) and hammered hard on the window.

  ‘AUNT EDIEEEEEEE!’ April hollered as loud as she could, her voice slicing through the silence of the rolling green fields all around the cottage. ‘ARE YOU OK?’ She banged again and inwardly berated herself – clearly her great aunt was not OK, far from it, so why had she asked such a daft question? But with no time to ponder on the nuances of everyday niceties, April yelled some more before crouching down to rummage inside her handbag in search of her mobile phone.

  She’d call an ambulance.

  No signal.

  April waggled her phone around in the air hoping to magic up at least one bar, but no luck. Oh well, she dialled anyway in the hope of getting through on another network. Still nothing. Ahh, one bar, she tried again, but as soon as she pressed on the nine key, ‘No Service’ flicked up on to the screen. Damn. So April went to plan B and shoved the phone in the back pocket of her jeans. She had a Swiss Army knife in her bag somewhere. It had been Gray’s and for some reason April had taken to carrying it around with her, sort of like a comforter, a talisman that made it seem like Gray was still with her, by her side. And thank goodness she had, as it was just the thing to prise open a rickety old wooden window frame. In haste, April turfed out the contents of her bag – purse, book, three opened packets of tissues, a ripped yarn label, a variety of lip balms, a diary, a ridiculous assortment of pens and half a packet of wine gums.

  A-ha! Found it.

  April flicked open the knife and pushed the sharp end into the side of the frame just underneath the catch and tried to yank open the window, but it was no use, it seemed to be painted shut. She tried again, pulling harder this time with her fingertips, but the window definitely wasn’t budging.

  ‘AUNT EDIE, CAN YOU HEAR ME?’ April shouted again, but still no response. Well, there was nothing for it; she’d have to smash the window. There was no other way. The front door was solid oak and about six inches thick so April was never going to be able to force it open, even if she pressed her shoulder against it or attempted to karate kick it in as she had seen people do in films.

  After desperately scanning the garden looking for a suitably heavy object – there was nothing – April pulled off her bog-caked right Birkenstock and lifted it in the air and, after swinging it back behind her as far she could, she was just about to throw it hard into the window when a man’s voice bellowed right behind her, nearly making her jump right out of her skin.

  ‘WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?’

  April swivelled on her heel, the Birkenstock, like a brick at first glance, still high up in the air, the other hand pressed to her chest in shock, and saw a tall, well-built man wearing a tweed deerstalker hat over wavy blond hair with a furious look on his suntanned face. And a shotgun hanging from a leather strap over his shoulder.

  April gulped, and then quickly pulled herself together. There really was no time to waste. Aunt Edie could be dead for all she knew. Oh please no. April wasn’t sure if she could cope with any more loss right now.

  ‘Um. Thank God you’re here. Come on, you can smash the window! Hurry!’ she ordered, before hopping forward to hand him the Birkenstock brick.

  ‘Er, I don’t think so!’ The man’s eyes flicked towards the sandal, before he gave her an up-and-down look, practically recoiling in horror at the state of her. His nose even wrinkled when the stench hit. ‘I’m calling the Old Bill. Stay right where you are.’ And he actually clasped a hand around the end of the shotgun and tilted it upwards as if to apprehend her in case she tried to abscond before the police arrived.

  ‘Well good luck with that,’ April quipped, stepping back as he lowered the gun and pulled out a big black phone that looked like it should be on display in a museum; it must be at least twenty years old. ‘There’s no signal in this place.’ She nodded, folding her arms around her body as if to protect herself.

  ‘Don’t need one.’ The man flashed her a look. April narrowed her eyes and held his stare, masking the panic that was mounting inside her. She needed to get to Edie, and quickly. This really wasn’t the time to be dealing with the local eccentric (must be – who went around tilting shotguns at people?) busybody, gamekeeper, rambler, or whatever he was. ‘Walkie-talkie,’ the man retorted, going to lift the handset to his ear. ‘This’ll go straight through to my pal, Mark, in the police house up in the village,’ he informed her, before doing a supercilious smile that made his conker-brown eyes crinkle at the corners in satisfaction.

  April had heard enough, and with no time to waste she didn’t bother explaining – seemed the busybody had already drawn his own conclusions about her – so she turned back to smash the window and get to her aunt.

  ‘Yep! Mark? Is that you?’ A short crackly silence filtered into the quiet, rural, countryside air. ‘Got a nutter down here trying to burgle old Edith’s place …’

  SMAAAAASH!

  Glass went everywhere.

  Using the sole of her Birkenstock, April carefully cleared the glass debris away as safely as she could and then reached her hand through the remaining shards to deftly lift the latch on the window.

  ‘Okaaaayyyy … got a live one here, she’s going in!’ The man with the shotgun continued commentating with a mounting urgency in his voice. ‘Bold as brass she is, right in front of my eyes. And covered in crap too by the looks of her.’ Another silence. ‘Whaaaat? Mark, you’re cracking up. Just get down here sharpish or I’ll have to execute a citizen’s arrest. She’s clearly a pro. And armed with a brick. Probably on drugs looking for a way to fund her next fix.’ And April felt the man’s hand on the top of her arm. ‘I’m arresting you for breaking and entering, you do not, um, er … well, you probably know the rest. A seasoned crook like you,’ he bellowed at the back of her head.

