The Great Allotment Proposal

by Jenny Oliver

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous. He’s just got us. It’ll be everywhere.’

  ‘So?’ Jack shrugged.

  ‘He’ll destroy you. Everything about you will be everywhere.’ Emily shook her head, glaring at him.

  Jack looked down at the floor for a second, seemed to think about what she’d said and then looked back up at her without saying anything more.

  ‘Shit.’ Emily dragged her hand through her hair and got her phone out to call her PR team.

  ‘Who are you calling?’

  ‘PR. We have to manage this.’

  Jack narrowed his eyes as he watched her. ‘You have to live your life, Emily. Won’t it just go away if we leave it?’

  Emily sighed. ‘Don’t be naive.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The picture of her and Jack kissing went viral in a matter of minutes. The gossip magazine websites had exclusives from ‘her friends’ about her new relationship. One paper had them marrying at the weekend, having done some digging and discovered a marquee was on hire for Mont Manor.

  Wednesday morning the paparazzi were outside Jack’s boat, sniffing around the Dandelion Cafe, milling around the gates of the manor house.

  Emily watched them from the window while searching the internet for more stories. They’d found out who Jack was, they had pictures of him at the eco research centre, they had pictures from somewhere of her and Jack as teenagers. She zoomed in and realised it was one taken by the local paper the morning of the original festival.

  She’d walked away from Jack the previous night, while on the phone to her PR, telling him to stay away from everyone asking any questions. She knew she’d been cold but it seemed like the kindest option.

  She thought about when she’d first gone to his boat and he’d asked her why she was there. Asked her if she was going to make his life complicated and she had said no. Yet here she was barricaded inside her house while journalists hounded him on his boat. He didn’t want that in his life and she knew it.

  The heat had climbed overnight. It was now an incessant pounding in the air, every space, every inch boiled up and unrelenting. Winston had battled through the sweating photographers shouting at them to leave Emily alone. She’d texted him to stay at home but he hadn’t listened and he had the door code so she couldn’t keep him out. He called her name when he arrived and she’d shouted hello but hadn’t gone down to see him.

  Her phone kept flashing with Jack’s name but she didn’t answer. Annie had rung but she’d said she should just lie low for a bit.

  At the back of it all she thought of her precious dahlia, getting scorched in the harsh sunlight. She texted Jane to ask her to water it. Jane had replied with a simple: Of course.

  At midday Emily saw the mast of Jack’s boat disappear up the river. Watched the white flag as it flickered above the line of bushes. She leant on the windowsill and followed it till it was out of sight, then she lay on her bed and stared up through the skylight till her eyes blurred and she still didn’t know what to do.

  The world turned around her for a day and a night. The internet bubbled with more and more rumours. As she’d feared, they’d found a picture of Josephine and Jack on their wedding day and then trawled through Josephine’s past and present to find Ed.

  She looked out the window on Thursday morning and Jack’s boat was still gone. She looked at her phone, he hadn’t tried to ring again.

  Trawling through her emails, she found one from Jonathan asking whether he needed to set plans in motion for an alternative venue for the Cherry Pie Show. If he didn’t hear back from her, on return, he would action a new plan immediately.

  Emily closed her eyes and breathed in and out through her nose.

  She checked her most hated website again and saw a picture of a frightened-looking Josephine carrying little Monty to the car, shielding him from the camera flashes with her coat.

  ‘Shit,’ she said to herself, covering her eyes with her hands.

  Her phone beeped with a text from Jane.

  Emily, I’m really sorry…

  Then a photograph.

  Her dahlia.

  Its big, fat, beautiful head snapped and hanging by one thin thread of stem.

  She reached her fingers up to her lips.

  For the first time since the photograph had been taken, since she’d leant over and kissed Jack full-square on the mouth, she cried. Really cried. Not just the few tears that she’d had after talking about Giles, but great sobs that seemed to hollow out her insides. She covered her face with her hands and cried and cried until she could barely breathe.

