‘I suppose it must be. I expect Ned feels the same way.’
‘He does, and though he needs my help with the rest of it, he decided he wanted me to clear the rose garden first. Still, now you can get round the paths, it’s just down to a major pruning back and then enriching the beds. Oh, and there’s that smaller area at the top of the garden to tidy up, too. I’d forgotten that.’
But Myfy’s mind had clearly slipped back to whatever inspiration had struck her this morning and her dark eyes were looking at something that only she could see. With a vague smile, she strode off towards the door into her studio, coloured tassels swinging, and vanished inside.
I spent the rest of the morning working in the rose garden, finding a few more metal plant tags along the way. I have to admit, I cleared away the ivy and encroaching branches from around the folly first, so it was all ready for Ned to clean up.
I sat on the rather green bench at the back of the little temple to drink my flask of coffee and contemplate the urn on its pedestal.
It was amazing how much work I’d managed in so short a space of time, though it had to be said that when Ned had helped it had all gone about four times as fast. But then, he was about four times as big as me.
Caspar appeared from one of the newly cleared paths, stared at me, then pulled a silent face and padded off back the way he’d come. He, like Ned, mustn’t have been feeling sociable this morning.
I got up after a bit and went to look at the other, much smaller but equally overgrown, end of the garden. When I’d walked along the road past it on the day I arrived, all I’d been able to see above the short stretch of railing-topped wall, was another thicket of thorns.
About one o’clock I went over to the Potting Shed for lunch and found Gertie and James there, finishing theirs, along with Steve, who’d been helping James clean up plant tags. I added my latest haul to that of the apothecary garden.
Gertie told me Ned had had to go out earlier, but was now in his office, so maybe I’d been mistaken and he hadn’t been avoiding me after all.
‘Cress brought me some manure down, so I’ve started a new heap. But I can let you have some of my well-rotted stuff when you’re ready for it,’ she said, as if promising me a high treat.
‘That’ll do them old roses a power of good,’ agreed James, which it certainly would: air and light and space to breathe and a good manure mulch equalled rose bliss.
Ned must have escaped from his office while I was eating, because I discovered him cleaning the folly when I got back. He had the pressure barrel of water he’d mentioned, plus buckets, squeegees and scrubbing brushes for the places where the slime resisted.
He was already damp and faintly green, and too engrossed in his task to be self-conscious about last night’s heart-to-heart, even if he felt it. He immediately sent me back to fetch the stepladder, so he could reach to scrub the pediment, and when Steve, driven by curiosity, returned with me to have a look, he ended up spending the next hour scrubbing the urn and its pedestal.
When Steve had gone and the temple and urn had been rendered spotlessly white, and ourselves a dirty greenish colour, Ned and I admired our handiwork … and then I suddenly glanced at my watch which, despite its dampness, was still working.
‘Look at the time! I meant to give that Rambling Rector in the cottage garden a radical pruning before I went to check the River Walk, but I’ve only got time to change into something dry now, so I’ll have to do it afterwards.’
‘You get off, then. We’ve finished here for the day so I’ll put the tools away.’
‘Great,’ I said gratefully, ‘and I only have one rosemary bush to get out of Myfanwy’s garden in the morning and then I’ll return that pickaxe I borrowed.’
‘No rush,’ I heard him say, but by then I was dashing off to render myself less like a slime monster before my walk up to the falls. Which was just as well, because there were a lot more people about than before, though all on their way back down towards the gate.
My haul was three of the ubiquitous plastic water bottles, a couple of crushed cans, the wrapper off a sandwich and a pair of stiletto shoes in a bin, with the heel snapped off one of them. I hoped the owner had carried something more suitable for walking with her.
I didn’t dawdle, since I was determined to cut back that rose, and there would be plenty of time another day to sit by the falls and think, or dream, or commune with the angels/fairies, or whatever. And possibly, with Mum.
17
Well Trained
To my surprise, when I got back to the Lavender Cottage garden I found Ned there, hacking back the Rambling Rector in a no-nonsense manner.
