Dads Cottage
I learned quite by accident that Dad and I had sold our cottage. It happened unexpectedlyone of those things you might expect only in films. I was at the post office, phoning Mum who was living in another city, when the operator mistakenly connected me to two other callers. For a moment, I simply listened, an unintentional third party. Two people in two different cities talked about the biggest news: the cottage was gone, sold at a good price, and nowwell, now plenty more things were possible. Even some help for me, Hannah!
I heard Mums voice and her sisters, Aunt Elaine. So familiar it hurt. Just over seventy miles between usripples of speech transformed into electrical signals trundling down wires. Physics, Dad always insisted, was something I had to learn, but it always felt like a foreign language to me.
***
Dad, why is the September sun so different? Id asked him on one of those golden afternoons at the cottage.
What do you mean, Hannah?
I dont know The light is softer, somehow. Not like August.
You need to study your science, love. The planets are in a different place come autumn! Catch! Dad laughed and tossed me a heavy, slightly squashed appleshiny, red, smelling of honey.
Bramley?
No, not ready yet. This ones Russet.
I bit in and the crunch filled my mouth with sweet, foamy juicethe taste of English summer with warm showers and fertile earth. Apple varieties, like physics, were something I never quite grasped. And that was the big problem at the time. You see, IHannah Williams, Year Ninehad secretly been in love for two years with my physics teacher. The world narrowed to a point, the heavens cracked open, yet science and space refused to fit the confines of a ruled exercise book.
Dad understood everything from my vacant gaze and lack of appetite. Id told him, after all, last yearsobbed all night in his lap like a child, while Mum was away at a health spa and my twelve-years-older sister at university.
At the cottage, Dad was always cheerful, whistling little tunes in a way he never did at home. There, Mum and Elaine took the lead whenever they visited. Mum was so beautifultall, upright, head of the library at the nearby RAF base. Her copper hair curled wild, tinged with hennashed come out of the bathroom every couple of months, head wrapped in a towel that smelled of herbs and rain. Everyone noticed Mums beauty. Dad was shorter than her, older by nearly a decade, and more unassuming. Mum once said so to Elaine, and I overheard and felt hurt.
Franks no looker, Mum said, but a man shouldnt be handsome anyway.
Unassuming, next to Mums blazing hair and dramatic ways: smashing plates, relentless passion. Mum loved comfort and routine, but had to tolerate Dads ladsold army mates sometimes sleeping on the lounge floor of our cramped flat. While Dad served, soldiers would drop by on their way throughsometimes needing help finding work. His old army crowd. In 1960, Dad had been caught up in big military cutbacksover a million soldiers dismissedand left the army as a major. Afterwards, he served as chief engineer at the Bletchley Telegraph. These same mates helped Dad build our cottagelaboured for free, swapped shifts, dug the ground with him.
A small house, just one room and a veranda, with a roof where, in summer, I loved to read. Dad would hand up bowls of gooseberries, cherries, or strawberries. Pure joy. Mum never liked the cottage much, rarely visitedit would ruin her hands, she said. Elegant and neat, with large nailsDad kissed them; I admired them.
With hands like that, you should be issuing books, not digging up spuds, Dad joked, winking at me.
***
The first September raindrops thudded cheerfully against the veranda roofso lively, not mournful. I put away my book.
Hannah, come down, loveMum and Elaine will be here soon, we should get lunch ready, Dads voice sounded unusually bright at the cottage.
I lingered, looking up at the swollen, grey, but not angry sky. My face grew wet; I hugged myself for warmth. Up on the roofcloser to the sky and farther from the earthI watched sunbeams cut through the clouds over our neighbours gardens. My physics woes forgotten; university would have its own rules.
They moved me straight into halls when I started first year, but that first week of September I lived in a rented room with the landlady, while other students occupied the second. My lectures offered a deep dive into literature and language, led by tutors with almost magnetic charmeveryone was half in love with them. After class, I wandered through unfamiliar streets, lost in homesicknesswith no friends yet.
Id grab a bite in the canteen and wander till late. The citys beauty felt distant, even hostile. It made me feel cold, alonelike I was someone else, not Hannah, stumbling down a steep lane past the university, barking dogs echoing in the distance, new patent shoes rubbing my feet raw.
The kitchen in my rented flat was filled with the sweet, slightly musty scent of Dads apples, which hed brought as a thank-you for my landlord. The smell made me tear up, restless and unsettled.
Soon I moved into halls and found my neighbours were German studentsViola, Maggie, Marion. By evening, my head would ache from their constant chatter, so Id escape outside for air, watching them smoke at the steps. The Germans would borrow cigarettes and pay back each pennyour lot found it strange. They were amazed by Mums home-pickled tomatoes, wolfed them down with fried potatoes. When my stash ran out, theyd get out their sausages (unimaginable luxury for us), but never shared! When their exchange year ended in May, they left heaps of boots by the binbought for our cold English winter. Wed quietly grab them for ourselves
***
Hannah, can you shred the cabbage? Ill dig up some carrots, stocks ready.
