In a Cottage, In a Wood

by cass green

  She has told everyone about the cottage over the course of the evening.

  Most agree that she must sell up straight away. A tiny, birdlike girl called Darcy, an ardent clubber, is of the opinion that Neve should go and live there. There was some talk of jam-making and a mass visit from them all at a date in the summer. Also possibly a music festival in the ‘grounds’. Everyone, including Neve, is hazy on the specifics but it sounds like the best idea for a while.

  Bick is talking now and Neve smiles soppily up at him.

  ‘I think I love you, Bick,’ she slurs and puts her hands on his chest, raising her mouth to kiss him. But Bick steps back, laughing.

  ‘Neve, honey, I absolutely would, don’t get me wrong. But you’ve had a very weird day and I think you need to go home.’

  Deflated, Neve stands back and almost falls off the kerb.

  ‘I’vegotafuckingcottage,’ she says as one word.

  ‘I know you have, darling. I know you have.’

  A few minutes later he folds her into a taxi with assurances to the sceptical driver that she isn’t going to be sick. Neve manages to pass on Lou and Steve’s address. But when they reach the junction of Camden Road and Kentish Town Road, Neve leans over and gives new instructions, filled with a sudden second wind.

  The driver eyes her warily, then changes direction.

  A few minutes later, the car pulls up outside Daniel’s flat. The flat that was once hers and Daniel’s.

  She pays the driver with the money Bick had insisted she take and stands on the pavement, staring woozily up at the top floor. A fox appears from the alleyway next to the house and regards her brazenly before slinking away. There’s a car alarm going off on the next road along.

  Swaying slightly on her feet, she wishes fervently now that she hadn’t thrown the keys back at him during a fight. All she wants is to creep in and go to bed. She wouldn’t even bother him; she’d only sleep on the sofa. It seems so reasonable that she could do this. Who could possibly object to her sleeping on their sofa?

  But there is no option other than to wake him up, now she’s here.

  She wobbles up the steps and peers at the row of buzzers. Funny how unfamiliar it looks in such a short time. Focusing hard on not missing the target, she presses her finger squarely onto the buzzer and keeps it there. Then she removes it and does it again.

  ‘Hello?’ Daniel’s sleepy voice crackles from the intercom. She feels a happy rush that he is so near and she will see him within mere moments.

  ‘S’me!’ she says.

  ‘Who?’

  Neve pauses, frowning.

  ‘S’Neve,’ she says a bit less cheerfully.

  There’s a silence.

  ‘What do you want?’

  Neve sways and tries to concentrate on what’s happening. This isn’t working out as she had expected.

  ‘To go to sleep,’ she says honestly and pushes the door, confident that it will have been released.

  Nothing happens so she buzzes again and, a few seconds later, it opens and reveals a stony-faced Daniel.

  He’s wearing an old T-shirt she has always loved, which says Revolution is Just a T-Shirt Away in white letters on black, faded to soft grey now, and pyjama bottoms. His hair is tousled and hangs over his eyes and he’s grown a small beard since she saw him last. He’s never looked more attractive and desire floods her entire body, hot and quick.

  ‘Neve? What the fuck?’ he says as she moves quickly and snakes her arms around his back. She breathes in the familiar smell of him and feels her groin squeeze in anticipation.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ she says and starts to nibble and kiss his neck. ‘Let’s just forget about all of it. I have a cottage now.’

  ‘What?’ Daniel tries to step back. ‘What the hell are you talking about? And get off me, Neve, you’re completely wrecked.’

  Neve slides her hands around his waist and over his firm buttocks, looking at him impishly through her lashes. She can feel the beginnings of a hard-on against her stomach as she pulls him closer and he makes a small sound in his throat. She’s not sure whether it’s a sound of being turned on, or a disgusted ‘tut’.

  ‘Not too wrecked,’ she says in a low voice. ‘We were always good together like this, weren’t we? Remember, I know what you like.’ She tries to peel his pyjama bottoms down and is suddenly thrust backwards so hard she almost falls down the steps.