When I thanked him, he said, ‘I thought it wouldn’t take long with two of us and I do feel my side of the gardening has monopolized most of your time so far.’
‘It looks much better already, and at least I can now walk under the archway without having my hair raked by brambles.’
He’d thoughtfully brought the long gauntlets and secateurs I’d been using, as well as his own, so after I’d disposed of the rubbish and the stilettos (there is no special recycling box for dead shoes), I set to work at the other end of the trellis.
We always seemed fated to meet in the middle of everything we do together, but this took a lot less time than the rose garden path. We’d finished and were admiring our handiwork, when Elf called us from the back door with a loud, ‘Coo-ee!’ which was something I’d thought they only said in Australia.
‘Spotted you from the window,’ she said, when we reached her. ‘And I thought you’d be ready for a cold drink – and perhaps to try my new ice-cream.’
We went through the scullery into the café kitchen, where the glad sight of two large glasses of home-made lemonade greeted us. My throat felt as if it was lined with bark.
‘Charlie’s finished the cleaning and has gone home; he’s such a hard worker, that boy.’
‘I might be able to give Charlie a bit of work in the garden, if he’s got time to spare,’ Ned suggested. ‘I know he’s not a gardener, but a bit of muscle is always useful.’
‘Good idea, though he’ll be volunteering at that archaeological dig up at the ruins right after Easter so—’
She broke off what she was saying and instead gazed in a horrified way at the window behind us. When we turned, we saw a large, marmalade-coloured face pressed against the glass, green eyes glittering and pulling the cat version of that figure in Munch’s painting The Scream.
‘It’s only Caspar,’ I said. ‘I expect he wondered where we’d gone, but he’ll go round the proper way when he wants his dinner.’
‘Did Marnie tell you our rescue cat has fallen in love with her?’ Elf asked Ned. ‘Jacob had to put a cat flap in the landing door, so he could come and go into her flat. We just see him for meals, really.’
‘It’s nice having him for company in the evenings,’ I said, ‘but I feel he’s using you like a hotel, popping back for food and comfort breaks!’
‘We don’t mind, so long as he’s settled and happy. And Myfy says he does spend a lot of time in the studio when she’s painting, watching her. Jacob put a bigger cat flap in the back door, too, so Caspar can now come and go anywhere in Lavender Cottage as he pleases – except in the café, of course.’
‘Caspar seems well on the way to having you all trained,’ Ned said, smiling. ‘Now, what’s this new flavour of ice-cream?’
‘Oh, yes – I kept two little pots aside for you to try when I was putting the rest away in the big freezer,’ Elf said, fetching them and getting out teaspoons. ‘See if you can tell me what it is?’
‘Lime?’ suggested Ned and I said, ‘Lemon?’ at exactly the same moment.
‘Both right. I thought I’d try lemon and lime together. I think I’ve got the sugar content right … not too sweet, so it will be very refreshing in summer.’
‘It’s lovely,’ I said, finishing the rest of mine.
‘I must remember to keep aside small boxes of ice-cre
am for you to put in your freezer, Marnie,’ she said kindly. ‘And I’ll bring you some more over soon, Ned.’
I thanked her: a free supply of delicious home-made ice-cream is not a usual perk of a gardening job.
Elf said she hoped I wasn’t finding the work of looking after two gardens too hard and I assured her it wasn’t.
‘In fact, I wish the days were longer!’
‘But aren’t you exhausted? I know for a fact that you’ve been up at daybreak for the last two days, working in our garden!’
‘Oh, no, I’m used to hard outdoor work and anyway, in my book, gardening counts as fun.’
‘Mine too,’ Ned said, and then described how we’d cleaned up the folly and pruned back mega amounts of overgrown rose brambles together.
‘Even Gertie’s now enthused to the point where she’s voluntarily offering barrowloads of her best, well-rotted manure to mulch the rose beds.’
‘I want to get the rose garden to a state where I can leave it and go and help Ned with the water feature and wetland area,’ I said.
