Chapter One
Budbury, Dorset
My moving van is blocking the street, and I feel a familiar sense of anxiety creeping over me at the sight. This village consists of one long, winding road that ends in the sea. It is a road that comes complete with a pub, a florist, a pharmacy, and a small scattering of independent shops. It is a pretty road, lined with whitewashed terraced houses that used to be fishermen’s cottages. It is a road that is now completely gridlocked because of me, and my stupidly wide moving van. Day one, and I have wrecked the place.
I cringe as I park my much smaller car behind it and sink back into my seat for a few moments. I can tell without looking that the normally pale skin of my neck and chest is blotchy and red, because that’s one of the things that happens when I get stressed. That and my face looking like a tomato. I suck in a few deep breaths, letting them out slowly through my mouth. It is okay to feel stressed– I am moving house, and that is right up there with divorce and bereavement on the ‘crap things to deal with in life’ list.
I close my eyes, squeezing them shut and shaking my head as I get a grip of my emotions. Freaking out will not help– getting this sorted will help. I jump out of the car, and root my keys from my bag. The moving men clamber out of the cab of the lorry, big and burly and apparently completely unconcerned by the fact that they are causing chaos. I suppose they’re used to it. They don’t shrink and shrivel under the spotlight.
Vehicles are backing up in both directions, as there is barely room for one lane of traffic to get past, never mind two. I brace myself for a barrage of beeping horns, screamed abuse, and physical threats. I have lived in London for over a decade, where this kind of thing could result in a machete attack or a full-on riot. For the time being, though, nobody seems too angry– cars take it in turns to drive on around us, with much polite flashing of lights and waving through windscreens. Huh. Weird. Still, it’s only a matter of time, I’m sure. Some massive farmer type will come down on a tractor and get so frustrated that he whips out his shotgun and yells ‘get off my land!’ before blasting us all to smithereens.
‘Shall we get started, love?’ the van man says, gesturing at the door of the house. ‘Quicker you let us in, quicker we’re out of your hair.’
I nod, glad to have someone telling me what to do. It’s been a weirdly warm day even though it’s October, and I’m overdressed in a big cable-knit jumper. The hair he’s keen to get out of is flying all over the place, escaping its bun and sticking to the sides of my face. I feel a mess, and I’m sure I look it. I hate standing out, hate being the centre of attention, and this is difficult because now I’m the Woman Who Blocked The Road, and we’re attracting significant interest from both drivers and passers-by. This is my first day here in my new home, and it’s not going well.
I fumble the keys into the lock of the red wooden door, dropping them twice before I find the right one. Even when I do,I just can’t get it to turn. Why are keys so hard? Surely there’s a simpler way? I’m getting increasingly hot and bothered, doing all of this under the watchful eye of the moving men, feeling like a complete idiot. I’ve never even been in this house, never mind unlocked the door.
‘Here, let me help,’ says a quiet voice from behind me. ‘There’s a knack to it.’
I turn around to see a petite blonde woman somewhere in her thirties, with kind blue eyes and a softly spoken manner. ‘I’m Katie,’ she says simply. ‘I used to live here, and this door is evil.’
An evil door. Possessed by demons. I totally believe that is possible. I puff out a tense breath, and nod gratefully. She takes the key from my shaking hands, and inserts it. ‘It needs a little push to the left before you turn it to the right,’ she explains. ‘It’s just old. You’ll get the hang of it.’
‘Or,’ I reply, as the door opens, ‘I could get the lock replaced with one that works.’
‘Only if you get it approved by the Historic Buildings and Heritage Keyhole Society first,’ she says seriously. Shit. Is this going to be one ofthoseplaces?
Her face breaks out into a smile. ‘That doesn’t exist by the way, don’t worry. Anyway. I work at the pharmacy across the road. Pop in if you need anything.’
‘Do you have Valium?’
‘We only crack that open on very special occasions. Anyway– do you need any more help?’
The older moving man is shouldering past us with a huge box in his arms, and he nods. ‘We never say no,’ he says before I can respond, ‘to an extra set of hands.’ I would definitely have said no.
