Lottie Phillips - The Little Cottage in the Country

‘It is if you’re bringing up children and now live with a home-wrecking nightmare of a best friend.’

Diane put her hands up in defeat. ‘OK, I’ll ring her and tell her we’re not going any more. That she’s not needed. That we’re just going to stay in and self-medicate instead. Anyway, didn’t you promise Barry?’

Anna stared into her friend’s big, pitiful eyes and smiled. ‘Fine. You win.’ She walked back to the kitchen, muttering, ‘My mother? Seriously?’

The twins looked at her and she felt she had to be upfront. ‘It’s Grandma. She’s coming to look after you tonight.’ Anna injected some cheeriness into her voice. ‘You remember last time how much fun you had?’ They stared at her, blankly. ‘I mean, you loved marking her latest purchases out of ten, didn’t you?’

She could have cried and all because Diane had got some hare-brained idea into her head that she was going to find a man in her local watering hole. It was time to don the marigolds and forget about this evening. Primrose Cottage wouldn’t clean itself but, more importantly, Anna realised, the sooner she cleaned the house, the quicker she could get down to reading her aunt’s diary, which sat invitingly on the side.

Six hours later, the cottage looked like an entirely different place. Diane had cleaned the toilets, but not without complaint.

‘I mean, seriously, Anna? This is probably against the law. I mean, isn’t there, like, a group that protects people like me from having to scrub out other people’s…’

‘Dee, language,’ Anna interjected from the other room where she was removing thick layers of dust off the furniture.

‘No, I mean, come on. We’re talking layers and I think I’m going to die of bleach poisoning. You know, come to think of it, I do feel light-headed and there is a skull and crossbones on here…’

‘Yeah, you’ll die if you drink it, not clean with it.’

‘I beg to differ and you know what else, Anna? I mean, you’re living in the middle of the countryside. How do you know you don’t have a septic tank? Do you want to be chucking this stuff down the toilet?’

Anna entered the bathroom and stared incredulously at Diane, who sat on the toilet seat, earphones stuffed in her ears, eating handfuls of the twins’ Sugar Puffs cereal and reading the back of the bleach bottle.

‘You haven’t even got the cap off,’ Anna said drily.

Diane looked up, unabashed. ‘Better I warn you now than after I’ve done it.’

Anna crossed her arms, realising she was, sadly, probably right. ‘Clean the shower instead then.’

Diane huffed. ‘God, such a taskmaster.’

Anna told Diane about Aunt Flo’s diary.

‘Oooh, how exciting,’ Diane breathed.

Anna nodded. ‘In her letter, she said it was really important to her that I read it.’

She wondered what on earth her aunt could have kept a secret all these years? As she cleaned, she daydreamed and, by the end of the day, she was convinced her aunt must have been a lesser-known member of the royal family or a spy. She couldn’t wait to sit down, in a private corner, away from the children and Diane, and find out.

Diane moaned all day, but the twins, on the other hand, threw themselves into their chores. Freddie was shown how to mop the floor and, when Anna returned, she found him bottom first inside the bucket and Antonia skidding around the soapy ice rink that was the front-room floor.

At five o’clock, Anna declared it the end of the day and settled down on the sofa with a cup of tea and her aunt’s diary.

At Anna’s proposal they stop, Diane, feet up on the sofa, put down her magazine and lay back in the cushion. ‘Thank God for that.’

Anna was pleased with the shimmer and shine they had created: the wood burner glass sparkled, the cottage windows reflected their faces and the furniture gleamed. Of course, there was the outside 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.