Until recently, she had spent these afternoons chatting to Julius Nightingale, who had steered her in the direction of a number of writers she might not have chosen otherwise. He was fascinated by food, too, and every now and then she would bring him in something she had made: a slab of game terrine with her gooseberry chutney, or a piece of apricot-and-frangipane tart. He was always appreciative and gave her objective feedback—she liked the fact that he wasn’t afraid to criticize or make a suggestion. She respected his opinion. Without Julius, she would never have discovered Alice Waters or Claudia Roden—or not as quickly, anyway; no doubt she would have got round to them eventually.
“It’s not about the pictures,” Julius had told her, quite sternly. “It’s about the words. A great cookery writer can make you see the dish, smell it, taste it, with no need for a photograph.”
But Julius wasn’t here anymore. Thomasina had read about his death in the Peasebrook Advertiser in the staff room. She’d hidden behind the paper as the tears coursed down her cheeks. She didn’t want anyone to see her crying. They all thought she was feeble enough. For Thomasina was shy. She never joined in the staff-room banter or went on nights out with the others. She was painfully introverted. She wished she wasn’t, but there was nothing she could do about it.
She could see Emilia, Julius’s daughter, putting the finishing touches on a window display. She plucked up the courage to go in and speak to her. She wanted to tell her just how much Julius had meant. The shop wouldn’t feel the same without him.
Thomasina had been three years below Emilia at school, and she still felt the awe of a younger pupil for an older one. Emilia had been popular at school; she’d managed to achieve the elusive status of being clever and conscientious but also quite cool. Thomasina had not been cool. Sometimes she had thought she didn’t exist at all. No one ever took any notice of her. She had few friends and never quite understood why. She certainly wasn’t a horrible person. But when you were shy and overweight and not very clever and terrible at sports, it turned out that no one was especially interested in you, even if you were sweet and kind and caring.
Food was Thomasina’s escape. It was the only subject she had ever been any good at. She had gone on to catering college, and now she taught food technology at the school she had once attended. And on the weekends, she had A Deux. She thought it was probably the smallest pop-up restaurant in the country: a table for two set up in her tiny cottage, where she cooked celebratory dinners for anyone who cared to book. She had been pleasantly surprised by its success. People loved the intimacy of being cooked for as a couple. And her cooking was sublime. She barely made a profit, for she used only the very best ingredients, but she did it because she loved watching people go out into the night glazed with gluttony, heady with hedonism.
And without A Deux, she would be alone on the weekends. It gave her something to do, a momentum, and after she had done the last of the clearing up on a Sunday morning, she still had a whole day to herself to catch up and do her laundry and her grading.
She was used to being on her own, and rather resigned to it, for she felt she had little to offer a potential paramour. She had a round face with very pink cheeks that needed little encouragement to go even pinker, and her hair was a cloud of mousy frizz. She had been to a hairdresser once who had looked at it with distaste and said with a sniff, “There’s not much I can do with this. I’ll just get rid of the split ends.” Thomasina had come out looking no different, having gone in with dreams of emerging with a shining mane. She did her own split ends from then on.
To her surprise, her students loved her, and her class was one of the most popular, with girls and boys, because she opened their eyes to the joys of cooking and made even the most committed junk-food junkie leave her class with something delicious they had cooked themselves. When she spoke about food, she was confident and her eyes shone and her enthusiasm was catching. Outside the kitchen, whether at home or school, she was tongue-tied.
Which was why she had to wait until the shop was empty before approaching the counter and giving Emilia her condolences.
“You’re Thomasina!” said Emilia, and Thomasina blushed with delight that she had been recognized. “Dad talked about you a lot. When he was in the hospital, he said he would take me to your restaurant when he got better.”
Thomasina’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh,” she said. “It would have been an honor to cook for him. Though it’s not really a restaurant. Not a proper one. I cook for people in my cottage.”
“He was very fond of you—I know that. He said you were one of his best customers.”
“You are staying open, aren’t you?” asked Thomasina anxiously. “It’s one of the things that keeps me going, coming in here.”
“Definitely,” said Emilia.
“Well, I just wanted to tell you how . . . how much I’ll miss him.”
“Come to his memorial service. It’s next Thursday. At St. Nick’s. And if you want to say a few words, it’s open to everyone. Just let me know what you’d like to do—a reading or a poem. Or whatever.”
Thomasina bit her lip. She wanted more than anything to say yes, to honor Julius’s memory. But the thought of standing up in front of a load of people she didn’t know petrified her. Maybe Emilia would forget about the idea? Thomasina knew from experience that if she protested about things, people became fixated, whereas if she concurred in a vague manner, very often their ideas faded away.
“It sounds a wonderful idea. Can I have a think and let you know?”
“Of course.” Emilia smiled, and Thomasina was struck by how like her father she was. She had his warmth, and his way of making you feel special.
Thomasina drifted back over to the cookery section, and spent a good half hour browsing. She had narrowed it down to two books and was holding them both, considering them, when a voice behind her made her jump.
“The Anthony Bourdain, definitely. No contest.”
