Chapter 7
S unlight poured through the sash window, casting hazy dust waves across the room. Millie squinted at the shock of it – the curtains had remained open due to their redundancy during the complete black-out last night. She yawned and slowly sat up, placing her glasses on her nose and allowing everything to come into focus. There was no howling wind, no slamming rain. All had quietened down. Next to her on the bedside table, her alarm clock was flashing: the power was back!
Like an excited child at Christmas, she flew downstairs and flicked the kettle on, a large grin on her face. She had only been without power for a few hours and was half asleep and hungover anyway, but it made her realise how much she’d taken it for granted. To be able to just flick a switch and get instant light and noise – it was quite remarkable!
The half-burnt candles placed sporadically around the cottage gave her flashbacks to the night before: as she studied the hardened wax, now congealed mid-way down the candle’s wick, she remembered how strange it had felt having Alfie in there. How arrogant and sarcastic he had been, again, for no apparent reason. She couldn’t decide if it was just his personality or whether she had done something wrong. Racking her brains, she tried to think of every single encounter they’d had: his first visit to the cottage where she’d kept him waiting, the infamous night in the pub and then last night during the blackout. That was it. Nothing untoward had happened. He’d just seemed to take an instant dislike to her. Maybe she’d ask Alan. Or Amy? She seemed to know Alfie quite well. Yes, that’s what she would do. Now she had Amy’s phone number, she’d give her a call. Ask to meet up. Then, she’d casually drop in conversation about him and see what she could find out about Alfie Drew. The kettle clicked and she smiled to herself, feeling content with her plan.
The weather was an infinite improvement on the previous day and night – it was as though Mother Nature had had her rage, then had a good nap and gotten over it, stretching and yawning lazily, bringing in a new day. The village smelt fresh, the aftermath of several hours of continuous rain, and the cobbled streets glowed with the dew. Pale pink and lemon-yellow painted cottages passed on either side as she walked, with bright coloured doors fit for, it seemed, only a hobbit to pass through. Each had a cute name like “Sunseeker” or “Gull’s Reach” . No ordinary “Number 28” here. It was miles away from where she had lived the last few years but she strangely felt like, in time, she’d feel more at home here than anywhere else. It was crazy what a bit of good weather could do.
She thought of her old flat often – did it still look the same? She’d left with scarcely any possessions, not wanting to take memories with her, nor waste the time packing things up. She certainly hadn’t entertained hiring a removals van, choosing instead to stuff her car with as many items as possible. Every inch was used; the foot-wells, the glove box, even the space for the spare tyre had become home to some possession or another.
More pointedly, she’d wondered if the woman she’d caught Sam with had been there. Was she cuddled in her old bed, on her side? Had she discovered the rogue spring on the mattress that every so often would prod you in the back if you turned the wrong way? Or the creak on the second step down into the bathroom, which would give you away in the night. Had she messed up Millie’s Tupperware system in the kitchen cupboards, where she’d painstakingly labelled every grain, pasta and cereal they owned using her trusty label maker. Sam had bought it for her for her birthday, insisting it was a “rubbish present” despite it being all Millie had asked for and had beamed with delight when she’d torn the paper off.
As she made her way down the lane to the local shop, Millie pulled her mustard cardigan tighter around her, folding her arms to keep it closed, all of these thoughts causing her to shiver more than was necessary. Her tartan scarf peppered with hues of brown and beige was thick and enveloped her neck, keeping out the unmistakable chill the damp air also brought. Several people said hello to her as she walked the few hundred yards, and she liked that she was starting to recognise faces – and more so that they were starting to recognise hers.
“Mornin’ maid!,” Mr Slee the shop owner called cheerily as she stepped in, the bell above the door signalling her arrival.
“Good morning,” she smiled back.
“Heckova’ storm last night, weren’ it?! Did yer’ power go off?”
“Yes, in the middle of the night! Did yours?” She felt intensely aware of how “BBC English” her accent must sound alongside the heavy Cornish lilt of Mr Slee’s, even though hers was no posher than anyone else’s. Everyone just seemed to have such a twang to their voices down here. She found it incredibly heart-warming.
“Course! If one house goes out, you can be sure the whole village will! Bleddy nightmare it is. Still, hope you were alright?”
“Yes, Alan Drew’s son came round and leant me some candles and things,” she explained nonchalantly, placing milk, bread and her electric card on the counter. She knew the moment it slipped her lips that this information would cause a stirring in the village.
