Page 46 of The Forever Cottage

‘You’ll discover that there’s a whole exciting new world waiting out there for you – new friends like Dilly, new experiences to sample, even new lovers, if you wanted. It would be a shame to miss out on everything that’s on offer because you’re clinging on to outdated ideals.’

32

It was only later, after Tess had taken Marjorie home and she’d returned to Hollyhocks Cottage, that Tess was able to properly consider her mum’s words. Had she been subtly telling her that she was stuck in her ways, that she was a bit of a pushover and that she needed to step out of her comfort zone? Tess would refute that; she saw herself as being kind and accommodating, a people pleaser perhaps but that in no way meant she was a doormat. And what had she meant about clinging to outdated ideals? Tess had been married for over thirty years. It wasn’t easy to shake off the shackles of that kind of partnership within a couple of months.

She shook her head, a smile appearing on her face. There was nobody better than your own mother to make you look at yourself with a critical eye.

Tess wandered across to the garden annexe and opened the double doors, walking inside. The room was familiar and welcoming and just as she remembered it, only now the linen had been removed from the bed and folded up neatly in a pile at the bottom. She looked around her, feeling a mix of emotions that Rob had gone. She might never have known that he’d been there if it wasn’t for the lingering fresh citrus scent hanging in the air. If she closed her eyes and picked out the notes of lemon groves, she could almost imagine Rob was there with her. There was a part of her that hoped he might have messaged to say that he was settled in, and sent her a photo of his new cottage, but perhaps she was imagining a closeness between them that didn’t actually exist.

Picking up the pile of laundry, she took it across to the utility room and placed it in the washing machine before collecting the picture that Rob had painted for her from the orangery. She went back across to the annexe and placed the framed picture on the easel. It would be a temporary home until she decided on the best spot for it on the walls. Tomorrow, she would hang it in place and then move back more of her crafting supplies, including her baskets of wool and scraps of fabric, and make the use of the space now that she had the opportunity.

All day, she’d been fighting off a sense of unease and she could only put that down to the fact that she still hadn’t heard from Hannah. She was missing her and that sense of longing to see her daughter, to hold her in her arms, was making her anxious. If she could just hear Hannah’s voice then it would allay her fears. She picked up her phone to check for the umpteenth time that day if she’d had any missed calls, but annoyingly, there was nothing from her, or Rob come to that. She was sorely tempted to phone her right then, but it would be the early hours of the morning in Australia and besides, she didn’t like calling without warning because she didn’t want to worry her daughter unnecessarily. Instead, she sent a voice message urging Hannah to get in touch, hoping that by the time Tess woke up the following day, Hannah would have responded to her request.

Instinctively, she thought about calling Charles, but what would he say? He would tell her that she was worrying unnecessarily and that Hannah would be in touch when she was good and ready, but how could Tess be certain? What if Hannah had had an accident, and was lying in a hospital bed somewhere? Or maybe she’d split up from Billy and found herself lost and alone, out of battery charge and with nowhere to turn? Tess’s stomach churned as she entertained all sorts of possibilities, each of them increasingly worrying.

There would be a perfectly logical explanation, she felt sure, but when she woke the following morning, immediately reaching for her phone, dread flooded her stomach when she saw that there had been no calls or messages from Hannah. It wasn’t like her. There had to be something wrong and that only intensified when she called Hannah and it went straight to her voicemail.

For a moment, she considered ringing Charles, but something stopped her. Instead, she called Sophie, Hannah’s best friend from school who had lived in a neighbouring village, but was now living in London, working for one of the big consultancy firms. She knew that she and Hannah kept in regular contact through various social media apps so perhaps she’d spotted her online recently.

Tess tried to keep her voice level and calm when Sophie answered the call immediately.

‘Hello, Tess?’ Sophie said, her voice expectant. ‘Is everything okay?’ It was a reasonable enough question when Tess hadn’t called Sophie in years. If ever, in fact. Any contact they might have had before would have been through Hannah, so it was only natural that Sophie might be surprised to hear from her best friend’s mum.

‘Yes, I was just wondering if you’d heard from Hannah at all? She normally calls on a Sunday but I didn’t hear from her yesterday and she’s not answering my messages.’

‘Oh… that’s not like Hannah. No, I haven’t heard from her in a while. In fact, hang on a minute…’ The line went quiet for a few moments. ‘No, it was early last week when I last heard from her, but it was only a quick reply to one of my messages. Look, I’ll see if I can contact her now and if I do, I’ll get her to message you.’

‘Thanks, Sophie. I’m sure I’m worrying unnecessarily. I bet she and Billy are off on some adventure somewhere, but I’ll feel better when I can speak to her. It’s such a long way away.’

‘Leave it with me, and I’ll let you know as soon as I track her down.’

It went a small way to making Tess feel better, but when she didn’t hear back from Sophie, she could only assume that her attempts to contact Hannah had met with the same dead end that Tess had found.

Perhaps the after-effects of her evening with Rob had left Tess feeling vulnerable and sensitive. Already she missed him and judging by the way Barney was skulking about the place, looking up at her with those big, brown, doleful eyes, she could only imagine that he was missing him too. It was another period of change and something she’d come to realise in recent weeks was that she didn’t always relish change.

Still, the advent of another day, a bright and gloriously sunny one at that, had given her a much more reasoned approach to having not heard from Hannah. If there was something wrong then she would have heard something from Billy or another of Hannah’s fellow travellers. There was no need to worry.

After her morning coffee and slice of toast with apricot jam, and with the reassuring voices of the radio accompanying her, she tried to keep herself busy, pottering about the cottage, gathering her craft supplies to take out to the garden room. She fed Barney, who had been following her around all morning expectantly, and she wondered, not for the first time, how she would ever have managed these last few difficult months without him at her side. He was her best buddy, a reason to get outside in the fresh air every day and someone she could talk to who always agreed with her point of view.

Her gaze flittered out the kitchen windows and she felt a pang of regret knowing that she would no longer see Rob’s distinctive frame walking down the lane.

‘You’re going to miss him too, aren’t you, Barney? I know, it’s very sad, but I promise to make it up to you with some extra-long walks.’

Tess wondered how Rob might be feeling as he settled into his new home. She could imagine one of the first things he would do was explore the local area on one of his long walks and then throw himself wholeheartedly into his new job. She really hoped he would keep in touch as he had promised.

Over in the garden annexe, she reconfigured the bed back into a sofa, covering it in cushions which made it look inviting, so much so that immediately, Barney jumped up and snuggled up into a tight ball, making himself comfortable. Tess sank down beside him and stroked him, enjoying being in the space that had been Rob’s home for a couple of months. She looked all around her, deciding that the wall opposite the sofa would be the perfect spot for Rob’s painting.

She was just thinking about the tools she would need to complete the job when she heard a car pull up on the gravel driveway. She craned her head to see who it was and immediately recognised that it was Charles. A mild sense of alarm rose in her chest. What was he doing here? On a Monday morning as well. Shouldn’t he be at work?

Barney had run ahead, barking, to give a hearty welcome to the visitor and Tess followed behind.

‘Tess, why didn’t you tell me?’ he demanded as he climbed out of the car.

‘What are you talking about, Charles?’

‘I heard from Sophie. She’d been trying to get hold of you. She said something about Hannah going missing?’

‘Oh!’ Tess quickly pulled out her phone to look, wondering if there might be a problem with her handset. Perhaps Hannah had been trying to contact her all along but hadn’t been able to get through. ‘Damn, my phone was somehow switched to silent,’ she said, seeing the missed calls from Sophie, but noticing that there was nothing from Hannah, or anyone else come to that.

---