  And gradually, as the sobs died down, and her breath came back, she wiped her face on Jack’s Nirvana T-shirt and she felt herself calm. She found her thoughts aligning.

  She could see her mum kow-towing to whichever demand or temper of whichever man, as long as he kept them in the manner she was accustomed. She saw herself neatly boxed up by Giles, kept for public occasions where he would drape his arm around her and nuzzle into her neck. She saw the photographers she posed for drunkenly as she stumbled out of parties, giving them the brand Emily that they wanted. She saw the journalists digging and picking for their soundbite.

  It was a lifestyle.

  It was choice.

  She had made the decision to live her life in front of a camera.

  And surely if she’d made the decision to do it, she could equally make it to undo it?

  What had Jack said as she’d been frantically dialling her PR. Won’t it just go away if we leave it?

  She had called him naive.

  But perhaps it was her that was naive. Naive to believe she could have both. Or more to the point, that she wanted both. She’d had some of the best moments of her life living that lifestyle with those people, but she had chosen to up sticks and come back to Cherry Pie. She had chosen to work on the allotment. The vision of her sabotaged dahlia made her breath catch for a moment. She had chosen to change.

  There was a knock on her door.

  ‘Er, Miss Emily?’ She heard Winston’s voice. ‘Miss Emily, I’ve brought you some tea and Annie’s made you a bacon sandwich. We thought you might be hungry.’

  She got up off her bed and opened the door. Winston was standing in his overalls sheepishly carrying a cup of tea and a paper bag with the sandwich. ‘They’re still outside,’ he said. ‘Few less of them, though. Think it’s too hot for them,’ he added with a little laugh.

  Emily took the cup of tea and the bag. ‘Thanks for this, Winston.’

  ‘No trouble at all. Don’t want you hiding away up here starving to death,’ he said then added, ‘Anyway, I’ve got painting to do.’ He started to turn and walk back down the stairs, but before he did he said, ‘You shouldn’t be hiding you know, you’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘Thanks, Winston,’ she said, watching him as he walked down the stairs, closing the door behind him.

  She went back to sit on the bed, sipping her tea and getting the sandwich out. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was. As she ate, she remembered the article Faye Starkey had written: We want to tell her that growing up doesn’t have to mean boring, sad and lonely. Bring back our Em with her crazy brand of cool.

  She was doing exactly as Faye had predicted. She was hiding away in her great big house letting the world live around her. Emily knew she couldn’t change the past. She couldn’t buy back the past. The only thing she could change was her future.

  And so she did exactly as Faye had suggested.

  For the first time in five years, she called Giles.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Emily walked out of the house in her worst allotment shorts, her oldest, baggiest T-shirt, her wellingtons and her hair naturally kinked and damp from the shower. She wore full EHB make-up, but all the Barely There range so it wasn’t too obvious. She walked down the path and out the front gate, the flash bulbs as bright as the sun.

  ‘All right,
Em, got lover boy in there?’

  ‘Em, Em, what’s the sex like?’

  ‘Em! Over here, Em. Is he better than Giles?’

  ‘Oi, Hunter-Brown, when are you getting married?’

  Emily stepped through them as serenely as she could, holding her hand up when one of them got too close, the lens of his camera almost nudging her cheekbone. ‘Boys, the best piece of advice I can give you is if you go home now, you will be welcome back on Saturday,’ she said, walking backwards away from them up the path to the allotment.

  ‘What is that your wedding? Saturday?’

  Emily smiled. ‘No. It’s not my wedding. But it will most likely be the best photo opportunity you’ve ever had in your lives. But–’ She held up a finger to silence their whinging. ‘I have very strict security so anyone I see on the island over the next two days will not be joining the party.’

  ‘You’re talking shit.’

  She shrugged a shoulder.

  ‘Come on, Em. What’s it gonna be? It’s not your crappy village show, is it?’

  Emily laughed. ‘It’s up to you, boys. Stay and risk it. Or go home and come back Saturday. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have dahlias to rescue.’