“Ah, dear ov’ ‘im. He’s a good lad. Quiet, but good.” She watched the large man as he scanned her few items and topped up her card, as requested.
She frowned slightly. “Do you know him well, Alfie?”
“Reasonably,” he began, leaning both his huge hands on the counter. “I’ve known Alan for, ooh, around forty years all told and knew his wife too, before she died. Lovely couple. Very sad, all that. Alfie’s a lovely lad an’ all but keeps ‘imself very much to ‘imself. Still, means ‘e gets a lot of paintings done. They’re right good they are, proper job!” Mr Slee continued to talk about Alfie but Millie’s mind had gone blank. Alfie’s mum had died ? But that couldn’t be true – Alan had a wife, she knew that. Eleanor? She’d met her several times when she’d worked for him back at the office and he talked about her a lot…
“Sorry Mr Slee, did you say Alan’s wife had died?” she pressed.
“Oh yes. Three year ago. Terrible, terrible business. Nasty illness, very sudden. Rosemary was a dear, dear woman.” Rosemary. Rosemary Cottage! “The cottage yer’ in now was hers, actually. Alan bought it for her and she spent many a summer in it with Alfie, whilst he worked away back in London. Shame he let it out though. I think Alfie would’ve wanted it but his dad is letting out his current flat to him instead. Bit of an awkward business I think.” She swallowed, the mist beginning to clear on why Alfie had maybe been so aggrieved with her. She was staying in his mum’s cottage. He continued, “I knew Alan married again, although haven’t met her. Think she’s called Emily, Elodie…?”
“Eleanor,” Millie corrected softly, the face of the woman she’d met at the office flashing in her mind and she realised her mistake. That was Alfie’s step-mum. “Thanks for the shopping, Mr Slee.”
“See ye dreckly, maid,” he saluted.
She left the shop quietly, carrying her few items. Instead of turning left and walking back up the lane to her cottage, she found herself heading for the beach, feeling pensive as she went. It was halfway across the road to the beach when she stopped and looked up. She’d known where Alfie lived from Saturday night, when she’d watched him walk away and go home – it was about all she had remembered clearly. He had a loft flat right on the beach. So that belonged to Alan too. He had quite the empire, she mused. She imagined the views must be tremendous with his panoramic window – the village back and up to the right, acres of pretty woodland stretching up behind it – and extending out for miles in front of him, beautiful sea complemented by an endless horizon. Perfect for an artist. She felt a pang of jealousy. It still wasn’t hard to see why he’d have wanted to stay in Rosemary Cottage instead though. As wonderful as his current flat probably was, there was likely no connection to his mum there. Her heart sank for the sadness he must feel every time he’d seen someone else in there. In the space he had stayed so many times before. If only she’d known.
She glanced up at the top window and felt her heart skip a beat as she saw him sat there, easel in-front of him, working away. She could have stopped and stared for hours, but the fear of being caught forced her to snap out of it and she hurried away back up the lane.
* * *
Another week passed in the sleepy village and by the weekend, Millie found herself pretty much sorted, house-wise. She had made several trips to the local discount chain store, stocking up on accessories and nick-nacks which complemented her taste and the rustic, cosy feel of the cottage, but which could easily be removed if she had to leave. The whole time she was browsing, she felt wracked with guilt at the thought of transforming Rosemary Cottage, feeling like instead she should be leaving it exactly how it was when Alfie was a boy. But it was hers now, for all intents and purposes, so she should make it her own, right? It was likely she’d rarely see Alfie now, certainly not in the cottage, so he’d never know.
A few of her own paintings adorned the walls – she’d deliberated for hours about hanging them. Sam had never been keen on putting her artwork through the house (“it seems a bit egotistical?” he’d explained) but in the end she thought, stuff it. Sam wasn’t here anymore, and, after all, she was proud of her work. Overall, she felt like it was the closest she was going to get it to feeling like her home.
There were still several areas of her life which felt seriously un- homely, though. The fact that she still had barely any actual friends here, although she was now starting to recognise many more faces. Also, people tended to treat her as just a regular local, rather than some random girl down from the capital. She hadn’t had the chance to meet with Amy again, although several texts had pinged back and forth, and she’d accepted social media friend requests from all the group in the pub - this was progress? The only person she hadn’t received such an invite from was Alfie, but she discovered after some covert stalking that he rarely used his profile. This didn’t surprise her. It matched his mysterious, secretive personality.