‘Yes, I could do with another pair of hands to help finish the hard landscaping in that corner. Then we can plant it up. I’ve ordered a lot of plants from a specialist nursery and Gert’s been growing others from seed.’
‘Yes, she said she’d been planting up a few of them,’ I agreed.
‘I ought to get back to the office and tweak the website a bit more,’ Ned said, though leaning back in his chair with a refill of lemonade, as if he was there for the long haul. ‘And I realized earlier that I should already have distributed the leaflets about the garden all over the district … just one more thing to fit in before we open!’
‘When did you say the information boards were coming?’ I asked.
‘First thing Monday, so I’ll have to fix those up.’
‘It’s going to be hectic till opening day, I can see,’ Elf said, ‘but once Easter weekend and all the fuss of the opening is over, things will quieten down until summer and give you a chance to get into the swing of being open.’
‘I hope we’re in the swing of a lot of visitors at four pounds a pop,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, we’re sunk.’
‘You’ll probably have loads of tourists coming over from Starstone Edge when the holiday season gets underway,’ Elf said. ‘Did I say Clara rang to confirm what time you want her on Friday for the opening ceremony? I told her to get here for eleven and I’d give her coffee first: was that OK?’
‘Yes, fine,’ he said, then explained to me: ‘The garden will be officially opened by one of our local celebs, Clara Mayhem Doome. She’s an epigrapher, but you probably know her for her crime novels.’
‘Gosh, yes, I’ve got most of them! Treena used to bring them out for me when I was in France and I bought the latest one on Tuesday.’
‘Her husband’s the poet, Henry Doome, but he’s not so keen on crowds, so I don’t know if he will come with her,’ Elf said. ‘But our beekeeping friend, Tottie, probably will.’
I must have looked at sea, because Ned said, ‘Starstone Edge is a valley high up on the moors, a few miles above Thorstane, though most of it was flooded to make a reservoir. Clara, her husband and a mixed bag of family and friends all live in the Red House, part of the hamlet that escaped the drowning.’
‘Yes, and now in summer there’s lots of holidaymakers and sailing on the lake and that kind of thing,’ Elf said. ‘One of the Doomes has opened up the old manor house as a very expensive wedding reception venue.’
‘The weather can be really bad there over winter, but then there’s a bit of a population explosion from late spring to early autumn, so any businesses have to make their money then,’ Ned said.
‘You can take some of your garden leaflets over there – and there are lots more places you can leave them.’ Elf began to count on her fingers: ‘There’s the Pike with Two Heads, the cracker factory on the other side of Great Mumming … the ghost trail and the Roman Bath up in Halfhidden … and there are a couple of big houses further afield that are open to the public, like Rufford Old Hall, near Ormskirk.’
‘I’d better quickly draw up a list,’ Ned said. ‘It’s not something I can put off until we’ve opened.’
‘Like expanding the shop – I think that really would make a lot of money and you did say there was an outbuilding on the other side of the wall that you might possibly be able to knock through into. I’d like to see that,’ I said.
‘I think the money would be better spent on the garden for the time being,’ he said dubiously. ‘But I’ll be about all day tomorrow, if you want to come over and look at it.’
‘I could do, in the morning, but I think my sister’s coming over later in the day,’ I said. ‘I’d like to have another walk round the Grace Garden anyway and see what you’ve been doing.’
‘Well, don’t let Ned rope you into working on your day off,’ Elf said. ‘You need a rest.’
‘You’re right, Elf. Marnie’s already working more hours than she’s being paid for and she’s only been here five minutes.’
‘But we’re all – Gertie, James and me – working more hours than we’re paid for, because we enjoy what we’re doing,’ I said. ‘If you want me to work on Sundays too, I will.’
‘You’re a glutton for punishment,’ Elf said, but she was smiling. ‘I hope you’ll join us for Sunday dinner tomorrow evening? It’s an open invitation, because of course sometimes you might want to go off for the day, but Jacob and Ned usually come, and Gerald.’
