In a Cottage, In a Wood

by cass green

  She begins to call out to Lou, to tell her about all this, and the room around her swims back into focus.

  With a start, she comes to on the sofa, heart pounding.

  What a horrible dream. She touches her forehead. It’s burning hot. Her throat hurts again too. Groaning, she rummages for some paracetamol in her handbag, which she swallows with a glug from a bottle of water in there of indeterminate age.

  Jarvis is deeply asleep. There’s barely even any movement of his ribcage to indicate that he is breathing. She gives him a worried, sharp tap on the flank and he shivers slightly, reassuring her.

  Looking at the time she sees it is only five a.m. and it will be hours until it’s light. But it is a relief that she is no longer in the deep of the night. For some reason, it feels as though she is safer now that morning is near, however bad she feels.

  Yawning widely, she forces herself to sit up straighter. She’ll sleep on the bus if she has to. Better to be awake and have her wits about her, she thinks.

  Neve opens Facebook and spends a few minutes looking at Miri’s page, which is filled with congratulations on the birth of Farah. There are several pictures of the tiny girl, face lost in the black explosion of hair, and one that shows an exhausted-looking, puffy-eyed Miri, managing to smile weakly at the camera.

  She taps out a quick message promising to come and visit soon and sending love, then spends some time having a desultory look around friends’ posts. There’s so much crap here, she thinks and is suddenly filled with a strong desire to clean up this one small area of her life.

  She has 900 friends at present and she feels a sensation of disgust. Who are these people? She’s sure she has only met the smallest handful of them. She vaguely remembers a flurry of friending after she and Daniel went to the Spanish music festival but things have clearly got out of hand.

  Neve begins decisively clicking on names and then the ‘unfriend’ button. It is therapeutic and she finds she can do it without fully being awake. She continues in a daze like this for a while and whole swathes of names are despatched.

  It’s quite soothing. She is becoming more ruthless as she goes along, half thinking she might get rid of everyone, or close the account, when she chances upon a name that makes her stop.

  The name is Izzy Aster. Something fizzes in Neve’s synapses and she gets up hurriedly and goes to the kitchen, where the envelope about the smear test still lies on the table.

  Isabelle Aster Shawcross.

  That’s a coincidence. ‘Aster’ is such an unusual name. And Izzy could be a shortening of Isabelle?

  Unsettled, Neve goes back to the sofa and picks up the iPad again. She clicks on this Izzy Aster and sees there is only a picture of a cat lying on the back of a sofa. She taps on the picture to try and get a closer look but it doesn’t expand. The colouring of the cat and the appearance of the sofa are shrouded in shadow. She looks around the room uncertainly, suddenly overcome with the strange notion that the picture was taken in this room. Maybe it was the Gardners’ cat.

  But she didn’t know Isabelle Shawcross when she met her that night. She had never seen her before. And the woman didn’t seem to recognize her.

  What were the chances that they were already Facebook friends?

  No, it must be a weird coincidence.

  Nine hundred ‘friends’ is not a lot when you consider that more than, what was it, eight million people live in London? But all the while she is telling herself this, her heart is fluttering uncomfortably again.

  Stop it, she tells herself. She really is starting to lose the plot now. It’s only … Facebook, for God’s sake.

  There are no revealing posts on Izzy Aster’s page at all, just re-posts of annoying aphorisms with supposedly uplifting messages. She goes to check on their mutual friends and sees that they have none.

  ‘Oh fuck it,’ says Neve out loud and at this Jarvis struggles to his feet and stares at her blearily. She leans over and rubs his head. ‘I’m really starting to go mental, Jarvis my old mate,’ she says and smiles as the dog wags his tail with more vigour than since his mishap that morning. ‘Got to get out of this place, haven’t we?’

  By the time Richard’s sharp knock comes at the front door, Neve has been pacing around the house, fully dressed for the cold outside, for a whole ninety minutes. Her hair was dirty so she pulled it up into a messy bun and she knows she isn’t looking her best, but Richard’s face when she opens the door suggests it is worse than she thought.

