The Cottage at Rosella Cove Read online

  ‘Well, yes, we can’t have that now, can we?’

  ‘Indeed.’ He seemed to hesitate.

  Nicole shifted her weight from side to side.

  ‘I really should let you get back to it then.’ Danny backed out of the room.

  ‘Wait.’ Nicole caught up with him. ‘Thank you. Really.’ She could feel her eyes welling up again. Damn.

  He reached out and touched her arm. ‘Any time.’

  The next morning Nicole continued painting the first layer of undercoat on the walls and by late afternoon she had two rooms completed. She stretched out her aching shoulders. If only there was a bath in the cottage. Oh well, a cuppa and then flopping into bed sounded just as good.

  ‘Anyone home?’ Mandy’s voice called from the verandah and Nicole let out a long sigh.

  ‘Hi, Mandy.’ She forced a smile. She really just wanted to go to bed early.

  ‘I thought we might christen this gorgeous new kitchen of yours.’ She held out two shopping bags of food. ‘Danny said it came up a treat, but he wasn’t sure you were completely happy with it.’

  What? Oh. She’d hoped he hadn’t seen her crying.

  ‘It is stunning,’ she said to Mandy. ‘Take a look.’

  They went into the kitchen and Mandy gasped. ‘It is. So why aren’t you dancing a jig?’

  ‘I’m just exhausted.’ It wasn’t entirely a lie. She was actually exhausted.

  Mandy’s face fell. ‘Oh. All right then. Maybe it’s best we do this another time.’

  ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Nicole didn’t want to upset Mandy. The woman had been nothing but kind to her. ‘What about tomorrow?’

  Mandy’s smile sparkled. ‘Tomorrow it is.’

  After Mandy left, Nicole curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea. As she lay Ivy’s box in her lap, a sharp trill echoed through the large room. She looked at her phone. A Sydney number she didn’t recognise. All her editing work came through email, and only Mandy and Danny had her new number. It must be a call centre. Certainly not worth answering when she had other, more interesting things to focus her attention on.

  She opened Ivy’s box and reached for the next letter, stopping as she fingered through the envelopes at the blaring red and yellow of another telegram. February, 1944.

  Nicole held her breath.

  ‘I DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR HUSBAND SGT T WILSON PREVIOUSLY REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION IS NOW REPORTED KILLED IN ACTION DEEPEST CONDOLENCES LETTER TO FOLLOW MINISTER FOR THE ARMY 4 45 PM’

  Tears streamed down Nicole’s face. No! No, no, no. It couldn’t end like this. Oh, Ivy.

  To hell with her schedule and rationing. Nicole ripped open the next letter.

  16th July, 1944

  My Dearest Tom,

  Life without you makes no sense. I have tried so hard to be stoic. I have endeavoured to come to terms with your loss and continue on, as life dictates I must. But I simply cannot let you go.

  I have cried more than I thought possible these past few months and I have cursed God and screamed into my pillow at night. News of your passing should not have come as a surprise to me with you missing for so long, but I always held out hope. Always.

  Now, that hope is gone. Now you are gone. And I am lost. What am I to do without you?

  It is your birthday today. Happy Birthday, my darling. You are now thirty-eight, though you will not have aged a day. You will forever be the handsome young man all the girls swooned over and I shall go grey and get wrinkles. In years to come, when I show a photo of my husband, people will no doubt look twice at me trying to place the dashing next to the dashed and not quite making us fit. No matter. I will have the precious memories of when we did fit together beautifully, and I shall hold fast to them.

  I planted a rosebush to mark the occasion. I hope I can nurture it to full bloom. Lucy made a delicious sponge cake to honour you and we blew out a candle for you. She spent the day with me, which I was concerned I would find hard to bear. I had been hoping to spend the day alone by the boatshed. However, it appears that on such a difficult day her company was a comfort to me.

  She does not force idle chatter, nor entertain salacious rumours, yet we manage to spend hours in conversation. She is quite the learned mind and we have had many a discussion on religion and philosophy.

