The Cottage at Rosella Cove Read online

  As the afternoon sun began its slow descent, Nicole’s shoulders started to ache. Stripping wallpaper was nowhere near as fun as it sounded. And it hadn’t sounded like much fun. She decided there and then that she would never hang wallpaper anywhere, so no one coming after her would ever have to spend four hours trying to remove it from two walls.

  ‘Excuse me, Nicole.’ Danny stood in the bedroom doorway. ‘I think I might call it a day.’

  Nicole put down her scraper. ‘Me too. Can I offer you a tea or coffee before you go? Maybe some water?’ They’d worked all afternoon without a break.

  He accepted a glass of cold water and they sat at the Formica dining table in the kitchen in awkward silence.

  ‘So.’ Nicole needed to say something. Anything. ‘How do you know so much about repairing fireplaces?’

  ‘Because of my dad, actually. It was a hobby of his back in England.’

  Nicole thought she’d detected a slight accent. ‘You’re from England?’

  Danny nodded. ‘My family moved here when I was sixteen. My parents have gone back now, though.’

  ‘But you stayed?’

  ‘Yep.’

  She waited for him to elaborate, but he wasn’t forthcoming. She studied his face, trying to get a read on him. His eyes were soft, kind, but carried in them a touch of sadness.

  ‘And you’re a writer?’ he asked, and Nicole got the distinct impression he was changing the subject.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mandy told me.’ He smiled. ‘She was pretty excited about having a real writer among us.’

  ‘And are you a reader?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not like Mandy. History and architecture are more my thing.’

  ‘Have you ever tried historical fiction? Something like Pillars of the Earth?’

  ‘I’ll look it up,’ he said, and smiled.

  ‘Anyone home?’ Mandy’s light timbre rang through the cottage.

  Nicole got up to let her in, but she was already walking down the hall.

  ‘I just came to pick Jack up and thought I’d see if you wanted to come over for dinner tonight,’ Mandy said, swanning past Nicole towards the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t intrude.’ Nicole trailed after her, her mind racing to find a plausible excuse.

  ‘Nonsense. What’s one more mouth? Or two.’ She looked to Danny sitting at the dining table. ‘Even better.’

  ‘That’s very kind, but …’ Think, Nicole, think.

  ‘Unless you have something already prepared?’ Mandy raised an eyebrow.

  Nicole thought about the toast and jam she’d planned on having. ‘Well, no. I don’t.’ She shook her head.

  Danny rose from the table and leaned towards her. ‘No point trying to fight her,’ he whispered, and gathered his tools.

  ‘It’s settled, then!’ Mandy pulled a notebook out of her purse, ripped a page off and scribbled on it. ‘We’ll see you at seven. Here’s my address.’ Then, just as quickly as she’d whirled into the cottage, she was gone again, leaving a stunned Nicole in her wake.

  Nicole sat at the heavy wooden table that Mandy’s husband, Trevor, had apparently built many years ago and took the last mouthful of velvety fish pie from her plate. It was the good china, Mandy had said, the wedding Wedgwood that only came out for special guests or occasions. The table was decorated with a crisp white tablecloth and maroon paper napkins. Pink, yellow and white roses, picked fresh from the front garden, adorned the centre of the table.

  ‘How is everything?’ Mandy asked with the smallest hint of nervousness in her voice.

  ‘Oh, it’s delicious, thank you.’

  It reminded Nicole of her own mum’s fish pie, the one out of the Country Women’s Association cookbook that had been so well used the pages were falling out of their binding. In fact, the whole evening had reminded Nicole of the family dinners she used to enjoy. Mandy had taken control of the conversation, just like her own mum could, and did her best to fill Nicole in on the who’s who around town, including all the local heroes and villains.

  It may have been a different town from the one she grew up in, but the tales were the same. The evil local councilman who was always looking for the next big development to put the town on the map, willing to take any kind of kickback to line his own pocket. The resident greenies who chained themselves to the trees just outside of town and rallied the locals to stop said next big development – a resort, of course. The teacher at the small school whose dedication had seen more than one Year Twelve student make it into a top university degree, though their own personal life was never quite as successful. The florist who always donated her services when someone died as the poor family didn’t need any more grief.