  ‘Stop it!’ yells Daniel. ‘Just fucking stop this!’

  ‘Danny? What’s happening?’

  A sleepy high-pitched voice seeps from the staircase and Neve stares over his shoulder to see a girl she recognizes from the pub, standing behind Daniel. She’s wearing one of his T-shirts and coils of blonde hair spill over her shoulders. Yawning like a cat, she then blinks hard at Neve.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she says, awake now. ‘What’s going on, Danny?’

  ‘Danny! No one calls him Danny! Who the fuck are you to be standing there like that and calling him fucking Danny?’

  And with that she bursts into violent sobs.

  Danny regards her with a look that makes her actually clench her toes inside her shoes.

  ‘Just go home, Neve,’ he says. ‘You’re only embarrassing yourself. You need to accept things and move on, alright?’

  12

  Neve remembers several things as her alarm clock, which by some miracle she managed to set last night, goes off with the intensity of a road drill next to her.

  1. She was given a cottage yesterday.

  2. She went to Daniel’s and humiliated herself.

  3. When she got back to Lou’s she threw up in the bathroom.

  4. Then she cleaned it up.

  She definitely cleaned it up. Didn’t she?

  Scrambling out of bed, she smashes her knee into the frame in her haste, and swears. She pulls on a hoodie with shaking hands and, thrusting open the study door, heads down the landing to the bathroom.

  Lou is just emerging through the door. She is wearing rubber gloves and holds a bucket filled with cleaning products.

  ‘Lou, I’m so sorry, I swear I meant to sort that out.’

  Lou regards her younger sister. She doesn’t look angry. She looks exhausted. Her nostrils are inflamed and red, her skin porridge-coloured.

  ‘You didn’t do a very good job,’ she says in a flat monotone. ‘Luckily I went in there first. Steve’s having a lie-in.’

  ‘Lou, I really am—’

  Maisie begins to wail.

  ‘Forget it,’ says Lou and her voice is sharp now. ‘Just forget it, Neve.’ A surge of shamed affection for her sister washes over her and she goes to touch her arm but Lou pushes past and goes down the stairs.

  It takes two paracetamols, a double strength ibuprofen and a triple espresso to give Neve the physical means to be able to walk into the office just before nine. The pounding in her head is more muted now, but her stomach occasionally shivers with nausea and her hands are shaky.

  She vows to belatedly sign up to whatever the Dry January thing is on Facebook later. Dry half-of-January has to be better than not doing it at all.

  The morning creaks by a second at a time and she tries to bury herself in admin jobs that have built up since the start of the week.

  Mid-morning, Fraser and a couple of the other editors sweep into the office, and the sleepy energy instantly changes. This is partly because they are all wearing suits; even Fraser looks quite dapper in a dark blue pinstripe, despite the cut being a good fifteen years out of fashion.

  Neve weakly turns on her smile of greeting, which slips when she sees the mean shine in Fraser’s eyes and notices the man he is showing into reception. Small and bespectacled with close-cropped grey hair, it’s his companion from Waterloo yesterday.

  ‘Miss Carey,’ says Fraser brightly. He has never called her this before. He somehow manages to make it less respectful than if he had used her Christian name. ‘Can you please organize for some coffee in the conference room?’

 
‘Yes, sure,’ she says, even though she isn’t supposed to leave reception. The party of five men sweep past her and she notices the stranger frown at her, in obvious recognition from the day before. Her heart gives an anxious jolt and she feels clammy sweat beading her hairline. She grabs the bottle of Diet Coke on her desk and takes a long swig.

  One of the picture editors, a shy young woman called Edie who wears 1940s-style clothes, comes into reception then. She stares at the retreating backs of the men, chewing her red-lipsticked bottom lip; brow creased.

  ‘Edie,’ hisses Neve. ‘What’s going on?’

  Edie comes over in her neat little dress covered in sprigs of cherries, thick tights and 1940s sandals. Her blonde hair is twisted into victory rolls at the side of her head. She fixes large pale eyes on Neve and makes a face of dismay.

