The Garden Plot

by Sara Sartagne

  “What are the eco-warriors on about this time?” Lisbeth grinned.

  “Some greedy developer wants to build over Green Belt land by Jessop’s Field and we’re forming our version of the Résistance.”

  “Who’s the developer?” Magda asked, looking up, suddenly intense.

  “Some outfit called Anglo Homes, ruining our countryside with their nasty little houses. Have you heard of them?”

  “They sound familiar,” Magda said vaguely. She glanced at her watch. “Blimey, I ought to be getting home.” She swept her phone into her capacious bag, and there was a bit of a scramble as everyone gathered their things.

  “So I’ll call you about coming around to view the garden, then?” Sam nodded at Magda. “Great. It was nice to meet you, I’ll phone as soon as I find out when Dad’s out of the house.”

  As Sam walked back to the office with Lisbeth, she was quiet.

  “Are you pleased about the job?” Lisbeth asked after about five minutes’ silence.

  Sam threw her a quick smile. “Of course! Thanks so much for recommending us. I just wonder…”

  “What?”

  “I just wonder why it’s all so secretive, it makes me a bit nervous. She’s not at all thrown about the cost I’ve quoted her, but her father might think differently. And who knows if they’ll have the same views about what the garden should look like? It’s hard—if not impossible—to design a garden for someone you’ve never met.”

  “Well, your designs are brilliant!” Lisbeth said. “If he doesn’t like it, he can always say no. And she does have pots of money!”

  “Yes, you said,” Sam said, as she pushed open the door to the office. “Talking about the website, I need to give Zach some new pictures. We’ve just finished a garden and that needs to go on the site. And I have a new apprentice, too, Steve. Can you let him know to expect something?”

  “Send them to me and I’ll pass them on,” said Lisbeth after a pause.

  “Oh, OK. Not to him directly?” Sam said, frowning.

  “I think he’s changed emails, and I don’t have it with me, so probably safest,” said Lisbeth. Her colour was heightened, and Sam wondered if there was a teenage love affair in the making. “Have to go!” Lisbeth said, kissing her and then she was gone.

  “Rush, rush,” tutted Sam, moving into her office and starting to sort through the photos and plans Magda had left. She reached for her sketch pad.

  Lisbeth jumped as she saw the tall dark figure peering over the wall into the garden. She drew herself up to her full height of five foot three and in a chilly voice, said: “Can I help you?”

  Jonas swung round to face her and smiled. Where Lisbeth’s heart had jumped, it now melted as the warmth of a powerful half-Irish smile hit her.

  “It’s Lisbeth, isn’t it? I’m Jonas Keane.”

  Lisbeth’s toes curled as the velvet voice floated into her head.

  “Oh! Yes, I go to school with Magda.”

  Jonas glanced back at the garden. “Magda wants our garden redesigned and apparently, the person she has in mind did yours. Could I have a look around?”

  Lisbeth gave a silent cheer neither of her parents were in and ushered him through the gates.

  Yes, the firm was Winterson’s, she said, yes, there had been a few issues with the stream at the bottom, yes, all the work had been done by the firm and yes, it was completely beautiful, wasn’t it?

  Jonas, walking along crunchy gravel paths, admired the budding tulips and primroses mixed in with bushes, and the trees, tender-leafed and starting to bear blossom, and looked captivated.

  Lisbeth agreed that indeed, the designer had some fabulous ideas—who’d have thought a modern piece of sculpture would look as good as that in a cottage garden? She agreed the planting looked lush and fulsome, and talked enthusiastically about the various roses which twined around the love seat in summer.

  He murmured that Magda had not exaggerated—it was very beautiful, perfectly in keeping with the gracious Georgian house. Lisbeth, by dint of keeping quiet, also learned he’d also been to see the modern garden Magda had mentioned and he was impressed at the range of the designer. Where this garden was like a wonderful, riotous Monet painting, he commented, the garden for the modern house was stylised, sharp, attractive and with a very limited colour palette. It wouldn’t do for Brook Lodge, he said, but it was completely in tune with the modern concrete and steel house.