  He blinks and then stumbles backwards, almost losing his footing.

  ‘Oh,’ says Neve stupidly. ‘What is it?’

  Richard’s face is deathly pale, his dark eyes almost black. He opens and closes his mouth and appears unable to speak.

  Before she really thinks about it, Neve has hold of his sleeve and is hauling him over the threshold and into the house.

  ‘God, what’s wrong, are you sick?’ she says and he seems to come back to himself. She can almost see his spine stiffening as he clears his throat.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he says, in that clipped tone. ‘Really. There’s no need to fuss.’

  ‘I’m not fussing,’ snaps Neve. ‘You’re being weird.’

  She glares at him and his eyes shift away from her and down to the dog, who has come ambling out to say hello.

  ‘I’m not having a stroke,’ he says, reaching down and patting Jarvis awkwardly. ‘Low blood sugar, I expect. Had breakfast too early.’

  His attempt at a smile now, a slight upward curve to one side of his mouth, does little to make him look more friendly.

  ‘Right. If you say so,’ says Neve doubtfully.

  ‘So, er, has this one been much trouble?’ he says as Jarvis lies down heavily between their respective feet.

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘but about that …’

  She tells him about Jarvis’s unintended trip out of the house and the fact that someone had possibly kicked him. She is blushing with the shame of it as she speaks but Richard merely nods along, as though she is telling him about a perfectly ordinary itinerary.

  He doesn’t seem to be listening, in fact, so she repeats that the dog will need an x-ray.

  ‘Right,’ says Richard. ‘If you could just get his things.’ He clearly can’t wait to leave.

  Stupid, annoying man.

  As he moves to the front door though, she forces the words out of her mouth before she can change her mind.

  ‘Richard, do you know why Isabelle was visiting a bloke in prison?’

  He has his back to her and she sees him freeze before turning, his face fixed.

  ‘No, I er, no, I mean.’ His gaze swooshes past, and almost, but doesn’t quite, land anywhere near her face. ‘My sister had all sorts of lost causes in her time. Bit of a law unto herself.’

  ‘Right,’ says Neve tightly. ‘Okay then,’ she adds in a breathless rush, ‘so do you know why she was so scared of living here? Why did she put bars on all the windows?’

  There’s a silence that seems to expand and suck all the oxygen out of the hallway.

  His face is so stricken now that Neve prickles with the rawness of it.

  ‘She was …’ he says and his eyes seem to cloud and redden ‘… she always had an over-active imagination. Even when we were small children, she would be the one who thought there was a ghost in the wardrobe, or, I don’t know, a bogeyman at the window.’

  Neve thinks about the old manor house up the road and the constipated emotions of the man in front of her. She is filled with a painful hope that people listened to young Isabelle once. That she was reassured at least when she was a child that the bad things weren’t out to get her. But maybe the bad things were real?

  ‘Right, well I think we’re all done,’ she says and Richard practically runs out of the door. Jarvis looks back at her and she feels a tug in her chest.

  He’s not her dog. She doesn’t live here. It isn’t her problem.

  An hour later, Neve is shivering on the second bus. The snow had been shor
t-lived, but it was still, she thought, about a thousand times colder than London.

  As the countryside unfolds around her she thinks about what she intends to say to Bob Dyer when she arrives at his house. She doesn’t even have any guarantee that he is going to be there. It’s entirely possible that he will be off golfing, or going on a cruise, or whatever retired policemen do in their spare time.

  When Neve gets to Exeter, she feels an intense pleasure at being in a city again, albeit a small city. She is overwhelmed by a desire to drink all the good coffee she can find; to buy shoes that will be useless in the countryside and impractical tops in thin, floaty fabrics that are only of use in warm offices and bars. Despite her woolly head and sore throat, she wants to cram it all in, to take it with her when she returns to that lonely cottage again.

