AllFreeNovel
Share Us
1
Five weeks later
Lettie
Lettie stepped out of the taxi and sucked in a deep breath of warm sea air. It was fresher than the mash of exhaust fumes and sweaty humanity she was used to, and the view before her was a world away from her tiny balcony in London. That overlooked an ugly brick warehouse and a cemetery filled with blackened gravestones. Whereas here…
Lettie gazed around, at the ocean stretching towards the horizon, a moving sheet of navy blue, and the clifftop sprinkled with yellow gorse. And there, in front of her, stood a whitewashed building whose front door was flanked by stone pots overflowing with flowers.
So this was Driftwood House. It was described online as being ‘on top of the world’, and Lettie could see why.
It was the only building perched on the steep cliff that towered about Heaven’s Cove, the pretty village her taxi had just driven through – a village of quaint cottages and gift shops that was currently rammed with tourists. Several had prompted a stream of muttered swear words from her taxi driver by wandering obliviously across the road. And his mood hadn’t improved when he’d seen the potholed track that led to the top of the cliff.
Lettie brushed auburn curls from her eyes and watched his taxi bump its way back towards the village. Then, she ran her finger across the rail ticket from Paddington still nestled in her jeans pocket, hardly able to believe she was here.
This trip had been a last-minute decision. She’d jumped on the train to Devon with hardly a second thought, even though she’d never been a spontaneous sort of person. Her approach to life was rather more low-key and cautious.
But perhaps losing someone you loved and then being fired from your job just five weeks later made you braver. It certainly made you… Lettie drew in another deep breath and tried to make sense of the jumbled thoughts racing through her mind. It made you unsettled, she decided; unsettled, scared, and sad. Very, very sad.
Tears filled her eyes as she touched the gold filigree key hanging around her neck. Here she was, where Iris grew up but without her beloved great-aunt by her side.
If Iris were here, she’d know just the right thing to say about being ‘let go’ from your job, thought Lettie, glancing at the seagulls screeching overhead. She’d know how to make Lettie laugh and ease the sadness that had washed over her in waves for weeks. How ironic that the only person whose cheerful chatter could ease her low mood was the very same person whose death had initially caused it.
A warm wind blew through Lettie’s hair as she made an effort to pull herself together. Iris would want life to go on, and Lettie’s family certainly seemed to be coping with the old lady’s death far better than she was. They hadn’t even seemed that upset at the funeral, though it had reduced her to a snivelling wreck.
Thoughts of her family prompted Lettie to check her phone that she’d switched to silent a few hours earlier. There were four missed calls and a barrage of texts from her sister, Daisy. The latest said, simply:Where the hell are you? Stop being such a drama queen and call me back.
For a trainee life coach, Daisy wasn’t the most empathetic of people. Lettie pushed the phone back into her pocket, picked up her case and walked to the front door of Driftwood House. She knocked and waited, noticing that, although the whitewash on the walls was pristine, the wooden window frames and tiled roof were more weather-beaten. Up here, on top of the world, strong winds and storms must sweep in off a deep, dark sea and batter the building.
Lettie shuddered and had just raised her hand to knock again when the door was wrenched open.
‘There you are! Welcome to Driftwood House! How was your journey from London? It can take a while, especially if there’s a queue for the taxis at Exeter station. Do come in.’
Lettie blinked under the verbal onslaught but stepped over the threshold into a sunny hall with black and white floor tiles and a grandfather clock in the corner. She’d assumed that women who ran seaside guesthouses would be on the older side of middle-aged, but the woman delivering such an effusive greeting was around thirty, like her, with bright brown eyes and fair hair that flicked up where it hit her shoulders.
‘Welcome to Driftwood House,’ the woman repeated, then winced. ‘Sorry, I think I’ve said that already. You must be Lettie. My name’s Rosie. Can I give you a hand?’ She picked up the suitcase and smiled. ‘Wow, you travel light.’
‘I didn’t need to bring much with me,’ answered Lettie, realising she’d forgotten loads of stuff, including her walking boots, socks and moisturiser.
She’d been in a rush to get away from London, which was silly really because – bereavement and unemployment aside – her life there was OK. She had family and friends who cared about her, and a tiny rented bedsit of her own.
But an increasing sense of loneliness was hard to shake these days. Her closest friends had either moved out of London or settled down and had babies, or both. And now Iris was gone too, and Lettie, in her more dramatic moments, felt as if she’d been cast adrift with no particular purpose in life.
She automatically felt again for the key hanging around her neck, as though it was a magical talisman with all the answers.
‘Let me get you settled in,’ said Rosie, breaking into Lettie’s thoughts. ‘Shall I give you a quick tour of the house and then I can take you to your room?’
‘That would be great. Thank you. It’s nice to meet you too, by the way.’
Rosie gave a wide, bright smile and, still carrying the suitcase, led Lettie into a sitting room that smelled of polish. Red roses were arranged in a vase on the stone mantelpiece and framed paintings of wild moorland lined the lemon-yellow walls.
‘You’re welcome to use this room whenever you like,’ said Rosie, standing next to the window with its view across the cliff to the sea. ‘There’s only me in the house at the moment so please make yourself at home.’
‘Is it just the two of us? I thought you’d be really busy during the summer months.’
‘To be honest, I’ve only just opened as a guesthouse and you’re my very first arrival. That’s my excuse for being horribly over the top when you arrived.’
When she wrinkled her nose, Lettie grinned. ‘You were only a tiny bit over the top, and you wereverywelcoming.’
