Dad’s Country Cottage Olga learnt, quite unexpectedly and by chance, that she and her dad’s beloved cottage had been sold. It happened over the phone, as she called her mum from the post office in another town—like something out of a film, when you become the third, unwilling participant in a conversation, except all she did was overhear two people talking. Some cosmic mix-up or perhaps the operator’s error had merged her call with two others—across two cities, two voices sharing in those paid-for minutes what mattered most: the country cottage was gone, sold for a good price, and now there was so much you could do … they might even help Olga out a bit with the money! Olga’s mum and her sister Irene—voices so achingly familiar, separated by seventy-five miles, their words converted to electric signals and relayed down the wires. Physics always baffled Olga, her dad made her study. * “Dad, why is the September sun so different?” “How do you mean, Olly?” “I don’t know … I can’t explain it. The light’s softer. It’s certainly sunny, just not like August.” “You need to study physics—celestial positions in September are totally different! Catch!” Dad laughed and lobbed her a huge, slightly lopsided apple. Shiny, red, smelling of honey. “Is it a Pippin?” “No, of course not, not ripe yet. It’s a striped Russet.” She bit into it with a crunch, a mouthful of sweet white froth, all the warmth of summer rain and earth’s own juice. Apple varieties, like physics, were not Olga’s strong suit—and that was today’s main problem, because eighth-former Olga Sokolova had been in love with her physics teacher for two years. Life had become all rays of light, split-open heavens and laws of matter and space that refused to fit into the neat lines of a school notebook. And Dad … he understood, simply by her distant eyes and poor appetite. Olga told him, of course, last year. Wept all night, like a child on his lap. Mum was away at the spa; her older sister studied in another city. At the cottage, Dad was always happy, whistling tunes, always musical. At home, never; Mum and sister took centre stage there, when Irene came home. Mum was unbelievably beautiful, head librarian at the military library, tall, striking—a spirited northerner with a fiery copper mane she dyed with henna. Every couple of months, Mum would emerge from the bath with a gigantic turban of hair, trailing scents of herbs and rain. Her beauty caught every eye. Dad, a head shorter, nearly a decade older, was unassuming. That’s how Mum described him once—Olga overheard and was hurt. “Sasha’s unremarkable. But men aren’t meant to be pretty.” Unremarkable next to Mum’s blazing copper hair, grand gestures with crockery-smashing and a wild temper. Mum adored order and comfort; Dad’s “soldier-boys”—as he called them—sometimes slept right on their tiny lounge floor. While Dad was in the army, they visited often—some just passing through, others needed a leg up finding work. Dad’s boys. In 1960, he’d come under Khrushchev’s giant army reduction—“One million, three hundred thousand soldiers and officers.” He was discharged a major, then worked as chief mechanic at the telegraph office. Those soldier-boys later helped Dad build the cottage—worked for nothing, swapped shifts, dug virgin soil side by side. A little house: one room and a veranda; in summer, Olga loved to read on the roof. Dad would hand up bowls of gooseberries, cherries, or strawberries. The happiest times. Mum disliked the cottage, came rarely—she looked after her hands. Beautiful, well kept with big nails. Olga admired them, Dad kissed them. “Hands like yours are made for issuing books—not digging up beds!” he’d laugh, wink at Olga. * The first drops of September rain drummed across the veranda roof, lively but not mournful. Olga packed away her book. “Olga, come down—Mum and Irene will be here soon, we need to start lunch,” Dad’s quiet voice rang, unexpectedly cheerful at the cottage. Olga lingered, face tilted at the swelling, grey, but gentle sky. Rain dampened her cheeks; she hugged herself against the chill. Only from the roof—closer to the sky and further from the earth—could she see the sun’s rays breaking through clouds over neighbouring cottages. She forgot all about physics and its stubborn laws. In her first year at journalism school, life followed its own rules. Olga was housed in the dorm almost at once, but spent her first September week in a rented flat with the landlady—other students occupied the next room. During lectures, she was plunged into literature and language; professors the whole group fell for—a magnetic, intellectual allure. After class came waves of homesickness; she had no friends yet. Quick bites in the student canteen, wandering the big city until dark—its strange beauty was cold and lonely, so lonely it felt as if it wasn’t Olga walking that steep slope by the university’s main building, not her going home and hearing barking dogs, not her scuffing her new patent shoes. The kitchen was filled with the scent of Dad’s apples, which he’d given the landlady as thanks. Their sweet, slightly musty smell made Olga tear up, her soul pounding in its cage. When she finally moved into halls, her neighbours were German students—Viola, Maggie, Marion. The German language split her head by evening, so she’d escape outside for air. The Germans would scamper after her, scrounging cigarettes and always paying her back—our girls were shocked. They marvelled at Mum’s pickled tomatoes, gobbling them with fried potatoes. When Olga’s stores ran out, the Germans produced sausages—unimaginable luxuries back then, but never shared them. By May, they