The kitchen windows steamed up; the huge cabbage opened on the board like green lace. I tore off a leafdelicious. Fresh from the ground always tasted better. I chopped with a real rhythm, the cabbage sweet-smelling. I opened the window to autumn leaves, bonfire smoke and apples. Dad worked outside, shovel heavy in the soil; I knew his back ached. I dropped my knife and ran to hug him from behind. He turned, hugged me silently, kissed my head.
That night, Elaine arrived on her own; Mum had a splitting headache and stayed in.
***
Years passed: university, a brief student marriage, first job at the Innovator newspaper for the local aviation works, Dads first heart attack, the birth of my daughter Rosie, the divorce. So much squeezed into five years. My husband left for another woman, and I lived with two-year-old Rosie in a rented flat. Dad came every fortnight, bringing groceries and playing with Rosie.
Hannah, dont be cross about Mum not visiting as much as I do, okay? She gets terribly travel-sick. And well, I think shes seeing someone.
Dadreally? At her age?
He laughed, a bitter sound. Then he went quiet. I suddenly saw how gray and hunched hed become. Hed even stopped whistling.
Dad, why dont I take my leave next week? We can get down to the cottage before it gets cold, just the three of usme, you, Rosie?
***
The cottage was deep in fallen leavesthe last warm October week and Indian summer. We lit the stove, brewed blackcurrant leaf tea. I quickly fried potato cakes. Dad raked leaves, Rosie helped, then scattered his piles in gleeful laughter. The oil sputtered and popped, Dads whistling floated from the back garden.
By evening we burned a bonfire. The lanes were empty, neighbours gardens deserted. Dad speared chunky bread on willow twigs for Rosie to toast. I stretched my cold hands toward the flamesforever enchanting. I thought about my first youth club trip to Yorkshirecampfires, guitars, songs into the night, the crushing feeling of falling in love with life itself, not a person. Faces by the firealways different than by day, each with its secrets. There Id met the future husband. At work that week, they called me to the Party committee meetingconsidering me for Labour membership. I crammed party rules and policy all night. Suddenly, they wanted to know who was to blame for my divorce and where moral weakness lay. I babbled through tears. Then a colleague jumped up, stammering:
This is a meeting for boors, not for Labour ideals!
Years later, it would seem surreal.
When darkness fell, we doused the fire. A car stopped at the gate; a door slammed. It was Mum! Stylish in a bright coat, she came with a colleague from work, she said. Rosie ran to her, Dad frowned, Mum got a quick, awkward kiss.
Whos this colleague, then?
Oh, Frank, dont be silly, just gave me a liftyou dont know him.
Supper was tense; Rosie got cranky, Mum asked after my job but was lost in thought. Dad stared silently at Mum, shoulders sinking. The evening ruined
***
A year later, Dad was gone. A massive heart attacktaken from us in the soft sunlight of early October. Straight after the funeral, I took leave, went to stay at the cottage. Rosie stayed with her nan.
Everything felt heavy and chaotic. The apple harvest was better than ever. I gave neighbours buckets, boiled jam with mint and cinnamonDads favourite. Dads old comrade, Mr. Johnstone, came to helpevery year theyd trek to Wisley for new fruit saplings.
Ill stay a few days, Hannah, dig the garden, trim the trees, if you like.
Oh Mr. Johnstone, thank you!
He called me Hannah love, and the tears came. In that moment, the final, crushing sense of irreversibility, orphanhood. I kept waiting for Dad to come back, that it was all a nightmare. For days, in that blur between sleep and waking, it took moments to remember why everything hurt. Then the flood: Dad was gone.
The worst was a sense of guiltthat I hadnt kept him with us.
Please dont sell the cottage, Hannah. Ill always come and help, promise. You know, that old Bramley apple treewe chose it together, you were just a wee thing. Driving to Wisley, Frank would talk more about you than about Elaine. He said youd outlive him and the trees. Always took ages inspecting saplings, drove me mad…”
Mr. Johnstone stayed three days, dug the garden, pruned the apples, fertilised everything, planted three yellow chrysanthemum bushes by the porch.
Shouldve planted them earlier, but this autumns mildtheyll take! For Frank Ill cover the roses next visit, tidy the leaves.
We hugged goodbye. It began to drizzle. I watched him go from the gate, until he wavedBack inside, Hannah! The rain beat harder on the roof, wind slammed the gate. The porch was scattered with yellow petals. Everything here was my fathers, and always would be. The rain, the trees, autumn smells, the ground itself. Which meant Dad must be near, always. IHannahwould learn, I promised. Id bring Rosie every autumn till the frost, only two hours by coach. And come spring, as soon as the ground thawed, maybe sort heating at last. I needed to save some money. Dad always wanted to try white currantsnext time, Id go to Wisley with Mr. Johnstone and pick some out.
***
Half a year later, beginning of April, snow still clinging to the groundthe cottage was sold. I only discovered it by accident, ringing home from the post office, clutching a sapling of white currant wrapped in a damp old T-shirt at my feet.