  She looks around, blinking like a country mouse. She would never have countenanced walking around London looking such a state. This thought seems to pull the plug somewhere inside her and all her enthusiasm swirls and drains away. What was she thinking? She has no money to spend here.

  She has no job, no boyfriend. She has nothing, apart from that bloody depressing cottage she doesn’t even want and perhaps an inherited stalker.

  No mum and dad to look after her any more.

  Neve’s throat constricts and she squeezes her eyes shut. When she was going out every weekend, having a laugh with Daniel and her friends, it was easier not to be sad.

  But she has been alone with herself in this past, strange week, and it’s like something is waiting. Something huge and painful, with the potential to smother her.

  Neve decides she will have that coffee, hang the cost. And she’ll have the biggest cake she can find to go with it, despite her churning stomach.

  She is hoping to doze on the train, despite the fact that there is a portly man in a suit whose phone pings with messages every five seconds opposite her and a woman with a disgruntled, whiny toddler across the aisle.

  But she makes a pillow out of her jacket and leans against the window, anyway, hoping for some peace from all the thoughts that seem to knot and gather there. This might be a pointless journey. But she’s doing something proactive, rather than sitting in the cottage and feeling frightened.

  It’s only when she feels wetness against her face that she realizes she has been deeply asleep and drooling on her makeshift pillow. There had been no dreams, no awareness of anything happening around her. Simply the soft blackness her body had needed.

  She blinks and stretches her stiff neck. Her hair is all bunched up on one side and she attempts to pat it back vaguely into place. The businessman is openly staring at her and she gives him one of her looks. The woman with the toddler has got off the train now and Neve suddenly experiences a moment of panic that she has missed her stop. She doesn’t want to have to ask the creep opposite and is saved by an announcement saying that Templecombe is next. Quickly looking at the app on her phone she sees this is the stop before Sherborne.

  Neve spends the last few minutes of her journey practising what she is going to say to Bob Dyer.

  You HAVE TO tell me what was going on. Who did she visit in prison? Was she in danger? Am I in danger too?

  As the train pulls away from Templecombe station, there’s an announcement that Sherborne is the next stop.

  34

  Pale winter sun bathes the small market town as she makes her way out of the station.

  Following the instructions on Google maps on her phone, she walks down a long road and finds herself in front of a breathtaking abbey of pale gold brick, which stands majestic in neatly tended grounds. The bells ring out then, rich and strong, and the sound soothes her nerves a little, albeit momentarily.

  She walks up a narrow high street busy with shoppers that is crammed with delis and upmarket clothes shops, or small gift shops selling trinkets and expensive kitchenware. The town has a holiday, touristy air. She thinks about how much her mum would have loved poking about in those shops looking for souvenirs.

  At the top of the high street she takes a left and it is a matter of minutes before she finds herself outside a row of narrow two-storey houses with a sign saying ‘The Fairway’. The houses look relatively new, but have been built in the local light stone and match the surrounding, older cottages.

  Neve’s mouth is dry and she takes a swig from the water bottle in her handbag. Her hands are shaking a little. She feels like a fake reporter, without any of the nerve or skills to carry it off.

  She makes herself lift her hand to ring the doorbell, practising what she might say.

  Nothing happens. She rings again and tries to peer in through the net curtains covering the bay window at the front of the house. A dog barks inside, a high-pitched yapping indicative of no one else being there.

  ‘Bugger,’ she says with feeling. ‘Bugger, bugger.’

  Neve is suddenly so tired and dispirited that she feels as though her legs won’t hold her weight any longer. She sinks down onto the step, feeling the cold bite through her clothes. She puts her head in her hands and lets out a frustrated squeal, thinking about the money she has wasted getting here.

  She sits like this for several moments, until, sensing movement nearby, she looks up.

  ‘What on earth are you doing on our doorstep?’