  April managed to wrench her arm free.

  ‘Get off me, you idiot,’ she yelled back over her shoulder whilst attempting to pull herself up and over the windowsill. ‘It’s a sandal. See!’ April deftly attempted to wipe the Birkenstock as best she could with her sleeve, before waving it in his direction. ‘And Old Edith, as you call her, is my great aun
t, and if you had bothered to investigate first … Sherlock Holmes,’ April flashed a disparaging glare at the silly deerstalker hat, ‘then you would know that she’s currently on the kitchen floor with her head inside the oven! Now get back on your walkie-talkie and tell Mark to send an ambulance,’ April instructed in the best staff-nurse voice that she could muster before pausing to catch her breath and adding, ‘SHARPISH!’

  The man fell silent momentarily, his jaw dropped, he stared with a fleeting glimmer of admiration in his eyes, he closed his mouth, and then it registered.

  ‘Then why the bloody hell didn’t you say so?’ And he jumped into action. April instantly felt two large hands cupping her bottom, propelling her forward like a bowling ball hurtling towards a row of skittles, and she was immediately able to fling her right knee up on to the window-sill. Balancing carefully, she gripped the window frame with both hands and managed to hoist herself through the gap and on to the top of the tall, old-fashioned boiler directly in front of her. Crouching in the confined space – the beamed cottage ceiling was so low she could barely lift her head, let alone stand up – April contemplated just letting herself tumble on to the quarry tiles, but her great aunt’s surgical stocking-clad legs were right there in front of her on the tiny patch of empty kitchen floor, so she couldn’t risk doing that. What if she misjudged and landed splat on top of Edie and hurt her?

  April managed to shuffle sideways on to the draining board and was just about to crawl on all fours towards the end of the counter, where she could see a tiny gap next to the pantry door that she could easily slip her body down on to, when the man with the shotgun appeared in the kitchen doorway with the cake tin in his arms and the peonies perched on top. He dumped his load on the table and after taking one long stride towards Great Aunt Edie, he bent down to place two fingers at the side of her neck to check her pulse.

  ‘Still going!’ he pronounced, as if checking on a snared rabbit in the woods. ‘And the oven isn’t even on, not that it matters, no gas around here if that’s what you were panicking about! Plus you can’t even gas yourself in an oven these days anyway – we might be out in the sticks in Tindledale, but this isn’t the 1920s.’

  April’s mouth fell open as she sagged a little in relief at this news – thank God her aunt was still alive and hadn’t deliberately tried to kill herself. But that still didn’t explain why she was sprawled like this in her kitchen in the middle of the afternoon.

  ‘Um, well … I knew that!’ April said, her cheeks flaming.

  ‘No you didn’t.’

  ‘Yes I did.’

  ‘Why did you panic then?’

  ‘I didn’t panic! Anyway, I don’t have time for an interrogation; I need to see to my aunt. How did you even get in here?’ April asked as she scanned the scene and tried to work it all out. To the left of Edie was a dustpan and brush on the floor alongside a cloth.

  ‘Through the front door!’ he replied, glancing up at her and casually raising an eyebrow. April could see the corners of his mouth resisting the urge to smirk.

  ‘But how?’ she asked as he swiftly sprang up and swung her from the draining board before plonking her into a standing position on the tiles next to him.

  ‘Er, the usual way. You know, I pushed it open with my hand.’ And he actually laughed and waggled his hand in air as if to demonstrate the action before giving April a big wink. Cheeky.

  ‘So it was open all along?’ April shook her head as she bent down to tend to her aunt.

  ‘Of course! Old Edith never locks her front door … nor do I, come to think of it. Not sure anyone does here in the valley. Apart from the ones moved down from London.’ He paused to shake his head, clearly not enamoured by newcomers. ‘No need. This is Tindledale,’ he explained, as if the village was some kind of crime-free oasis leftover from bygone times.

  ‘Hmm, well, you could have mentioned it before I broke the glass and hauled myself in through the window,’ April bristled, carefully unbuttoning Edie’s crocheted waistcoat so she could push it back over her shoulders and loosen the collar of her blouse.

  ‘You never asked! You were too busy breaking in.’

  April opened her mouth to reply, but thought better of it. He was clearly enjoying winding her up, and besides, Edie let out an extremely loud snore at that precise moment. The old lady then fluttered her eyelids and tried to move, seemingly having forgotten that part of her body was still inside the Aga, so she ended up nudging the top of her head on the roof of the oven.

  ‘Ewwwwwwww,’ Aunt Edie groaned.

  ‘It’s OK. I’m here,’ April started in a soothing voice, and the busybody coughed. ‘Um, we are here,’ she corrected, flashing him a look. ‘What happened, Aunty?’ She stroked Edie’s forehead as she contemplated the best way to get her aunt out of the oven and up and on to a chair.