finished their exchange year and left heaps of winter boots by the kitchen bin—German boots! Our girls hurriedly grabbed them when no one was looking. * “Olly, chop the cabbage—I’ll dig up the carrots. Broth’s nearly done.” Windows fogged up with long boiling; a huge cabbage sprawled lace-like leaves on the board. Olga peeled a leaf off—delicious, earthy. She chopped briskly, sweet smell filling the kitchen. The opened window let in scents of leaf mould, bonfire, and apples. She saw Dad’s back, shovel straining in the soil; she knew his spine hurt. She dropped the knife, dashed outside, hugged him tightly. He turned, silently embracing, kissed her head. Sister Irene came alone; Mum’s headache kept her home. * Years passed—university, a student marriage, a job at the “Pioneer” newspaper at an aviation factory, Dad’s first heart attack, a daughter’s birth, then divorce. Five years go quickly. Olga’s husband left her for another; she lived with toddler Mary on a rented flat. Dad visited every second weekend, bringing groceries, playing with his granddaughter. “Olga, don’t be cross with Mum for coming less than I do, all right? She gets travel-sick … And you know, I think she’s got a friend these days …” “Dad, no! You, with a beau at your age?” He laughed, bitterly, then fell silent. Olga saw how grey and drooping he’d become—even stopped whistling. “Dad, let me take holiday next week, shall we go to the cottage while it’s still warm, just us and Mary?” * The cottage was covered in leaves, one last warm October week and Indian summer. They stoked the stove, brewed blackcurrant-leaf tea. Olga fried potato cakes; Dad raked leaves, Mary scattered and giggled. Oil sizzled loud and sharp; somewhere in the orchard, Dad whistled tunes. As evening fell, they made a bonfire. The lane was empty, neighbouring cottages shut; Dad threaded thick bread cubes on cherry twigs for Mary to roast. Olga stretched chilly hands to the flames—always entrancing. She remembered her first student work trip in Kazakhstan—singing with guitars, dizzy with love for the starry night and the endless silence of the steppe; missed guitar chords, faces. Faces by firelight were always different—each had a secret, depths in their eyes. She met her future husband there. That week at work, she was called to a party meeting—her nomination for the Communist Party considered. She had crammed the party statutes, congress materials. Suddenly, questions: who caused the divorce, who lacked moral fibre? Olga stammered, near tears. A colleague stood up for her. “This is a gathering of louts, not communists!” Years later, she’d remember it as wild … When dark fell, the fire was doused. A car stopped at the gate, slammed door. Mum! Glamorous in a bright, fashionable coat—her colleague had given her a lift from work. Mary hurled herself at grandma; Dad frowned, awkwardly kissed Mum. “Who was that, then?” “Oh Sasha, it doesn’t matter, he just dropped me. You don’t know him …” Over dinner, conversation stuttered; Mary grew fussy. Mum asked about Olga’s job, clearly far away in her thoughts. Dad watched Mum in silence, lowering his shoulders with every minute—a ruined evening … * A year later, Dad was gone. Massive heart attack, gone in two days, early in warm, sunny October. Olga took time off after the funeral—she stayed at the cottage, Mary with her ex’s mum. She fumbled everything; there were more apples than ever. Olga handed bucketfuls to neighbours, stewed jam with mint and cinnamon, as Dad loved. Dad’s old friend arrived, the two of them had made regular trips to the fruit tree nursery together, buying saplings. “I’ll stay a couple days, Olga, dig the garden and prune the trees, if that’s all right.” “Mr. Johnson, of course … Thank you!” From Dad’s old “Olly,” tears sprang; and in that moment, the dreadful sense of finality—grief, helplessness, orphanhood. Until then, it had felt as if Dad would return, as if it were all a hideous dream. The first few mornings after, in the twilight of waking, she ached from something unknowable, before black waves hit—Dad was gone. Then came guilt for not keeping him here. “Don’t sell the cottage, promise? I’ll visit, help out. You know, we chose this Bramley together—he talked about you all the way there, more than about your sister. You were a little thing, funny. Said the trees would outlive him. Always took ages picking out saplings—I’d hurry him, get annoyed …” Mr. Johnson stayed three days, dug the garden, pruned apple trees, spread fertiliser; with Olga’s leave, planted three golden chrysanthemums near the porch. “Should plant them earlier, but autumn’s warm, they’ll take. For Sasha’s memory … Need to cover the roses—next time, I’ll do it.” They hugged goodbye. Rain began to fall. Olga stood by the gate, watching him go. He turned, spotted her, waved— “Go inside!” The wind slammed the gate, the porch blanketed with yellow chrysanthemum petals. Everything here was Dad’s, and always would be; the rain, the trees, autumn’s scents, the very earth. Which meant Dad was somewhere near, always. She’d learn everything in time; she’d come with Mary until the first frost, just a two-hour bus ride. Next spring, perhaps she could get heat installed. She’d start saving. And in spring, she’d travel again with Mr. Johnson to the nursery, pick out white currants—Dad had always wanted … * Six months later, in early April, when the last snow was thawing, the cottage was sold. Olga discovered it by accident, over the post office telephone on her way home from the nursery. In the cramped phone booth, a sapling white currant wrapped in a damp old baby vest stood gently by her feet.

