Starting Over at Acorn Cottage by Kate Forster

Author:Kate Forster [Forster, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788544382
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2020-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

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Clara made them cottage pie and Pansy ate only the mashed potato and then rubbed her eyes and said she wanted to lie in bed and watch her TV show on her iPad about a talking dog.

Henry tucked her into bed and came back to Clara who was scraping the leftovers into a bowl and covering it with cling film.

‘Thank you for dinner,’ he said, feeling awkward.

‘That’s okay, cottage pie is always a good, filling option.’ She filled the sink with hot water and dishwashing liquid and dropped the plates into the sudsy water.

‘I’ll wash, you dry,’ she said, tossing him a tea towel.

They worked in silence for a while.

‘Cottage pie was what broke myself and Giles up.’

‘How?’

Clara rinsed a plate of the suds under the tap.

‘I sent him to a golfing weekend with his friends. He said he was staying at a mate’s house, and I knew it would be pizza and beers, so I make a big cottage pie and put it in a container and sent it away with him. Then months later, after he’s told me he left the container at the mate’s place in the country, I figure it’s just gone, you know?’

Henry nodded as he dried a plate and Clara continued.

‘Then I go to dinner at my best friend Judy’s house and go to get something from the cupboard in the kitchen, and lo and behold, there’s my Tupperware with the orange lid that has my name on it and was sent away with cottage pie in it, at her house. The one Naomi’s ashes is in now. Sorry but that’s all I had.’

Henry shrugged. ‘That’s okay, she would like to be a part of the drama. Go on. What happened then?’

‘I confronted them at the dinner, and that’s when Giles told me they were in love. So I set fire to the dining table by accident after throwing a breadstick at his head but since I don’t believe in accidents and coincidences, I probably meant them to all burn in hell, and so I left with my container and haven’t spoken to either of them again.’

Henry started to laugh and so did she. ‘So, Naomi’s ashes are now in the container that you once filled with cottage pie that then uncovered an affair? Oh, that’s perfect.’

‘Yes, sorry, I can try and find another container but that’s all I had at hand.’

‘That’s okay, she would love it.’

They sat at the kitchen table and drank tea and talked late into the night. Clara was whip-smart and Henry was entertained by her humour and dreams for her future, which included chickens, a dog and an open fire and a Welsh dresser just like Tassie’s.

But later when the lights were out and he was trying to sleep, half on Pansy’s mattress and half on the cold wooden floor, he wondered if there was such a thing as Naomi’s having a premonition, and her insisting he say yes. But to what? When they were first together, she would

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