The Letter Read online

  She reminds me of my A-level students: hopeful, keen and eager to please the teacher. Nearly a decade of teaching kicks in like a reflex and I find I want to encourage her.

  “They did. The views are exactly what I wanted,” I agree. There’s a pause while I think about what to say next, if anything at all.

  “Once you’ve got your own things moved in it’ll be lovely,” says the letting agent optimistically. “The chimney’s been swept and it’ll be nice and cosy once the wood burner’s lit.”

  Cosy isn’t the first word that springs to mind. The house smells old, of rooms kept shut and of empty spaces that can’t be reinvigorated by the opening of curtains or the pulling up of sash windows. Long-forgotten furniture shrouded in dust sheets slumbers in dim corners; the curtains are drawn in all the other windows and the room shivers with shadows. When our conversation falters, the house is as quiet as the graveyard. If I strain my ears I can hear the waves dashing on the rocks in the cove below and the mournful calls of a lone seagull. Waves and gulls and larks were the soundtrack I’d listened to when I first viewed the Rectory, but in high summer the windows were flung open, salty air blew through the rooms and sunshine spilled in honeyed pools across the floorboards. In my haste to outrun my grief I hadn’t paused to consider how it would be in the winter.

  “And it’s all right for me to move things around and have a bit of a clear-out?” I ask. The place is full of junk and I have my own belongings packed and ready.

  “Absolutely. Please, help yourself. Mr Sargent has even said in writing that we can clear the place if we want to and throw things away. He’s taken all his personal effects to the care home. To be honest, empty houses are generally easier for us to let, but this place would take a lot of work and a house-clearance team. Mr Sargent’s more than happy for carpets and furniture to go if you’d rather change them. He knows he won’t be returning.” She pauses, suddenly struck by a thought. “That’s a shame, isn’t it? It must be very sad for him.”

  “Very sad,” I agree, and my heart aches for this unknown elderly man who shut his front door and walked away, knowing he would never come home again. I’ve done something similar and it hurts to know that life will never be the same.

  “It’s getting cold. Shall we do the paperwork at the pub where we can warm up? If you still want to take the Rectory, of course,” says the letting agent. She knows as well as I do that this place is one thing in August and another altogether in the winter.

  For a moment I teeter on the precipice. Do I jump? Am I brave enough?

  It’s only early afternoon but already the light’s starting to die. The long sunlit evenings of late summer could belong to a different world. They certainly belong to a different life – the one I’m about to leave. The air thrums with possibilities, infinite parallel lives poised to go spinning off into creation. This is the moment where I pause on the brink of the unknown and the new.

  Which is what I wanted and why I’m here.

  I take a deep breath.

  “I still want to take it,” I say.

  Chapter 2

  Chloe

  “No, Mum, seriously. You really don’t have anything to worry about. I love it here and the house is wonderful. This place is exactly what I need.”

  I tuck my phone between my chin and my shoulder and hope that fibbing in a rectory isn’t an invitation to be struck down by holy lightning. To be doubly sure, I cross my fingers. I should be safe, since these are just a few white lies to soothe my anxious mother. Over two hundred miles away, and clearly thinking I’ve finally lost it after two and a half years of clinging on by my fingernails, she’s finding it hard to understand why I’ve chosen to bury myself in Cornwall.

  She’s wondering? This makes two of us. I only moved in yesterday afternoon, but already I’m starting to think I might have made a mistake. If the unloved Rectory felt vast when I met the letting agent, it seems twice as big now that I’m here alone. When I turned the brass key in the lock after returning from signing all the paperwork yesterday, I hovered on the doorstep for a few seconds, feeling I should wait to be invited inside by a wise old vicar.