  When Jonas thanked her and unleashed what she considered to be a lethal smile, Lisbeth felt herself go pink, and told him untruthfully she was sorry her parents were out but was pleased he liked the garden.

  As soon as he turned the corner out of her road, Lisbeth pulled out her phone.

  “Your dad’s been to see our garden and likes it,” she said to Magda without preamble. “I can see he thinks you’ve inherited his business sense and is as pleased as punch.”

  Magda laughed. “Great—I’ll leave the website up on the computer in his study for him to see,” she said. “Because Sam hasn’t changed the website in ages, it looks like your grandfather is still in charge of the company.”

  “Make sure he sees it tonight, because when Aunty Sam remembers, she’ll send new photos and check that Zach’s put them up. I’ve asked her to send them to me rather than directly to Zach, so I can hold on to them for a bit—but not forever...” Lisbeth chewed her lip, suddenly anxious.

  “Will you stop fretting, it’ll be fine.”

  God, I hope so, Lisbeth thought as she hung up the phone.

  6

  Jonas clicked through the website, but if he was honest, he wasn’t looking at it properly. He felt he’d seen enough to gauge the skills of Winterson’s looking at the gardens in the village. However, he did pause over a photo of a very attractive young woman with long, curly blonde hair next to a grizzled chap and a Viking-looking, strapping young man. He looked hard at her, thinking he’d seen her before. The older man was the owner, Samuel Winterson, he presumed. While he was flicking through the web pages, Magda bounced in.

  “Oh, you found it, did you?” she said, looking over his shoulder. “Are you reassured?”

  “Yes, you little minx. I had a look at both gardens and even managed to speak with your friend Lisbeth.”

  “So I can go ahead?”

  He nodded.

  “Right, I'll get on with it, then,” she said and immediately got out her phone and began to tap at the keys.

  Jonas grunted, and rose from the desk to get himself a drink, and Magda leaned over and clicked on the website.

  “Just checking the email,” she said, continuing to tap her phone. Jonas, taking a sip of his whiskey, looked at the bedraggled garden, even more dismal in the drizzle.

  The housekeeper, Mrs Gloria Brown, shuffled in. Magda looked up and exchanged a grin with him. Mrs Brown, despite the shuffle, was efficient and an excellent cook. She was never, however, Gloria. She was always Mrs Brown, as Jonas had learned very shortly after meeting her. Jonas, despite his charm, had managed to elicit no more information on Gloria Brown than her name and glowing references.

  “Mr Keane, I'll be serving tea at seven,” she announced, brooking no arguments. It was always tea, never dinner, Jonas had also learned. She started to turn on her heel, and then stopped.

  “Oh aye,” she said, in a voice dripping icicles. “A Miss Lord called...”

  Jonas looked up. He must have left his mobile off. “On the home phone? Did she leave a message?”

  “She informed me she would call back,” Mrs Brown said, looking down her nose. “I did understand she would be paying you a visit.”

  At this, Magda groaned, and Jonas shot her an annoyed glance.

  “Thank you, Mrs Brown. Did she say when she would call?”

  “No, she did not,” Mrs Brown sniffed and continued her shuffling way out of the study.

  There was a taut silence, and Jonas downed the last of his whiskey. Putting down the glass with a bit of a snap, he turned to Magda.

&
nbsp; “You should know, Magda, that I invited Geraldine.”

  “Why?”

  “She offered to go to the hospital with me next Thursday.”

  “I would have come with you!” protested Magda.

  “Gerry is driving me. I didn’t ask you as well, because the idea of spending four or five hours with the pair of you spitting at one another like cats is hardly going to be beneficial to my health,” he said feelingly. Magda glowered at him but had no answer. “Quite,” he said wryly. “She’ll stay over on Wednesday evening, travel with me to Manchester on Thursday and probably stay for a week or two.” Magda said nothing. Jonas thought his daughter would find an excuse to stay over with Lisbeth.

  “What time’s your appointment?”

  “Twelve o'clock.”

  “So what time will you be leaving?”

  “About ten, I imagine.”