She turned, and felt her cheeks turn vermilion. She recognized the speaker but struggled to place him. Had he been to A Deux? He was as tall and thin as she was short and round. She was mortified that she couldn’t recognize him, for she was certain she should.
“It’s the best book about food I’ve ever read,” her unknown observer went on. And then she remembered. He worked in the cheesemonger. She didn’t recognize him without his white hat and striped apron—he was in jeans and a jumper, and she realized she had never seen his hair properly. It was curly and fair, and he looked a bit like a cherub, with his cheeky baby face. She always bought her cheese from there—she always included a cheese course, with homemade oat biscuits and quince jelly and rhubarb chutney—and he had served her a couple of times, cutting little slivers of Comté or Taleggio or Gubbeen for her to try, depending on the theme of the meal she was cooking that night.
“Sorry,” he went on, and she saw his cheeks went as pink as her own. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but it’s one of my favorite books.”
“I shall have it, then.” She smiled, and put the other one back. “I didn’t recognize you at first.”
He pulled his curls back from his face and made the shape of a hat with his hands. She laughed. For some reason, she didn’t feel awkward. Yet she couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“Do you like books, then?” was all she could manage. How ridiculously lame.
“Yes,” he said. “But I couldn’t eat a whole one.”
She frowned, not sure what he meant.
“It’s a joke,” he said. “A bad one. It’s supposed to be, ‘Do you like children? Yes, but I couldn’t eat a whole one.’”
She looked at him blankly.
He cleared his throat, embarrassed. “I love books,” he clarified. “But I hardly ever have time to read. You have no idea how hectic the world of cheese can be.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t. But I think it must be f
ascinating. Have you always been in cheese?”
He looked at her. “Are you teasing me?”
“No!” she said, horrified that he might think so. “Not at all.”
“Good,” he said. “Other people do. They seem to find the idea of working in cheese hilarious. Whenever I go out, I just get cheese jokes.”
“Cheese jokes? Are there any?”
“What kind of cheese do you use to disguise a small horse?”
Thomasina shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Mascarpone. What type of cheese is made backward?”
“Um—I don’t know. Again.”
“Edam.”
Thomasina couldn’t help laughing. “That’s terrible.”
“I know. But I have to tell the jokes before anyone else does. Because I can’t bear it.”
She looked at him. “There must be a Camembert joke in there somewhere.”
“There is.” He nodded gravely. “But let’s not go there. Anyway.” He looked round the shelves. “I’ve come to get a present for my mum. She loves cookery books, but I think I’ve bought her just about every book in this shop. So I’m a bit stuck for ideas.”
“Does she like novels?”
“I think so . . .” He wrinkled his nose in thought. “She’s always reading. I know that.”
Thomasina nodded.
“You could get her a food-related novel. Like Heartburn. By Nora Ephron. It’s kind of funny but sad but with recipes. Or maybe Chocolat? You could get her a big box of chocolates from the chocolate shop to go with it.” Thomasina was getting carried away. “If it was me, I’d love that.”
He looked at her, impressed. “She’d love that. You’re a genius.” He looked round the shop. “Where do I find them?”
Thomasina led him over to the fiction shelves and found the books in question.
“These two are keepers,” she told him.
He looked puzzled.
“You know, some books you lend or lose or give to a charity shop, but these are books for life. I’ve read Heartburn about seventeen times.” She blushed, because she always blushed when she talked about herself. “Maybe I need to get out more.”
More? To misquote Alice in Wonderland, how could she go out more if she didn’t go out at all? He patted her on the shoulder and she felt all fizzy inside. Fizzy and fuzzy.
“Well, you’re a star and no mistake. I’ll see you in the shop?”
She smiled at him and wanted to say more, but she didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded, and he sauntered off to the counter and she realized she didn’t even know his name.
She watched him chatting to Emilia while he paid. He was so warm and friendly and open. And she realized something. He hadn’t made her feel shy and tongue-tied. She had almost felt like a normal person when she spoke to him. It had been easy. Yes, she’d gone pink, but she always went pink.
The only other person who hadn’t made her feel self-conscious was Julius.
Maybe it was the shop. Maybe there was something in the air that made her the person she wished she were. Someone who could actually hold a conversation.
She went to pay for her book and plucked up the courage to ask Emilia.
“You don’t know what that bloke’s name is? The one I was just talking to? I know he works in the cheese shop.”
“Jem?” said Emilia. “Jem Gosling. He’s a sweetheart. He always used to bring my father the last of the Brie when it was running out of the door.”
Thomasina looked down at the counter. She couldn’t, she just couldn’t, ask if he had a girlfriend. She knew there were women, more brazen than she, who would be bold enough. But that just wasn’t the sort of person Thomasina was.
Emilia was looking at her. But not in an unkind way.
“As far as I can tell,” she said casually, “he’s unattached. He had a girlfriend, but she went off to Australia. He used to come and talk to my father about it, when she first left. But I think he’s probably over it.”