  The couple are in their sixties. It’s definitely him. The man who came to the cottage that first day and ran away. Bulky in a black rain jacket, he is carrying several Sainsbury’s bags. The woman looks a little younger, with short hair that’s shot through with multiple highlights in colours ranging from russet to yellow blonde. She is dressed in a smart quilted jacket with the collar up and holds a basket looped over her elbow, her hand extended. A pair of sunglasses are perched neatly on her head.

  Neve jumps to her feet, blushing furiously. She attempts a friendly smile to show she is a normal, harmless person, and not a mad woman intending damage to their doorstep.

  ‘I’m Neve,’ says Neve, the smile on her face becoming a rictus now. ‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Bob Dyer, face set. ‘But I really don’t see any need to talk to you. Come on Linda.’

  Bob Dyer glares at his wife, who stares at him for a moment, and then back at Neve. She lets out a sigh and then reaches into her pocket, bringing out keys.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she says, her voice soft and apologetic and Neve hesitates before moving away from the doorstep.

  ‘Look, why won’t you just talk to me?’ she says, unable to keep the whiny desperation out of her voice as the door opens and the couple bustle past her and go inside.

  ‘There’s simply no good that can come of it,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry.’

  The woman, Linda, also mouths ‘Sorry’ at Neve as she keeps on speaking, her voice getting louder and her words faster. ‘I just want to know what was going on! Why was she going to Low Linney prison! Who was she scared of!’

  She murmurs ‘Please’ pathetically as the door is closed firmly.

  ‘Shit!’ Neve kicks a small clod of mud that is next to her boot on the pavement. ‘Shit!’

  She pulls up her collar with hands that shake with frustration and anger and begins to walk down the road fast. A complete waste of time, all of it. What was she even thinking, coming here? This isn’t her business. What an idiot she is.

  Her phone rings suddenly and she takes it from her bag, filled with an illogical surge of hope that it’s Bob Dyer, with a change of heart. She doesn’t recognize the caller’s number and she quickly answers, a little breathlessly.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Yes, hello,’ says a cultured voice. ‘This is Georgia McColl. I’m outside your cottage waiting to come in and do the valuation we booked?’

  ‘Shit!’ she says again. ‘I mean, I’m really sorry. Something came up. I’m not there today. Can we re-arrange?’

  There is a tight pause before Georgia McColl speaks. She sounds clipped now.

  ‘I guess we can, if you can guar
antee you will be here.’

  Neve issues flurries of apologies and agrees that the estate agent can come back tomorrow. She hadn’t sounded at all pleased to be stood up, but Neve doesn’t have the brain space left to feel guilty about this.

  She walks slowly back down the high street, thinking about the long journey back to the cottage. The train back to Exeter isn’t for another hour. She stops in front of a coffee shop and, despite being neither hungry, nor thirsty, pushes open the door to the steamy, warm interior.

  There are only a few tables, which are all taken, but she is lucky; a couple of elderly ladies in matching Barbour jackets are just getting up. They talk at the same time in loud upper-class voices as they harvest handbags and stout shopping bags. Neve manages a weak smile of gratitude as she slips past them into the waiting seat by the window.

  The waitress comes over after a few moments. She’s a small, round woman about Neve’s age, her hair in a tight ponytail that gives her a startled appearance as she asks Neve what she’s having.

  For a moment, Neve feels overwhelmed by the mental processes involved in this exchange. She can’t remember the last time she had a proper sleep, all night, and in a bed in which she felt safe. Not sober, anyway. It’s only when she realizes the waitress is now looking at her a bit oddly that she forces herself to make a decision.

  ‘Can I have a Coke please,’ she says. ‘I mean a fat one. Not Diet.’

  The waitress nods and says, ‘Right-oh,’ before leaving her alone. She rests her head in her hands, feeling that her hair is greasy, and closes her eyes. Her body feels as heavy as if it were made of a series of sandbags. The prospect of dragging the weight of herself all the way back to Truro, and then on a bus to the cottage, seems like a thing of enormous difficulty.