Coming Home to Heritage Cove: The feel-good, uplifting read from Helen Rolfe

1

Melissa slowed and pulled into the lay-by. The welcome sign for Heritage Cove loomed up ahead and for five long years – unless you counted the time she tried to come back here, lost her nerve and did a one-eighty in her car before driving off again – she’d turned her back on the picturesque village on the east coast of England.

Until now.

She looked at the long, straight stretch of road in front of her, which after the sign would bend and curve around to the left. She shut her eyes and wiped the tear that dared to snake down her cheek. She didn’t have to look hard to know that the sign with the village name in loopy writing had at last been replaced. A terrible accident one winter had left the seemingly unbendable metal poles doubled over like trees in the wind, the white steel placard so misshapen that the writing was no longer readable unless you already knew what it should say.

She stared ahead. The sign might have been mended but her personal scars would never fully heal. One split second and her life had changed for good.

Head on the steering wheel, she took deep breaths. She could do this. This was Barney, a man as close to a father figure as she would ever have, and she’d come this far. She had to see him, she had to be here for him, although it had been so long she really wouldn’t blame him if he told her to go away.

Fury rose in her that Harvey hadn’t elaborated on Barney’s condition in his email. Harvey had been a constant in Melissa’s life ever since they were kids, they’d fallen in love somewhere along the line, but then it had all gone to pieces. His email had come right out of the blue and its sketchy details had only sent her into a panic. Ever since she’d read it, all kinds of scenarios had been whirling around in her head, everything from Barney having heart failure after an operation following a fall to getting an infection – anything that could take him away from her for good and make her realise she’d left it too late to come. But protecting herself from hurt before it could happen was the only way Melissa knew how to deal with life. She couldn’t explain it to anyone else, she didn’t always understand it herself.

A knock on the car window made her jump but she didn’t recognise the woman on the other side. Thank goodness, she wasn’t ready to tackle the inevitable conflict she would surely face from the people she’d left behind in Heritage Cove and completely lost touch with.

‘Are you all right?’ the woman asked when Melissa opened her window. She had to raise her voice over the din of a combine harvester as it passed, taking up more than its fair share of the road.

‘I’m fine, just needed a minute.’ In her wing mirror Melissa spotted the jeep the woman was driving. Practical for some of the surrounding farmland, that was for sure.

‘It’s warmer today than usual, I have some water in my car if you need a drink.’ Dead-straight hair the colour of spun gold reached down to her waist and looked at odds with her dungarees, covered in black dirt and dust.

‘Thanks, but I have some.’ She patted the bottle poking out of her bag. ‘And perhaps you’re right, the weather may have caught me out. I really should know better.’

‘Are you looking for somewhere in particular? Or just visiting?’

‘I’m visiting, and I know exactly where I am.’

‘You know the village?’

‘I do.’ At one point she would never have thought she’d leave Heritage Cove, population approximately seven hundred. The village hadn’t suffered the curse of being surrounded by new housing estates, it maintained its beautiful fabric of grassland and farmland, country roads weaving in and out of the village, lanes sprouting off at intervals taking you to hidden parts. Heritage Cove had always had a feel of seclusion even though it wasn’t all that far from major road links – although a journey could take five times as long as expected if you were unfortunate enough to be stuck behind a farm vehicle. ‘Do you live here?’ Melissa asked the woman.

‘I work in Heritage Cove,’ she smiled, ‘but I live in Southwold. You know it?’

‘Southwold is a lovely place. I spent many summers there as a kid.’ Beautiful beach huts, each one unique, were iconic to the area, its pier and tea rooms a childhood memory Melissa had always cherished. Majestic houses looking out across the sea had set her imagination running riot over who lived there, who got to walk on the sands every day. She could remember her mum calling after her as she tore down the planks of the pier to catch the half-hourly pee-show whereby water was pumped from a well to the top of the clock before a pair of iron sculptured boy figures dropped their trousers and peed into the depths below. The fountains had made Melissa and older brother, Billy, laugh every single time and the novelty had never worn off.

‘What brings you here?’ The woman’s voice interrupted her special memories rising to the surface.

‘I lived here once upon a time.’

‘Ah, then you’ll know Fred Gilbertson.’

‘The blacksmith, of course. He’s still around?’ From what she remembered he was well into retirement age when she lived here.

