Five
What a day it had been. Lara was exhausted but happy as she closed the front door. The hall, and the entire cottage, smelt one hundred times better than it had when she had arrived that morning and as she walked towards the kitchen to pour herself a well-earned glass of red wine, she couldn’t believe the difference Ula had made. Lara had helped a little, but Ula was a powerhouse of dynamism and enthusiasm. Not quite Mary Poppins but certainly close.
Lara leant against the kitchen worktop and took in her surroundings. The kitchen was large for a cottage and she envisioned sleek, handleless cabinets along the walls, with all the appliances, save for the posh fridge freezer she had bought, hidden behind the doors to add to the feeling of space. Her flat in Woking had a central island and she had intended to have a similar one here, but as she sipped her wine and glanced around, an old pale oak, or pine table seemed more appropriate. Images of children and adults sitting around the table, preparing cakes, and biscuits, and all sorts of Christmas delights, popped into her mind’s eye.
Where on earth had they come from? She shook her head as if to dispel the ghosts of the past. Unless they were apparitions from the future?
She laughed aloud at that. She was too tired to think straight right now. She had plenty of time to make such decisions.
She debated whether to go out for dinner, or to get a takeaway delivered, but all she really wanted to do was have a long hot bath, change into her PJs, and crash out on her new sofa with another glass of wine, and a bag of crisps.
She had made her bed earlier and hung a pair of curtains in the bedroom. They didn’t fit the sash windows, but they would do the job for now. Not that Lara’s cottage was overlooked, but someone might walk along the lane.
She had chosen the bedroom at the front because it was the largest of the two and it had the view of the sea. The bedroom at the back overlooked her garden and also, Tom’s cottage. Which meant that Tom must be able to see her cottage from his.
She hadn’t brought any curtains with her for any of the other rooms, apart from one for the bathroom, which also didn’t fit, but that didn’t matter for the time being. She planned to have blinds, or possibly wooden shutters, or perhaps, shutter blinds in almost every room. She would make her mind up once she had decided on a colour scheme for every room.
The other thing she hadn’t done was sorted out the internet. Tom had told her that his grandson video called him so that meant his cottage had a connection. Lara would look into that tomorrow. She would call Jenny this evening on her mobile.
But first, she needed that bath. She topped up her wine glass and took it upstairs, where she rested it on the window sill beside the ancient claw foot bathtub. She was astonished how different it looked after Ula had cleaned it. When Lara had seen it earlier, she had decided it would have to go but now it almostlooked as good as new. Or as new as an antique bathtub should look.
She turned on the hot tap and waited for the bath to start to fill. For a moment she held her breath thinking that it might not. Earlier, the pipes had gurgled and hissed and a spurt of brown sludge had plopped out and into the bathtub, but Colin, the plumber had worked his magic and before he left, the water had run clean and clear. Just as it was now.
Except when Lara bent down to put the plug in, the water was cold.
Perhaps it needed to run for a while. What had Colin said? Something about a hot water cylinder. Or was it that the timer wasn’t working? No. He’d told her that the hot water supply was from an immersion heater and the hot water cylinder was in the cupboard near the front door. She would have to switch the immersion heater on when she wanted hot water, until he replaced the entire system. He had switched it on before he left. So why wasn’t there hot water?
Oh. Because she and Ula had used up the supply with all their cleaning this afternoon. Lara would have to wait for more water to heat up. That shouldn’t take too long. Instead of having a bath now and calling Jenny later, she could call Jenny now and have a bath before she went to bed.
She retrieved her glass of wine and made her way downstairs, just in time to see a flash of black dart into the kitchen.
‘What the hell was that?’ she shrieked, almost dropping her wine glass.
Whatever it was, it was now making a bit of a racket in the kitchen. Was it a creature of some sort? She heard the shrill meow of a somewhat irate cat, and she breathed a loud sigh of relief as she had her answer.
She marched into the kitchen and was greeted by a hiss, and a cold, hard stare from a black cat perched on the top of one of the old cupboards.
‘What on earth are you doing in my cottage? Come down from there and I’ll let you out,’ she said.
The cat hissed again.
‘Where do you live?’
She didn’t expect the cat to reply, obviously, and she was saying it aloud more for her own good than the cat’s. It must have come from somewhere. Perhaps it was Tom’s. But wouldn’t he have mentioned that he owned a cat? Maybe not.
She placed her wine glass on the worktop beside her and walked gingerly across the kitchen. She didn’t want to scare it like it had scared her. She opened the kitchen door that led out into the back garden. ‘There you go. Freedom.’
The cat glanced at the door and then at her but it didn’t move from its spot.
‘Fine. I’ll leave you to it. I’m just going to grab a bag of crisps and then I’ll be in the sitting room. I would ask you to close the door behind you but I realise that would be futile. Please go home.’
She couldn’t believe she was going out of her way to ensure she didn’t make the cat more nervous than it probably was, as she edged her way towards the cupboard in which she had stored the crisps and other dried goods. Then she slowly returned to where she had left her wine glass, but stopped and retraced her steps, grabbing the wine bottle from the worktop and shoving it under her arm, before saying what she hoped was a final goodbye to her unwelcome visitor, and stomping into the sitting room. So much for a relaxing evening.
She had placed a throw on the back of the sofa in case she needed it for warmth, but because she had not yet had a bath and was dirty, she spread it out on the seat and cushions andthen slumped down on top of that, to keep the sofa clean. She let out a contented sigh. The sofa was even more comfortable than she had remembered it to be when she had tested it in the showroom. Things were looking up.
She swung her legs up and stretched out, plumping the cushions behind her to provide enough support so that she could drink her wine and eat her crisps. This was much better. Almost as good as that hot bath she had been craving.
Having finished the crisps, and her wine, she poured another glass, made herself comfortable again, and phoned Jenny.