  ‘That’s Holger Meier,’ she says in a low voice. ‘He’s one of the directors from Brahmen Klein.’

  ‘Shit …’

  Brahmen Klein is a huge European media company. She’s been too preoccupied to think much about the rumours in the office. Now all she can do is remember the shocked expression on the face of this man, who has power over her future, as she told Fraser to ‘bugger off’.

  ‘Oh God,’ she says. Edie sighs.

  ‘Yeah. I’d better get back to updating my CV,’ she says. ‘I suggest you do the same.’

  Neve doesn’t make the coffee.

  Instead, she thinks about the moment Isabelle Shawcross whispered hot breath into her ear; breath that was on a countdown to being her last. She thinks about the fact that she is going to lose her job; if not today, then soon.

  She thinks about last night, and Christmas, and the reception she is going to get from Lou and Steve when she gets back.

  She understands that Daniel is now part of her past and will never be in her future again.

  The switchboard begins to light up in front of her and she watches it as though from behind a sheet of glass. Then she picks up her coat and handbag, and leaves the building for ever.

  Lou is out with the girls at one of their classes when she gets home. She is struggling under the awkward weight of a bunch of flowers that cost more than £40, bought after transferring the last of her dad’s money into her current account. They’re a mix of gerbera in bright purples and yellows. She knows that Lou loves gerbera.

  She carefully arranges them in a vase on the kitchen table, making sure she wipes up the spills of water she leaves in the process, then hunts for paper and a pen. All she can find is a drawing pad of Lottie’s, covered in stick people and attempts at cats in crayon, and a felt tip pen. Finding a sheet that leaks colour through from the drawings on the other side, she rips it out and begins to write a note.

  Lou and Steve. I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me. I’m really sorry I’ve been such a nightmare. I do love you, whatever you might think. xxN

  Then she takes the duvet cover, sheets and pillowcases she’d taken from the sofa bed that morning and tips them into the linen basket. Getting the vacuum cleaner out of the hall cupboard, she gives the room a thorough clean.

  She can’t take everything but she’ll think about that later. This is only for a few days, to get her head together. She manages to stuff a surprising amount into a small wheelie case and a rucksack, which she hoists onto her back, wobbling under the awkward weight.

  A few minutes later, she leaves the flat, closing the door with a quiet click behind her.

  13

  Neve sleeps for most of the nine-hour journey to Penzance from Victoria, head resting on her bunched-up fake fur coat, her hoodie a makeshift blanket. It’s not comfortable, but in her exhausted, hungover state, it’s enough.

  She barely notices the movement of the coach or the stops at pick-up points along the way. It is only the insistent wah-wah wail of a baby that finally tugs her back to consciousness and at first she’s convinced it’s Maisie crying. She opens her eyes and is about to call for Lou when she realizes she’s looking at a grubby purple-grey patterned seat back. There is an elderly man next to her, who nods at her with a big smile.

  He has cottony white hair over a pink scalp. A pair of bright blue eyes peer merrily out of his craggy face.

  ‘Gosh, you’ve been out for the count,’ he says and offers her a Polo mint from the packet held in his shaky hand. ‘I half wondered if I should give you a nudge to make sure you were alive.’

  Neve hasn’t quite regained the power of speech and simply smiles weakly. Her mouth feels foul and lined with wool, so she takes the Polo with a nod of thanks.

  ‘Where are we?’ she says, and suddenly remembers her and Lou saying, ‘Are-we-there-yet,’ over and over again to annoy their parents when they were little and going on family holidays. The memory gives her a dull ache under her ribcage when she remembers how she had left her sister this morning.

  ‘We’re about five miles from Truro, I think,’ says the man. ‘Better give my daughter a call and let her know we’re almost there!’

  Neve smiles vaguely and then fumbles in her bag for her phone; it is on five per cent battery. The phone has taken to hiding calls and messages from the home screen and she is grateful for this now. Pushing the uncomfortable thought that Lou and others might be trying to contact her, she looks out of the window.

  They’re on a motorway. She has no idea which one. Neve doesn’t drive – something both Daniel and Lou have nagged her about at different times – and she has only the dimmest notion of major roads.