She also hadn’t had the pleasure of crossing paths with Alfie again in the village. She had very much kept herself to herself, but this was beginning to wear thin. The lack of routine, which was a stark contrast to her old life in London, was missing and Millie couldn’t help but grieve for its loss. It really shocked her that the monotonous rat-race which she one day hoped so much to be free from was missed: get up at 6am, fight Sam for the shower, dab on some make-up half asleep, grab pre-made smoothie and slurp on the way to the tube, jostle with half of London on the Central and Bakerloo Lines…the same thing every single day. Of course, weekends were different. They’d enjoyed trips up town, or taking walks around one of the many incredible parks, theatre trips, day excursions to the seaside towns of Margate and Brighton… When she and Sam had been in a good place, her life couldn’t have been any better. Apart from that one thing she couldn’t have or achieve, which constantly hung over her like a sodden towel, weighing her down, suffocating her…
Millie blinked hard, trying to eliminate the thoughts from her brain. It didn’t even matter now, right? She was in no position to be aiming for such a thing anyway, so it was irrelevant. Shaking off her feelings of self-pity, she flicked on her laptop for a few hours of dedicated job hunting. She had no idea what she wanted to do and, to be honest, she wasn’t really qualified for anything. The one and only real passion in her life was art and that was an impossible thing to make a living out of unless you had friends in high places, or you had an extremely rich father who could fund it. Seeing as she barely had any friends at all and she had never had a “dad” for all intents and purposes, it was a completely unachievable and unrealistic goal.
Forty minutes later, she was grateful to be distracted from the unsuccessful and increasingly degrading job hunt by a phone call from Jenny.
“So, how’s the “Escape to the Country” lifestyle treating you?” Jenny spoke down the phone.
Phone balanced between shoulder and ear whilst pegging out washing on the line in her tiny courtyard, Millie was doing what she did best – multitasking.
“I mean, I love the village overall. It’s tiny but perfectly formed and everyone is so friendly. People actually make eye contact and say hello to you when they pass you!” she replied.
“Jeez, what sort of a weird, 1950s-time warp are you living in?” Jenny answered sarcastically and Millie chuckled.
“You joke, but it can feel a bit stuck in the past sometimes. Still, enough about me. How are you doing? How’s baby Brannon?”
“Won’t sit still. Can tell they’re going to be just like their father, he can never bloody sit still either. Last night in bed he was thrashing around like a beached whale! Felt like knocking him one.” Millie smiled at the familiarity of her friend’s feeble moans. She’d always adored the relationship Jenny had with her husband, Paul. They were so playful, but you could see how much they adored one another. This baby was the beginning of a new chapter for them and Mille couldn’t be happier for them both.
“How long have you got now?”
“About another hundred years, I expect,” Jenny replied with a groan and exaggerated sigh. “No, ten days, if they play their cards right.” Millie’s stomach flipped. In ten days, her best friend could have a baby. Like, an actual baby.
“You will call me as soon as you go into labour, won’t you?” she asked, swallowing hard. She felt so guilty that she wasn’t there to support her best friend.
“Of course I will, you muppet. When I get the very first twinges.”
“Even if you’re not sure it’s that?”
“Even if I think it could be some dodgy wind from the many curries I am going to consume, yes.” They both giggled.
“Oh and, Mils, before you go…I have something to ask you.” Millie paused, pegging a pair of jeans on the line and frowned. This sounded ominous.
“Go on…”
“Where did you get that dodgy West-Country accent from?!”
* * *
It had taken several days for Millie to get out of bed. A bad case of the flu had wiped her out and she’d spent her time in bed, hallucinating, drifting in and out of consciousness, sweating like a pig and generally moving only to go to the toilet and fill up her water. She’d never really gotten ill back in London; strange considering the air was so much more polluted, she spent hours on a packed, disease-ridden tube and in an office with unfiltered air con. It was only since moving down here, getting more exercise, eating better and generally slowing down that she had gotten ill.
“That’s what happens,” Amy had told her the day before, when she’d come to check up on her. “You keep going and going and going and you manage but then as soon as you stop BAM! You get ill. It’s a fact of life.” Millie watched Amy explain whilst simultaneously stuffing brownie bites into her mouth (reduced stock, a perk of working in a supermarket, apparently). She hadn’t eaten in several days and the smell of the brownies made her feel queasy.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah! You’ll feel better once you start getting more acquainted with everything. How’s the job hunting going?” Millie looked down and picked at a stray thread on her blanket.
“Um…not great.”
“Does that mean you haven’t been offered an interview yet?”