  She started to walk away, then she paused and turned. ‘Oh and I just wanted to ask, which one of you did it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Which one of you broke my plant?’

  They sniggered in unison. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, love. You’re bloody mad as a hatter, Emily. Mad.’

  Emily stared at them all for a moment. Standing there in their shorts and T-shirts, smoking fags down to the butt, sweating in the heat, patches under their arms, some of them had brought their own chairs to sit on, the newspaper folded in the seat. One had a Thermos and sandwiches and she wondered if his wife had packed it for him before he came out to stalk her for the day.

  I’m not afraid of you, she said to herself over and over as she watched them. I am not afraid.

  She had realised as she’d spoken to Giles on the phone that whatever may or may not happen with Jack, this wasn’t about him, it was about her and her past. It was about no longer running and instead turning to face something in order to lay it to rest.

  ‘Oh, look at my dahlia.’ Emily covered her face with her hand as she stood in front of her flower, its fallen head swaying gently in the breeze.

  Jane was standing next to her, wincing as they both stared. ‘Do you think it was sabotage?’

  ‘Yes.’ Emily almost scoffed. ‘Of course it was.’

  Jane put her finger under the dead head and lifted it so that it stood tall again and they gazed at its shrivelled beauty.

  ‘Even dead it looks amazing. Bollocks.’ Emily stamped her foot.

  Jane leant back against the branches of the damson. ‘How are you anyway?’

  Emily reached forward and plucked the head off then twirled it between her fingers. ‘I’m OK. How’s everyone else? How are Ed and Josephine?’

  Jane made a face. ‘They were pretty shaken up I think. Some bloke grabbed her by the arm and just stuck a camera in her face while she had Monty but I think Alan might have done something. Not sure what but there’s some heavy-looking security around their place. There’s been mention of arming them with crowbars.’ Jane raised a brow. ‘Of all the people I wouldn’t want to cross, it’s Alan Neil.’

  Emily winced. ‘Is he mad with me?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think he’s mad with them – all the paparazzi. He knows enough about show business to know it’s not your fault, and I think he was quite pleased actually, you know about you and Jack.’

  Emily narrowed her eyes.

  ‘It’s true. And he’s packed Ed and Jo and Monty off to the Maldives or somewhere crazy-flash like that for a holiday. I kind of wish the paps would come after me so I could go, too,’ she laughed.

  Emily smiled, cradling her poor broken dahlia. ‘Have you seen Jack?’

  Jane shook her head. Looked at Emily with what felt like sympathy. ‘He’s gone. His boat’s gone. I watered his strawberries for him though yesterday, just in case…’ She paused.

  ‘What were you going to say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Yes you were. You were going to say in case he comes back, weren’t you? You don’t think he’s going to come back, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know, Em,’ Jane said, walking back over to the dahlias. She ran her hand lightly across the remaining flowers and said, ‘None of the rest of these are good enough.’

  They were both standing, looking down at the average blooms when Annie marched up the path with her mother in tow.

  ‘Tell her!’ Annie said sharply, nodding towards Emily.

  ‘I can’t, Annie.’ Her mum almost sobbed.

  ‘Tell her,’ Annie said again. Then, looking over to Emily and Jane said, ‘She wasn’t going to tell you.’

  Emily frowned. ‘Tell me what?’

  Annie stood with her hands on her hips glaring at her mother.

  ‘It was me,’ Annie’s mum said with a sob. ‘It was me, Emily. I broke your dahlia.’

  Emily glanced at Jane and then back at Annie’s mum, confused. ‘Why?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ she said, taking a couple of steps towards her. ‘I’d just heard so much about it and I was curious. I didn’t think you girls would be able to grow anything, especially not with the soil here, so I just wanted to see it, I suppose. I wanted to see if it was as special as everyone said.’ She held her hand up to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry, Emily. Especially with all this other nasty gubbins going on. I just wanted to see it. But when I was going over I tripped and…’ She bit down on her thumbnail before carrying on. ‘Oh it broke. It just snapped. Emily, I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never broken anything and I know people will think I did it on purpose but I didn’t, I promise. And now Jonathan is telling everyone that the show will be at the pub again and none of our entries are valid under his bloody criteria. I thought my cow tomato was a sure-fire for ugliest vegetable.’