  Telling myself I was being ridiculous, I’d stepped inside, abandoning my two cases at the foot of the imposing staircase, and decided to explore. As I’d drifted through the Rectory I’d felt as lost and as insubstantial as anything that might haunt the graveyard. I’d pushed open doors, drawn curtains apart and claimed the spaces, telling myself that once my own belongings arrived it would feel less abandoned. I’d found a study, a dining room and a games room with a listing ping-pong table and moth-nibbled net. The sitting room was at the far end of a panelled corridor whose dark woodwork had somehow escaped the eighties makeover inflicted on the rest of the house. The room itself was pleasant and airy, and I knew that once I’d moved my few pieces in this would be where I’d spend my time. There was a deep window seat too, which would be the perfect spot to watch the waves. I was struck by the notion that I’d be the latest in a long chain of people to do so. There was something soothing about this sense of continuity.

  “What about the kitchen?” worries my mother, who’s obsessed by the fear that I’ll fade away without Tesco Express on the corner or her weekly food parcels. We both know that most of what she brings ends up mouldering in the fridge for weeks anyway, but we choose to pretend otherwise. Enjoying food, like being a wife, is something from another life. There’s no fun in cooking huge curries or hearty stews without Neil to tuck into them or friends to come over for supper. The magic of tossing ingredients into a pan is no longer a pleasure either. These days everything tastes like ashes and I generally make do with toast.

  “Is the cooker any good?” my mother continues. “I know how it can be in these rented houses. I’ve read some terrible things on the Internet. You have to be so careful when you rent a house.”

  I smile at this. My parents have inhabited the same house in Enfield since they were married over thirty-five years ago and know as much about renting as I do about particle physics. Mum’s been busy Googling horrific stories about unscrupulous landlords, hot bunking and TB. She’ll have been up all night fretting, convinced I’m about to fry myself on faulty wiring.

  “Do the appliances comply with modern standards?” she asks now, with a note of anxiety. “Have you checked for PAT testing?”

  “That sounds like something I should do with a dog.” I attempt a joke but she isn’t amused.

  “I’m being serious, Chloe! I’ve read some dreadful stories. There has to be a reason a house like that’s so cheap to rent. It’s probably a death trap and you’ll be electrocuted.”

  “I’d take a quick electric shock over cancer any time,” I say flippantly and before I can stop myself. There’s a sharp intake of breath on the end of the line, which makes me feel terrible. Mum’s only trying to show she cares. What does Perky Pippa say? I must be patient. I must stop bringing up the past. I must stop making bitter comments. I must move on.

  I must. I must. I must. Maybe I should write these commandments out like punishment lines or repeat them as mantras?

  “The cooker’s solid fuel so please don’t worry about anything there.” I pinch the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger and breathe deeply to steady my racing heart. I’m now two and a half years and a whole life away, sitting beside a hospital bed and holding a frail hand that was once so strong. “Anyway, I’m sure the agent wouldn’t have rented the house out without making sure everything was safe. There are laws about that sort of thing.”

  “So I should think,” says Mum huffily. Relieved to be back on firm ground, she’s soon regaling me with some of the awful stories she’s read. I make the right noises in hopefully the right places and let my mind drift.

  Actually, my mother may have a point. I’m sure the letting agents know their job, but the Rectory must be several centuries old – and judging by the way the lights flicker, it was probably first wired when Queen Victoria was on the throne. Nothing I�
�ve seen since I arrived has convinced me that it’s been updated since. There’s an enormous range slumbering in the corner of the kitchen like a cast-iron dragon, and close inspection suggests I’ll need to feed it with wood to have it breathing fire and running the massive radiators. It certainly won’t go ping and serve me a ready meal in two minutes. Then there’s a butler’s sink so vast I could fit the butler in it, a refectory table big enough to seat a football team, and a larder the size of my old sitting room. Empty shelves stretch from floor to ceiling and there’s a huge fridge marooned at the far end. Slight overkill for a loaf of bread and a jar of Marmite.

  Once I’ve convinced Mum I’m not about to starve or electrocute myself, I think I’ll make a start on unpacking. I couldn’t face doing this last night. I haven’t chosen to bring a great deal with me, for obvious reasons – but even so, the thought of seeing items from our home appearing out of context is reason enough to leave the sealed boxes where they are for now, piled in the hallway.

