A silence dropped between them, heavy with everything unsaid.
‘If we’re done here, you should go,’ he added quietly. ‘I have things to do.’
‘Sure,’ Lucy said, too quickly. Without another word she retraced her steps along the garden path and disappeared behind the overgrown hedge without looking back. The squeak of the gate was the only clue she’d gone.
He headed inside to the library, pulling the doors to the garden firmly closed behind him. He had to get out of here, but first he had one last thing to do.
He yanked open the first metal filing cabinet and flicked through the contents. Junk. Random invoices, maintenance records, supplier contracts, old council letters. Nothing even the keenest historian would care about. He swept the lot into a plastic bag for shredding.
The last cabinet was shoved half behind another, directly under a window. Dust lay thick over it, baked hard by the sun. When he tugged the drawer open, he immediately saw the difference. The files were neatly arranged, tabs labelled in precise copperplate. Whoever had run this system had cared about order.
He ran a fingertip along the metal tabs. Names. Dozens of them. He pulled one file out. Inside lay a single letter and, clipped to the front, a note in the same careful hand:
Deceased 12 October 1944. Sender requests delivery to recipient only. Not to be forwarded to family or returned.
Below it, an account number. So this had been a paid service — some kind of private poste restante run out of the hotel.
Curiosity piqued, Oliver checked a few more. Most were dated between 1941 and the early fifties. One note read:
Sender advised to cease correspondence. Recipient declines further delivery.
The dates aligned in his head. 1941. The arrival of the US Marines.
He could see it now: men billeted nearby, slipping letters through a quiet arrangement with the hotel, trying to keep their private lives hidden from wives, parents, commanders. Lovers’ mailboxes in a filing cabinet.
He reached for another file, wiped away the dust — and stilled.
MACLEOD, N.
Ngaire maybe? Wasn’t that the name of Lucy’s great grandmother? How many MacLeods could there be in MacLeod’s Cove? Quite a few, probably. But the name still tugged at him. He opened the file. Correspondence listed, payments made and another note:
Recipient no longer wishes to receive. Sender notified.
He checked the date. 1946. He stood for a moment with the file in his hand, staring out through the grimy window. Two tui swayed on a flowering flax stalk, warbling. Beyond them, the cracked terrace, the hint of a sundial half-swallowed by long grass, broken plastic chairs and rusting barrels scattered like discarded props.
The place told a story. War-time rendezvous in the restaurant, couples slipping out to the terrace, promises made and broken. Lives that had intersected here and then ripped apart again.
He shook himself and slid the file into a box he’d already started for Kate and her family — old photos, early hotel papers, anything that looked like history rather than rubbish. He made a mental note to get his architects to check the sundial. Apparently he was in the business of preserving things now.
It wasn’t like him. His decisions had always been calculated, clean. Numbers on a spreadsheet. But somewhere between Lucy’s café garden and this neglected one, something had shifted.
And he wasn’t entirely sure he liked it.
Oliver pulled up outside MacLeod’s Cottage and killed the engine. The last time he’d been here, he’d walked up the path with bottles of champagne and the arrogant certainty of a man who always got his way. Today he carried a cardboard box of dusty files and absolutely no certainty at all.
He knocked. While he waited, he glanced around. Nothing about the weathered verandah, the mismatched chairs, the kids’ toys scattered by the steps suggested a world that had room for men like him. But he was here now. Too late to turn back.
Footsteps thudded down the hall. He prayed for Kate.
The door opened on Dan.
‘You’ve got a bloody nerve,’ Dan said, stepping out and pulling the door shut behind him. Arms crossed. Jaw tight.
‘Dan.’ Oliver didn’t bother to offer his hand. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’
‘I bet you didn’t. I’m sure you thought you could just waltz back in and pick up where you left off with the women.’ Dan took a step closer. ‘Not happening. I’m not letting you take my family for a ride.’
Oliver took the hit. He deserved worse.