  Magda looked sceptical—Geraldine wasn’t the fastest off the blocks in the morning, he remembered—and excused herself to wash up before dinner.

  He rang Gerry.

  “Jonas?” came the breathy tones of Geraldine over the phone. Jonas smiled as the voice warmed parts of his anatomy he had thought comatose.

  “Hi Gerry, I’m sorry I missed your call. How are you?”

  “Pleased to hear from you. It was so frustrating not to be able to reach you earlier. How are you feeling?”

  “Perfectly fine,” Jonas said. “The hospital appointment will hopefully be a bit of a formality and we’ll be in and out quickly. Then I can take you to lunch.”

  She laughed delightedly, her voice tinkling down the phone and Jonas pushed aside the thought that she sounded, for the first time ever, a bit vacuous.

  “Wonderful—I'll do my best to tempt your appetite,” she purred. Jonas, strangely at a loss, said nothing and after a pause, Geraldine's tone returned to her normal breathiness. “Seriously, how are you?”

  Jonas paused and then decided to come clean. “Actually, I'm feeling knackered. I went for a stroll into the village and I feel I could do with a nap now! I’ve been to the pub once or twice, but today was my longest time out since I left hospital.”

  “Poor darling...I daresay it will take some time for you to recover. The doctors said so, didn't they? But why were you walking in the village?”

  Jonas paused again, oddly reluctant to share Magda’s plans. “We’re having the garden re-designed. I went to look at a garden designed by the company we’re thinking of using.”

  “But why didn’t you say? I know a perfectly marvellous garden designer who’s worked all over—I believe he’s exhibiting at Tatton Gardens this year. Shall I bring his details? And there’s Connor, of course, too!”

  “I think this is Magda’s call—she’s set it all up.”

  “Magda?” Gerry’s voice became a little less breathy. “She didn’t strike me as the outdoors-y type. How extraordinary...”

  Jonas gave no comment and Gerry chattered on, but Jonas was surprised to find himself wondering when Mrs Brown would call him for dinner.

  “...and of course, I simply had to have it,” Gerry was saying. Jonas said something non-committal, having lost the thread of the conversation.

  Mrs Brown appeared and with something traitorously like relief, he rang off, with Gerry’s promises of her special kind of ‘TLC’ floating around his brain. Focusing on that part of the call made him feel more positive. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, and he would recover his previous enthusiasm along with his energy, he thought, making his way towards the spaghetti carbonara.

  Sam took one more look at her screen, saved the documents and printed them off for Andy, who seemed to be allergic to any kind of technology with the one exception of his phone. She passed the pages to him.

  “I've spent ages on this blasted article, so I hope it reads ok...” Unusually grumpy, Sam went back to her email.

  “I like it!” Andy enthused, ten minutes later. “The garden refresh idea looks perfect—enough effort to make gardens look different without costing a fortune, but just enough work to make it profitable. We could do with a new stream of income like this. Particularly as we didn't win the Stockwell job.”

  “Well, we were always up against it there!” protested Sam. “It's hardly an affluent area, is it? I always thought we might lose on price. And the article?”

  “Really good,” he said. “We need a decent photograph of you to go with it.”

  “Oh no!” she laughed. “I'm going to give them a copy of our logo and they can use that.”

  Andy was silent.

  “What? What?”

  “People buy people—they won't buy advice from someone faceless—they’ll want it to come from another human being.” Andy shrugged.

  Sam folded her lips in a firm line.

  “Come on Sam—you’re gorgeous!” he said.

  “No.”

  Sam folded her arms. Andy tried again.

  “How about a caricature instead of a photo? There’s this amazing bloke who does them and they’re really good—clever too,” he said. “That might do it.”

  Sam stared at him and the corners of her mouth twitched.

  “With straw in my hair? That would work.” She giggled and he grinned at her encouragingly. “Oh, go on then. If I must.”

  “You must,” Andy said firmly, as he picked up the phone and started to dial.

  “I'll leave you to it,” said Sam, picking up her coat. “I'm off to the cinema with Lisbeth and she's bribed me into buying pizza beforehand, so I need to change.”

  “The new Tarantino? Buckets of blood everywhere, I hear.”