Fathers Cottage

It was by sheer chance that Olivia found out her father had sold their cottage. She learned of it quite unexpectedly while ringing her mother from the telegraph office in another town. Such things seem only to happen in stories or films: becoming an accidental participant in someone elses conversation, overhearing the exchange between two people who aren’t expecting a third voice. Some quirk, some lapse on the part of the operator, had connected her at the same time as two other callers from neighbouring towns. In those brief paid moments, Olivia was privy to the greatest change in their lives: the cottage had been sold, the money was good, andwellthere would even be enough to help her a bit!

Her own mother and Aunt Irene: those voices so achingly familiar, carried across seventy-five miles, speech converted into electric signals and pulsed through wires. Olivia had always found physics beyond her grasp; her father had tried to teach her, but she struggled.

***

Dad, why is the September sun so different?
How do you mean, Livvy darling?
I can’t say it just looks softer somehow. It’s sunny, but not like August.
Physics, Liv. The position of the celestial bodies changes! Catch this apple! Her father chuckled, pitched her a massive, almost squashed looking red appleglossy and honey-scented.

Is it Worcester Pearmain?
No, theyre not ripe yet. Its a Russet Stripe.

She bit, and the taste fizzed in her mouth, sweet and foamy from the warmth of summer rains and the earths own sugars. Apple varieties, like physics, were not Olivias strong suitand therein lay her chief dilemma! At fifteen, Olivia Richardson had been in love for two years with her physics teacher. Sunlight had narrowed to a shaft, the heavens had openedand the laws of matter and space simply would not fit on the neatly ruled pages of her notebook. Her father, of course, understood everything just by the lost look in her eyes and her poor appetite. She had already confided the year before, sobbing for hours on his lap, like a little girl. Her mother was away at the spa and her twelve-years-older sister studied in the city.

At the cottage, her father was always at his happiest, whistling tunes with musical easenot something he ever did at home, where her mother and sister dominated the atmosphere. Her mother was a striking woman, head of the army library: tall, upright, proud, with chestnut hair that she coloured with henna, emerging from the bathroom with a towering turban every few months, smelling of herbs and rain. Her beauty turned heads. Her father, in contrast, was shorter by almost half a foot and nearly a decade olderunassuming, as her mother once said to Aunt Irene, which Olivia overheard and felt wounded by.

Charles is totally unremarkable. But a man doesnt have to be handsome.

