Free Hobb's Cottage: A Short Story by Ruth Saberton

 
     
    Dust swirling midst the air, dancing through light which pools like syrup across the still and empty rooms.  Somewhere a shadow shifts. Floorboards creak and sigh. The time for recompense is coming.
     
    Hobb’s Cottage was tiny even by Polkerryn’s standards, a seventeenth century dwelling with barely two rooms, but from the moment Phoebe knew it was up for rent she wanted it passionately.  It didn’t matter that the cottage had stood uninhabited for months or that the windows were frosted with grime. Every evening on her way to work in the village pub she would stop at Hobb’s to breathe in the heady perfume of the wild roses and rampant honeysuckle and to dream.
    It wasn’t the prettiest cottage in the village.  There were no frothing hanging baskets on the porch and the garden was tangled with thick briars and bindweed but Phoebe loved it regardless.  She adored the walls that leaned at crazy angles and dreamed of planting swathes of nasturtiums and curling up in the window seat to drink wine while the evening sun dipped its toes into the sea. She couldn’t quite explain it but there was something about the neglected cottage that had wound its way into her heart just as the dog roses had twined their roots into the crumbling garden walls. 
    And now was to be her home. It was hers!
    At least, though Phoebe as she turned the key, it was hers for as long as she could pay the bills although unless a miracle happened fairly soon, like a lottery win or Alex finally deciding to leave Laura, this might not be very long… 
    I’m not going to think about Alex, Phoebe told herself sternly.  This house was going to be for her and her alone.  It was for her new life away from everything that had gone before. If Alex wanted to be a part of it and put his boots by the hearth, throw his socks on the floor and pad across the worn flagstones, then that was great.  Better than great - it would be all her dreams coming true.  But if he didn’t, if the winter nights were spent huddling alone under the duvet watching the bobbing lights of fishing boats returning to harbour, then that would be fine too.  This had to be a turning point, the new start she so desperately needed.
    Phoebe ran her hands over the dusty windowsills and smiled.  She could hardly believe this was really home.  The rent was crucifying but she could work extra shifts in the pub and clean a couple more holiday cottages if she had to.  There were cheaper places and living here doubled her outgoings.  It made no sense at all yet Phoebe felt as though she’d placed a piece into a puzzle; alone or single it didn’t matter because Hobb’s Cottage was hers now.
    So, when she wasn’t pulling pints in the local pub, Phoebe coiled her long black hair into a bun, rolled up her sleeves and scrubbed and polished until she thought she’d collapse.  Fat black spiders scuttled disgruntledly from their lairs and the grime of centuries seeped into her skin.  She swept up piles of ancient dust, looped fairy lights over the banisters, scattered rag rugs across the floor and finally hung a dried bunch of red roses above the small door.  She wanted those to be the first thing Alex would see, if ever he came back to her of course.  Roses in place, she checked her mobile for the thousandth time but as usual it remained stubbornly silent.
    She threw it onto the sofa in disgust.  Of course Alex hadn’t called.  He’d made his decision when he’d asked her to go to the clinic, hadn’t her?  Just a few cells, he’d insisted almost airily not knowing that his words had made Phoebe go cold to her bones, it wouldn’t take long. 
    “I don’t need him,” Phoebe said aloud but her voice sounded strained and odd in the thick quiet of the cottage.  Annoyed with herself for giving Alex even a second of her time, she busied herself making a coffee. Drink made, curled up in the window seat, wrapping her hands round the chunky ceramic mug and staring out to