  Looking at her watch she sees it is now half past eight, but it feels much later. The darkness outside increases her feeling of being far away from anything.

  The old man is still looking at her and she shoots him a nervous glance. He immediately smiles again and Neve hopes she won’t be forced into uncomfortable conversation for the rest of the journey.

  Instead she roots inside her handbag for her earbuds. Her phone is almost dead, but he doesn’t know this. Jamming them into her ears she sees the old man is jabbing a large finger at his mobile phone. It is the sort that looks like a toy, with large buttons designed for the elderly.

  He begins to speak in a loud voice. Her own dad never seemed to understand that phones had sensitive microphones either.

  ‘Hello, flower,’ he says. ‘It’s Dad. I’m just calling to let you know that we won’t be all that long into Truro now.’ There’s a pause and he says, ‘Uh-huh, right,’ then abruptly, ‘Well goodbye then. See you soon.’

  Neve turns herself around to face the window, jamming her earbuds further into her ears. Her hands tremble. Something is starting to fracture inside.

  Dad used to call her Flower. The old man’s conversation has had the effect of an uppercut punch to her diaphragm. She gasps a breath and her eyes prickle.The man makes a gentle ‘tsk’ sound and thrusts a man-sized tissue at her. She takes it gratefully and blows her nose.

  ‘Are you alright, dear? Is there something I can do?’

  ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’ Her voice is a tiny, lame thing.

  Neve manages a weak, watery smile.

  ‘I don’t want to be nosy,’ he says. ‘But are you visiting friends or family in Truro?’ He looks genuinely concerned. ‘Is someone going to meet you off the bus?’

  Neve wants to tell him the truth. But it’s too bizarre.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I’m all sorted. And really, I’m fine now. Thank you again for being so kind.’

  He gives her a small nod.

  Turning back to gaze out of the window she sees they have turned onto a dual carriageway. Before long signs are announcing they are in Truro.

  These sudden swerves of grief take her by surprise, eighteen months after her dad died.

  At first the loss had been a constant, gnawing ache. Her heart, which hadn’t yet recovered from losing her mum, felt like a lump of beef that had been whacked all over with a meat tenderizer.

  But as time moved on, the nature of the grief changed. In some ways it was almost crueller in
the way it took her. She’d find she hadn’t thought about it for a day or so and then it would suddenly bloom painfully in her chest, as violent as a physical assault. And the same thoughts would slam into her: an orphan.

  Really? It was such a desolate little word.

  She and Lou had lost their mother to cancer a year before their father died. Their dad, who had met his wife when they were both eighteen, had seemed to shrink as the space in the small semi in a Yorkshire village had swelled. Their mother had been a loud presence, prone to outbursts of emotion and jollity, while Dad was a quiet, reserved man.

  They were older parents, only having Lou at forty, then Neve at forty-two. Neve had been a bit embarrassed about their age, especially as one of the girls in her class had a mother who was only seventeen years older than her.

  They’d been foster carers for a time before Lou came along and would receive the odd Christmas card from people who had briefly lived with them. Neve used to feel a bit jealous of these mysterious troubled children with dramatic lives. As though they remained in the home as shadows, still jostling for her parents’ attention.

  Neve occasionally fretted that they would start fostering again as she got older, picturing brooding teenage girls with violent tendencies moving in and taking over her bedroom. But her parents said they’d ‘done their bit’ and that this part of their lives was now behind them.

  The brain aneurism that killed her father hadn’t given any warning and the doctor told her and Lou that he had most likely been carrying it around for a long time, like a tiny ticking bomb.

  Neve had been away with Daniel, visiting musician friends in Brighton. It was one of their lost weekends, passing by in a blur of drinking, dancing and weed and it wasn’t until late on Sunday afternoon that Neve had realized she had lost her phone. It was only when she and Daniel wearily arrived back in the flat that she noticed the flashing lights on the barely used landline recorder and discovered the messages from Lou saying she had to get to the Whittington Hospital immediately.