The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,5
handbag and coat pockets for a tissue. ‘Train stations and airport lounges always do this to me. I swear they’re the portals used by the tear fairies to tap directly into the tender places of the soul.’
Gerald handed me a folded blue handkerchief.
I opened the handkerchief and blew my nose.
He smiled. ‘Still over-dramatic then?’
I nodded.
‘That’s my girl!’
We both laughed and sniffed back the emotion before heading out into the wind and rain. We dashed to the car and he handed me the keys. ‘You wouldn’t mind driving, would you? Only I spent the afternoon in the Legion …’
***
The drive to Angels Cove took a little over half an hour. It was a fairly silent half hour because Uncle Gerald slept while I battled the car through the beginnings of the storm, luckily the sat nav remembered the way. The road narrowed as we headed down a tree-lined hill. I slowed the car to a halt and positioned the headlights to illuminate the village sign through the driving rain.
I nudged Uncle Gerald.
‘We’re here.’
He stirred and harrumphed at sight of the sign.
‘Perhaps now you can see why I asked for your help,’ he said.
I failed to stifle a laugh.
The sign had been repeatedly graffiti-ed. Firstly, someone had inserted an apostrophe with permanent marker between the ‘l’ and the ‘s’ of angels. Then, someone else had put a line through the apostrophe and scrawled a new apostrophe to the right of the ‘s’, which had been further crossed out. The crossings out continued across the sign until there was no room to write any more.
‘This all started at the beginning of November, when the letter from the council arrived. The average age in this village is seventy-four – seventy-four!– and they’re all behaving like children. I’ve got my hands full with it all, I can tell you. Especially on Wednesdays.’ He nodded ahead. ‘Drive on, straight down to the harbour.’
‘Wednesdays?’ I asked, putting the car into gear.
‘Skittles night at the Crab and Lobster.’
‘Ah.’
We carried on down the road, the wipers losing the battle with the rain and I tried to remember the layout of the village. I recalled Angels Cove as a pretty place consisting of one long narrow road that wound its way very slowly down to the sea. Pockets of cottages lined the road, which was about a mile long, with the pub in the middle, next to the primary school which was a classic Victorian school house with two entrances: BOYS was written in stone above one entrance and GIRLS written above the other.
The road narrowed yet further before opening out onto a small harbour. I stopped the car. The harbour was lit by a smattering of old-fashioned street lamps. Waves crashed over the harbour walls. The car shook. Although Katherine had not yet arrived with the might of her full force, the sea had already whipped herself up into an excitable frenzy.
Gerald pointed to the right.
‘You can’t make it out too clearly in the dark,’ he said, staring into the darkness. ‘But the cottage you’re staying in is up this little track by about a hundred yards … or so.’
I glanced up the track and put the car into gear.
‘You ready?’ he asked.
‘Ready? Ready for what?’
‘Oh, nothing. It’s just a bit of a bumpy track, that’s all.’ He tapped the Land Rover with an affectionate pat, as if he was praising an old Labrador. ‘No problem for this little lady, though. Been up that track a thousand times, haven’t you, old girl? Onwards and upwards!’
I set off in the general direction of a farm track. The car took on an angle of about forty-five degrees and began to slip and slide its way up the track. Waves crashed against the rocks directly to my left.
‘Shitty death, Gerald! What the f—?’
A couple of wheel spins later, to my absolute relief, a little white cottage appeared under a swinging security light. We pulled alongside and I switched off the engine, left the car in gear and went to open the driver door.
‘Don’t get out for a moment,’ Gerald said. ‘I’ll go in ahead and turn on the lights. It’ll give me time to shoo the mice away and make it nice and homely, that kind of thing.’
‘Mice?’
‘Only a few, and they’re very friendly.’
I wiped condensation from the window and tried to peer out into the storm. ‘OK, but don’t be too long,’ I said. ‘I feel like I’ve stepped through one of the seven circles of hell!’