by Lily Graham
‘That young,’ I said tartly.
He stared at me. I rolled my eyes but the fight had truly gone out of me. ‘Okay, I’ll stop.’ I held up my glass. ‘Want one?’
‘Please.’
As I poured, I said, ‘I should have called.’
‘No – it’s your house too, you don’t have to do that.’
I handed him the glass.
‘Jesus, I’m an idiot,’ he said.
‘No arguments here,’ I said, pouring myself a glass and knocking it back. My failed marriage was playing havoc on my liver.
‘No, seriously,’ he said.
‘Seriously,’ I agreed.
He grinned. ‘That’s what I mean. She’s not like that. She doesn’t make me laugh like you do. She’s great, but—’
‘No, don’t do that. Don’t launch into some shitty comparison. I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Well, it’s the truth. I mean, look at you – you aren’t even wearing any make-up.’
I frowned. ‘I am actually, just not very much.’
He laughed. ‘Well, see, and you’re still gorgeous.’
‘Stop that. Your fucking girlfriend just walked out the door two seconds ago, and now you’re – what – flirting with your wife?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Look, I think it’s time we spoke about a divorce – I phoned our lawyer, he said he can start drawing up the paperwork soon. ’
‘Are you serious? C’mon, Smudge, when we spoke on the phone I was ready to talk about selling the house but not —’
‘I’ve already called the estate agent.’
‘What?’ he exploded. ‘You can’t just go ahead and do that without me.’
‘Mark, we spoke about this days ago. It’s not like I’m going to move back in, not after everything that’s happened. And, despite what you say, this relationship with Jess is clearly going strong.’
‘But you don’t have to move out—’
‘I know I don’t have to, Mark, but I don’t want to live here any more. I mean, if you want to do it another way we can talk about that.’
He looked at me hopefully, ‘Like counselling or something? I heard about a couple who started going out on these dates—’
I sighed. ‘No, Mark, I mean if you want to buy out my portion of the house instead of selling it, we could do that.’ I looked at him and snorted. ‘Christ, dating?’
‘I thought it sounded sweet.’
‘Yeah, maybe it would have been, if, you know, you weren’t screwing a twenty-five-year-old at the same time.’
‘She’s twenty-eight.’
I almost laughed. ‘Alright.’
‘Okay, look, tell you what – I’ll compromise,’ he said. I raised a brow and he continued, ‘We’ll sell the house. After that we’ll talk about a divorce.’
I shook my head. ‘No, Mark. I’d like us to start talking about it now.’
He didn’t agree to that, but he did pack a bag and tell me that he’d give me some space while I was in London.
‘I’ll stay at a hotel while you’re down here – give you some time.’
‘Sure,’ I said, knowing that he was more than likely going to his girlfriend’s house, he just didn’t want to announce it to me, especially after pleading with me to delay our divorce.
After he left, I phoned my brother’s wife, Ivy.
‘She has white hair,’ I said in lieu of a hello.
‘What?’
‘Her.’
‘Oh,’ she said, pouring about as much venom into that ‘oh’ as possible. Loyal to a fault was Ivy. Before she became my sister-in-law, she was my friend, something I’ve reminded my brother about often enough since he stole her from me.
‘Oh, and she’s a size six.’
‘So she’s old and frail?’ She sounded confused.
I laughed. ‘No, I mean she has that silvery-white hair that only really young people can wear and not look as if they’ve aged a thousand years.’
‘Sounds dreadful.’
I laughed. ‘Actually, she’s breathtaking.’
Silence greeted this. Then she rallied. ‘No one is as gorgeous as you.’
‘You only think that because I look like my brother but with long hair.’
She snorted. ‘No, you don’t! You’re a babe, Smudge. You know every time you visit, that old Frenchie, Tomas, from the village walks into walls afterwards, completely dazed by you…’
I giggled. ‘Tomas does that because he’s about a hundred years old and he’s going blind.’
