The Secret of Orchard Cottage: The feel-good number one bestseller. Alex Brown

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СКАЧАТЬ knew who she was; she came every year in the school holidays to stay with her aunt.

      Matt must have been about twelve – bottle-top glasses and crooked teeth – and with typical pre-pubescent boy hormones racing through him, but still, he had never seen a girl like her. A vision she was. With her long curly brown hair flaring out behind her as she sped along, her white cotton skirt puffing up in the breeze, allowing him a glimpse of her suntanned thighs. And to cap it all, she had turned her freckled face and actually grinned at him as she had gone by. He thought he had died and gone to heaven. And he had never forgotten that moment.

      It had been a few summers later when he had seen her again, part of the group that met on the village green every morning with their bikes, bags of sweets and clingfilmed sandwiches and instructions to be home by sunset for their tea. More confident by now, thanks to the braces straightening his teeth and the new, decent glasses, he hadn’t wanted to miss his chance a second time around and had plucked up the courage to talk to her. He had made her laugh and in turn she had made him feel on top of the world. They had spent the whole week of her holiday together that summer. Cycling, fishing, swimming in the stream, they had even made a den in the woods together. And that was where it had happened. April Lovell was the first girl Matt kissed. Properly kissed. Pulling her into him, pressing his body against hers in the buttercup field. Soft and curvy, he had been nervous of crushing her. Later, they had lain on the grass in the sunshine together. Him with his arms wrapped around her, his fingers entwined in her hair as she rested her head on his chest and twirled a buttercup underneath his chin, making jokes about liking butter or something. He couldn’t remember the words for sure, but he’d never forgotten the scent of her, like a bunch of lovely fresh flowers it was.

      Matt pushed a hand through his hair, shocked at the effect the sudden memory of that intense summer was having on him all these years later. Even though he had never seen her again until today in the lane. He rubbed a hand over his stubbly chin and glanced in the rear-view mirror, knowing he needed to pull himself together. And fast. Everything was different now. He was a dad with responsibilities for starters, so there was no point mooning over the past like some lovestruck teenager. He switched the engine back on and carried on driving.

      *

      Orchard Cottage was at the end of a private, single-track lane, April remembered that much, and last time she’d been here the lane was pristine with beautifully manicured herbaceous borders running the length on either side. But now, there was just a mass of higgledy-piggledy brambles and nettles, some so long they were practically meeting in the middle like an arch covering the lane and tapping the top of the Beetle as April nudged gently on. And she didn’t dare risk going over five miles an hour for fear of driving into one of the gigantic craters (and that really wasn’t an exaggeration) littering the tarmac. Or worse still, the hen and her chicks that were dandering along, weaving in and out of the undergrowth and bringing a whole new meaning to the term ‘free-range’. From what April could see, these chickens had the run of the whole place, and there were at least six hens now – she’d lost count of the number of chicks – all pecking away and squabbling with one another.

      April came to the end of the lane. Ahh, this looked more like it. With rolling green fields all around her, there was a patch of dandelion-covered tarmac that she reckoned constituted a turning point. And what was that? A tiny opening in between two giant bun-shaped blue hydrangea bushes.

      April got out of the car and looked around, drawing in the sweet honeysuckle mingled with wood-smoke scent that filled the air, feeling baffled that Aunt Edie’s cottage looked so overgrown. It hadn’t been like this at all the last time she had visited. April walked over to the opening and saw a narrow, winding footpath to the left leading up to the cottage’s front door that was barely visible now, given the glorious red, yellow, pink and green rainbow assortment of geraniums tumbling down from two hanging baskets, almost touching the red tiles surrounding the porch.

      After retrieving her handbag, the cake tin and the bunch of peonies – figuring she could pop back to the car for the rest of her stuff in a bit – April made her way along the footpath, flanked either side by tons of tall buttery-yellow hollyhocks, and up to the front door. Placing the bunch of peonies and the cake tin on the tiles, she found the rope attached to the brass bell hanging from the wall and gave it a good jangle. Nothing happened. April waited for what felt like a respectable length of time before giving it another good jangle, a little louder and longer this time. Perhaps Great Aunt Edie was having a nap. April checked her watch. It was nearly two o’clock and she knew that her great aunt liked a little lie-down in the afternoon after her lunch, which was always at one p.m. sharpish; but then she was in her nineties so it only seemed right for her to be taking it easy at her time of life.

      April took a step back and looked up at the two upstairs windows nestling in the eaves of the thatched roof, with their black paint surround and criss-cross ironwork, and saw that the curtains were still closed. She opened the white picket fence side gate and stepped tentatively through the thigh-high grass – trying not to imagine what the soft, sluggy-like feeling was that had just squelched along the side of her right Birkenstock sandal – and across to the sitting room window.

      Taking in the flowery wallpaper, the mahogany sideboard with dusty bottles of alcohol on a silver tray for guests – Cinzano, Vermouth, Campari and of course the creamy yellow Advocaat – ahh, April smiled, fondly remembering the potent snowballs with a glacé cherry on a cocktail stick that her great aunt used to mix into a big highball glass tumbler for her as a young teenager, telling her in a naughty whisper-voice not to tell her mum. On the other side of the room was a Dralon settee with white lace covers protecting the arms. There was a rosewood display cabinet in the alcove next to the log burner, crammed with various keepsakes gathered over the years – lots of black and white framed photos, a sprig of lavender wrapped in silver foil, a lucky rabbit’s foot, a collection of china thimbles and postcards sent from her soldier brothers during the Second World War – April remembered being allowed to look at these when she was a child. And, still there, was the picture of the woman in the uniform. Winnie perhaps.

      But where was Great Aunt Edie?

      Wading through the grass, across the footpath and around to the back of the cottage, April wondered what was going on. When she had phoned her aunt to thank her for the birthday card and to ask if she could visit, Edie had sounded delighted.

      ‘Oh yes, dear! I had been wondering when you would come back. It’ll be very lovely to see you. And I’ll bake your favourite cinnamon apple crumble and custard for your tea. I’ll use the Carnation evaporated milk, just the way you like it,’ she had said – getting a little confused after mistaking her for Winnie again, April had assumed, as she couldn’t stomach evaporated milk. But once she had gently informed Edie that it was April, her brother Robert’s granddaughter, who would be visiting today … well, April was surprised that her father’s aunt wasn’t in. It was very unlike her, Edie was always quite fastidious when it came to receiving guests. April remembered one time as a child, she had been staying for the weekend while her parents went to a wedding, and the Tindledale village vicar had been due to pop by, just to collect some jars for the church fete (Great Aunt Edie was famous for her homemade apple sauce, using sweet Braeburns from the orchards) – Edie had spent the morning dusting the cottage and had changed into her best dress at least an hour before the vicar arrived. So how come she wasn’t at home now?

      Admittedly, it was a little later than April had predicted arriving, damn sat nav, but Aunt Edie wouldn’t have just gone out, surely? And where would she go in any case? The last time she had visited, April had got the impression her aunt never went very far at all; being a home bird, she preferred pottering around her country cottage.

      April made her way around to the back of the cottage where the grass was just as tall – and what was that? As she ventured nearer to the back door, she felt her Birkenstocks sinking into something slippery and wet. A bog of some kind, or a blocked drain overflowing, СКАЧАТЬ