  We do not discuss the war, though the papers report on nothing else it seems. The Allies have the upper hand, but I fear the swift end is not as nigh as the press wish us to believe, though I wish it were for the wives sitting at home waiting for the day Lucy and I will never see.

  I know I should cease these letters now you have left this world, but to do so would mean you are entirely lost to me forever. That the last piece of you I hold will disappear. And that is a burden I simply could not bear. It is silly, I know, my way to hold on to you a little longer. Yet hold on I must.

  Happy birthday, my love. You are with me always.

  Forever yours,

  Ivy

  Nicole’s heart ached. She returned the letter to its box and switched off the light allowing darkness to hide her sorrow.

  Rolling over to her left side, she hugged the spare pillow and closed her eyes tightly. A picture of Mandy and Trevor dancing in the pub floated through her mind. They danced out the front doors and onto the footy field. They danced past her atop Danny Temple’s shoulders. His green eyes flashed a smile at her as they spun away. They danced around her new kitchen, through her half-finished garden that was littered with Ivy’s letters, and past the boatshed where Charlie watched on, a frown on his face. From beside the boatshed a figure shrouded in black walked towards her, sending a shiver up her spine.

  August, Last Year

  Nicky’s throat hurt. And her eyes wouldn’t open.

  She could hear the quiet, repetitive beeping of a machine. She could feel something on her hand, pinching, uncomfortable, annoying. She could smell disinfectant.

  She was in a hospital.

  She blinked as she adjusted to the bright light.

  Mark was sitting in the chair by the window staring out into the early morning. Nicky closed her eyes. Images flashed through her mind. An ambulance. A jolting ride. Strange faces above hers, studying her. Blackness. Blurred light. A friendly face then blackness once more.

  She groaned.

  ‘Nicky?’ Mark’s familiar voice. ‘Are you awake?’

  She opened her eyes and saw the concern across his face.

  ‘Oh, thank God. You gave us such a scare.’

  She cleared her throat. ‘What happened?’

  He sat on the bed beside her and explained that she’d ruptured her fallopian tube and was rushed to hospital.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Apparently you had an ectopic pregnancy. Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?’

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t know.’

  Mark called for the doctor and an old man came in, wearing a calm, reassuring expression across his face that medical types often had when delivering bad news. The damage to her tube was so great they had had to remove it.

  ‘But that’s why Mother Nature gives us two of things.’ He smiled, an attempt, she guessed, to make her feel better. His words came at her in a blur. Risk of reoccurrence. Blah, blah, blah. Specialist in Sydney. Blah, blah, blah. He finally left the room.

  Nicky turned to Mark. ‘When can we go home?’

  A week later Nicky sat in the specialist’s suite in Darlinghurst, squeezing her hands. She’d had ultrasounds and a laparoscopy, just to make sure everything was okay for when they wanted to have a baby, and they were waiting on the results. Mark paced the elegant waiting room.

  Inside the consultation room the specialist asked them to take a seat. She was a tall woman with a kind face and her demeanour immediately put Nicky at ease. She talked about each test, what it was designed to do, what it told her, what Nicky’s tests said specifically.

  ‘There is significant obstruction of yo
ur remaining fallopian tube, a malformation from birth, it seems. The chances of you falling pregnant without assistance are very slim …’

  Nicky reached out for Mark’s hand. He didn’t return her squeeze. The doctor continued to detail Nicky’s situation and Nicky tried to focus on her words.

  The ride home was silent. Nicky and Mark sat far apart from each other in the back of the taxi. Mark’s head was bent down over his phone the whole time.

  When they got home Nicky ordered in dinner, not that she felt like eating, but it was something to do. Maybe it would bring Mark back to her, make him talk to her as they sat at the dining table. When the food arrived she took out the plates and cutlery and set the table. Mark still wasn’t talking.

  She pushed her curry around the plate, barely taking a bite, watching him intently as he put forkful after forkful in his mouth, his eyes lowered to the table the entire time.

  ‘Mark. Please talk to me.’

  He looked up.

  ‘Please. We need to discuss this.’

