A robin flew down to land on the bottom of the three steps, staring at her for a moment with bright black eyes before darting off. She continued to gaze at the spot where the bird had been, but now her eyes were inward-looking.
This was what the cottage signified: the start of the rest of her life. The past was gone and she couldn’t change it or undo the huge mistake she’d made in getting involved with Piers in the first place, but the present and the future were hers now she was free of him. It was up to her to make of them what she would. Just a few months ago she had wanted the world to end; life had lost all colour and each day had been nothing more than a battle to get through before she could take one of the pills the doctor had prescribed and shut off her mind for a little while. But slowly she’d stopped taking the pills to help her sleep, had begun to eat again, been able to concentrate on a TV programme or read a book without her mind returning to Piers and that last terrible night.
She lifted up her slender arms, purposely channelling her mind in a different direction as she stretched and stood up. It had taken time, but she was able to do this now and she was grateful for it. In fact it had probably saved her reason. Whatever, she was herself again—albeit an older, wiser self.
Turning, she went back inside and through the house to the front door. Her trusty little Ford Fiesta was parked on the grass verge at the end of the small front garden, which, like the back, was a tangle of weeds, nettles and briars. The car was packed to the roof with her clothes and personal belongings, along with a box containing cleaning equipment and the new vacuum cleaner she’d bought the day before. She had roughly four hours before her bed and few items of furniture were due to be delivered, and she’d need every minute. The old lady who had lived here before she’d finally been persuaded to move to a nursing home had clearly been struggling for years to cope. The nephew who had overseen her departure from the cottage had apparently cleared it; removing the carpets and curtains—which the estate agent had assured Willow had been falling to pieces—along with everything else. What was left was mountains of dust, dirt and cobwebs, but from what she could see of the grimy floorboards they would be great when stained. And at least she could really put her stamp on things.
Four hours later she’d emptied the vacuum bag umpteen times, but at least the dust from the carpet underlay, which had disintegrated into fine powder, was gone, and most surfaces were relatively clean. The cottage wasn’t large, comprising a sitting room, kitchen and bathroom downstairs, and two bedrooms upstairs. There was a kind of scullery attached to the kitchen by means of a door that you opened and stepped down into a six-foot by six-foot bare brick room with a tiny slot of a window, and it was evident the old lady had been in the habit of storing her coal and logs for the fire here. There was no central heating and in the kitchen an ancient range was the only means of cooking. The cottage had been rewired fairly recently though, which was a bonus in view of all the other work she’d need to do, and it had a mains supply of water.
The furniture van arrived and the cheery driver helped Willow manoeuvre her bed and chest of drawers upstairs. There was a built-in wardrobe in the bedroom she’d chosen to sleep in. A two-seater sofa and plumpy armchair and coffee table for the sitting room completed her purchases; her portable TV was in the car, along with her microwave.
That night she fell into bed and was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, and for the first time since she had left Piers there were no bad dreams. When Willow awoke in the morning to sunlight streaming in the uncurtained window, she lay for a long time just listening to the birds singing outside and drinking in the peace and solitude. The house she’d shared with her friends for the last months had been on a main road and the traffic noise had filtered in despite the double glazing, but that had been nothing to the noise within most of the time! And before that—
She sat up in bed. She wasn’t going to think about the years with Piers in any way, shape or form. New resolution. New start. Off with the old and on with the new. She could so do this. She’d always had her fair share of willpower.
The next couple of days were spent cleaning and scrubbing every room, but by the time Willow had dinner with Beth she was satisfied the years of dirt were dealt with. OK, the place needed serious attention, but the roof was sound and she’d keep to her original plan and do a job at a time as the money dictated. Buying furniture had taken every spare penny but she could work on the garden for the rest of her holiday.
She drove home without mishap after an enjoyable evening with Beth and Peter, and the next day began the assault on the garden. By the weekend she was scratched and sore and aching in muscles she hadn’t known she had, but she’d cleared a good-sized section of land. Sunday afternoon the sun was still shining and she decided to have a bonfire. That was what people did in the country, after all.
At some time there must have been a small picket fence separating part of the garden. This had long since rotted, but the remains were useful as a base for the bonfire, along with armfuls of other pieces of wood she had found and old newspapers. When she’d opened the door of the dilapidated pottingshed a couple of days earlier, she had found it stacked from floor to ceiling with old newspapers, magazines, cardboard egg boxes and food wrappers. The old lady must have deposited her paper and cardboard there for years before the garden became too overgrown for her to reach it.
Willow piled the brambles and nettles and other vegetation she’d cleared as high as she could. It would take ages to burn the contents of the potting shed alone, but she had until it got dark. She had positioned the bonfire at the end of the garden some feet from the high stone wall. Beyond this, she understood from the estate agent, was the garden of a larger manor house. The house in question was set in extensive grounds and obscured from view by massive old trees, but the landscaped gardens visible from the lane spoke of considerable wealth. It had been the country residence of the local squire who had owned most of the village set in a dip below Willow’s cottage in the old days, apparently, and her cottage had been the gatekeeper’s property before the cottage and garden had been sold off. These days the manor house was the weekend home of a successful businessman, according to the estate agent.
Once the bonfire was well and truly alight, Willow began to enjoy herself. There was something immensely satisfying in burning all the rubbish and she fetched more piles of newspapers from the potting shed, throwing them into the crackling flames with gay abandon. This would save a good few trips to the local refuse site if nothing else.
Quite when a sense of slowly mounting unease turned into panic, Willow wasn’t sure. Her gung-ho approach with the newspapers had resulted in a large quantity of pieces being picked up by the breeze—still merrily burning—and sailing over the wall in ever-increasing numbers. She tried to knock a pile that was smouldering off the fire with a big stick, but only succeeded in fanning the flames.
She had followed a tip of Peter’s and drenched the wood at the bottom of the bonfire in petrol before she’d piled the rubbish on it; now there was no stopping the blaze. Increasingly alarmed by the power of the monster she’d created, she retreated to the cottage to fetch a bucket of water to throw on the flames now leaping into the sky with ever-increasing ferocity and strength.
She was still filling the bucket in the kitchen when she heard shouting. Turning off the tap, she picked up the half-full pail and hurried into the garden in time to see the figure of a man hoisting himself astride the stone wall, his curses mingling with the roaring fire and the wild frenzied barking of what sounded like a pack of rabid dogs.
‘What the hell are you playing at?’ he snarled at her as she approached. ‘Have you lost your reason, woman?’
How rude. The abject apology she’d been about to make died on her lips. She stared into a pair of eyes so blue they were dazzling—which wasn’t helpful in the circumstances—and stopped dead in her tracks, which caused a good portion of the water in the bucket to slop over onto her grubby work trainers. ‘This is my property,’ she said coldly. ‘And this isn’t a smoke-free zone.’
‘I’ve