  While his wife yakked on about small town musings, Trevor laughed, barely able to get an affirming ‘ah-huh’ in, even when asked a question. Jack sat quietly, putting away an amount of food Nicole found truly staggering, even for a young man. Danny seemed relaxed, like he was part of the family.

  Family. Nicole had to fight to keep melancholy thoughts from swallowing her. She looked around the room at the pictures of Mandy and Trevor and Jack that adorned the walls in mix-matched frames.

  ‘So, how do you like Ivy Wilson’s cottage?’ Trevor asked, as Mandy excused herself to prepare dessert. ‘Fair bit of work to be done, hey?’ He smiled warmly.

  ‘For sure. But with Jack’s help the garden at least isn’t quite so daunting.’

  Jack gave a corroborative grunt.

  ‘Still,’ Trevor continued, ‘bloody big job to tackle on your own. Surely a good-looking sort like you has a fella waiting in the wings, hey?’

  Nicole coughed. ‘Well, ah …’

  Jumping up and running from the room was probably a bit extreme, but that was all that came to her mind right then.

  Thankfully, she didn’t have to as Mandy came back in with a large pavlova bulging under the weight of cream and fruit piled on its delicate meringue crust. She whipped Jack’s dinner plate away as he scooped up the last morsel of his fifth helping of fish pie.

  ‘She’s not doing it alone, Trevor,’ Mandy said. ‘She’s got Danny helping.’

  Nicole took another sip of wine. She wasn’t supposed to be tackling this job on her own. She wasn’t supposed to be here at all. She was supposed to be happily married by now, ensconced in her inner-city apartment writing her next bestseller. She fidgeted with her napkin.

  Mandy sat down. ‘Have you got some family or friends coming to help you with the renos?’

  She scrambled to cover her truth. ‘No. I … ah … felt, I guess, like … I wanted a personal project, I suppose.’

  ‘You’re a brave woman.’ Trevor shook his head and then jumped as if he’d been kicked or pinched.

  Nicole didn’t feel brave. Not one bit.

  ‘Bit of a strange situation, though.’ Mandy served up the pavlova. ‘Making you fix up the place. It’s stayed empty all this time since the old girl died. No one knows why or how. Plenty of people sniffed around, made offers to the estate agent. But they were all turned down. Ivy had some big-shot Sydney lawyer taking care of things, apparently, and he wasn’t quite so forthcoming with information as one of our own might have been.’ She winked.

  Smart lady, Nicole thought. If you want to keep a secret in a small town, keep it elsewhere.

  ‘I reckon she’s got cousins or something in Sydney that inherited it. Never had any kids of her own. I guess they’re finally going to sell. Whoever they are.’

  The temporary nature of Nicole’s situation hit her again. Six months was all she had here and then the cottage would be sold.

  ‘So, what do you make of our little corner of the world, Nicole?’ Trevor asked, looking very pleased with himself that he got another question in.

  ‘It’s a beautiful spot,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘And so peaceful.’

  ‘You haven’t met Charlie, then.’ Jack gulped down a large portion of pavlova.

  ‘Sorry?’

&
nbsp; ‘Charlie. The crazy old guy who lives in the boatshed.’

  So Charlie was his name.

  ‘Now, now, Jack. He’s not crazy. Just a bit of a loner.’ Mandy shrugged.

  ‘Bit?’ Jack snorted. ‘He hasn’t spoken to anyone in what, a hundred years?’

  Mandy shot her son a look and he quickly put another spoonful of pavlova into his mouth. ‘Just saying.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Charlie moved here some forty-odd years ago, so Mum says. Or is it fifty? No, fifty.’

  Mandy’s grey eyes sparkled as she eased into her story. ‘Kept to himself right from the beginning, they say. We were scared of him as kids …’

  ‘’Cause he’s a crazy loner,’ Jack said, spluttering cream onto his plate.