‘He’s been unwell so I’ve been helping out with his business while he takes time out.’

‘I hope he’s better soon.’

‘I’m sure he will be. I can pass on my regards if you like. Who should I say they’re from?’

‘Melissa,’ she smiled. ‘And please do.’

‘Nice to meet you, Melissa, I’m Lucy. Where are you staying?’

‘At the Heritage Inn.’ Relieved it was no longer owned by the Parsons, she could at least retain some anonymity there. She could hide out, commute from here to the hospital, and when Barney was home she’d be on hand to see him properly. She owed him that much after being absent for so long. And who knows, perhaps she’d get by without too many people taking much of an interest in her. After all, her hair had toned down to auburn rather than fiery red now she was in her early thirties and she no longer had the harsh fringe and high ponytail she’d once favoured either. At work she wound it up and out of the way but at home she wore it the same way as now – long, loose and wavy, cascading around her shoulders. Her boyfriend, Jay, often commented on how soft her hair was; she always laughed and told him it was the salon shampoo she spent a small fortune on. She certainly hadn’t used that in Heritage Cove. A lot of things, big and small, had changed since then.

‘Enjoy your visit to the Cove. I’ll see you around, I hope.’ Lucy smiled and went back to her jeep.

The Cove… Melissa hadn’t heard anyone say that in a long while. It was a local nickname for the village and she’d put it out of her mind along with everything else until her sudden return, which had come out of the blue just as she’d always suspected it would.

She sipped her water to make sure she didn’t add dehydration to her problems and when Lucy went on her way Melissa tried to psych herself up to drive on too. But a line of four horses leisurely trotting past and towards Heritage Cove kept her in the lay-by a little longer and she turned to thinking about how everything had flipped on its axis over the last thirty-six hours.

Yesterday morning she’d been at the airport having just flown in with the rest of the cabin crew on their flight from Dubai to London Heathrow.

‘I’m sorry,’ she had apologised to a colleague who almost bumped into her as he tried to pass her in the passenger boarding bridge. Eager to meet up with Jay in the terminal when he came in on a different flight, she’d been wheeling her case with one hand while checking her messages and emails on her phone with the other. And the name in her inbox had stopped her in her tracks. Harvey. It took her a moment to grasp the fact that after five years without a phone call, message or email, the man she’d once considered the love of her life was making contact.

She read Harvey’s words a couple of times before she carried on walking. Short and to the point, the email was about Barney, the man who was like another father to the both of them. He’d had a fall, he was in hospital, and that was all it said.

Jay was in the waiting area at the gate already. ‘Good flight?’ she asked as she felt the warmth of his arms around her briefly.

‘Shaky landing but touched down an hour ago. I’ve been reading the paper while waiting for you.’ He kissed her fleetingly, enough for a work environment.

How was she supposed to break the news that after finally aligning their schedules so they had a whole week off work together, she had to travel back to the village he’d never once visited? It was the part of her she kept hidden from Jay – not that anything was a secret, more that moving on had meant closing the door on a time in her life that hadn’t been easy to bear.

In one of the windows that looked out over the tarmac she caught sight of their reflection as they walked, pilot and flight attendant who’d been together for over four years and would soon announce their engagement. A couple of weeks ago in one of their favourite Italian restaurants Jay had asked her to marry him, she’d agreed without hesitation, and now all they needed was a ring to seal the deal.

‘How was your flight?’ he asked as they walked their way down the long halls, the familiar route they’d trod hundreds if not thousands of times.

‘Straightforward,’ she said. ‘Always a good thing. Especially after last week.’

The previous week she’d had an irate passenger who’d thrown a drink at the man in the seat next to her, except most of the red wine went over Melissa’s uniform as she was walking past. Another flight attendant had cautioned the passenger, who later apologised to Melissa – lover’s spat, apparently – but soon after they’d calmed that incident down they’d had a baby with a worryingly high temperature who would need medical attention the second they landed, and shortly after that they’d hit some turbulence that saw a passenger fall and twist his knee.

