AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 2
At the edge of the village, where the lane became a rutted track, Rosie picked up her suitcase and started climbing up and up the steep path. It was wide enough for a car, though few drivers risked their suspension. That was why her mum had driven an ancient midnight-blue Mini.
There’s no point in shelling out on a fancy car, Rosie. It’ll only get wrecked by the potholes or the salt spray when a storm’s blowing in.
Rosie spotted the rusty car when she reached the end of the track. It was parked on the grass at an odd angle, as though the driver had leaped out, keen to get on with her day. That was Mum all over, always full of ideas and enthusiasms and never still. It was hard to take in that such a big personality could be snuffed out by such a tiny blood clot. It just didn’t seem possible.
Abandoning her suitcase, Rosie walked to the edge of the cliff and looked back at the house which faced the green-grey sea.
From the village, the house looked the same as it had for decades, with its bumpy whitewashed walls and dark tiled roof – too big to be described as a cottage, too small to be described as grand.
But up close, Rosie could see that ocean winds and rain had taken their toll in the three years since she’d last been home. The bottom of the wooden front door was swollen as though it might burst, and paint on the walls had bubbled into huge blisters. Driftwood House looked sad, as if in mourning for her mother.
Images suddenly cascaded through Rosie’s mind: her mum laughing during her last trip to Spain; the look on her face when Rosie said she wasn’t ever planning on coming home for good; her body at the funeral home. ‘I’m so sorry, Mum, if I let you down,’ whispered Rosie. But her words were whipped away by the wind and carried out over the white-tipped waves towards France.
Rosie unlocked the front door and used her shoulder to shove the bloated timber across the hall tiles. The last time she’d been home, the house was filled with the smell of freshly baked biscuits and caramelised sugar. Mum was always on a mission to feed her up. But today only a musty aroma of damp and dust greeted her when she dragged her suitcase into the house and pushed the door closed behind her.
‘OK, I’m back, so what happens now?’ Was talking to herself a normal symptom of grief? Matt had googled ‘grief’ on his phone while she was desperately trying to book a flight, but she couldn’t remember what he’d said about it. He hadn’t been terribly helpful, actually.
‘When will you be back, Rosie? I need you,’ were his final words as she shoved her suitcase into the taxi. As though she was letting him down by going back to England.
Rosie gave her head a shake to dislodge the memory and started walking around the house, almost expecting her mum to leap out from behind a door and give her a hug.
See, love, itwasall a big mistake after all. Of course I’m not dead. Now get yourself unpacked and we’ll have a walk to Sorrell Head before tea.
But there was no Mum, no mistake – just an empty house that had become shabby and worn since she was last here. Rosie noticed damp patches on the walls and windows rattling in the sea breeze as she moved from room to room like a ghost. When did Driftwood House start to fall apart?
After going back to the kitchen and making herself a cup of Earl Grey, she sat in the silent conservatory and gazed at the view. Built on the back of the house, this room lacked a sea vista. But the view was magnificent, nonetheless, overlooking acres of rural Devon that stretched in a soft green swathe towards Dartmoor in the west. People would pay, thought Rosie, to enjoy such an amazing panorama while sheltered from blustery clifftop winds.
This was where she would play as a child when the weather was too poor for a walk. And when the sun finally came out, she’d sit here and watch her mother gardening. The tiny kitchen garden, with its pots of herbs and tubs of potato plants, was her mother’s sanctuary from the stresses of life, and was created in the months after Rosie’s father left. He’d moved to Milton Keynes when she was ten, and lived there with a succession of girlfriends until he died of cancer eight years ago. Their relationship had suffered after he left, but they’d still loved each other.
Rosie picked up the framed photo of her mum and dad in the window sill and brushed her finger across their faces. She’d insisted on having a photo of her dad in the house after their divorce and her mum had never put it away, even after Rosie moved out. Maybe she’d still loved him too, just a little bit.
That reminded her. Pulling her mobile phone from her bag, Rosie checked for calls from Matt but there hadn’t been any. She had missed a text, however, that had arrived unnoticed in all the flurry of airports and funeral homes and train journeys. Glad you’re there safe. Missing you already. Hope being home isn’t too tedious. I’ll call you. M x. It was the sort of message you’d send if your girlfriend had been summoned home for a family birthday, rather than a family bereavement.
If only he could have got time off work too and come back with her for the funeral. Matt wasn’t always the most empathetic of boyfriends, but he was loving and full of fun. The two of them had hit it off immediately when he’d joined the property agency she worked for a few months ago.
Sighing, Rosie put away her phone then climbed the stairs to her mother’s bedroom, with its lilac walls and heavy cream curtains she’d loved to hide behind as a child. A thin layer of dust had settled on the dressing table and she wiped it away with her hand before sitting on the bed. What had her mother been reading? Rosie tilted her head to read the title of a book splayed open on the duvet.Myths and Legends of Old Devon.That was just the sort of book her mum loved, with fantastical stories and ancient secrets. Rosie could imagine her reading it on the clifftop, all bohemian in a long dress with her blonde hair tied back with a scarf. Belinda’s gossip was often founded on half-truth and rumour, but she was right about one thing – Sofia was a bit of a hippy.
Leaving the book where it was, Rosie climbed fully clothed under the covers and breathed in a familiar smell of lavender. Mum swore by herbal remedies to help her nod off when the weather-blown house creaked and groaned. She must have been so lonely here, all on her own.
At last, the tight knot inside Rosie began to unravel and she cried great heaving sobs that echoed through the empty rooms. Tears soaked into the pillow as she begged, ‘Please come back,’ even though she knew that was impossible. It was just her now. Just her and Driftwood House.