  ‘What more is there to say?’

  ‘We haven’t said anything. About how we’re feeling. About what our options are. Talk to me, Mark.’

  Mark got up from the table and cleared his plate away. ‘Are you finished?’ He took her plate too.

  ‘Mark, please,’ she said, and grabbed his arm.

  ‘There’s nothing to say, Nicky.’

  ‘There’s plenty to say. We have options. Maybe not great options, but still. Options.’

  Mark turned and faced her, his face a storm cloud of emotion. ‘I’m not growing my baby in a test tube. That’s just not right. You can’t give me children, Nicky. And I don’t know what that means for us.’ He turned and walked away.

  It was his pain talking. She got that. She was hurting too.

  He just needed some time to process things. They both did. It was all such a shock. How could either of them think straight at the moment?

  She’d make an appointment for them to see a psychologist in a couple of weeks. Once they’d had some time to digest all the information. And then they could start to think about how they were going to navigate the new landscape of their life. They just needed time.

  Thirteen

  Mandy watched as Nicole carefully folded the egg whites into the cheese. ‘That’s it. Nice and gently. We don’t want to knock the air out.’

  ‘Like the mousse.’ Nicole smiled.

  ‘Yes, well, no need to relive that one.’ Mandy shook her head. ‘Can you believe how far you’ve come?’

  Nicole laughed. She may have come a long way, but it hadn’t been easy. Poor Mandy had continued the weekly lessons for the last month, patiently sharing her culinary knowledge with Nicole. It had taken her three goes to get the mousse to set properly, the cheesecake had the texture of rubber, the lamb roast landed on the floor with a loud thud when she took it out of the oven, and it was more than a little embarrassing when Jim and Danny turned up after someone called the Rural Fire Service, reporting smoke billowing from the cottage. Nicole had set the casserole too high and she and Mandy had got distracted chatting on the verandah. They were the butt of every joke at The Royal for some time afterward.

  Still, ever so slowly, Nicole was getting the hang of it. Her chicken parmigiana had turned out quite well and the caramel slice had been delicious. Even Charlie had enjoyed that one.

  And here she was attempting a soufflé. Mandy kept reassuring her it was easier than most people thought, but Nicole wasn’t convinced.

  ‘Secret’s in the prep of the ramekins,’ Mandy said. She’d given Nicole a set as a gift a few weeks earlier.

  Nicole poured the mixture into the ceramic moulds that sat on a tray, which she slowly lifted into the oven.

  ‘See, nothing to it.’ Mandy grinned.

  ‘Don’t jinx me.’ Nicole still didn’t believe jinxes, but there was no point tempting fate. ‘We’ll know in thirty minutes if there was nothing to it.’

  ‘Twenty minutes.’ Mandy corrected her and set the timer. ‘I’d better go. See you at trivia at seven.’ Mandy called as she headed off to see her mum in the home. ‘Let me know how these turn out.’

  Nicole was nervous as she pulled the tray out of the oven twenty minutes later, but the soufflé had turned out okay. Nicole happily dug into one and decided that, other than perhaps being a little bit heavier than they should be, they weren’t too bad at all. Jane would have loved them, her favourite dessert. Sadness wrapped itself around Nicole’s heart. She missed her friend all the time.

  She finished off a second one, and with her tummy full and no desire to do any renovations, she pulled out Ivy’s next letter, the date catching her eye.

  16th August, 1945

  My Dearest Tom,

  The war is over.

  The Americans have exacted retribution on the Japanese and they have surrendered. The papers are full of victorious stories and it is as if the entire nation has had a few pints and is dancing in the street. The joy is palpable.

  Unfortunately it comes too late for so many, and painfully so for those of us who lost love ones so close to the end. News of Samuel’s death reached us three days ago. Mrs Bridges has shut her door and answers to no one. To lose the colonel was hard enough on her, though she stayed strong. To lose her son in the same war! I cannot imagine the poor woman’s grief. That only leaves young William Tucker to come back to us. Only one from eleven.