‘Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding,’ Ned said reminiscently. He didn’t seem surprised I’d been invited to join them for dinner, but then, I expect he knew how hospitable they were.
‘Sometimes it’s roast chicken instead,’ Elf pointed out.
‘I’d love to, thank you,’ I agreed, capitulating, and Elf beamed.
Ned got up, stretching, his head almost touching the ceiling. ‘Well, I’d better get back to the office for a bit, even though I don’t want to. See you in the morning, Ellwood.’
When he’d gone, Elf looked at me. ‘Why does he call you by your surname, Marnie?’
‘It’s just … sort of a running joke from when we were students.’
‘Well, as long as you don’t mind.’
And I didn’t – in fact, I’d welcomed it as a sign that we were resuming our old friendship.
Treena had sent me a message saying she was definitely coming over to Jericho’s End tomorrow, when Luke wanted to do a little initial surveying at the ruins, so I was really looking forward to showing her where I now lived and worked.
Caspar and I had a quiet night in, snuggled on the sofa, while I read a bit more of Elf’s book. I’d missed a couple of pages at the end of the Lost Treasure chapter, about a miser who was supposed to have buried a wonderful hoard of gold in his garden, but it was never discovered … until more recently a rotted wooden box was found hidden in the beams of an old outbuilding. It contained a few halfpennies and a small leather bag of silver sixpences. The place had promptly been rechristened Sixpenny Cottage, which was an improvement on the original Scrogg’s End.
I can’t say I found that story very riveting and when I moved on to ‘Gentlemen and Buccaneers’, Elf’s writing style caused my eyelids to droop, even when reading about the excitingly swashbuckling Nathaniel Grace. I gave up and swapped Elf’s book for the new Clara Mayhem Doome novel.
That kept me wide awake for longer than I’d intended. Caspar had to be very insistent before I finally put it down and went to bed.
It might be Sunday, but I rose with the lark anyway and hacked up that last overgrown and woody rosemary bush. It put up a struggle, but once it was out and the hole filled and dug over, the garden looked a lot better: I could trim the remaining lavender into neat shapes at my leisure – or Myfy might feel the urge to do some clipping – and it would all now be a doddle to keep under control.
When I went back up to the flat to change out of my working clothes, Caspar was still asleep on
my bed, in the exact position he’d been in when I went out: on his back, four big furry paws in the air and a blissful expression on his wide face. He didn’t stir while I was changing into clean dungarees and a long-sleeved T-shirt in a nice shade of smoky blue that I knew did things for my eyes.
My hair was getting a bit long, but at least, being naturally curly, all I had to do was run a brush through it and shove it behind my ears: Marnie the Human Mop.
I breakfasted on the last of the pain au chocolat and about a gallon of good coffee, neither of which appealed to Caspar when he finally made his appearance, so he made a noisy exit through the cat flap to search for a better class of catering.
Before I went out I remembered to search for my phone, which eventually I found zipped into a gilet pocket. Then I managed to drop it on the floor, but luckily it still worked, and I pushed it well down into my dungaree pocket before heading for the Grace Garden.
It was still very early and I’d have plenty of time to discuss the possible extension and improvements to the shop before I was to meet Treena, even after a leisurely diversion to look around the apothecary garden on my own.
I knew Gertie and James wouldn’t be in today, since this was the last Sunday they’d have free before the gardens opened to the public. That meant I’d have the walled garden to myself before Ned was likely to make an appearance.
I resisted the urge to detour and admire the clean marble folly again, but instead went straight through past the pond, where the koi were circling hungrily, and into the Grace Garden, empty of all creatures great and small, even peacocks.
I’d totally grasped the original layout from the old plan in Ned’s office – the small sunken circular herb bed and sundial at its heart, then an outer circular path, flanked on either side with low beds edged in lavender. The tall beds at top and bottom of the garden and the four paths leading from the circular one to the corners … they all balanced and formed a pleasing pattern in my head.
The Garden of Forgotten Wishes: The heartwarming and uplifting new rom-com from the Sunday Times bestseller Page 18