  Last night, once the removal men had finally left and the boxes were stacked, it took all my strength to climb the stairs before I fell into bed. It didn’t matter that the sheets were damp or the bed a little lumpy, because I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and shut everything out. I feel like this sometimes, not as much as I did at first, but last night wasn’t good. I lay in the big brass bed, with the covers pulled up to my chin and my eyes tightly shut. I tried to pretend I was at home with Neil sleeping beside me, and that all was as it should be. I used to be good at this – so good that when I opened my eyes and found his side of the bed empty it was a shock all over again – but in this Cornish house my old skills evaded me. I couldn’t summon the familiar room and the soft breathing of my husband, no matter how hard I tried. Instead I shivered in the deep darkness while the house creaked and settled around me like an old ship. I didn’t fall asleep until the moon sank and the gulls started to shriek.

  Consequently, I’m gritty-eyed and tired this morning. What if I’ve left Neil behind and can never find him again? I wanted a new start but I didn’t want to lose him totally or erase the memories of what we once had. I’m so afraid I’ve done the wrong thing. I’m terrified I’ve betrayed Neil by selling our home and moving away. It felt right at the time, but now I’m here I’m not so sure…

  “Chloe?” My mother can tell I’ve tuned out. “Darling, have you heard a word I’ve said? Is everything really all right? You are feeling yourself, aren’t you? You’re not feeling unwell again?”

  Feeling unwell is my mother’s euphemism for having a breakdown. She’s always awkward about mentioning anything to do with what she would term “mental health”, and I know she was embarrassed about having a daughter who needed counselling and antidepressants. That wasn’t something to boast about to her friends at the tennis club. Well, she’s got nothing to worry about now. Mum might think I’m crazy leaving London and moving to Cornwall, but it was the only way to hang onto my sanity. The dark days of pills and despair are behind me and this move is the next step on my journey. It’s the opposite of crazy, not that I’m going to try to explain this to her.

  “It’s all good,” I say vaguely.

  “Are you sure the house isn’t too lonely? You’re not feeling too isolated there? It’s such a long way away. I know Neil loved Cornwall but…”

  Her words fade and there’s an awkward lull in the conversation. This happens to me a lot. One of the hardest things about losing Neil is that almost overnight people stopped mentioning his name and avoided any conversations that might include him. I suppose they were trying to be kind and spare my feelings and, as is the British way, steer well clear of emotional minefields. If I want to talk about my husband, I’ll have to do a Shirley Valentine and chat to the wall.

  “You are coping, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

  Coping is one of those funny words I heard a lot when Neil was ill. People would ask me how I was coping with taking care of him, how he was coping with the treatment (badly as it turned out; Neil was an appalling patient) and how I was coping once I was alone. The fact is, no one really wants to hear the truth. The questions are a formality and you find yourself taking part in a ballet of evasions and acceptable answers. I know the steps off by heart.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Just a bit tired.”

  This answer seems to satisfy her. My grief has been circumnavigated and now we’re discussing how the sea air makes you sleepy. As we talk about nothing at all, skating on the thin ice of polite conversation, I contemplate the strange nature of grief. Some people hide from it, others devote their entire lives to mourning, and the bravest get on with living. I’m not sure what category I fall into yet.

  “Cornwall is very pretty,” my mother says brightly. “Dad and I love Poldark and Doc Martin. Lovely scenery.”

  I refrain from pointing out that these shows are filmed in the height of summer when the skies are duck-egg blue and the air’s mild, and that “pretty” isn’t the adjective I would have picked to describe this wild coastline. Dramatic, maybe? Bleak certainly.

  “You’d love it, Mum,” I say. “The house has lots of space and the views are beautiful. I think I’ll be able to paint here.”

  I do want to paint again. I’m longing to capture this salty wilderness with its shifting skies and rough grassy cliffs. I’m scared and I’m nervous, but as I chat to my mother I’m wondering where the nearest art-supply shop might be. If I do paint again, I’ll need to restock.

  See? This is the right place. Trust your own instincts. Don’t listen to your mum! She’d have you living back with them!

