A Season for Second Chances(10)

The road curved sharply to the left and a sign—hand-painted—read: Caution! Steep Hill. Check Brakes! Annie swallowed. How steep could it be?

The road narrowed as it descended. To the left, cottages seemed to cling to the climbing hillside, their pretty landscaped gardens trickling down to precarious driveways carved out of the crag. On her right side, dropping down away, were equally tenacious houses nestled in the cliff face, half shrouded by trees, their chimneys peeking out above towering rhododendrons.

Soon tarmac was replaced by the crunch of shingle as Annie pulled, at last, into a clearing at the bottom of the hill and parked, as she had been advised by Mari. She climbed out of the car and was greeted by the clack and hiss of waves on stone. A warm wind whipped her hair about her face, so Annie quickly pulled it back into a ponytail.

Beyond the small parking area were several stone steps leading up to a promenade. Behind her were dunes sprouting long grass and old rock falls that had become part of the landscape, and beyond them, a thick mass of thorny brambles scaled the hillside from which Annie had just emerged.

To the left, the promenade curved for maybe half a mile before disappearing around a jutting cliff.

The breeze smelled of warm seaweed, and Annie tasted salt on her lips. She shielded her face with her hands against the sun and followed the path round with her eyes. In the distance, set back a little from the promenade, Annie could make out a two-story building, with a gabled roof and what looked like a fenced garden to the rear.

“Surely not!” she said to herself. “Surely no one lives there!”

She took a deep breath of fresh sea air and began to walk along the promenade in the direction of the dwelling in the distance.

As she got closer, Annie was able to pick out more details of the building. It looked like the old Victorian double-height fishing huts she’d seen on the beach at Hastings. It was cladded in black wood, but as it came more into view, she could see that the bottom third was exposed stone and at some point it had clearly been converted into a habitable dwelling. A tin chimney poked up through the pitched roof, which was tiled black to match the shiplapped walls. A thin wisp of gray smoke escaped the chimney and curled into the sky. Annie hurried her pace.

She could find no door on the beach side of the building, only a hatch and three large windows, shuttered and locked. The door to the side was utilitarian, the only feature the gold circle of a Yale lock. A few paces back the way she had come was a set of concrete steps that led down from the promenade to more shingle and the garden she had seen from a distance.

Annie walked down the steps and tramped alongside a peeling picket fence that had seen better days. The garden was laid with shingle but had been cultivated to make a pretty courtyard; lavender and rosemary bushes were dotted about the space, interspersed with clumps of low-growing thyme, herbs, and shrubs. The spiky seed heads of alliums on long woody stems bobbed above the shrubs like low-slung planets. The breeze picked up the scent of herbs, and the familiar smells washed over Annie like a balm. A flight of stone stairs led up to a Victorian-style front door, with stained-glass panels and matching panels above the door. To one side, a piece of driftwood was attached to the wall with the words Saltwater Nook painted in a flowing script. This was it!





Chapter 9



Annie rang the doorbell and stepped back down a couple of stairs to wait. After a moment or two a high-pitched voice called: “I’m coming!”

After three or four more minutes, she heard locks being drawn back, and the front door opened to reveal a tiny woman, no more than four foot six. Her long white hair was drawn up into a loose but neat bun on the top of her head and her cheeks looked like pink velvet. She smiled when she saw Annie, and her pale gray eyes crinkled at the edges like crepe paper.

“Hello, my dear!” said the woman, ushering Annie inside. “I’m Mari. You must be Annie. And right on time too!” she trilled. “Now just wait one moment . . .”

Mari pulled a mobile phone out of her cardigan pocket and held it up to her face, squinting. Then she squinted at Annie. Then back at the phone.

“Lovely,” she said, putting the phone back in her pocket. “It is you! My nephew sent me a photograph of you, and I wasn’t to let you in until I was absolutely sure the picture matched the person. And it does! So, come on in. I’ve just put the kettle on. Come, come!”

“How exactly did your nephew come to have a picture of me?” Annie asked.

“Ach, just a wee bit of interweb stalking, my dear,” Mari replied. “Instaface or one of those other socially mediocre things you young things are all into.”

Annie was not keen on the idea of the nephew delving through her internet profile, but she did appreciate being lumped in with the “young things.”

“You have a lovely garden.”

“I do what I can,” said Mari. “It’s not the easiest place to grow a garden. But the herbs have a wonderful depth of flavor; it must be the salty air.”

Annie liked Mari and her strange house on the beach instantly. She had wanted to get away from it all, and this place was away from everything.

Annie followed Mari into a long, thin, whitewashed corridor, sparsely decorated, with framed photographs in black and white of bearded men in roll-neck jumpers, standing proudly beside tatty-looking fishing trawlers. A set of iron hooks held a pair of binoculars and a bright yellow raincoat. A pair of black wellington boots and a basket lay below. Mari pointed to a pile of logs beside the door that reached the ceiling.