She had got it in her head one day, with nothing better to do, to use the gardening tools she’d found in the old wooden garage to do some pruning. It should have been a simple enough job. What had complicated matters was her interfering neighbour. In hindsight, she realised he must have spotted her walking out of the garage with the shears. The next thing she heard were footsteps behind her, and suddenly the old man was standing there, on the other side of her fence, telling her how to prune her own roses.
After twenty minutes, in which Abigail moved around the garden, trying to ignore him, she gave up. His constant nagging over the way it used to be done, and about her not changing things, had turned what she’d thought would be a peaceful, relaxing hour gardening into anything but. His head popped up above the fence in the back garden too, but by that time she’d lost the will and had gone indoors for a cup of coffee. She sat at the kitchen table watching Joss’s uncle’s grey head popping up and down above the fence, checking she wasn’t out there doing anything. She could see the sisters had a point. He was a damn nuisance.
Abigail had never had a nuisance neighbour – not once in all the years she’d lived in London. She’d bumped into some lovely people in London. Abigail was thinking of Sidney and his sweet dog, Ulysses, and it reminded her that she really must text him. She wanted to keep her promise and meet up with him again for coffee. Why couldn’t Joss’s uncle have been more like Sidney?
A thought popped into her head. The people you bumped into in London weren’t always lovely. She was thinking about Toby and who he had come into contact with on that last fateful shift at work. It came unbidden into her mind.
She turned to go.
‘I wouldn’t want to be stuck with a neighbour like that,’ commented Marjorie.
‘Me neither,’ her sister agreed.
Abigail thought,well I don’t have to be stuck with him. The cottage was going on the market. She glanced at them before walking toward the door. Of course, she wouldn’t tell them that.
‘Guess the new owner will be even less pleased when he finds out he is well and truly stuck with him.’
‘If he hasn’t found out already,’ Mabel said again.
‘Well, of course he would have. It should be on the deeds.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Mabel let out a cackled laugh. ‘Silly me.’
Abigail stared at them. ‘The deeds?’
‘Just as well Daphne made sure it went to somebody, because nobody would want a place with a lifetime tenant.’
‘But the cottage hasn’t got a lifetime tenant.’
‘No, but the lighthouse has.’
Abigail gaped at them. She stepped back into the shop. ‘Are you saying I, er, I mean the person who owns the cottage also owns the lighthouse?’
‘Oh, yes. Daphne owned both places. I heard she did the cottage up first and then the lighthouse, renting it out on a peppercorn rent. It is a shame, but the new owner has probably discovered he got a bit more than he bargained for. What is that saying? Everything comes at a price? Well, the price of the cottage by the sea is the man in the lighthouse next door. Good luck to the owner if he ever wants to sell the place.’
Marjorie stepped forward. ‘Are you okay, sweetheart? You’ve come over a little pale.’