  Annie, who had been standing behind her glaring, started to laugh.

  Her mum turned around, confused.

  ‘Sorry,’ Annie said, holding a hand up. ‘Sorry. I just…’

  Emily looked down at the dead dahlia in her hand and then up at Annie’s mum’s distraught face. She would never have let something get this serious in the past. Yes she had been so proud of that dahlia, but she didn’t need a rosette to confirm how well they’d done to grow it from nothing. She might be growing up, but, she was beginning to realise, that didn’t mean losing everything about herself because quite a lot of it was good.

  She let her fingers close, squashing the petals in her hand. ‘It’s OK, Winifred. Don’t worry about it. You’re welcome to a nose around our allotment any time you like. It’s only a flower. Lots more will grow in its place.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Annie’s mum looked dubious.

  ‘Of course I’m bloody sure. Now, Annie, text your stupid brother and tell him the show is most definitely still on. Winifred,’ she said, going over to put her arm around Annie’s mum’s shoulders. ‘We can’t have the tomato cow going unseen, can we?’

  Annie’s mum sniffed and shook her head with a little laugh. ‘Oh I am sorry, Emily.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks,’ Emily said, then laughed, ‘I’ve never said that before. Right. Let’s take action. First things first, Jane, there’s a bottle of champagne hanging by a string in that butt over there and there are glasses in the packing box. You pop that open while I go and water Jack’s strawberries. He is going to come back. And when he does, we need him to win.’

  She caught Annie’s eye just as she was marching off to get the hose and didn’t miss the pity in her expression.

  ‘He is coming back, Annie,’ Emily said. ‘He has to.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Friday afternoon, Annie, Emily and Jane stood in the kitchen of Mont Manor and watched the men putting up the marque
e. The giant flat canvas was like a mirage in the heat.

  ‘We’re watching to check they do a good job, aren’t we?’ Annie laughed as all the men heaved at the ropes, their T-shirts tucked into their shorts, their muscles straining.

  Emily frowned and nodded. ‘Absolutely. This is by no means gratuitous staring.’

  Jane backed away from the window to retrieve her martini. ‘I drink way more when I’m with you, Emily.’

  ‘It’s medicinal,’ Emily said, waving a hand to dismiss her. ‘It’s been a traumatic week.’

  Jane picked out her olive on its cocktail stick and slid it off with her teeth. ‘How did you get rid of the paps in the end?’ she asked.

  Emily pulled out one of her new wooden country kitchen chairs and, sitting down, said, ‘I offered them something better.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure yet,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘We’re going to have to wait and see.’

  Jane raised a brow. ‘Mysterious.’

  Winston came in to get them all to come and look at his beautifully painted living room. The pineapples gone, the whole room had been reverted back to the palest yellow. Emily sighed. ‘Ahh, the yellow room. Thank you, Winston,’ she said, going over to kiss him on the cheek.

  ‘It’s my pleasure.’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ said Emily as she lay down on the carpet, flat on her back to take it all in. ‘It’s exactly, exactly perfect.’

  Winston laughed and went off to clean his brushes.

  ‘Lie down and look up,’ she told Annie and Jane. ‘It’s calming.’

  ‘Are you going to make us do Mindfullness exercises?’ Annie asked as she crouched down to the floor.

  They lay in a star shape, all their heads meeting in the middle.

  ‘See, isn’t it mellow?’ Emily said.

  ‘Kind of,’ said Annie.

  After a few seconds of staring, Emily asked, ‘Has anyone seen Jack by any chance?’

  ‘No.’ Both Annie and Jane said it in unison.

  Emily didn’t say anything else.

  ‘Em, he doesn’t hang around. You know that. I don’t know if he is coming back, you know?’ Annie said quietly.