Chapter 3
Chapter Three
The house stood tall and gracious, with a verandah along two sides, the front door on the corner, with olive trees in terracotta pots on either side of the doorway.
Augi wasn’t sure what it was that so captured her imagination about it.
But from the first day she’d come to MacLeod’s Cove, it had.
It stood on the hill opposite the library: one side looking out to a sea which was hidden from the library by the hill upon which the house stood, and the other side of the house, looking across to the hills behind the library.
The house had stood sentinel to her, these past ten years.
Watching over her, the windows catching the winter light while the library was in shadow.
And in summer the place shone with a vibrance and confidence which she envied, as if it were a person.
If she’d ever allowed herself any dreams, they’d been centred on that house.
It looked nothing like her past, and everything like a future she’d never have: lofty, visible to all and beautiful.
Still, she thought as she checked the clock, wasn’t that the point of dreams? Soothing visions of an unattainable life. But she was a realist, she reminded herself. And that meant living in the here and now. Where it was ten past five and she should have closed the library ten minutes earlier.
But she rarely closed on time. She loved this space.
At this time in summer the sun was still high above the house opposite, and shone in through the front double doors she always hooked back so they stood open wide.
There was a curious sense of quiet hanging over the place now that the last of the school children had gone home. The small library felt settled.
Which was more than could be said for her, she thought, checking her work emails one last time before closing down the laptop with a snap.
For the past few weeks, since she’d encountered Lucy’s brother Dan, she’d felt distinctly unsettled.
The way he’d looked at her, as if she were something rare and breakable, had stopped her in her tracks.
She remembered that look. A long time ago her husband had looked at her like that.
But he was dead and she felt, absurdly, as if she were betraying his memory simply by reacting at all.
As if the act of being seen again, properly seen, was a kind of infidelity.
That Dan should have actually asked her out, had shaken her to the core. Because her reaction told her that she hadn’t died inside after all. And that was the biggest shock of all.
But she refused to think about that. Instead, she rose and quickly and efficiently closed down the library, turning it back into the tennis club rooms which was its alter ego.
The desk and computer were wheeled into a locked cupboard, where the photocopier and router were kept.
One by one the wooden mobile units — now battered from constant use over the past sixty years — had their covers attached, were locked, and wheeled back against the wall.
The larger, wall units were folded onto themselves until all that was left were the displays which she moved to the back room.
One last check that everything was turned off in the kitchen, then Augi collected her bag, glanced around, wanting the familiar sense of peace to wash over her again.
But it didn’t come. He’d done that. Dan.
Daniel MacLeod. Tall, handsome, charming and at least ten years younger than she was.
The man had been raised in this glorious place she now called home, among a loving family in a peaceful country.
He was the polar opposite to her. She just couldn’t figure out why he didn’t realise it.
She locked the door and walked briskly down the path, closing the creaking gate — making a mental note to bring something with her to fix it next time — and walked home, only permitting herself one glance at the house on the hill opposite the library.
The house to which her thoughts often strayed when the library was quiet.
It represented a world she didn’t have, and would never have.
But that was fine with her.
She rarely socialised in the evening. She didn’t really need to. There were always people she knew from the library walking on the beach, or swimming. They’d all been incredibly friendly from the start, so between her day job and walking around MacLeod’s Cove, she didn’t want for company.
She also wasn’t lonely during her evenings and nights spent alone in the small railway cottage.
It was one of a group at the far end of the village which were unpopular because they were built alongside the railway line, behind a high hill that cut off the afternoon light.
But Augi loved her rented cottage, tucked away out of sight of the world, and had kept it minimalist in style.
At first because she’d arrived in New Zealand with nothing, and afterwards because she found the discipline of having few possessions freeing and calming.
These were the two things she was always after.
And she’d need both those things tonight. Because, while she’d initially declined Kate’s invitation to the MacLeod family barbecue, she’d since discovered something she thought Lucy should know and if there was one thing she knew about Lucy, it was that she didn’t miss a family get-together.