  Both Mandy and Trevor clipped him over the top of his head.

  ‘You know how kids can be. Case in point.’ Mandy’s steely glare silenced her son. ‘But Charlie’s never harmed anyone or anything. In fact quite the opposite …’

  Mandy’s words drifted off and a sad, wistful look crossed her face momentarily. Nicole wondered what memory she was holding back.

  Mandy cleared her throat. ‘He just stays out of the way, really.’ Her focus was now back to the present. ‘People have tried over the years to get to know him, but no one has ever managed.’

  ‘Not even my wife. Not for a want of trying, mind you.’ Trevor winked at Mandy, his eyes crinkling around the edges, his smile crooked.

  ‘True,’ she admitted. ‘Like everyone else I went out of my way as a kid to spy on him. No one knows much about him at all. Where he came from, why he stayed. One day he just appeared and was living in the boatshed and has been there ever since. Never had any visitors, far as anyone knows.’

  A spark of latent curiosity ignited and Nicole found herself desperate to know more about the old man and find out what lay beneath his gruff exterior. Would he have to leave too once the cottage sold? Or were they separate properties, divvied up at some point in their history? She hung on Mandy’s every word.

  ‘Comes into town once every three months or so for food and basic supplies and every morning heads off along the northern face. No one knows where he goes or why. Every now and then some brave kids try to follow him.’ She looked pointedly at Jack. ‘But he always sees them and scares them off.’

  ‘Because he’s a weirdo,’ Jack mumbled.

  ‘That’s enough, Jack,’ Danny said quietly. ‘There’s more to Charlie than you think.’ The mood around the table shifted and silence fell.

  ‘This is a lovely pav, Mandy.’ Nicole changed the conversation.

  ‘Thanks. The secret’s in the cream. King Island,’ she whispered.

  Nicole offered to help with the dishes, but Mandy would have none of it. She kissed her husband on the top of his balding head. ‘You can help, though.’

  Nicole had insisted on walking home, citing fresh air and a need to stretch her legs. But what she really needed was some space. She hadn’t had this much social interaction in, well, she couldn’t remember how long.

  It hadn’t been unpleasant. Quite the opposite. But it had been overwhelming.

  She could have gone straight home, but the thought of being surrounded by those stark bare walls wasn’t exactly inviting.

  In the distance the town lights twinkled as Nicole strolled along the headland. Moonlight bounced off the tall gum trees lining her path like sentries standing at attention, and quiet washed over her like a balm.

  The boatshed rose before her, shrouded in darkness.

  ‘I thought I told you to leave me alone.’ Through the night, Charlie’s voice rumbled towards her.

  Nicole jumped. ‘God, don’t scare me like that.’

  ‘Then don’t snoop around where you’re not wanted.’

  ‘I wasn’t snooping.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’ Charlie frowned.

  ‘I was just out walking.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want you here.’

  Nicole wouldn’t have been surprised if Charlie stamped his foot next. ‘I don’t really want to be here, either, but I don’t exactly have a choice.’

  ‘We always have a choice.’

  Was he right? Was there another road Nicole’s life could have taken? ‘Maybe. But not always much of one.’

  The hardness around Charlie’s eyes softened ever so slightly.

  ‘Goodnight, Charlie.’ Nicole smiled.

  He grunted and walked away.

  Charlie knew all about choices. He’d made some pretty catastrophic ones in his life. He only hoped his latest choice regarding the cottage wasn’t going to end up in that category. He had to believe it wouldn’t.

  He lay awake on his old wooden bed and stared out the portal window to the indigo sky until it bled into morning. Some nights, sleep evaded him entirely. It was often better when it did. At least awake he could stop the images coming. The sounds.

  Bright orange flames radiating heat that sucked the air from his lungs. Screams, desperate cries that pierced through the thick blanket of smoke.

  At least awake he could force his thoughts away from his mistakes and towards the woman he’d silently loved, the warmth and kindness in her green eyes that had once gazed upon him without judgement, even though she knew the truth.