As she walked next to Jay now, smiling at other cabin crew passing in the opposite direction, Melissa knew she’d done well to keep her pain buried deep all this time and not dwell on Heritage Cove or anyone there. These days she always looked together and unflappable, particularly at work in her charcoal uniform, the tailored dress that had a touch of sophistication added with a turquoise neck scarf to keep away the draught circulating constantly on flights no matter what class you chose to sit in. Looking immaculate, holding things together, was part of the job, what she’d trained for. She wished it was as easy to have that control in your personal life because at work, nothing could get in the way. It didn’t matter whether you were tired, or had a headache, or felt anything less than one hundred per cent, flight attendants had an image to portray. It didn’t matter if the aircraft was struck with sudden turbulence, you couldn’t show your fear – even though she’d had enough moments where she’d been terrified it would be her last flight. Her job was to smile, to comfort, to aid her passengers as though nothing got to her, as though the minutiae of everyday life didn’t affect her in the same way as it did them. But nothing could be further from the truth. She was only glad Harvey’s email hadn’t come when she was in Dubai, before she’d returned on the flight and had to do her job, that she’d read it only after she’d seen passengers safely off the aircraft and had finished up, ready for what Jay still believed was a bit of holiday time together.

A little old lady stopped and asked the way to baggage claim, directing her question to Jay. Melissa was used to it, because Jay did wear a pilot’s uniform exceptionally well. The classic, double-breasted dark suit with creases in the fronts of the trousers that daren’t steer off course, the four gold stripes on his jacket sleeves and the cap with the airline’s emblem covering neatly cropped ebony hair made him appealing to plenty of women.

His polished shoes continued their familiar tapping along the floor until they reached the carpeted sections, then started again when the surface changed. Coordinating time off wasn’t an easy thing to do and she was still working up the confidence to tell him their planned staycation in his beautiful classic Windsor townhouse wasn’t going to happen, the leisurely strolls and brunches wherever they chose would have to be put on hold.

Cabin-crew life looked glamorous to outsiders with all the jetting off to exotic locations but in reality it was hard work. So was the job of the pilot, but Jay was always happy to drive them back to his place in Windsor and let her kick back in the passenger seat of his BMW.

Out in the car park they climbed into the plush seats and, as they set off, Melissa’s eyes shut from exhaustion and the shock of Barney’s fall, of Harvey’s abrupt contact that he surely must have known would worry her. She waited until Jay had negotiated the car park exit, the roads surrounding the airport, and they were firmly on their way home. And when he groaned as they slowed to millipede pace along the M4, she found her moment. ‘I need to go back to Heritage Cove.’ She daren’t look at him, instead focusing on the bank of cars ahead of them, the rear windscreen of the one in front filthy except for where its wiper blade had shifted grey dirt in an arc and left a clean section in the centre.

When the man in the truck next to them lit up a cigarette and its smoke somehow curled through the vehicle pollution over to their car, Melissa did up her window and faced Jay. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘I did.’ He waited until the ten miles per hour reduced once again to a standstill. ‘But I didn’t think you were serious.’

‘Unfortunately I am.’ The only thing she’d ever told Jay about Heritage Cove was that she was born there, she’d spent her childhood in a village she’d outgrown since her parents died, and she’d wanted to get away. She hadn’t told him anything more, he hadn’t asked, and she’d floated along in an existence of denial ever since. It had been the easiest way. Just as she ignored any malaise when she was up in the air with full make-up and a smile on her face, any time the village or her years growing up were mentioned she kept up the pretence that those times were normal, no dramas needed to be discussed or reflected on. It helped too that her brother had left the village years ago, before even she did, and moved to Scotland, where he had a wife and family. It meant that her links to Heritage Cove had reduced and she could talk with Billy on the phone without having to hear about the village and its residents. And if he mentioned them, she quickly found a way to turn the conversation around.

Looking out at the drizzle now, the sort of rain that tricked you into thinking you couldn’t possibly get wet, coming down from the greyness blanketed above, she longed for the blue skies of Dubai, the scorching temperatures she’d just left, the feeling of another world that wasn’t quite reality.

‘It’s taken ages to arrange time off with each other,’ Jay complained when he realised she was completely serious. ‘Why do you need to go now? Why all of a sudden?’

‘It’s Barney.’

‘Who’s Barney?’

‘The man I still send cards to, I’ve told you about him before.’

He shook his head but as he negotiated moving to the outside lane in the vague hope of progressing a little further, something seemed to click. ‘You’re right, sorry, I must’ve forgotten. I didn’t think you were that close.’

