The Little Cottage in the Country. Lottie Phillips
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to come, but that would have to wait for another day.
Diane looked at her watch. ‘By my reckoning, your mother’s going to be here in half an hour and we’re due at the pub at six-thirty.’
‘Six-thirty?’ Anna pulled a face. ‘That’s a bit early.’
‘Not when you’ve told the landlord we’re journalists and he wants us to take pictures of the pub.’
‘Oh, yes, I forgot, we weren’t aiming for a perfectly timed late entrance. Why give everyone the wrong idea?’
‘Exactly.’ Diane grinned. ‘I’m off to have a bath.’
‘You can’t. The children need to go in there with half their plastic toys.’
‘Right, I’m off to put more perfume on then. French style.’ She wafted from the room dramatically and Anna sat, momentarily, until Diane returned. ‘You won’t turn into a princess sitting there. Come on.’
‘Let me just read a little of this.’ She indicated the notebook and flipped open to the middle.
Today I went up to Ridley Manor. Frank told me the house was mine. A present to keep me in the village. He said, however, not to tell anyone he had bought it for me. As if I would! I know that what we have needs to be kept secret, for everyone’s sake.
Anna read more quickly now, her breath catching. Horatio’s words circling her head. Maybe Horatio had been right; the cottage wasn’t hers after all. She felt as if she had been punched in the stomach.
The sound of Antonia wailing cut through her thoughts and, feeling confused, she stuffed the diary into a drawer of the bureau.
Anna heaved her weary limbs up the stairs and found Freddie and Antonia fighting over a rubber duck. She disentangled them both and told them they could watch some Teletubbies – still one of their favourites – for a bit. She propped them up on her bed and fetched her phone. They were soon enthralled by the strange, hallucinatory world of colourful, furry animal-humans.
Diane had music blaring from speakers attached to her laptop. She bounced in, her cheeks glowing. ‘It’s Katy Perry. I love this song.’ She held a glass of rum and coke. ‘This is like being students or something.’
Anna looked at her clothes. What was she meant to wear to a speed-dating event at a pub? She had a black cocktail dress but it was short, really short, and, at the other extreme, she had a Laura Ashley tartan dress her mother had picked up for her from a charity shop. Diane hovered in the doorway in black trousers, stretched tightly over her bottom, and a velvet, cleavage-busting camisole.
‘What are you thinking?’ Diane did a twirl. ‘Sexy vamp is where my head’s at.’
Anna nodded. ‘All the way, girlfriend.’
‘What you going to wear?’
‘I’ve got this?’ Anna held up the cocktail dress. ‘Or, to play it safe, this…’ She picked up the tartan dress.
‘Jesus, Anna. You wear that and people will think you’ve come as Maid sodding Marian.’
‘Well, this is too short.’ She indicated the cocktail dress. ‘And other than that, I’ve got jeans and a ski suit.’
Diane sat heavily on her bed, sending the pile of clothes towards the middle. ‘Yep, definitely, the dress. That is hot.’
‘I don’t think men at the Rose and Crown in Trumpsey Blazey are necessarily looking for…’
‘You have no idea what the men in Trumpsey Blazey are looking for,’ Diane pointed out, glugging back an alarming amount of her drink. ‘Have some and then you might actually relax and realise you’re gorgeous.’
Anna took the glass reluctantly and swigged. ‘My children need to be bathed and their mother is trying to choose an outfit that doesn’t scream slut while she downs what tastes like pure rum.’
‘It’s got a dash of coke in it. Anyway, they’ll respect you for it.’ Diane looked at her in earnest.
When a knock sounded at the front door, Anna handed the bottle back to Diane, flushing with guilt.
‘Ah, Linda has arrived.’
‘Joy,’ Anna said.
‘I’ll keep her happy.’ Diane skipped out of the room, drink in hand, and Anna waited for her mother’s presence to be made known to the entire village and beyond.
‘Dee-Dee,’ came the booming voice that was her mother’s. ‘Cocktails! How wonderful.’ She paused. ‘I’m so glad you phoned!’
Diane’s voice, by comparison, was surprisingly soft and Anna sighed, heading in to the twins. They were growing sleepy and she undressed them and soon had them submerged in bubbles. She watched as a full-blown attack took place whereby Freddie’s Transformers head-dunked Antonia’s My Little Ponies.
‘OK, you two, Grandma’s here. You’re going to be good for Grandma, aren’t you?’ She just hoped Grandma would be good for them.
Anna plucked them out of the bath and wrapped them each in huge, freshly laundered bath sheets before hugging the sweet-smelling, damp, fluffy cocoons that were now her children. ‘I love you both and…’ Sometimes this happened and it was always when she was least expecting it; her heart wrung with sadness at the lack of a father figure in their lives. She wondered if they would grow up resenting her for not chasing after Simon; and if she was, in fact, enough for them.
‘Mummy, you’re crying,’ Freddie said, wiping a tear from her cheek.
‘You silly bean,’ Antonia said and hugged her, setting Anna off again.
‘Mummy,’ Freddie said, earnestly, ‘how long we stay in this home?’
‘Well,’ she paused, looking into his big blue eyes, ‘for as long as we can.’ She thought about Horatio’s words regarding the house and how much she had risked moving here. Irritation fizzled in the pit of her stomach. She wouldn’t just give the cottage up. She couldn’t. Her heart twisted at the thought of having to go back to London already. She needed it to work. She needed her children to be happy. ‘Do you like it here?’
He appeared to be thinking deeply. ‘I just want to play with friends.’
Anna nodded, a fresh tide of guilt sweeping over her. ‘Yes, and you’ll both make lots of new friends at your new school.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘And they can come and play here whenever you like. OK?’
‘OK,’ he said and they both nodded.
‘Annnnnnaaaaaaaaaa.’
The moment was broken by her mother singing her name and she took the children into her room, found their favourite PJs and dressed them.
‘You go down and see Grandma, OK?’
They nodded and walked to the top of the stairs, sitting down on their bottoms so they could slither safely to the ground floor. The stairs were steep and Anna had decided this would be the best option.
‘My dearest children,’ her mother called to them, ‘you’ll get dirty botties.’
‘Mum.’ Anna crouched down at the top of the landing, so she could be seen by her mother, and smiled. ‘Hi.’
‘Bananna.’ Her father’s nickname for her growing up had stuck with her mother, despite the fact it had to be pronounced funnily because ‘banana’ didn’t even rhyme with her actual name. ‘Why are your children coming down the stairs like strange, snake-like things?’
‘Because I told them it was safer. There’s no rail and, until I get one put in, I don’t want them falling down.’
‘It’s unhygienic,’ her mother announced.
‘We cleaned today.’
Luckily,