‘Please, he’s only eighty-something and every time he comes round it’s like, “’Ello, here is ze pot of bouillabaisse I have made for no reason, eez Smudge coming for dinner?”’ she said, putting on a terrible French accent.
I laughed. ‘You’re an idiot.’
‘So did he agree to talk about a divorce?’
‘Not exactly, though he has agreed to sell the house. It’s a start, I suppose.’
‘A fresh start.’ She agreed.
After the call, I carried on packing. Most of what I was boxing up would be going into storage, as there would be no room for it on a fifty-seven-foot houseboat. But there were some things that I could arrange to get moved now, like the rattan rocking chair, shaped like an egg, in my study, and the bed from the spare room – I couldn’t face using ours in my new life. I ran the washing machine and packed up most of my clothes, books and research, as well as a few things from the kitchen and living room.
In my study, I arranged all my notebooks, papers and letters, and began to fill my backpack, taking out Tilly’s diary from the cottage as I did so.
I took a seat at the desk and opened it. It was a ritual that I couldn’t seem to stop myself from doing, even though the coded words meant nothing. Every night, I did the same, just before I went to sleep, trying to see if there was any way I could fathom the code.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it, about who Tilly was, who she may have been.
I took a sip of coffee and leafed through, my eyes scanning the columns of tight black writing, jumbled letters mixed in occasionally with the numbers three and nine.
Today, though, as I scanned I saw a word, written in plain script, one that I recognised with a frown. I sat up straight, staring at this word, which seemed to jump straight out at me. For it was something more. It was a name of a family, one that I recognised. If Gilly from the Black Horse Inn was to be believed, this family had locked up a mad person in the house I’d just bought. I flicked through the pages now, ever faster, swallowing as I found it came up again and again, every few pages, along with an X and the numbers 3:1.
Asprey.
Chapter Seven
The stacks of the London Library have always been my area of refuge. As a young girl, I’d make a game of finding books that famous writers had read, sometimes finding one of their notes in the margins. Agatha Christie, Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens… I collected them all. It gave me a thrill to know that I was reading the very books they had once read, that I was standing between the very shelves they had once browsed. Touching the things they touched.
When other girls wished for designer bags, or shoes, I wished for a lifetime membership to the library. It’s what I spent my first royalty cheque on. I figured that, if I never had that much money again, at least I’d have something to show for it.
Online, I’d discovered a small reference to John Asprey on a botany site; a small column mentioned him as the first cultivator of a particular type of daffodil, the ‘Idyllwild Jonquil’. Apparently he’d been responsible for developing one of the hardiest varieties, still grown today. I’d come to the London Library in search of one of the sources the site had referenced: a rather large tome on flower farming in Victorian times. It was cold in the stacks, and I shivered as I searched.
Finally, I came across a mention of the Aspreys and their farm. It wasn’t much really, just a general history of the cultivation and history of daffodils in Britain and abroad, and the ty
pe that John Asprey grew with the head gardener, Michael Waters. It was said that he sank most of the family’s wealth into the production and lost a fair amount. It appeared to be linked to their demise.
There was a picture of the family in faded black and white. The image was grainy and I had to pull the book closer to look at it. A man stood outside, next to two young girls. The youngest had long ringlets and was wearing a pinafore. Her expression was rather solemn. She had thick black eyebrows and dark eyes, which were exactly like the man’s. The other girl had pale hair and a pretty, if haughty, countenance.
The caption read, ‘Lord John Asprey pictured at Idyllwild Farm with his daughters, Rose (12) and Matilda (10) in 1906. Asprey was the co-creator of the hardy Idyllwild Jonquil daffodil, along with his head gardener, Michael Waters’.
Next to the family stood a tall man. It was hard to make out his features though, as the image was so grainy. It wasn’t much to go on, and didn’t really speak about who the family had been or why they’d left Idyllwild.
