Henry had renovated many houses and thatched twice as many again, and he had worked in some of the most beautiful homes in England but Acorn Cottage had him bewitched like nothing before. He swore he could hear the cottage tell him what she needed and most of all what she needed was company.
Henry understood this need, as he knew what loneliness felt like. Some nights he wondered if he was going insane from lack of conversation, so it was no wonder Pansy spoke like a small adult.
After Clara had gone to help the girl in the village, he had walked to the front of the house and looked at the gate that was lying on the ground in the dark.
It was a simple fix – a few new hinges and tighten the latch and it would be right again.
Before he knew it, he had his lamp out and his electric drill and had lined up the hinges and rehung the gate. Pansy was asleep inside the van, used to the sound of the drill. Henry opened and closed the gate, listening to the satisfying click of the latch as it closed.
He took the sign off the front of the gate, which had the words Acorn Cottage carved into it, and ran his fingers over the words.
He found two small indentations.
The acorns.
He took the sign into the van, found an old cloth and wiped back the sign and held it up to the light. Yes, definitely acorns, he thought. The sign would once have been painted.
He went to the back of the van and found the old box of Naomi’s paints and opened them. He hadn’t seen the paints since she had died but the smell, the nutty scent of the oils, some smelling like a pine tree, some like flaxseed oil, the poppy oils and oil of cloves that she mixed into the paint to make it last longer, filled his senses. He picked up an old rag she used to dry her brushes on, disturbing the lavender and rosemary oils she had used as solvents and held it to his face.
When would the pain ease?
He missed her more than he could have thought possible. People said he should start dating again, meet women, get married, have another baby, but how could he start again when Naomi was supposed to be his ending?
Naomi had painted the furniture Henry made in bright colourful folk-art styles and they sold them to clients. Her deft hand and wonderful understanding of colour worked on the pieces and while not many people would think saffron yellow and turquoise would work as a pairing, in her hands and with her mixing of the hues, it did.
He searched for the right colour for the sign. A pale pink sign with green writing and the little acorns painted in brown and green would look lovely, and if Clara painted the house pink, it would work perfectly.
He painted the first coat and let it dry and then got ready for bed.
He wondered if he should text her and see if she was okay with the girl from the bakery. Naomi would have helped that girl, he thought, and she would have had the situation sorted and that girl safe in a moment.
He wondered how Clara was doing with the house. She’d seemed a bit vague on the details and not really aware of the enormity of the renovation required.
He texted her using the number she had given him.
You okay? How is the girl?
A text came back faster than expected.
I’m fine but Rachel is in shock. Her mother is in an induced coma as she was very combative when she was in hospital, maybe a brain injury they think, and has a broken hip and femur. They are sending her for surgery. I will stay with Rachel at the bakery and then come home tomorrow.
Henry put the phone down, got into his bed and lay in the darkness. The scent of the paints filled the air and he rolled onto his side where Naomi used to lie. He put his hand on her pillow. ‘Say yes,’ he remembered her saying.
Three years on and he still didn’t know what he was supposed to be saying yes to in life. Surviving was enough for him but there was something in him that was shifting and he wasn’t sure he remembered the feeling. It felt something like anticipation, or waking up – he wasn’t sure but it wasn’t familiar.
*
In the morning, he had finished painting the sign, and Pansy, excited to see the paints out, had demanded her own sign stating Pansy’s Room. Not that she had her own bedroom but she still insisted he paint it and then draw pansies on the wood and paint them too.
When it was done, he left it on the sill of the window of the van to dry and walked out to the cottage.
Clara wasn’t back yet, and she hadn’t told him if she wanted to go ahead with the quote, so he wandered through the garden, seeing its potential.
Naomi had once told him he could find the potential in a concrete bunker but she was prone to exaggerating, he’d said to her, though she had replied that she ‘never, ever, ever exaggerated’.
Pansy came into the garden with her pram and dolls and pushed them under the oak tree where moss was growing and the long grass had not reached.
‘Lovely spot,’ said Henry as Pansy looked up at the tree branches.
‘Do you think there are owls in that tree?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. What makes you ask?’ asked Henry. Pansy had never really been interested in animals before, more
