Coming Home to Heritage Cove

by Helen J Rolfe

  One summer after his father walked out of the family home, Harvey had returned to Tumbleweed House on a break from his job at the time as a builder’s labourer with a nearby firm and his mum had commented she had nowhere to dry the sheets. Harvey knew there was an old airer in the loft – it had long become a place to store junk – and so he’d faced his fears and gone up there to get it for her. He’d stepped over full boxes of Christmas decorations that gave the house an injection of cheer once a year and lifted them from their misery, a box of old photo albums, a broken sledge he’d used as a boy and thought he might one day pass to a son. Going up there that day had forced Harvey to confront his demons. He’d dragged the airer down, fixed it, replaced a snapped rod of wood with a new one, superglued another part, putting in a couple of screws to enable it to fold and open easily. And as he’d worked his mind had dwelt on that space at the top of the house. It was time they finally got rid of Donnie Luddington from their lives and that meant dealing with the loft. Harvey researched what could be done to make the area a habitable space and embarked on a project to make it a part of the home, and when he approached a local firm and took more than a passing interest by wondering if he could help them out during the conversion, it was the start of a whole new path for Harvey when he was offered an apprenticeship, something he didn’t expect to come by with his mediocre school grades.

  Harvey looked up at the top of the house now, the loft space that was as much a part of his home as the rest of it. It was up in that loft that he’d kissed Melissa for a second time; the first had been on the beams of Barney’s barn when they were twelve years old, their lips meeting for mere seconds – any longer and they both might have fallen.

  Had Melissa read his email yet? Was she even going to bother calling Barney?

  With the rain still coming down, Harvey made a run for it from his pickup to the back door, greeted in the usual way the second he opened up. It wasn’t easy getting inside the house with Winnie, his nine-year-old Labrador retriever, bounding up to greet him and blocking his way through the narrow porch that led into the large eat-in kitchen. ‘Miss me? Course you did, girl.’ Harvey had got Winnie as a puppy not long after Melissa left and had put the hours in to training her. He’d needed the distraction, craved the company, and now he couldn’t imagine not having Winnie around. He rubbed the top of her head and ears vigorously, the way she liked it. ‘I guess you’ll want feeding.’ He found Winnie’s bowl from beneath the sink and dished out some canned food mixed with dried, the only way he could get her to even consider the dry food. Her interest quickly turned from him to the meal.

  When his phone rang he snatched it up as Barney’s name and number flashed on the screen. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘You told me to call when I woke up, I’m doing as I’m told.’

  ‘Right, don’t move. I’ll be over in less than half an hour. Do I have time for a shower?’

  ‘I’m not leaping out of bed if that’s what you think, I’m not even hungry. Please take your time, I’m happy to lie here a bit longer.’

  ‘Fine, if you’re sure. I’ll shower, go to the shops, then I’ll be over.’ He knew when to push Barney and when to back off, and it was time to do the latter, at least a little bit.

  In the bathroom Harvey switched on the shower and let the water run across his bare chest, down his torso, and ease the aches and pains from too many hours spent cramped in a hospital chair over the last few days as he waited for news or kept Barney company.

  Thoughts of Melissa couldn’t be washed away so easily and he was torn between feeling that getting in touch with her had been the right thing to do and worrying that he’d simply got Barney’s hopes up for nothing. But he couldn’t do anything about it now. The rest was up to her.

  He lathered up some shampoo but all he saw when he shut his eyes beneath the water was Melissa, the young girl with fiery red hair who’d been as good at climbing the apple trees at Barney’s place as he had, who’d pelted him with rotten apples the day he dared to suggest she was a girl and therefore too weak to lift the logs inside for the wood burner. He’d only said it because he knew she was terrified of spiders, which loved to hang out in the log store beside the barn, and he hadn’t wanted one to crawl out from its hiding place and scare her.

  Harvey had always tried to be there for Melissa. He’d bought her her first drink when she turned eighteen and they were allowed to go to The Copper Plough, the local pub. He’d listened to her sobs when a boy from school broke her heart by arranging to meet her outside the movies and then standing her up. Harvey had been a friend as well as a boyfriend and the day she’d lost both parents in one cruel hit, he’d been there to pick up the pieces of a girl who was broken with the pain of it all. And when she’d said she wanted to leave Heritage Cove, start anew, see a bit of the world, he’d been there for her by sharing in that excitement and enthusiasm. And he would’ve gone with her, been by her side, had life not thrown him his own curve ball to deal with.

