Love Notes from Vinegar House (12 page)

“Mrs Skelton told me to ask you–”

He waved his hand, cutting me off. “I know what she wants,” he said. “And I’ll get to it. But there’s more bad weather coming, and Mrs Kramer will want that fire in the dining room running full pelt. And I don’t fancy chopping wood in the rain.”

I looked to the woodshed that was stacked to the roof with logs, but if he noticed my gaze he ignored it.

“Mrs Skelton is unhappy, I mean–”

“Mrs Skelton isn’t happy unless she’s unhappy with someone,” he noted as he grabbed an armful of logs and stacked them neatly against the outside wall of the shed.

“She said to tell you that Mrs … Grandma is very unhappy,” I repeated dutifully. “Sorry,” I added, just so he would realise I was only the messenger.

“So Mrs Kramer is very unhappy that I haven’t fixed a loose shelf in the pantry? More like Mrs Skelton is unhappy.” He cocked an eyebrow at me and gave me a wry smile.

“Anyway,” I shuffled about scuffing at the ground, “that was the message.”

Mr Chilvers picked up the axe to inspect its edge.

I wondered why a man like Mr Chilvers would hide himself away in the middle of the end of nowhere looking after a property that was clearly falling down around his ears for an old lady who didn’t appreciate it.

“Why do you work here?” I asked suddenly. I hadn’t meant to ask the question aloud and I felt embarrassed.

“It suits me.” He continued inspecting the axe head for nicks.

“What did you do before you worked here?”

He sighed. “You can tell Mrs Skelton if she wants information, she can ask me herself.”

“No, no, I–”

“So, not Mrs Skelton?”

I shook my head.

He pulled out his handkerchief, blew his nose, then shoved the tatty material back into his overall’s pocket.

“I used to work a farm not too far from here. Been in our family for three generations. We had a couple of bad years. Then a couple more. My wife wanted to quit it, but …” He shrugged his shoulders. “She left. She took the kids, and I stayed on. I was just hanging out for one good year. The bank took it in the end. They took everything.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“All that hard work, and they just swooped in like a pack of vultures,” he continued. “None of them ever done an honest day’s work in their life. Just had to look at their hands to know that.”

I looked at Mr Chilvers’s own hands, which were blunt and scarred.

“Still, nothing good comes from profiting at the expense of others.” He looked up at Vinegar House.

“What do you mean?” I followed his gaze. There was a figure at the kitchen window but I couldn’t tell who it was from so far away.

Mr Chilvers picked up fallen bark from around the chopping block and threw it into a small metal bucket hanging from the shed wall.

“Mr Chilvers?”

“You can tell Mrs Skelton I’ll fix her shelf after lunch.”

A gust of wind sprang up from nowhere, pushing hair into my face as I watched Mr Chilvers prepare to leave. I wanted to ask him what he meant by profiting at the expense of others. I wanted to ask what he knew about my family, but it seemed disloyal somehow to be asking a stranger.

“Do you still see them?” I asked instead. “Your children?”

He raised the axe and I flinched, thinking of the folded over paper in my pocket.

Murderer
.

Then he swung it into the chopping block with such force that it drove a split in the wood. “A couple of times a year,” he said. “That’s all I can manage. They’ve got a new dad now, so I don’t want to … you know … mess things up for them.”

I suddenly wanted to talk to my own dad, so I mumbled something and turned back to the house, the wind gusting around my body, pushing me this way and that. There was a prickle at my neck, and I knew that if I turned around I would see Mr Chilvers watching me. But when I finally did turn to look back at the kitchen door, he was nowhere in sight.

Mum sounded happier when I talked to her later that day. She was still worried, but Nanna was doing much better on new medication. When the Colonel got on to the phone I forgot how much I’d wanted to hear his voice. He wanted to know how my homework was going, had I heard from Isabella and was I pulling my weight with chores around Grandma’s house. I ended our conversation with, “Good to hear from you too” even though he hadn’t said that. I got a grumpy reply, then I was handed back to Mum.

“I think that’s the doorbell,” I heard her say. Obviously, she was trying to get Dad out of the room. “Freya, please be patient with your father, he really does miss you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Freya!”

“Sorry, Mum.”

“You know that’s just his way.”

Grandma Vinegar paused at the library door to see me perched on the arm of the big reading chair. “Please sit on the chair properly, Freya. The armrest is for arms. Thus its name.”

“Grandma sends her love, Mum,” I said, moving onto the seat of the chair.

Grandma Vinegar glared at me suspiciously.

“I’ve gotta go now. Give my love to Nanna.” I hung up. “Mum says hello.”

“And how is everything there?”

“Good. Nanna’s doing well. Everyone’s well,” I said.

Grandma nodded once. “I thought we could all watch a movie tonight,” she said.

Luckily I was sitting down, because if I’d been standing, I would have fallen over. It was like … it was like Grandma was trying to be nice to me.

“It’s a favourite of mine, with Fred Astaire. He was the best dancer to ever come out of Hollywood. Although Gene Kelly was also a very good dancer.”

Then again, maybe not. Fred Astaire? I’d never heard of the guy. And who was Gene whatsit?

“That’s something to look forward to,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed.

“I mean, I love musicals. So does Rumer. We’ll both be there. It’s a date,” I babbled. There was no way Rumer was going to get out of this torture.

