Lottie Phillips - The Little Cottage in the Country

‘We’ve just moved here.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I haven’t been here in over ten years and can’t remember where the house is. I inherited it from my aunt.’

‘What’s the name of the house?’

‘Primrose Cottage.’

His look changed to what she could only read as: pity? ‘Oh.’ He tried to recover and smiled. ‘Yes, everyone’s been wondering who was moving in there.’

‘Well, where is it?’ She fought off the rising irritation at this man’s ability to make her feel so ridiculous. He seemed so supercilious considering she had only just met him; but, she knew, it was also because she hated to ask for help.

He pointed towards a narrow lane leading up towards a small cottage on the hilltop. ‘There.’

‘Brilliant, thank you.’ As she put the car in gear, he leant in.

‘Look, I wonder if we might have a chat sometime soon.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps a coffee tomorrow? I…’ He stopped, as if grasping for words.

Was he coming on to her?

‘Yes, maybe.’ Her mind raced with excuses. ‘If I’m not planting…’ She tried desperately to think of something country-esque and settled on vegetables. After all, she knew it wouldn’t be far off the truth: how hard could it be to grow vegetables? She would be the embodiment of The Good Life . ‘Potatoes,’ she announced triumphantly.

He smiled knowingly. ‘Ah, that old chestnut, planting potatoes.’

She nodded firmly and started to move off, leaving Horatio with his horse and a strange look of amusement on his face. The lane leading to the house was steep and rough.

‘Right, let’s go and see our new home.’ She drove along the bumpy lane to the house, about a quarter of a mile from the bridge, and at the top she stopped, her heart sinking. The downstairs windows were covered in ivy and the garden entirely overgrown with weeds. She could have cried if it weren’t for the sight of Horatio and Taittinger walking up the hill in her rear-view mirror.

‘Oh, why can’t he get lost?’ Horatio’s pity must have stemmed from his knowledge that the house was in need of that man off the daytime-telly home-improvement programme. Anna vaguely remembered a female presenter prancing manically from one room of tea-slurping builders, showing their bum cleavage, to another. All before said frilly presenter, along with the poor owners, who had never actually asked for a magenta-coloured kitchen, and the builders toasted their heroism and cried at their brilliance. The owners were then forced to smile at the camera and pretend they had always wanted a hot-pink kitchen with a life-size mural of their dead hamster on the main wall.

Anna felt humiliated. Turning to Freddie and Antonia, she put on a brave face. ‘How are you guys doing?’

‘I’m hungry,’ they chimed in unison and a lump rose in her throat. What had she been thinking? At least, in London, she had been able to provide the most basic of care for them: warmth and food. Now, she searched the derelict cottage for any signs of homeliness. It was a shell.

‘Me again,’ Horatio announced, out of puff, as he and Taittinger sidled up to the car and she put the window down once more.

‘I can see that. If you’ve come to gloat, please don’t.’ Her eyes smarted.

‘I didn’t think you’d be pleased.’

She bit back her comment and leapt out of the car, indignation flaring inside her. ‘But we’ll be just fine. So, Mr Horatio Spencer-what’s-it, if you wouldn’t mind leaving me and my children alone, instead of standing their looking on like we’re some sort of entertainment, then that would be most jolly.’ Jolly? Why did she use the word ‘jolly’? Help. Horatio was already rubbing off on her.

‘Jolly,’ repeated Freddie from the back.

Horatio was staring at her intently; maybe too intently. She shifted uncomfortably under his stare.

‘Listen, about that chat…’ She stared at him incredulously as once again he floundered. Who was this man? ‘I know what it feels like to be suddenly alone.’

‘I am not suddenly alone,’ she said, defensive. ‘I’ve been alone for years.’ Then she smiled, despite herself.

He grinned.

Her heart fluttered at his incredibly sexy smile but she pushed her shoulders back, more determined than ever. She was an independent woman, she said to herself, although she wasn’t entirely convinced at this point in time.

‘Thank you, I really appreciate your help,’ she said with sincerity. She knew she shouldn’t be so stubborn. Her mother’s voice rang around her head: ‘Anna, you are a mule, girl, a mule.’

Despite this, and ignoring the gnawing maternal guilt eating away at her stomach as she glanced in the rear-view mirror at her children giggling at Freddie’s burping-on-demand, she said, ‘We’ll be just fine.’

He plucked a fountain pen from his jacket pocket and a gilt-edged card from another pocket. Horatio suddenly looked like an ad for some ridiculous shop on Bond Street where the rich bought diamond-encrusted hip flasks because they could. Writing quickly, he passed her the card and tilted his riding hat with his forefinger, bidding her farewell. ‘Goodbye… Oh, I never got your name.’

‘Anna,’ she said frostily.

‘Anna. Like Anna Karenina.’ He laughed. ‘Same fighting spirit.’

‘Anna Compton.’

Anna hated coming across as the damsel in distress, but she was beginning to wonder if she had taken on too much. The cottage did not in any way match up to the idyll she had concocted in her head. She shook away her doubts. No, her aunt had left it to her and it was meant to be. She would make the most of it.

She refocused on Horatio who, she noticed, looked vaguely amused.

‘Right, well, Anna Compton. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon.’ He clucked at the horse and Taittinger obligingly followed his owner down the hill.

‘Like Anna Compton,’ she muttered. ‘Idiot and hopeless mother.’ A tear made its way down her cheek and she brushed it away. She had to be strong or, at least, find the nearest shop and buy food for the kids and Sauvignon Blanc for herself. It was the only way. She looked at her children in the back and they smiled. She wondered if it was possible to love two little people any more than she did in that moment.

‘OK, it’s all going to be OK.’ She smiled unconvincingly.

‘I’m hungry,’ said Antonia.

‘Me too,’ said Freddie.

‘Me three,’ Anna joined in. ‘OK, let’s go and see our home.’

Anna helped them out of the car and held their hands, one child either side of her, as they approached the cottage. She let go of Freddie’s hand as she retrieved the key from her pocket and slid it into the lock. As she pushed open the squeaky door, she was hit by a musty smell and dust danced in the air at the disturbance. The three of them stared wide-eyed at the sitting room. All the furniture was in place, as if Aunt Florence had just upped and left. Anna was flooded with memories of childhood summers spent here long ago and she remembered how magical Primrose Cottage had appeared then. She had always thought she and Aunt Flo were kindred spirits and knew it was through utter generosity that she had been left the small cottage and half acre of land. Why oh why, then, was she unable to get rid of the niggling doubt in the pit of her stomach? A little voice in her head was telling her she couldn’t do this; that the whole notion of idyllic country living had been barmy and out of her reach. She was washed afresh with guilt as she glanced down at her suddenly innocent and angelic-looking children: what sort of awful mother drags their children away from the safety of their – albeit incredibly poky and mold-ridden – flat, in a beaten-up Nissan Micra, with barely more than a handful of crushed, ready-salted Hula Hoops at the bottom of her tote bag? Anna Compton, that was who.