  Neil’s lounging in the window seat and beaming at me with his old confidence. His blue eyes sparkle, his tanned feet are bare and he looks as youthful as he did when we first started dating. Startled, I blink and he’s gone. He was never there, of course, but for a moment he might have been – and this could have been a normal day on our holiday, in a tatty eighties time-warp house we’d laugh about for years and daydream about buying and doing up ourselves. We used to love spinning dreams and weaving plans for the future.

  Sometimes I think it’s just as well nobody knows what lies ahead.

  “Well, that is good news!” Mum says, with such delight that it’s apparent just how worried she’s been by my lack of artistic output. I’ve been drawing and painting since I was old enough to hold a brush. Although I taught art until recently, I was on the brink of working full time on commissions. I’d enjoyed several relatively successful exhibitions, sold two big landscapes to a private collector and been signed by a top agent, but when I lost Neil I stopped painting altogether. I didn’t care if I never picked up a brush again. My creativity had died.

  At least, that was what I’d thought in those dark times – but now I’m wondering if it is time to paint again. The Rectory might be cavernous and cold, but knowing that my instinct to come here was right warms me more than any wood burner ever could. And I saw Neil too. I did see him! I’m closer to my husband here than I was in our own home, which proves I haven’t made a mistake coming here after all.

  Yesterday I wasn’t so certain. While the removal men were unpacking their van, I’d continued exploring my new home, making mental maps and opening doors into rooms I knew I wouldn’t use. Having wandered around upstairs, I’d decided I would sleep in the back bedroom, where the views out across the sea made up for the faded floral decor. There were five bedrooms in all, plus the avocado bathroom; then there was another flight of steps, albeit little more than a glorified ladder, which led up to the attic. The light had all but gone by then, but I remembered from my summer visit how the space had the potential to become a wonderful studio. Maybe…

  “So what’s the plan for today?” my mother’s asking brightly, in the tone of voice you’d use with an invalid. “A nice walk on the cliffs and a pub lunch?”

  I smile. That sounds like luxury compared to what I’ll be up to.

  “Not today. I’m going to sort out finding some logs and
getting the fire going. It’s pretty cold in here.”

  Cold is an understatement. I wouldn’t be surprised if a glacier slid through the room. This morning’s seen the dawn of a sharp and frosty day and I can see my breath clouding as I speak. The tip of my nose is numb, my fingers are turning blue and I need to see if I can have the wood burner working before I get frostbite. With her new-found obsession with faulty wiring, Mum’s worrying about the wrong thing entirely; I’m far more likely to freeze to death than fry. Thank God she hasn’t discovered the wonders of FaceTime and can’t see that I’m wearing a coat and scarf indoors. My parents have their central heating cranked up to subtropical and she’d be horrified. I’m convinced it’s colder inside the Rectory than it is outside. I’ve never seen ice on the inside of windows before, and I have the troubling feeling that the whole place will freeze over if I don’t get sorted.

  I’ve been frozen for far too long, I decide once I’ve finished the call. It’s time to head into the sunshine. I’ll feel the warmth on my face and then discover whether there’s any chance of a thaw.

  Chapter 3

  Chloe

  I was right about it being warmer outside the Rectory; I suppose the thick walls retain cold as well as heat. As I stomp around the garden with the sunlight brushing my upturned face, it isn’t long before I feel slightly less like an ice lolly. While I search for the log store, I start to enjoy the wintery morning. Waves glitter in the bay, seagulls perform aeronautical displays high above and several keen walkers are already striding along the cliff path.

  There’s something soothing about being outdoors. The phone call with my mother has left me, if not unsettled exactly, then a little adrift. There were too many reminders of before – old hurts and worries that are the bedrock upon which our conversations are built, layer by layer. It’s hard to leave the broken and signed-off-work version of myself behind when, with each anxious question and implied concern, my mother keeps resurrecting her. My London life’s been cast off. With every mile journeyed further west in my little red Peugeot, the past dropped away and I felt increasingly relieved. Chloe the wife, widow and teacher has been left behind, and (hopefully) so too have Poor Chloe, Mad Chloe and Have you heard about Chloe? In Rosecraddick I’m free to rediscover myself without the past and pity dragging me under.