Grandma sniffed. “Straight after dinner,” she said.

“Great,” I said.

Great.

Fffffantastic.

The three of us cosied up in the TV room after dinner. This was the smallest of the downstairs rooms – smaller than the library even – but it still had its own fireplace, which sported a fire that Mr Chilvers had built up so much that the room was nearly hot. Grandma turned on the TV and found the right channel. She’d invited Mrs Skelton along, but the housekeeper said she had plenty of things to do before she got to bed that night. She said it in that way that meant everyone watching TV was a burden to her, and she just wanted us to know it. I’m not sure that Grandma received the message, but if she did, she hid it well.

Rumer had hidden her mobile under the cushion on her lap and was texting secretly before the opening credits had even rolled. It was an ancient movie – black and white – and it was pretty silly really. Lots of snappy talking. Misunderstandings. Dancing and singing. But there was a point during the movie where the main guy was trying to tell the girl he loved how he thought about her day and night – and I got it.

It’s not that I planned to think about Luke Hart. It’s just that he popped into my head all the time. I could not stop thinking about Luke Hart, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Near the end of the movie the power dropped out as it did sometimes, and we bumped around in the dark.

“There’s the power gone again. Could you get a candle from the kitchen, Freya?” said Grandma. “Rumer, you’ll find a torch in the library.”

Grandma was still giving Rumer instructions as I groped my way out of the TV room, across the entry hall, and into the kitchen. There was always a candle next to the stove, but it took me a while to find the matches. As I was fumbling about in the dark I had the feeling that someone was watching me. I moved over to the window, which was a paler grey in the dark, but there was no moon that night – nothing to help me see what I was doing. I struck a match and lit the candle, then raised it up before me to see a face at the window.

Just a face.

A scream stuck in my throat and I clung to the windowsill for support as I felt faint, then there was a tapping at the window and I had a closer look and realised it was Mr Chilvers dressed in dark clothes. After several deep breaths I went to the back door, unlocked it and he stood in the doorway.

“Just checking everything’s all right up here,” he said. “The power’s out at the cottage.”

“Here too,” I said. “But we’re fine.”

He nodded once, then turned away and I locked the door behind him.

Back in the TV room, Rumer had found two torches and was waiting impatiently for me.

“Hurry up,” she said.

Rumer handed a torch to Grandma who told us to go to bed, that she would be right up. Then Rumer pushed me out of the way as we reached the top of the stairs and she headed for the bathroom. By the time I reached my bedroom, I heard the satisfied slam of the bathroom door and the click of the lock and I felt that familiar fizz of anger towards her.

That’s when I noticed a square of pale colour poking out from under the gap beneath Rumer’s door. Without thinking about it, I grabbed it – it felt like paper – then went to my room and shut the door with such a force that the draft snuffed my candle out. I fumbled my way over to the uncovered window but couldn’t really see anything. I shoved it under my pillow, then went to sleep.

I waited until morning to read the note, but it only confirmed what I already knew – that the romance between Luke and Rumer was back on. I think I’d known that first hug between them when Mrs Hart dropped me off at Vinegar House. I knew it like I knew that fishing off the Homsea Jetty during high tide was the best time for squiding; like I knew Miss Maudy’s shop smelled of mothballs and the linseed oil rubbed into its wooden flooring; like I knew Rudy Heinrich would be eating a Danish at 11 am every work day while he pointed his radar gun at passing traffic. It was a fact. And they were doing it under my very nose. They had probably planned it all along, but they hadn’t reckoned on me being at Vinegar House for the holidays. Rumer’s closed bedroom door suddenly made sense. She was probably slipping out to meet Luke while pretending to be holed up in her room.

I’d been thinking about Luke night and day, and now I just felt stupid.

The front of the wrinkled envelope was marked with the letter R in a broad, fat capital. It didn’t look at all like an F. It had been under Rumer’s door. I knew it was wrong for me to open it, because I couldn’t even pretend that it was meant for me. I was thinking this even as I lifted the flap on the envelope and pulled out the note that was short and to the point.

I was feeling a little dizzy. I read the note again and then one more time. I slipped it back into the envelope and then hid it at the back of the dresser drawer. I avoided looking in the mirror. I was scared to think what I might see.

Sunday mornings at home are kind of special. Even the Colonel makes an effort, firing up the hotplate for a cooked breakfast with minimal growling. If Isabella is home, Oscar wakes her up then we all sit down at the table and discuss what’s happened that week. The dog is allowed inside and sits under the table for scraps. Mum’s a kinder teacher, so she usually has a funny story about one of the little kids. Dad talks about the chores he has set himself up for that day, though few of them ever get done. Oscar is big on jokes, so there’s usually a hundred knock knock jokes until we bribe him to stop. Isabella always talks about some show she’s seen in town, or some of the books she’s been reading. Her and Mum are mad readers, so they always try and outdo each other in the reading stakes.

And me? I like to sit there and let it all wash over me, like the gentle lapping of the incoming tide. It’s my second-favourite place to be, after the jetty, of course. There’s usually some music going on in the background, and in the old days, the Harts might have dropped over for a muffin or a pancake or a cup of freshly ground coffee that always smelled better than it tasted.