  ‘Oh hello dear. There you are. No need to fuss, I was just having a lovely little nap.’ Aunt Edie smiled like it was the most normal thing in the world to have forty winks while cleaning the oven.

  ‘A nap? Inside the oven?’ April stuttered, her mind boggling. And then saw her aunt had a tea towel folded up like a little makeshift pillow underneath her cheek, but still … and how on earth had she got down on to the floor in the first place?

  ‘I’m very nimble,’ Edie stated as if reading April’s mind. ‘I keep my joints well oiled. It’s the dancing. And the stout, dear – a bottle a day! But the cleaning takes it out of me sometimes, although it’s important to keep the Aga nice. My mother was a stickler for it and I see no reason to let standards slip. Will you help me up please? I usually use the chair but someone has moved it,’ she said, giving the man a disparaging glance.

  ‘Um, yes, of course,’ April replied, quickly trying to get her head around all that her aunt was telling her, and regretting all over again that she hadn’t made more of an effort to visit more frequently. A ninety-year-old lady really shouldn’t be cleaning the oven, even if she did think she was nimble! ‘Here, lean on me.’ April swiftly manoeuvred herself into position to properly lift her aunt, as she had first been trained to do back when she was a fledging nurse, and placed her hands around the old lady’s body. And then up and under her armpits so she could clasp them together to form a sturdy support.

  ‘No need for all that carry on, my love.’ Edie shook her head and April smiled. Her great aunt always had been a fiercely independent woman, which might explain the state of the garden – she couldn’t imagine Edie would willingly ask for help even when it was so obviously needed. ‘Just give me your arm,’ Edie said, and gently lifted April’s hands away from her chest. ‘There we go. Bob’s your uncle!’ April tried not to look concerned as her elderly great aunt deftly pulled herself up into a standing position with a very determined look on her face. But then her papery skin crumpled into a frown.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Edie pointed a bony finger towards the guy with the shotgun. April turned to look at him.

  ‘Hello Edie,’ the man said pleasantly enough, but the old lady looked confused, so he swiftly added, ‘It’s me, Harvey from the fruit farm. Your neighbour. You remember me.’ But Edie still looked blank, and April wondered what on earth was going on.

  ‘He, um … Harvey.’ April glanced at the man and he nodded and shrugged as if he was quite used to Edie being forgetful. ‘He helped me get into the kitchen, Aunty. I was worried about you—’

  ‘What for? I’m fine,’ Edie immediately admonished, looking even more puzzled now. April spotted a dart of fear flicker in her aunt’s eyes. ‘And you better get going before my father returns from the orchards! He’ll have your guts for garters coming in here with flowers before you’ve been introduced.’ The old lady looked at the bunch of peonies and then lifted a gnarled index finger and remonstrated in Harvey’s direction. But before April or Harvey could say any more, a police officer burst into the tiny cottage kitchen with a baton at the ready, followed by an exuberantly plump woman muscling her way to the front with, April was astonish
ed to see, a ferret wearing a little high-visibility vest nestled in the crook of her elbow. And April felt as though she had been plunged into a parallel universe where nobody really knew what was going on.

  Later – it having taken almost an hour for Harvey, whose fruit farm was a few fields over and was actually very charming once he knew that April wasn’t a drug-fuelled, crap-covered burglar, to fix a wooden board at the broken window as a temporary repair – April persuaded Edie to put her feet up on the Dralon settee with a nice cup of Earl Grey tea and a generous slice of April’s exceedingly good madeira cake (according to Mark, the policeman, who enjoyed a quick slice too). It seemed that the old lady had indeed nodded off while attempting to clean the Aga, so April, who’d had a good wash and changed into a clean top and jeans, having also made a note to get the blockage by the back door seen to right away, was finishing the job while Aunt Edie pottered around in the sitting room looking for a pack of playing cards that she swore were just there on the sideboard. But after searching everywhere, even looking under the settee in case Edie had dropped them and then shuffled them underneath it with her slipper-clad foot, April still hadn’t been able to find them.

  She had figured it best to leave her aunt to it, because Edie had been delighted by the offer of having her Aga cleaned, even though April wasn’t convinced it needed doing as it already looked immaculate to her. But it was a small thing to do to make an old lady happy, and if the truth be told, April still felt guilty for not having visited her aunt in over three years. Edie clearly wasn’t keeping on top of things and was finding it difficult to ask for help, not to mention her memory loss, and April felt as her only living relative that it was her responsibility to rectify that. And pronto. She may only be here for a couple of days but at least she could get the garden into some sort of tidy state, and perhaps tackle the hedgerow in the lane, before her great aunt got completely blocked in when the road became impassable. She’d see about getting a cleaner to come in and help out too, if Edie would agree to it – April was under no illusion that her aunt might take some persuading to allow a stranger into the cottage, especially to keep the place nice; Aunt Edie was old school and might very well take issue with having a cleaner. What if people thought she was lazy?