  The very soul of our community bleeds even while it rejoices.

  Father Anthony is planning a special service for when William returns. A thanks for his safe homecoming and a memorial for you and the others. I do not know how I will get through it, even with Lucy by my side.

  I must confess, a feeling of ‘what now’ has wafted over me since the marvellous news of the surrender reached us. Even those without loved ones serving have been in a state of limbo, holding their breath till it was safe to exhale once more. And now they will expel their air of uncertainty and continue their lives, their daily routine no longer marred by tragic news or ration cuts. For them, things will become normal again, over time, perhaps, and perhaps a different kind of normal, but it will happen.

  I, however, fear I will not know normal again. You were my normal. Before you, I was a spoiled, lost little girl suffocating under Mother’s tyranny. Then you came along and set me free, showed me what life could be. What it should be. I never breathed before you entered my life. How shall I breathe now you are gone?

  The war has been a kind of distraction until now, I suppose, from your disappearance, from our lost little boy, from your death. Something to think about each day other than my own sorrow. Now it is over and all that is left is grief.

  How I am to find any sort of future without you here?

  Tonight before I sleep, I shall raise a glass of wine – do you remember the bottle we put aside the night you proposed? – toast the end of the war. I need to search for a new beginning.

  I miss you, my dear, so very, very much. May the world now know peace so that your sacrifice was not in vain.

  Forever yours,

  Ivy

  She read the letter again, letting the sadness and joy wash over her in turn. One line in particular stuck with her.

  For them, things will become normal again, over time, perhaps, and perhaps a different kind of normal, but it will happen.

  A different kind of normal. Nicole never would have guessed making soufflé and going to trivia nights would be her normal. But look where she was.

  She checked her watch. Damn it. She was going to be late.

  Ten minutes late wasn’t too bad, she figured as she rushed into the pub. She took quick stock and discovered she’d only missed three questions. And two of them were about sport, so that wasn’t too bad.

  Danny went to get her a drink and Jason asked the next question.

  ‘Which novel, a story within a story, won the 2002 Man Booker Prize?’

  ‘Not fair,’ shouted Cheryl and she pointed to Nic
ole. ‘They have an unfair advantage.’

  ‘Pipe down,’ Jason grumbled. ‘There are questions here for everyone.’

  Danny returned with drinks and looked at the answer Nicole had written, and shrugged.

  ‘Was it any good?’ he asked as he sat down.

  Life of Pi was one of those books that tended to polarise readers. ‘Not one of my favourites,’ she admitted.

  Danny nodded. ‘I saw the movie. Man, the loneliness of that boy!’

  There was something in his tone that caught Nicole’s ear. Something … sad.

  ‘Would you two stop talking? You’ve missed the next question.’

  ‘Sorry, Mandy.’ Danny grinned and looked at Nicole.

  Oops, she mouthed back to him. She took a potato wedge from the bowl in the centre of the table. It was cold. That would teach her for coming late.

  That night it was Cheryl’s team that took home the prize – a bottle of red wine – and she didn’t mind one bit showing it off to the group as they all sat together after the game.

  ‘So, how’s Jack’s little quest going?’ Cheryl leaned across the table, her breasts threatening to spill from her shirt.

  Mandy shook her head. ‘He won’t tell us anything. He won’t even admit he has a crush on Katie Lewis. He’s just like his father. It took Trev eighteen months to work up the courage to ask me out.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Trevor said sheepishly, hanging his head. Everyone laughed.

  ‘And I’m pretty sure Katie feels the same way about him, but they’re both too scared to do anything about it.’

  ‘Aw, how sweet,’ said Jacqui, rocking a sleeping Amy in her arms. The only way she could make it tonight was if she brought the baby with her, and she was determined to get out of the house. ‘I’m sure they’ll figure it out.’

  ‘If I had my way …’ Mandy raised her finger.

  ‘If you had your way, Fate and Destiny would be out of a job and the entire cove would be under your control.’ Cheryl laughed.

  ‘And the world would be a better place for it,’ Mandy retorted, and raised her glass in salute.