  The day before they were due to leave Heritage Cove, Harvey had wrapped Melissa in his arms and said, ‘See you tomorrow, birthday girl.’ She’d replied, ‘This will be the best birthday present ever, we’re off on an adventure of a lifetime.’ She’d said those words five years, one week and one day ago. He knew because they’d been due to leave the day after her birthday, May 28th. Every year the 28th and 29th of May taunted him from the calendar. It wasn’t that he hadn’t moved on – of course he had, especially when he knew she’d done the same – but it still hurt that what they’d once had had fizzled into nothing. Not a word from her, not one single word in all this time, at least not to him. She’d cut all ties. Who did that? Nobody with a conscience, that’s who. But he’d put his feelings aside and got in touch with her because if Barney hadn’t pulled through this, she would’ve been heartbroken.

  Harvey finished up in the shower and as soon as he had a towel around his waist he picked up his phone to message Barney, but Barney had beaten him to it with a text to say he was fine, he was up and sitting in his chair and he’d had two apples to keep him going.

  Harvey wished Barney had waited for him before getting up but at least he’d eaten something. He pulled on his jeans, ready to go to the supermarket to food shop and get those cupboards at Barney’s cottage filled again. Then, when he got to Barney’s, he wouldn’t be pushed away easily, he wanted to see the man eat a decent meal.

  Maybe keeping busy could stop him spending so much time thinking about Melissa Drew and how she’d left his heart in tatters.

  Chapter Three

  After deciding to put off her check-in at the Heritage Inn, Melissa had felt a sense of unexpected freedom as she headed away from Heritage Cove to join the main road and go to the hospital instead. But she’d hit the busiest time, it seemed, and the journey didn’t feel too dissimilar to her work commute. The earlier drizzle had turned into heavy rain and she sighed at the speedometer hovering on twenty-five miles per hour until the traffic finally began to progress and the satnav instructed her to take the next exit.

  She took a quick call from Jay on her hands-free as she followed the signs to the hospital car park. But he wanted to chat, and she needed to concentrate. She felt terrible ending the conversation before it really got started, because he was missing her. The feeling was mutual. She should be there with him, tucked up in bed or enjoying a leisurely brunch, but instead she was doing something that sent her way out of her comfort zone.

  She slowed again to peer at another sign as she attempted to find where exactly visitors were supposed to park. She didn’t want to go into staff designated areas or ambulance bays or emergency thoroughfares. It was a bit like a puzzle game, trying to follow the various arrows, some partially worn off on the tarmac, others taking her along thin sections around the backs of monstrous buildings.

  Finally, in another area, she found a space. She’d already looked across to see the pay machine said cash only but she scraped together enough coins to manage two hours, the
prices exorbitant, which was pretty unsympathetic in most people’s hour of need. It wasn’t a shopping centre, was it? People didn’t come here to have a jolly good time. New mums and dads might be overjoyed and not mind the charges with a new infant in their arms, but everyone else, well, it left them out of pocket.

  Maybe she was grouchy because she was so hungry. She’d not eaten since breakfast and it was well after midday by now. She fed the coins into the machine, one by one, too fast, the adrenalin pumping again at the thought of seeing Barney after so long.

  She forced herself to slow when the machine spat every other coin out in protest. The weather had changed its mind yet again and the rain abated, replaced by the June sunshine that did its utmost to peep through the weak clouds drifting across the sky, so at least she wasn’t getting wet. She didn’t want to turn up like a drowned rat, she wanted to make a good impression, show that she was confident and the total opposite of someone who’d fallen apart. She knew deep down that it wouldn’t matter a jot to Barney what she looked like but, for her self-esteem, keeping herself together, at least in her appearance, helped enormously. It was the way she coped these days.

  Melissa had first met Barney when she was seven years old. She’d gone to the barn one day with a small wicker basket filled with eggs from the dozen chickens her mum kept out back of the family cottage. Barney was outside fixing up a panel at the side of the barn and she’d stood there after he thanked her for the eggs and peered inside. Her eyes had widened at the space, she’d asked what the machine was for, he’d told her it was a juice press and had offered her fresh apple juice as a thank you for the eggs. After that day Melissa began to make regular visits, sometimes with eggs, other times when it was raining and she’d ask to play in the barn. She was into gymnastics when she was little and, according to her mum, who Barney had bumped into the day after her daughter delivered the first basket of eggs, she’d been banned from doing it inside the house after several smashed ornaments and one narrow escape from falling down the stairs after a sequence on the landing involving forward rolls and a cartwheel. When she was older Barney had told Melissa that he’d been instantly captured by her cheekiness, the double dimples, one on each cheek, that spoke of mischief, the fiery red hair that looked almost alight when it caught a shaft of sunshine. And when Harvey turned up after school too one day, the summer’s evening stretching out languorously ahead of them, he and Melissa had used the cider press together and spent hours hanging out in the place that felt like home to both of them. It had been the start of an intergenerational friendship that had lasted decades. Or, at least, Barney’s friendship with each of them had lasted. Harvey and Melissa’s friendship with each other hadn’t exactly stood the test of time.