‘He’s in hospital, he had a fall.’

‘Is it serious?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Barney had once been everything to her. She’d never forgive herself for abandoning him, for leaving him the way she had, but staying had become too painful. And just because she hadn’t seen him and didn’t get in touch often, it didn’t mean they weren’t still close. Harvey’s email had proven that. As soon as she’d read his message, her feelings had come right back to her and she knew she had to see Barney.

She wasn’t going to mention that it wasn’t Barney himself who had contacted her and, thankfully, Jay didn’t ask. He was too busy moving back into the middle lane now that the traffic was progressing.

After Melissa left for London all those years ago she stayed in touch with her best friend, Tracy, for a while but, over time, their phone calls had stopped. Melissa’s life had moved on, she’d got a job she loved, she was off travelling the world. For a time she’d called Barney to let him know she was safe and well; they’d chatted often, and he’d always told her never to feel guilty for living her life the way she needed to. But because Melissa’s job took her out of the country so much, the phone calls gradually stopped happening. Barney wasn’t a homebody either so coordinating their times was difficult – or, if Melissa was entirely honest, shutting herself off had been the easiest option. So instead, she’d sent Christmas and birthday cards as well as the odd letter and Barney had done the same in return. She’d sent postcards from exotic locations as a way of telling him that she was living her best life, that leaving hadn’t been the wrong decision, that she was seeing the big, wide world as she’d always wanted. Neither of them ever mentioned Harvey in any correspondence, but Melissa hoped he’d gone on to find happiness in the same way that she had.

And part of her happiness was Jay. In the car now, she reached a hand up to his face and ran her fingers across his cheek and along his strong jaw. ‘I’m sorry, I know how much you were looking forward to our week off.’

With a sigh he shook his head. ‘You’ll keep, I guess.’ And he beamed a smile her way to tell her that it wasn’t great, but he understood. ‘Hey, I could always come with you.’

‘No need, honestly. I’ll be at the hospital half the time anyway, at least until Barney gets out, and then I’ll be at his place helping as much as I can.’ She said it with as much conviction as she could muster, because part of her panicked that Barney wouldn’t get home, that this was it. She would’ve left it too late to say how sorry she was for her absence. How had she left it so long? And how had she not seen how selfish she was being?

Melissa would email her boss the moment she got home and clear an extra week of unpaid leave so she didn’t have to rush back to work, because if Barney was really bad, there was no way she’d leave him to fend for himself. He was loved in the community of Heritage Cove, but he had no wife, no children, no siblings, and it was Melissa and Harvey who, despite not being blood-related, were the closest thing he had to family.

Jay put a hand over hers, mistaking her frown of concern for guilt at cancelling their pre-arranged time off together. ‘We’ll have a staycation together another time, no big deal.’ His gaze came her way, his sharp blue eyes that missed nothing at thousands of feet up in the sky. ‘If you don’t need me with you, at least let me drive you up there.’

‘No need. I’ll want my car to get to and from the hospital. But thank you.’ She put her hand on his knee and gave it a squeeze, maintaining physical contact between them while he handled the gear stick, the wheel, focusing his attention on the road.

‘Well don’t stay away too long,’ he said. ‘For selfish reasons, the bed’s much better when you’re in it.’

‘You should be used to it, we’re rarely on the same schedule.’

‘True, but this is different. I’ll know you’re not all that far away.’

‘I won’t be far away, and I’ll be back in a few weeks.’ Then she’d get back to normal, back to Jay, back to her job and jetting off somewhere far, far away from everything else.

He covered her hand with his, looking at her whenever he could. His attentiveness had been one of the things that attracted Melissa to Jay right from the start. She’d spent some time on her own, determined to prove that she could do it, because if she didn’t let anyone get close, she was protecting herself. It was a barrier she put up so she’d never feel so devastated and heartbroken again. But then, one night on a stopover in Singapore, she’d found herself alone in a bar after all the other cabin crew had gone to bed and Jay had asked her to have a drink with him. For the first time in a long while she’d felt like the centre of someone’s universe, she felt needed. They’d dated whenever they could, spending any spare minutes they had together. And Melissa had felt that she was finally getting the true fresh start she’d yearned for.