Katie says she’ll sort it, and disappears across the road. I realise belatedly that I didn’t even tell her my name. The traffic is constant because of the blockage, but someone stops to let hercross, giving her a friendly wave as she goes. It’s so relaxed it’s surreal, and I’m a bit worried I’ve landed in some kind of rural Stepford.
I wanted this, I remind myself as the men bustle around me. I wanted a fresh start. I wanted to escape my problems, and not feel like a failure every day. The subtle and not-so-subtle fears that were swirling around me in London, the real and the imagined peril. I needed to get away from the big city, and find my little bolthole by the sea. I always loved the sea, and find nothing more soothing than walking by water. It’s even better than Valium for me.
I’m an author, and I’ve been on a deadline for what feels like years. There is never enough time to do everything I need to do. I love writing my stories, but I don’t enjoy the other demands– the events, the media, the meetings. All of the stuff that my sister Sally would love, I hate. I have always craved solitude, and life in London was too overwhelming for me. I tolerated it for years, for the sake of my marriage, my career, to be near to Sally and her family– but I’m going to be fifty in January, and this is my gift to myself. A landmark move for a landmark birthday. A place to finally feel safe after everything that has happened.
I’ve kept my flat in London too, but I’m hoping that here, in this tiny seaside village, I will be able to concentrate on my work, and live the quiet, self-contained life I’ve always wanted. I bought this house without ever even visiting, which in hindsight seems reckless. I’m not normally reckless, about anything at all, but something about this place called to me. One minute I’m browsing on Rightmove, the next I’m putting in an offer.
I couldn’t resist it, simple as that. The pictures of the cute little cottage were complemented by pictures of the horseshoe-shaped bay at the bottom of the sloping road, surrounded by red-gold cliffs and views into infinity. It wasn’t a bustling metropolis, but that was one of the things I liked best about it–a bustling metropolis is wasted on me. I needed somewhere with the basics, in a beautiful location, and nothing more.
Now, as I stand gazing into the hallway, I wonder what kind of madness had infected me. How could I have bought a property without even visiting it? The younger moving man excuses his way past me, and takes another big box up the steps. I’d marked the boxes ‘upstairs’ or ‘downstairs’, and had been pleased with my level of organisation. Now I just feel like a bit of an idiot for doing this at all. Sally was so shocked when I told her, especially when I revealed that I hadn’t even been to visit.
‘But why there, and why somewhere so small?’ she’d said, when I showed her the pictures. ‘It’s very nice, but it’s tiny. You could afford somewhere much more spacious.’
‘That’s part of the appeal,’ I’d replied. ‘I like small homes; I like cosy more than I like grand. And let’s face it, I’m a weirdo. I couldn’t stand living anywhere too secluded or out in the countryside, because my brain would go into full meltdown. I’d be freaking out every night about killer goblins or ghost sheep.’
‘Your brain is a very strange place, you know that, don’t you?’
‘I do. It always has been, and I’m okay with that. I’ve spent years of my life trying to be normal, and it’s never going to happen. This ismynormal, and I’m content enough in my own way. My happy doesn’t have to look the same as your happy, Sally– we’ve had this conversation so many times! Can’t you just wish me well?’
Of course, she doesn’t know all of my reasons. She’d overreact, which is probably exactly what I’m doing. She’d sighed, then laughed resignedly, and then done exactly that– wished me well, and made me promise to come back for Lucy and Libby’s eighteenth birthday party. I’m kind of dreading that, and had hoped to skip it– I love my nieces dearly, and I’m especially close to Libby, who is sadly for her very similar to me at that age. I’d planned to take them out somewhere special, justthe three of us. A big shindig at a fancy hotel with my parents present isn’t my idea of fun, but I felt obliged to agree.
After that, she promised to visit me in Dorset as soon as I was settled. Now, as I stand here watching the place fill up around me, I wonder when that might be. I never loved my London flat– I bought it after Will and I got divorced– but it was familiar at least. This is new, and I know it will take me some time to get used to it.