“It’s a bit difficult to be offered an interview when you haven’t applied for anything…”
“You haven’t applied for anything ? You’ve been looking for weeks!” Millie screwed up her face and rubbed her forehead. She could feel a headache coming on.
“There just isn’t anything I’ve really seen yet…”
“There are jobs going at my work! And like I’ve always said, it can be a little dull but there are great perks!” She indicated the spread of reduced sweet treats with a flourish of her hand. Millie managed a smirk.
“Thanks, but I’m going to keep looking for a bit. I’ll keep it in mind though.” Amy shrugged her shoulders and brushed crumbs from her sweater. Millie cringed, trying not to make a face at the dirt making its way onto her carpet.
“So, what sort of jobs have you been looking for? Like, what’s the DREAM?” Amy asked, flourishing her arms as she said it. Millie paused.
“The dream? The dream is different from what I could actually do.”
“Huh? I don’t understand. Your dream can become a reality if you want it enough.”
Millie let out a snort, with the effort causing her still tender chest and throat to throb. “Alright, didn’t realise you were a motivational speaker on the side.” Amy pulled a “screw you face.”
“All I’m saying is, you don’t seem like the sort of person who plays it safe? You lived and survived in London – the sort of place that seems like a terrifying, uncharted planet to a country bumpkin like myself. Then, you’ve upped and moved down to this tiny corner of Cornwall, all by yourself, no job, no real plans – people don’t just move down here for no reason. People like that are usually hiding from something…”
Millie hadn’t really thought about it like that before. To her, the move had come from a place of desperation and sadness, not from someone searching for adventure. She questioned her move every single day.
“Whilst we’re on that…” Amy said in a confused voice, “…what IS your story? I’ve realised I’m sat here in your house, sprawled across your sofa, drinking copious amounts of your tea, with you sat there looking a snivelling mess in your dressing gown – and yet I don’t actually know who you really are?” Amy was looking at her with such interest and questioning, Millie suddenly felt under extreme pressure. She didn’t particularly feel up to explaining right now. Maybe not ever. The only person down here who knew anything at all about her was likely to be Alfie. He’d know about her connection to his dad and that her mum had died. That was enough.
“Do you know what? My throat is absolutely killing me, and I think the exertion of sitting here and talking to you has knackered me out,” Millie replied, teasingly. “Seriously though, I think I may need to go to bed.” Amy paused, raising an eyebrow. Millie waited for Amy to take the hint and felt relieved when she did so, standing up with intent.
“Alright then. Call me if you need anything?”
Millie exhaled, relieved. There was only so long she could go on running from the past. At some point, she knew the past and present would have to collide. But not right now.
* * *
“She’s so poorly,” Amy explained about Millie to the rest of the group later that day, placing the full, frothy pints down on the wooden table.
“Gosh, I hope it’s nothing serious,” Daisy replied, pulling an anxious face, before sipping the head off the top of hers.
“She’s always in bed, it’ll be nothing,” Alfie cut in, picking the edges off an already-worn beer mat. The girls stopped and stared at him, confusion on their faces.
“And, how would you know, Alfredo?” Amy enquired, eyebrow raised.
“Yeah. Anything you’d like to share with the group?” Ryan teased. Alfie looked at their faces, realising what they were all implying.
“Oh, grow up. Dad sent me round the cottage a few times to check up on her, that’s all.” He took a lengthy gulp of beer. The others waggled eyebrows and made little nudges with their elbows.
“That old chestnut, eh?” Ryan smirked. “You’re a sly fox, Alfie. She’s barely been here two minutes!”
“That’s all it takes,” Evan bantered back, mouth full of the pasty he was scoffing.
“Yeah, and don’t I know it!” Daisy responded, causing Evan to mock laugh whilst the rest of them burst out into peals of laughter. Amy glanced over to the bar, where Dana was perched on a stool, laughing loudly with a group of men nursing glasses of Jack Daniels.
“Also, I bet someone would have something to say about that,” she murmured, tipping her glass towards her. Everyone grew quiet and gradually returned to their conversations, while Alfie cast Dana a glance. She sure would. Even though her latest Instagram post had featured her with a very good-looking guy she insisted was just a colleague. Despite his innermost feelings telling him he needed to leave the toxicity of their relationship behind, he couldn’t help feeling a pang of jealousy. He found it surprising that his mind started wandering back to Millie, and how it maybe would be easier to be with someone like her.
He shook the thoughts away as quickly as they had arrived.