It was one of the many differences between them. Augi only ever missed family get-togethers. But she’d compromise — she’d join them later, after dinner because then, she hoped, Dan would have left to return to Wellington.
She didn’t want him to ask her out again, and she especially didn’t want him asking why she didn’t want to go out on a date with him. She didn’t think ‘because I was shocked by how much I wanted to’ would cut it.
Augi rang the doorbell of MacLeod’s Cottage and waited.
She could hear people talking and laughter coming from the rear of the house, the side that faced the sea.
She’d been to the house before but it had always been during the day to see Kate.
There had rarely been others involved except occasionally Lucy.
But Kate’s life had changed in the last five months and her eldest daughter Jen, her son Liam, and fiancé, Sam, were now living with Kate.
And since Jen’s dramatic return, Dan had also come back — and stayed.
Augi knew she ought to wish he hadn’t. The fact that she didn’t made her angrier.
She steeled herself. She was here for one reason only.
Kate and Lucy had been so supportive over the years that she’d do anything she could to help Lucy with her fight against the man who proposed to knock down The Old Colonial Hotel and create a modern monstrosity which would destroy the heart of MacLeod’s Cove.
A heart which Augi refused to allow to be wrecked.
It was that heart which had saved her when she’d moved from Greece to New Zealand.
She knocked on the door seeing the bell had brought no reaction. But there was still no response. She wasn’t surprised. From the sound of conversation and music, they were sitting outside.
Augi never called informally on anyone. She visited people only if she was invited, and only through the front door. But now it seemed she had no choice but to adopt a kiwi sensibility and walk around the verandah to the back of the house.
As she did so, she heard Lucy’s voice, and gathered she was telling someone about the mystery over who actually owned MacLeod’s Cottage.
‘It’s an unusual problem,’ said Lucy. ‘A friend of ours is checking out some local history to see if there’s anything there that could shed some light on it.’
Then, just as Augi rounded the corner, a man spoke. Augi halted in her tracks, remaining unseen in the shadows.
‘Local history? There are a whole lot of files sitting untouched in filing cabinets. And it looks like the American Marines frequented the pub. I’ll have a look through what we have there.
I don’t think they’ve been touched in decades, and the previous owners all seemed to have been hoarders, so I doubt they’ve thrown anything out. ’
There could be no question as to who had spoken.
She’d seen his photo when she’d been researching him and she recognised his profile.
But she hadn’t anticipated he’d be here tonight.
Nor that he’d be so familiar with them all.
But there he was. The, apparently former, object of Lucy’s enmity — Oliver Perry-Warnes.
He was sitting with Kate, their friends Megan and Ryan, and Jen, Sam and Lucy. As if they were one big happy family.
And she was about to rip that happy family apart. She stepped forward, in the process shifting a chair which scraped heavily on the wooden deck.
‘Talking of our clever researcher!’ said Kate. ‘Here she is!’
Augi gripped the covered plate she was holding more tightly as if it would save her. ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming round the back but I knocked and no one answered,’ she said.
Kate jumped up. ‘Not at all!’ She opened her arms wide and before Augi could react she found herself engulfed in Kate’s embrace.
She stiffened and Kate moved away quickly, as if remembering that Augi really didn’t like that distance between her the world to be breached.
But Kate still held on to Augi’s shoulders as she searched her face with a smile.
‘Next time, knock and then come right on in.’
Augi nodded, even as she thought hell would have to get pretty chilly before she did anything as familiar.
She looked around, searching for an escape from Kate’s acute gaze.
But, instead she looked straight into Dan’s gaze which not only appeared as acute, but far more interested and surprised than his mother’s.
To her annoyance, Augi felt herself blush. That was the second time in roughly ten years — the first being when she’d seen Dan last. Even more annoyingly she didn’t seem to be able to look away.