Unremarkable, beside her mothers burnished hair and tempestuous nature, the smashing of plates and dramatic gestures. Her mother demanded comfort and order, but had to suffer the occasional soldierher fathers army matessleeping on the floor of their modest flat’s front room. While in service, he’d been the one they called upon, some passing through, some needing help finding work. Charless soldiers. In 1960, he was among those discharged during a major army reductionFive hundred thousand men, theyd said. He left as a Major and found work as chief engineer at the Ipswich telegraph office. The soldiers helped build the cottage, free of charge, taking turns digging and clearing the land for him. A tiny single-room house with a porch; in summer, Olivia read up on the roof, where her father would pass up bowls of gooseberries, cherries or strawberries. The happiest of days. Her mother didn’t care for the cottage and visited rarelyshe wanted to protect her hands: beautiful, well-kept, with large nails. Olivia admired them. Charles would kiss them.

With hands like yours, only books should pass through themnot garden soil! hed say with a wink.

***

The first drops of September rain rattled on the porch roofquick, playful, cheerfully tapping away rather than dreary. Olivia put away her book.

Liv, come down, your mothers due soon with Irene. We need to get lunch ready, her father called, his voice oddly clear in the cottage air.

She dawdled, tilted her face to the swollen, grey sky. Rain slicked her cheeks with cold. She hugged herself for warmth. Up here, close to the sky, she could see beams piercing through the clouds over other gardens. Physics forgotten, as well as all its iron rules; in the first year at journalism college, in a new city, there were fresh lessons in life.

She was given a room in the college hostel straightaway, but spent her first week of September renting a room with the landlady, students filled up the other. Lessons brought a wondrous immersion in literature and languagelecturers so magnetic that the whole class was smitten, drawn into their charm. Afterwards came the punch of homesickness. She had no friends yet.

She ate at the student canteen and wandered the citys streets till duskthe unfamiliar grandeur was cold, leaving her solitary. Solitary enough that it seemed not her descending the steep hills near the university by the private sector, not her listening to the barking of neighbourhood dogs, not her stumbling and scraping her shin in stiff, narrow patent shoes.

The kitchen at her digs was perfumed by her fathers apples, delivered in crates as a thank you. The fragrancesweet, slightly overripebrought tears and set her soul fluttering in its cage.

When she moved to halls, Olivia discovered her roommates were exchange students from GermanyViola, Maggie, Marion. Head throbbing by evening from all the German spoken, shed take air in the yard where the girls gathered to smoke. The German students would join her, cadge cigarettes but always pay for thema surprise to Olivia and her fellow Brits. They, in turn, marvelled at the pickled tomatoes Olivias mum made, and ate them with delight, especially alongside fried potatoes. When Olivias supplies ran out, the Germans would bring out their sausageswhich one could only dream ofbut kept them for themselves. By May, their internships ended, they headed home to Germany, leaving piles of winter boots by the bin, shoes bought for English winters back in Leipzig. The English girls quietly snatched them up.

***

Livvy, shred the cabbage please. Ill dig up the carrots. The broths ready, came her fathers voice.

The cottage kitchen windows steamed as the broth simmered. A huge cabbage burst into a lacework of pale green leaves on the chopping board. Olivia peeled off a leafdelicious. Earth always tasted best. She set to slicing briskly, cheerfully, the cabbages sweetness filling the air. She opened the window for the scents of damp autumn leaves, smoke, and apples. She watched her fathers back as, shovel in hand, he struggled with the heavy soil. Olivia knew his back ached. She dropped her knife and ran outside, hugged him from behind, pressing close. He turned, embraced her, kissed her hair.

Irene came alone that eveningher mum stayed home, her headache too much.

***

Years passed: university finished, a student marriage, work began at the “Innovator” newspaper for the local aircraft factory, her fathers first heart attack, the birth of Olivias daughter, and even divorce. In five years, everything changed. Olivias husband left for another woman, and she lived with her two-year-old, Mary, in a rented flat. Her father visited every fortnight, bringing supplies and playing with his granddaughter.

Olivia, dont be angry at your mum for not coming as often as I do, yes? She gets car sick on the roads. And, you know, I think shes seeing someone

Dad, come on! What sort of suitor at her age?

He laughed, but there was bitterness in it. He fell quiet. Olivia suddenly saw, with heartbreaking clarity, that his hair had gone completely white and he was hunched. He didnt whistle anymore.

