Summer Secrets at Streamside Cottage by Samantha Tonge

Author:Samantha Tonge [Tonge, Samantha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800241671
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

21

Now

The 2018 Melbourne Literary Festival featured a pop-up tattoo parlour inking literary memorials

I opened my eyes as a wet nose bumped the end of mine. For a brief moment reality merged with my dream. I’d been rubbing noses with my reflected friend. Mum had told me Eskimos did that. I’d run into my bedroom and stood in front of the mirror, touching it with my nose and turning my head from side to side. Then Jimmy Jammy appeared and told us it was yukky. The last moments of it got stranger as my reflection jumped out of the mirror and the two of us chased him downstairs and into the garden, threatening to do it to him.

I yawned and stared at the ceiling, letting the room come into focus. Taz butted my chin. I recalled yesterday – Trish and everything she’d said about Frederick. I picked up my phone from the pillow and out of curiosity I went onto Amazon to read the blurb for his new book. Nothing caught my eye until the end.

I re-read the last sentence.

It was a very tenuous link.

Probably nothing.

When Sal moves to Riverside Cottage she has dreams of starting again. Her marriage to Brad is on the rocks after his one-night stand. He wants out. She wants in. Sal find out she is pregnant so reluctantly he finds them a new place to live.

A new beginning.

However, her dreams of idyllic countryside living soon turn into nightmares when she and Brad get to know Charlotte and Martin.

Sal questions her own sanity. And fears for her life.

Why would he take an expectant mother to live in a place that would be best hidden from a child?

The novel was inspired by Streamside Cottage and spoke of hiding the place from a child, just like my parents had hidden the cottage from me when growing up.

As I washed Taz’s bowls, thoughts that didn’t make sense whirred around in my mind. I brushed my hair, pulled on skinny jeans and my favourite t-shirt. I recalled the photo of Frederick I’d seen on his website. There was no doubt he was attractive with the thick black hair and strong jawline. Yet he wore a tight leather jacket that hinted at the extra pounds of middle age and a forced expression that said ‘I want you to believe I’m a Very Important Author.’

How could I speak about Frederick again to Trish without upsetting her? Perhaps I’d drop into The Pen Pusher and judge her mood.

Taz didn’t want to settle in his bed so I left him staring out of the French patio doors. I went into the garden and sat by the stream, theories about the blurb running through my mind as quickly as the water. As the sun shone down and the water babbled, as the weeping willow branches gently shimmied in the breeze I could have sat there forever. Over and over the last line repeated in my mind. I got to my feet and paced up and down but no revelation or insight arrived.

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