Page 2 of The Diary at the Last House Before the Sea

‘You’d think.’ Her mother stopped rifling, a pair of Clara’s best pants in her hand. ‘However, I’m not sure that’s always the case, and today, everything has to be?—’

‘Shipshape,’ interrupted Clara, who, knowing when she was beaten, swung her legs out of bed. ‘OK. I’ll have a shower and some breakfast and will come up to the manor by eight thirty.’ She wilted under her mother’s glare. ‘Um…eight fifteen?’

‘Here’s some decent underwear.’ Julie got to her feet and threw the pants and a bra onto the duvet. ‘And make sure you wear a dress. No jeans and definitely no scruffy trainers. That pair you wear all the time are a disgrace.’ She walked to the door. ‘Oh, and I need you to nip into the village to get some Gorgonzola before you come up to the house.’

‘Gorgonzola?’ murmured Clara with a sigh. ‘Why?’

‘Because it was always River’s favourite and I want him to feel welcome. I’ve already got French sticks and Devon butter in case he needs a snack after the long drive from the airport.’

She frowned at the hot chocolate stain on Clara’s pyjama trousers. ‘So that’s why you need to get out of bed now, tidy yourself up and get moving. Come on! Chop, chop!’

‘OK, you win,’ grumbled Clara, miffed that her mother was so excited about the return of her employer’s son to Heaven’s Cove. Was it such a big deal? She pulled on her dressing gown, her long auburn hair tumbling around her shoulders, and remarked: ‘For the record, I didn’t get such an effusive welcome when I returned to the family home.’

‘That’s because you’d only been living fifty miles away,’ her mother retorted, ‘whereas River has been living on the other side of the world from his father. He always was an adventurous boy.’

She smiled approvingly while Clara shook her head at such a jarring display of maternal double standards.

Michael hadn’t come under fire for his transatlantic flit, and her mother seemed positively proud of River for having ‘adventures’ far from his father. Yet, she’d thrown a hissy fit when Clara had moved to the neighbouring county for work. She’d also deemed it simply ‘what good daughters do’, when Clara had given up everything to move back home after her dad became unwell. The inherent unfairness and sexism of it all had passed her mother by.

Give him his due, Michael had offered – rather nervously – to come back for good from Canada instead, as their father was fading. But, predictably, their mother hadn’t taken up his offer.

‘You shouldn’t have to uproot yourself, darling, and there’s no need anyway because Clara doesn’t mind.’

And she didn’t mind. Not really. She wouldn’t have missed time spent with her father at the end of his life for anything. But being the ‘good daughter’ sometimes took its toll, especially now Dad was gone and Clara was no nearer to moving out of the family home. Her mother, for all her bluster, was still emotionally fragile and needed support.

The two of them tended to clash but living at home wasn’t so bad, Clara had to admit – especially when that home was in the beautiful grounds of a magnificent manor house and only a stone’s throw from the ocean.

‘Earth to Clara!’ said Julie, waving a hand in front of her face. ‘Right. I can’t stand here chatting. Remember! Manor house. Eight fifteen on the dot. Dress. No trainers.’

Clara gave a mock salute. ‘Heard and understood, sir.’

Julie raised an eyebrow. ‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Clarissa. Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve got the last of your gran’s things down from the loft and you’ll need to go through them sharpish or everything will end up in the bin or at the charity shop.’

‘Please don’t chuck anything out until I’ve had a look.’

‘All right, but you’re wasting your time. All that’s left are the contents of the drawers in her bedside table. It looks like a collection of old tat but Mum, God rest her soul, always was untidy.’ She glared at Clara’s jeans which were in a heap on the floor. ‘That’s presumably where you get it from.’

Then she was gone.

Clara breathed a sigh of relief as the bedroom door banged shut. She loved her mother dearly, but these whirlwind ‘chats’ left her feeling as if she’d been spin-dried.

She sat quietly for a moment, to recover, and looked around her bedroom. Her teenage posters of the Kaiser Chiefs and Foo Fighters had long since disappeared – faint adhesive smudges on the walls the only evidence they were ever there at all. But the heavy grey curtains were the same, and the pale blue carpet which was now threadbare in places.

Julie didn’t believe in making changes for the sake of it. Her family had lived in this cottage for generations and she found the continuity comforting, particularly since the death of her beloved husband.

Clara pushed herself to her feet and, crossing to the window, peered through the salt-streaked glass. She couldn’t see the manor house from here – it was hidden behind a sweep of the gravel drive – but the manor’s private cove was visible through the trees.

The sea was a deep shade of turquoise this morning and its waves were topped with white horses, the remnants of a summer squall that had swept through Heaven’s Cove in the early hours.

A headland pushed out into the water on the left, its lower slopes thickly wooded and bathed in early morning sunshine. The pretty village of Heaven’s Cove lay beyond it: a huddle of whitewashed cottages, a ruined castle, a stone quayside, and a mini-supermarket which, fingers crossed, stocked Gorgonzola.

A beep from Clara’s phone interrupted her thoughts, and she frowned as she pulled the phone from her dressing gown pocket. The message was from her mother: I can’t hear the shower. You need to get a move on!

Honestly, Michael was so lucky living three thousand miles away!

Clara grabbed her towel and headed for the shower that spat freezing or boiling water at her every morning, depending on what mood it was in. She washed her hair and took extra care drying it, so it fell in waves rather than going frizzy. Then, she put on the pretty cotton sundress that brought out the grey of her eyes, and rummaged in the back of her wardrobe for a pair of flat sandals.

It wasn’t that she was frightened of her mother. But she knew that deviating from her mum’s sartorial instructions would cause more grief than Clara was prepared to handle.

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