Page 3 of The Forever Cottage

‘You’re the one making all the impulsive decisions. It’s not fair to keep Hannah in the dark. You’ve lied to me for goodness knows how long, but I’m not prepared to do it to our daughter. She deserves to know the truth. I don’t want to be in a position where she asks me why I didn’t tell her what was going on. I can’t sit through our weekly video calls pretending that everything’s fine when it isn’t. News travels fast around these parts. It’s only a matter of time before she finds out.’

‘It’s not going to happen. How can she possibly find out, if we don’t tell her?’

With every word that he spoke, Tess’s annoyance heightened. Did he really have no idea of the devastation that he’d caused?

‘Easily. If Dilly next door knows then it could be across the whole county by now.’

‘Jeez, Tess. What the heck have you done? What on earth possessed you to tell Dilly?’

She took a breath, pressing her lips together to stop the torrent of abuse, festering inside, from leaving her mouth.

‘I didn’t. She worked it out for herself.’ Images of the night that he’d left her flooded her mind. No wonder Dilly had heard raised voices. Tess had screamed and hollered, making noises that she hadn’t even known she was capable of, throwing Charles’s wellies, which were the nearest things to hand, after him.

‘Besides, why shouldn’t I tell her?’ she said now. ‘People are bound to find out sooner or later. I’m not going to keep your dirty little secrets. Look, I’m tired of this conversation. If you don’t tell Hannah today, tomorrow, then I will have to tell her myself and obviously, that won’t paint you in the best light.’

‘Fine!’ This was accompanied by another major sigh. ‘I’ll call her later, but don’t blame me if she rings you in floods of tears.’

‘I do blame you, Charles. I blame you for absolutely everything. This is all entirely your fault.’

She pressed the red button on the phone, cutting off the call, half tempted to throw the thing across the room, but she’d quickly learned that she would only have to pick it up from the floor herself and she’d probably break it in the process. Instead, she let out the scream she’d been hanging onto, not even caring that Dilly might hear next door.

The dog came running over, looking concerned, and Tess dropped to her knees, burying her face in his fur.

‘Oh Barney, it’s okay, it’s not your fault. It’s your stupid daddy. How could he walk away from all of this?’ Tess looked around her at the beautiful home they’d built together over the decades. When they’d first bought the property, it had been in a sorry state. The ramshackle, run-down cottage had broken windows, big, gaping holes in the roof and cobwebs in every corner of the building. Dating back to the eighteenth century, the house had damp in the walls and wood rot in the beams, but the extent of the work ahead of them hadn’t been enough to deter them. They’d been eager to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in. One of their first jobs had been to pull out the old kitchen cupboards and the grubby bathroom fittings, dumping them with glee into a succession of skips that came and went in the driveway, as they painstakingly restored each of the rooms slowly and as funds allowed, while they lived in a caravan in the back garden. Even then in its dilapidated condition, the house’s natural charm and beauty had been evident and Tess had been able to visualise the home it would be for their family one day.

Later on, when the cottage was in a liveable condition and after Hannah had arrived, they employed a building company to construct a two-storey extension. By then, Charles had been made a partner in the law firm and they’d been able to pursue their plans for a big, country kitchen leading on to an orangery which they filled with an oak dining table and rattan furniture, where they’d entertained their friends and family. The whole place was filled with the reminders of happy times and laughter. What would become of their beautiful home now?

Tess had been mulling over that particular dilemma for some time, her mug of tea having turned cold, when her telephone buzzed into action. Half expecting it to be Charles, calling to say he’d spoken to Hannah, she glanced at the display, feeling a sense of overwhelming relief at seeing her best friend, Gina’s name light up accusingly.

‘Tess! What’s going on? I can’t believe you didn’t call me.’

She supposed it had only been a question of time. The thing about Dilly Duchamp was that she was at the heart of the Lower Leaping grapevine and within a couple of hours of strategically bumping into Tess, the news of the Alexanders’ break-up had travelled around the village and beyond. It was something Tess hadn’t been looking forward to, breaking the news that her husband had deserted her for another woman, to everyone in her life, so in a way, it made it easier that Dilly had done the job for her.

‘Hi, Gina, I was about to call you, I promise, but… well, as you can imagine, I’ve been walking around in a daze for the last couple of days. It’s true. Charles has left me. It’s only beginning to sink in.’

‘What happened? I don’t understand.’ Tess could hear the bewilderment in Gina’s voice that matched her own incomprehension. ‘Did you have any idea? No, wait, don’t tell me. I’m coming round. There’s no way you can be on your own at a time like this. Have you told Suzy?’

‘No, she was next on my list.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll call her. We’ll be there as soon as we can.’

Tess wouldn’t have expected any other response from her best friends and she felt a pang of guilt that she hadn’t reached out to them when she’d first received the life-changing bombshell, but there was a part of her that had held onto the belief that if she didn’t mention it out loud then it couldn’t possibly be true. She’d been waiting for an explanation, some way to make sense of what had happened, but after speaking to Hannah and Charles this morning, it had been brought home to her the reality of her situation. No one was going to make things better for her. For the first time since she was a teenager, she was on her own, with no one else to rely on but herself.

4

‘What a bastard!’ proclaimed Gina after turning up at the door of Hollyhocks Cottage a little later. In her inimitable style, she breezed through the front door, a chilled bottle of wine in her hand, with Suzy following behind, and wrapped Tess in a hug that left a cloud of L’Air du Temps wafting in the air. When she came up for breath, Suzy took her place, who also squeezed Tess tight.

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Suzy, slipping her jacket off and hanging it over the stair post. ‘You must be devastated.’ She handed over a posy of flowers that looked freshly picked from her garden.

‘Should I open this now?’ asked Gina, brandishing the bottle of wine as she headed into the kitchen.

‘Maybe later,’ said Tess, not relishing the idea of cracking open the booze yet. ‘But you go right ahead if you fancy it. I’ll probably have a cuppa.’

‘I’m on it,’ said Gina, opening a cupboard and pulling out three mugs. The friends had been in and out of each other’s houses since the children were small so they knew their way around each other’s kitchens as if they were their own.

After Gina had made the tea and Suzy had produced a packet of shortbread biscuits from her handbag, which she’d picked up from the local farm shop, they settled in the chairs in the orangery. The doors were opened onto the garden, and the scent of the sweet-smelling jasmine climber wafted inside and around them.

‘Did you have any idea?’ Suzy asked, taking a sip from her mug.

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