  Melissa had come into Barney’s life almost as suddenly as Harvey, but unlike him, she’d had a safe and nurturing home life, she’d never wanted for anything until one bitterly cold night an enormous patch of black ice had snatched her happiness away just like that. She hadn’t seen it coming and Barney as well as Harvey had picked up the pieces and helped her to function, they’d done as much as they could.

  Now, Melissa called Jay while she was stood outside the hospital, if only to hear the reassurance of his voice. He’d lined up a game of tennis with a friend later but was missing her a lot and still talking about heading this way to be together. Although it was tempting to have him with her when she heard the longing in his voice, Melissa told him it wouldn’t be long before she was home, and for now Barney needed to get all her focus.

  Following yet more directions inside the maze of the hospital, Melissa at last found reception, navigated her way to the appropriate ward and paused at the nurse’s station, relieved to see it was still visiting hours.

  But she wasn’t so relieved when the nurse told her Barney wasn’t there.

  ‘I don’t understand, I was told he was here. Could you check again, please?’

  The nurse did as requested. ‘He was discharged this morning, about an hour ago, you’ve only just missed him.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Sorry, love.’ But she didn’t hang around, she was called into the ward.

  Melissa pushed her way through the doors a little harder than necessary, followed the rabbit warren, getting lost no fewer than three times, each time firing up her temper, and shoved her way through the main entrance out into the open air. Harvey could’ve emailed her again to give her the update, or was this punishment? Had the lack of details been his way of tormenting her, and now he wanted to add to that by winding her up and sending her on a wild goose chase? Petty, that was what it was.

  When Melissa saw a couple fumbling for coins near the pay-and-display machine she offered up her ticket, which still had ages left on it, and grabbed it from the car. At least it wouldn’t go to waste, and she refused to take any money for it. She couldn’t wait to get out of here.

  Thankfully the traffic was kind. She stopped at a service station and grabbed a banana and a basic sandwich to keep her going, and then it wasn’t long before she was back following the country lanes winding between fields, trees canopied overhead in places, other parts of land spread out as though in an enormous painting. Odd, she hadn’t taken it all in when she’d done this same drive earlier on today. Her mind had been on the people of Heritage Cove, particularly Harvey and Barney, her vision had been narrowed and she was able to zone in only on the ball of fear in the pit of her stomach. But now she noticed fat bales of hay sat in a field waiting to be rolled on to another destination, a tractor passing in the opposite direction that gave her a strange sense of returning home to the place she’d vowed she no longer needed.

  Heritage Cove sat on a mostly forgotten stretch of the Suffolk coast, away from the major carriageways that connected to other villages, main roads and counties. And it had its treasures, especially the cove itself, which could be found by following the small track running parallel to the little chapel, each side of the walkway lined with hedges in some places and in others, brambles reaching at least eight feet high. The track looked as though it led to nothing and more often than not, visitors to the village would turn back when they saw the part-sand-covered steps they’d have to follow down, the wonky thin sloped path with more steps and a dodgy handrail that wouldn’t save them if they fell, before they reached the small gateway to the deserted beach. Only accessible by foot, the wide sandy beach of the cove stretched out before you and was a thing of beauty without many beach umbrellas or windbreaks taking away from the tranquillity. And now, on a bright June day, for the first time in a long while Melissa felt sure she could smell the sea as she drove towards the village with her windows wound down now that the rain had given up again. She tried to ignore the niggling thought that on the other side of the track that led to so much beauty was the cemetery behind the chapel, the place her parents were buried on a day she could barely remember yet every painful second of which had slowly eaten away at her from then on. She hadn’t been back to the cemetery since, not once. Not even to say goodbye before she left.

  She reached the same lay-by she’d pulled into earlier but this time she didn’t stop. Her frustration with Harvey and the one email without a follow-up to let her know Barney had left the hospital chivvied her along because she knew she had to see Barney now. And if he was home, it was surely a good thing.

  She drove on past the sign to the village and followed the bend curving to the left. On her right was a bus shelter in the original old stone rather than a modernised metal structure that would never fit in with a village steeped in history and character. She indicated to pull into the car park of the Heritage Inn, where she’d already booked a room via the facility online. Kind of anonymous, but she knew she wouldn’t be around here for long. She glanced down at her ring finger, which was naked right now but would soon show everyone she was engaged to Jay. She wished they’d had time to go ring shopping so she had it on for the added confidence, as a reminder she’d managed to move on and she’d changed since sh
e left the Cove.