Rose was a beauty, but the younger sister kept drawing my eye. Her face wasn’t quite as pretty, but was somehow more striking. Perhaps it was the vivid brows or the dark eyes. Perhaps it was something else, my subconscious trying to tell me something. I looked at the photograph again. Matilda Asprey.
I blinked. Matilda. Or Tilly, for short? I looked at the diary on my desk, and my eyes widened.
Was this the young girl who had written the letter, which seemed to be an echo of my own feelings more than a hundred years later?
I met her serious, solemn gaze. Was this her diary? And if it was – what was it doing in a house that some thought her father had used to lock up a madman?
Chapter Eight
The sky was the colour of faded denim when I arrived in Tremenara, at the small marina along the estuary, where my new waterside home was to be found. Something inside me lifted as I drove in.
I could make out the tall masts of sailing boats as I parked my car near to the stretch of houseboats that dotted the water. From here, I could see the swirl of gold lettering on the little green narrowboat, Somersby. I couldn’t believe that this would be my home for the foreseeable future, until Seafall Cottage was ready for me.
I heard the cry of circling seagulls overhead as I started taking my bags out of the car. The air was fresh and cold, rich with the loamy scent of riverwater.
‘Need a hand?’ said a voice from behind. I turned around in surprise to see Sue from the Harbour Cafe in Tregollan – the one who’d sold me the impressive butternut risotto the other day.
‘Sue, hi!’ I said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I live here,’ she said with a grin. ‘That’s ours.’ She pointed to a large blue barge that was moored ahead, called The Endeavour.
‘Adam told me he’d gotten a new recruit for our little water community, couldn’t believe it when I found out it was you.’
When I gave her a puzzled look, she said, ‘I told you, we hear all the news first down at the cafe. Sorry, small towns. New blood is always a big topic of conversation.’ And she held out her arms to show me just how much.
I laughed. ‘I don’t mind.’ And truth be told, I didn’t. I’d imagined that living this far away from everyone I knew would be incredibly isolating – the closest family I had was Stuart and Ivy down in Cloudsea, and even that was nearly an hour away – so finding a friendly face was an unexpected and rather welcome surprise.
‘C’mon, I’ll help you take these aboard.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, as she reached inside the boot and started hauling things onto the pavement.
‘The allotment that I told you about is just down that road,’ she said, pointing to a small dirt road that led away from the parking area. ‘Like I said, I’m there most mornings if you want to come past and have a cuppa, see the new seedlings.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, touched at the invitation.
There wasn’t much to bring aboard: some clothes, a few cushions, linens and kitchen implements.
‘Oh, this is lovely,’ she said, her nut-brown eyes taking in the polished wood and cosy living room.
‘Thanks.’
I’d arranged for the removal van to meet me a little later. They would be bringing the egg-shaped chair from my study, two boxes and the bed. I didn’t have a TV, but then that didn’t seem like much of a sacrifice at this point. I had my laptop if I really wanted to watch something. I’d also brought my most treasured books for my little shelf. Books – always my answer to the question ‘What one thing would you bring to a desert island?’
‘Well, must dash,’ said Sue, after she set down the bags on the counter. ‘If you’re free tonight around seven, come for some mulled wine and meet Dave, my husband? We like to extend the Christmas spirit well past January…’
I laughed. ‘Okay, great,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’
After she left, I looked around my new home. I could see that Adam had had it cleaned and there was now a new stove and a small fridge. There was also a friendly white geranium in a yellow pot in the kitchen as a house-warming gift, along with a little note that said, ‘Sue said you liked things that grew. Adam.’
I felt touched. He’d been busy the two days I’d spent in London.
After the removal men arrived with the bed and my chair, there wasn’t that much to do, apart from making up the bed and unpacking a few boxes. It was hard to believe that I would be living here from now on. It was so quiet. All I could hear was the gentle lap of the water and the occasional cry from a seabird above.
I hadn’t seen any of the other houseboat owners yet, apart from Sue. They were probably at work, but I figured that at nights, weekends and in summer it would be a lively place.