  “Yes, I hope I manage to hang on to my quattro Stagioni.” Sam pulled a face and left the office.

  Lisbeth was always on time, thought Sam as she rounded the corner at speed to see her niece patiently waiting for her outside the busy pizzeria.

  “Late at the office again?” Lisbeth said, as Sam caught her breath. She straightened Sam’s jacket collar and then kissed her cheek.

  “I’m going to be famous!” Sam returned, as they walked into the restaurant and were seated by a waiter with the unlikely name of Giuseppe.

  “How so?” demanded Lisbeth after they’d settled and had the menus in front of them.

  “I’m writing for the Northern Chronicle—trying to raise the company’s profile. I’ve just submitted my first column.”

  “Goodness, the elite of journalism—next stop Gardener’s World? Or Fleet Street?” laughed Lisbeth. Already unsure about the articles, Sam felt her bubble deflate, and said nothing, looking down at the menu.

  “Are you going for pizza?” she said finally.

  There was a pause.

  “Aunty Sam? What’s up?”

  “Nothing. I think I’ll go for the salad; I’ve eaten a lot of carbs in the past few days.”

  Another pause. “No, tell me about the column.”

  “It’s nothing, just a bit of scribbling for the local rag. What are you having?”

  “I’ve pissed you off, haven’t I?”

  “You’ll certainly piss your mother off if she hears you using language like that.”

  “I have pissed you off. Tell me about the column, when will it appear?”

  “Next week, I think. But there’s probably no need to announce it to everyone.” Listening to her own voice, Sam scolded herself. God, how old are you—twelve?

  “But of course there is! Mum and Dad will want to know and loads of people!”

  Sam gave her contrite niece a level look over the top of her menu. “Look Lisbeth, it’s just a short piece about spring planting, I’m not turning into the next gardening whizz-kid. I’m trying to raise the profile of the business because we need some new orders. It was daft of me to announce it like that, when most newspapers will take any old rubbish—God, look at the Daily Mail!”

  Lisbeth was silent, and Sam thought she looked a little shocked. She’s so cossetted. She’s no clue what working people struggle with. And why should she? She’s a
schoolgirl.

  She reached over and covered Lisbeth’s hand with hers.

  “Ignore me—I’m a grumpy old cow. We’re not on the breadline—otherwise I’d be tapping up your dad for a loan.”

  “Would you?” Lisbeth said quizzically, squeezing her aunt’s hand.

  “Well, certainly if the bank wouldn’t help! But really sweetie—don’t fret about it, I’m just having a bad day—particularly as bloody Andy wants me to send a photo too!”

  “Oh?” Lisbeth looked up sharply.

  “You know what I’m like about photos…We eventually compromised on a caricature.”

  “What, like a cartoon?” Lisbeth said. “Can you tell that it’s you?”

  “Well, vaguely, I suppose. But as long as no-one comments on my boobs or my bloody hair, I don’t much care.”

  Lisbeth grinned.

  “Well, perhaps being too recognised might be problematic…It’s the Northern Chronicle, you said?” Sam nodded.

  “What day?”

  “Thursday, I think.”

  Lisbeth took out a notebook and scribbled in it. Sam looked puzzled. “Just so I can remember to get a copy,” explained Lisbeth. “Why didn’t you want to send one, anyway?”

  Sam smiled wryly. “I just didn’t want to send anything which might concentrate attention on what I looked like, rather than what I said. I don’t want to blow all the work I’ve done over the last two years getting people to view me as a competent garden designer, rather than her dad’s pet who was indulging her.”

  Lisbeth’s frowned.

  “Did people view you like that?”

  Sam’s mouth twisted.

  “You have no idea. Your grandad, much as I loved him, didn’t help. He’d introduce me as ‘his little helper’—you can imagine how that went down when we were ordering topsoil and granite slabs!”

  Her niece giggled.

  “I think it’s a brilliant thing you’re doing, this writing,” Lisbeth added warmly. “I’m sure it’ll help sales.”

  I certainly hope so, thought Sam fervently. Otherwise, Brook Lodge or not, we’re screwed.