Now, in the lay-by approaching Heritage Cove, the soothing clippety-clop of the horses’ hooves faded as they trooped one after the other across the road to presumably head towards the riding school. The cottage Melissa’s parents had once owned and that Melissa had lived in until she left the village was down that way, past the paddocks, and had been rented out for the last five years. Jay wanted her to sell it and instead put the money into a bolthole in France, Spain or Portugal but, so far, Melissa hadn’t bothered to get in touch with an estate agent. Maybe now she was here it was time to do so, to get rid of the cottage once and for all, another tie she could discard and move away from.

She looked again at the sign saying Heritage Cove, there ahead of her. It was now or never. She put the cap back on her bottle of water and prepared to drive on, check in at the Heritage Inn, and then take herself off to the hospital.

But instead of driving on, she made the most of the quiet country road and the lay-by that made it possible to turn around and she headed back the way she’d come. She’d go to the hospital first, see Barney, anything to put off check-in – or, more to the point, anything to avoid Heritage Cove for a little bit longer.

Who knew? Maybe she’d be at the hospital so long that it would at least be dark by the time she came back to the village and she could face it in full sunlight after a good night’s sleep.

Maybe by then she wouldn’t have such a feeling of dread pooling inside of her.

2

‘Would you stop fussing?’ Barney demanded for the third time in as many minutes. Harvey was at his bedside in the hospital; he’d been here since the early hours, waiting to be allowed inside. If he’d had his way he would’ve slept in the chair all night to keep an eye on the man who’d always been there for him when his own father had not.

‘Don’t you have a job to do, lofts to convert and work on?’ Barney moaned. He’d just had breakfast but it seemed that hadn’t gone any way to improving his mood. ‘You’ve been here every day for the last week.’

‘My job doesn’t come first, some things are more important.’ Harvey stopped smiling when Barney shrugged his hand away from his arm. ‘Stop being so grumpy, it doesn’t suit you.’

‘Of course it does, and if it’s the only way I’ll be left alone to get some peace and quiet, then I’ll be as miserable as I like.’ Fair-skinned Barney usually had a bit of colour in his cheeks but not since he’d had the fall. He looked gaunt and his frustration left a scowl that deepened the wrinkles on his forehead.

When the nurse came in to do her checks, Harvey was grateful to take his mind away from Barney’s mood and the fact he was somehow viewing this fall, this temporary setback, as the start of his demise. It wasn’t like Barney, who only days before had been happily showing off his short back and sides at the local bakery after going to the barber and having his silver, almost white, hair cropped back into the tidy way it should be. Over the last day or so Barney had continually – when he was talking rather than griping – claimed an inability to look after himself properly any more. He’d talked about the lonely house awaiting his return and although he didn’t say he was scared to be alone, Harvey could tell that was what he meant. It was as though the fall and fracture of his hip had snatched the seventy-three-year-old’s confidence and therefore independence away from him.

‘He’s been here since first thing, you know, hanging around well before he was allowed in,’ the nurse told Barney, referring to Harvey as she pulled the stethoscope from her ears and loosened the cuff she’d put on Barney’s arm to check his blood pressure. ‘Same as every day you’ve been in here, he’s been by your side. You’re lucky to have him.’

‘Stupid boy, he should know I’ll tell him if I need anything. I’m hardly likely to get myself into trouble lying in this bed, am I?’

‘Family tend to see it a different way and they want to be here for you anyway,’ the nurse, Sharon, chirruped on in her overly happy way. She probably saw miserable old buggers like Barney every day of the week. But the chances of him cheering up while he was in here were very slim. Harvey wondered whether she saw beneath the façade like he did, whether she guessed that, deep down, Barney was scared and that usually, instead of being this rude, he’d have nothing but kind words and smiles for people unless they crossed him.

‘He’s not family,’ Barney murmured, looking out the window across grey rooftops, which, mingled with an equally slate-grey sky, didn’t help much either.

Sharon held her clipboard against an ample chest. ‘Then you must be a very close friend,’ she told Harvey before putting a hand on Barney’s shoulder. ‘Sometimes our friends become our family.’

While the nurse carried on with her checks, Harvey went to grab a coffee, not that it tasted much good out of the vending machine, but at least it would give Barney a bit of space.

The nurse was spot on when she said that friends often became family. Barney had been in his life since Harvey was eight years old. Harvey had