I made myself a cup of tea and enjoyed it while watching the ducks out of the kitchen window as they swam past. I was surprised when they came so close to the glass – they were obviously well used to living amongst humans. I fetched some bread and went out onto the deck to throw it to them, laughing at how they seemed to compete for my attention. There was one who seemed hell-bent on squawking in indignation that he was left out, even when a bit of crumb landed squarely on his head.
‘You’ll have friends for life now,’ said a voice, floating up to me from along the water’s edge. I turned and saw an older woman smiling at me from the gangway.
She had very long grey hair and was dressed a bit like a modern-day hippie, with multi-coloured palazzo pants in shades of purple and red. She wore silver jewellery and had smiling green eyes. ‘So you’re the renter?’
I laughed, wondering if the news had spread to every part of the marina. ‘I suppose there’s not many of them around here,’ I said, thinking that most people probably owned their water homes.
‘Most of the time,’ she agreed. ‘But you’ll see, you won’t want to be a landlubber again after this.’
I grinned. ‘Maybe, though I’m still partial to a bit of earth,’ I said, thinking of the cottage. ‘I’m Victoria, by the way.’
‘Angie,’ she said. ‘Do you like reading?’
‘Reading?’
‘Books and things?’
‘Oh.’ I laughed, as I hadn’t expected the question. ‘Yeah, I do,’ I said, wondering why she was asking.
‘Great! Well, I run The Floating Bookstore. It’s down there.’ She pointed to a rather conspicuous houseboat that looked as if it had been tie-dyed in various shades of sunset. ‘Come visit us after you’ve settled in. I’m moored here from spring to summer, and we’re open Tuesday to Saturday. I make a mean chocolate cake as well.’
‘You run a bookshop on a houseboat? That’s so bloody cool.’
She grinned and nodded. ‘Adam said I’d like you.’
At night, the marina seemed to come alive, fairy lights twinkling to life and sparkling across the water. Soft music floated in the wind as I boarded the The Endeavour, the barge belonging to Sue and her husband, Dave, a short, balding man with red cheeks, an easy smile and an apron with
a cartoon drawing of chiselled abs on the front.
‘You must be Victoria,’ he said, ladling mulled wine into a glass and handing it to me. The air was cold as it blew off the water, though thick with the scent of oranges and cinnamon. I cradled the wine gratefully and took a sip that warmed my bones.
Perhaps it warmed them a little too much, as when I left I walked straight into Adam on the gangway. He was wearing a suit, but his tie was loose and his dark blond hair was tousled. ‘Meeting the neighbours already?’ he asked, giving me that lazy smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. It was a little distracting.
‘Dave’s mulled wine,’ I explained.
‘Ah, that should come with a warning, especially in January,’ he said.
‘Now you tell me.’
He laughed. ‘So is everything alright on the boat?’
‘Yeah, it’s great.’ I said. ‘Thanks for everything – love the plant.’
‘It’s all good,’ he said, giving me a wink before he left. I watched him walk away, taking in his tall frame in the dark suit and stylish shoes for far longer than was necessary. When I got back on my boat I poured myself a glass of cold water, trying to dilute the effects of the wine, and looked at myself in the small bathroom mirror, inspecting my messy, loose curls and the Wonder Woman T-shirt I was wearing. ‘Get a grip,’ I laughed. ‘We do not need a crush right now.’
The night had brought with it the scent of dinners being made and the gentle sounds of conversations being had. I could hear soft music from the boys in the houseboat next to mine, who Angie had said were in an indie rock band. Despite Sue and Dave’s hospitality, I tried to ignore the sudden loneliness I felt.
Chapter Nine
The brass key opened a door that no longer existed, and in the dawn light the cottage looked even more eerie and abandoned than I remembered.
I clicked on the flashlight, casting its beam from the kitchen to the sea room, and got to work. I dragged the old, worn settee outside, along with the beer bottles and various scraps from years of transient visitors, making a pile that rivalled the mountain of pizza boxes outside.