Dad, why dont I take my holiday come Monday? Lets go to the cottage while its still warm, all three of us?

***

The cottage was thick with leaves, the last warm week of October and a glimmer of Indian summer. They lit the stove, brewed tea with blackcurrant leaves. Olivia quickly fried potato cakes. Her father raked leaves; Mary helped, flinging them about and giggling. Fat dripped and sizzled in the pan. Her fathers whistling rose from the orchard.

In the evening, they made a bonfire. The street was empty, as were the neighbouring plots. Her father skewered chunks of bread on cherry twigs, helping Mary toast them. Olivia stretched her frozen hands to the flamesthe fire mesmerised her.

She recalled her first student work trip, sent to Yorkshire, singing with guitars by starlight, and the heady intoxication of being in love with nothing but the infinite sky and musicno person, just the feeling. Sitting around the fire, faces transformed, each with their own secret. It was there Olivia met her future husband. That week, at the factory, she’d been called to a party committee meeting to consider her for the Labour Party. The night before, shed studied the party code. Suddenly, they pressed her about the divorce, about whose fault it was. She could barely answer for tears. Then a colleague leapt up, stammering,

This meeting is a disgrace not worthy of Labour principles!

Years later, she would remember it with disbelief.

As darkness fell, the fire was quenched. A car stopped at the gate, a door slammed. Her mother arrivedin a dazzling new coat, saying a colleague had given her a lift from work. Mary ran to her. Her father frowned, kissed her mother awkwardly.

Whos this colleague, then?
Oh Charles, what does it matter? He was just being kind. You don’t know him.

The meal was uneasy, Mary grew fractious. Her mother quizzed Olivia about work but her mind was elsewhere. Her father was silent, eyes fixed on her mother, growing ever more withdrawn. The mood soured

***

A year later, her father was gone: a massive heart attack took him in bright October, gone in two days. After the funeral, Olivia took leave, moved into the cottage. Mary stayed with her grandmother.

She fumbled everything. The apple crop was enormous. Olivia shared buckets with neighbours, made pans of apple jam flavoured with mint and cinnamon, as her father loved. His longtime friend, William Sutton, came byhed regularly joined Charles for trips to the nursery at Wisbech to choose saplings.

Ill stay a few days, Liv, dig the patch, trim the trees if youre willing.

Oh Mr Sutton, you neednt Thank you!

From his Liv, Olivia teared up. In that moment, the crushing sense of finality and orphanhood weighed down. Before, it had seemed she was still waiting for Charles to return, as if all of it was just a nightmare. In the first days without him, Olivia, waking at dawn from the edge of sleep, couldnt recall what made her ache. A split second, andlike a dark tidecame the realisation: her father was gone.

She found herself wracked with guilt, unable to save him.

Dont sell the cottage, will you? Ill keep coming, help you out. You rememberthis old Pippin tree, you and Charles picked it together when you were a slip of a girl. On the road to Wisbech, Charles talked more about you than Irene. You were small, so funny. He said the trees would outlive him. He always took ages choosing the saplingsId get impatient, you know

William Sutton stayed three days, dug the vegetable patch, pruned the apple trees, laid compost, and planted three yellow chrysanthemums at Olivias request, right by the front step.

They ought to go in earlier, but with luck theyll take nice warm autumn. For Charless memory. Well need to cover the roses, clear leaves next time.

They embraced as he left. Drizzle started. Olivia lingered at the gate, watching William depart. He turned, wavedGo inside, now. The rain grew heavier, drumming sadly on the roof. A gust slammed the gate, screeching in complaint. Chrysanthemum petals scattered across the porch everything still Charless and always would be. The rain, the trees, the scents of autumn soil. He was near, and would be, always. And she, Olivia, would learn. She would visit with Mary till the first frosts, it was just two hours by coach. Then in spring, shed return as soon as the snow meltedperhaps thered be enough to install new heating. Shed save up. And in spring, a trip to Wisbech with William Sutton, for white currant saplingsher father had always wanted those

***

Half a year later, at the start of April, just as the snow reappeared, the cottage was sold. Olivia learned of it by chance, phoning home from the telegraph office on her way back from Wisbech. In the cramped phone box, on the floor at her feet, wrapped at the roots in a damp old childrens vest, stood a sapling of white currant.