Thomasina felt flustered. She couldn’t think what to say. She didn’t want to protest that she didn’t need to know any of that, because it would seem rude. But she was mortified that Emilia thought she was after Jem. She hoped Emilia wouldn’t say anything to him if she saw him, even in jest. The very thought made her feel ill. She changed the subject as quickly as she could, hoping Emilia would forget she’d ever mentioned him.
“By the way, I’d love to do a reading,” she found herself saying. “At the service.”
“That’s wonderful.” Emilia smiled. “If you can let me know what you’re going to read, I can put it into the order of service.”
Thomasina nodded, hot blood pounding in her ears. What on earth had she said that for? She couldn’t stand up and speak in public, in front of a full church. It was too late now, though. Emilia was writing her name down on a list. She couldn’t back out, not without looking disrespectful to Julius.
Feeling slightly sick, she paid for her book as quickly as she could and left.
4
“The Desprez à Fleur Jaune is going to have to come out. It’s just not thriving. It’ll break my heart—it’s been there ever since I can remember. But I don’t think there’s any hope.”
Sarah Basildon spoke about her rose as if it were a beloved animal she was having put down. Her fingers moved gently over the space on the planting plan taken up by the sick flower, as if she were stroking it better.
“I’ll take it out for you,” said Dillon. “You won’t have to know about it. And once it’s actually gone, perhaps you won’t notice.”
Sarah smiled a grateful smile. “Oh, I’ll know. But that’s good of you. I’m just too much of a wimp.”
Of course, Sarah was far from a wimp in reality. She was redoubtable, from her gum boots to her chambray denim eyes. Dillon Greene thought the world of her.
And she him. They were as close as could be, the aristocrat and the gardener, thirty years apart in age. They loved nothing better than sitting in the dankness of the garden room, drinking smoky dark tea and dunking custard creams. They could easily get through a packet in a morning as they put the gardens to rights.
Sarah’s planting plans for the next year were spread on a trestle table in the middle of the room, the Latin names spidered all over the paper in her tiny black italics. Dillon knew the proper names as well as she did now—he’d been working with her at Peasebrook Manor since he left school.
As stately homes went, Peasebrook was small and intimate: a pleasingly symmetrical house of Palladian perfection, built of golden stone topped with a cupola, and set in two hundred acres of rolling farmland. When Dillon joined as a junior gardener in charge of mowing the lawns, he quickly became Sarah’s protégé. He wasn’t sure what it was she had recognized in him, the shy seventeen-year-old who hadn’t wanted to go off to university as his school had suggested, because no one else in his family ever had done. They’d all worked outdoors; their lives were rugged and ruled by the weather. Dillon felt comfortable in that environment. When he woke up, he looked at the sky, not the Internet. He never slept in. He was at work by half seven, come rain or shine, sleet or snow.
One teacher had tried to persuade him to go to horticultural college, at the very least, but he didn’t see the point of sitting in a classroom when he could learn hands-on. And Sarah was better than any college tutor. She grilled him, tested him, taught him, demonstrated things to him, and then made him show her how it was done. She gave praise where it was due, and her criticism was always constructive. She was brisk and always knew exactly what she wanted, so Dillon always knew exactly where he was. It suited him down to the rich red clay on the ground.
“You really have got green fingers,” she told him with admiration and increasing frequency. He had a gut feeling for what went with what, for which plants would flourish and bloom together. To supplement h
is innate ability, he plundered her library, and she never minded his taking the books home—Gertrude Jekyll, Vita Sackville-West, Capability Brown, Bunny Williams, Christopher Lloyd—and he didn’t just look at the pictures. He pored over the words describing their inspiration, their visions, the problems they faced, the solutions they came up with.
Dillon, Sarah realized one day, knew much more than she did. More often than not these days he questioned her planting plans, suggesting some other combination when redesigning a bed or coming up with a concept for a new one. He would suggest a curve rather than a straight line, a bank of solid color instead of a rainbow drift, a bed that was conceived for its smell rather than its look. And he used things he found around the estate as features: an old sundial, an ancient gardening implement, a bench he would spend hours restoring.
Sarah’s greatest fear was losing him. There was every chance he would be headhunted by some other country house, because the gardens at Peasebrook Manor had become increasingly popular over the past few years. There were three formal rose gardens, a cutting garden and a walled kitchen garden, a maze and a miniature lake with an island, and a ruined temple for visitors to wander around. There had been a flurry of articles in magazines, many of them featuring pictures of Dillon at work, for there was no doubt he was easy on the eyes. More than once her own heart had stopped for a moment when she’d rounded a corner and seen him in his combat shorts and big boots, his muscles coiling as he dug over a bed. He’d be television gold.
She would do anything in her power to keep him. She couldn’t imagine life at Peasebrook without him now. But there was a limit to how much she could afford to pay him. Times were hard. It was always a struggle to balance the books, despite all their best efforts.
But today, at least the stress took her mind off her grief. Her secret grief. She’d had to put her heart in a straitjacket, and she’d hidden her heartbreak well. She didn’t think anyone was any the wiser about how she was feeling or what she had been through.
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