  Four

  It turned out flocked wallpaper was a lot harder to get off than regular wallpaper. Nicole reasserted her conviction that she would never be the perpetrator of such a crime against renovation. After she’d spent four days stripping out the main bedroom, living room and hallway, she’d figured tackling the spare room would come easy. She was wrong. She’d struggled all morning and was only now starting to make progress.

  As she scraped a small piece off she noticed something underneath. Not the plain old walls she’d uncovered in other parts of the cottage, but something patterned. She scraped another jagged strip off the wall. Yes. Beneath the flocked terror was another layer of wallpaper.

  Surely this constituted crimes against humanity.

  Nicole ran her fingers over the pattern. Small toy soldiers and building blocks – wallpaper for a child’s room.

  But hadn’t Mandy said Ivy never had children? And that no one had been in the property since her passing? It must be from an earlier owner, Nicole figured.

  Pushing through exhaustion, she worked all day to reveal the whole room, careful not to damage the second layer of paper. She stood in the middle of the room and stared at the walls. She was in no doubt that this had once been a nursery.

  Nicole opened her laptop and Googled wallpaper, trying to get a sense of the age of the children’s pattern she’d uncovered. Thirty minutes of trawling through various websites left her no definitive answer, but from what she could tell, it was probably from the thirties or forties.

  When did Ivy and Thomas arrive?

  Questions swirled through Nicole’s mind as she paced the kitchen floor. There were, potentially, answers right here within her grasp. Right inside that cupboard in the corner where she’d shoved Ivy’s box.

  She edged towards the cupboard door, and retreated back again. No. She couldn’t.

  Nicole wasn’t sure if she believed in fate or signs. She wasn’t sure what she believed in anymore at all. But she couldn’t ignore the fact she’d found the box and that echoes of Ivy and Thomas seemed to be shadowing her – the initials carved into the bench, the ones over the fireplace.

  Maybe she could just take a peek.

  She pulled the box out of the cupboard and sat it on the table. She took a step back, then inched towards it again and sat down.

  She pulled out the letters and undid the yellow ribbon that tied them together. She broke the wax seal of the first letter, the cracking sound sending a shudder of guilt through her as she ripped into this woman’s private life.

  11th January, 1941

  My Dearest Tom,

  Today I have sent you a telegram with the most wonderful news. I hope it reaches you safely. Perhaps it is silly of me to write
as well. Given how long this letter takes to reach you, these words will not be news at all, but the brevity of a telegram simply cannot do for news like this.

  As I write, I am two months along. Yes, my love. That night we spent in the boatshed before you shipped out. Do you remember it? I can never forget it myself. How you picked me up from the bench after our supper by the sea and carried me through the door, the way your hand reached beneath my petticoat and the warmth of your touch on my thigh. I loved staying there all night with you, staring up at the stars through the portal window.

  I appear to have escaped the torture of morning sickness, though I am often tired. Every day I walk along the peninsula down to the cove and imagine you home, playing with our son – I am certain we are having a son – teaching him to fish. I picture the three of us running along the sand, splashing in the waves that tease our feet, collecting sea shells to lay on the mantle.

  I wonder if he will have your handsome face. My hair perhaps.

  Father is overjoyed with the news. Mother, it seems, is unmoved. Not even the thought of a grandchild is enough to soften that woman’s contempt for your ‘lack of breeding’. I suppose a child that carries a bloodline anything less than aristocratic is an affront to her. You should be thankful you have not yet met. Though I do wish she had at least let Father walk me down the aisle.

  Maybe she will come round when our son is born, and then she will finally forgive me for marrying ‘below my station’.

  Maybe I hope too much.

  If only she had given you a chance, she might have realised that breeding and money do not determine character and that there are more good people outside her circle than within.

  Yes, I hope too much. Light and joy fill me, however, as I am sure you.

  We must discuss names, my love. Thomas Junior is an obvious choice. I am not one to do the expected though, as well you know. We never would have danced that night three years ago if I did what was expected of me.