‘What a waste of money! Those old sheets were perfectly good. I hope she hasn’t thrown them away.’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ replied Carys, who knew perfectly well that Gwenan had stuffed the offending articles in black plastic bags months ago. She could hear the process taking place when Gwenan had phoned her, outraged at the lack of decorum in Mam’s bedding.
‘And half of them are so thin, you can see your hand through them,’ she had exclaimed.
Carys realised that such things didn’t matter to Mam any more. The main thing was the familiar. Mam, as she got older, was like a cat, bonded to territory even more than to her loved ones. Her old things, the ones she had seen and felt about her since before Dad died, were her territory, marking her safe boundaries on this earth. She didn’t want the new. It confused and alarmed her and spoke to her of a brave new word that felt alien, one that was increasingly moving away and beyond her, towards a future in which she had no part.
Above all, Carys had discovered, there was Mam’s routine. Toast and cereal at eight in the morning, tea and biscuits at ten, soup and sandwiches at midday, a snooze until The Archers, just after two, followed by a cup of tea at four and a cooked meal at six. All rounded off by a glass of sweet sherry and a piece of cake just before bed.
Mam had always baked delicious cakes: lemon sponge, sharp as could be, dusted with icing sugar, and a dark, rich chocolate cake with a hint of cherry liqueur. Carys, who’d always had a passionate relationship with her microwave, hadn’t the first idea how to go about making a scone, let alone a full-blown cake. Feeling a little furtive, she ordered them with the groceries from Sara Jones instead. Along, it had to be said, with half the village. Nobody could make a cake quite like Sara Jones. Whatever Nesta Pugh and her WI coffee mornings regulars might think.
Carys understood the routine kept Mam feeling safe and knowing where she was in the day. But for her it was like an iron prison, keeping her constantly watching the clock and unable to get a good run at anything she tried to do. So much for any starting up as a gardener idea. She was finding it hard enough to keep up with the accounts Tylers were sending her over the internet between all the cooking, cleaning, washing and finding a plumber who would actually answer her calls to fix the leak that had developed under the bathroom sink. Not to mention shooting out to drop the grocery shopping list in with Sara Jones and pick up a few necessaries from Low-Price and the butchers while she waited for Mam’s prescription to be made up in the chemist. Everything was undertaken at top speed, before Mam’s next cup of tea was due, or in the two precious afternoons she was whisked off to her physiotherapy session or Pont-ar-Eden’s little social club.
Full, as Mam grumbled each time, of old people. ‘All they do is play bingo,’ she muttered, for at least the third time that week.
‘And scrabble, you said, Mam.’
‘I hate scrabble.’
‘You used to like it when we were kids.’
‘Did I?’ Mair frowned dismissively. ‘That was different.’
Okay.
Carys counted to ten, and refrained from banging her head against the wall. Her own, that is.
Mam, who had always filled her days with activity, had a low boredom threshold. What she needed was something to engage her brain. Bingo and scrabble clearly weren’t doing it. Projects. That’s how Mam occupied herself when she was well. Pruning the roses, washing the windows. Helping with the church fete and meals on wheels. Those were the kinds of things she always talked about. What Mam needed was a project.
‘What about history?’ suggested Carys, over tea that evening. There had been no word from Joe all day and she was beginning to feel a little jumpy. He always kept his phone on at work, and they hadn’t argued, so there was no reason for him to be giving her the cold shoulder again. She’d even swallowed her pride after her second text hadn’t been answered and resorted to ringing him, just to check he was okay. But Joe, it seemed, had vanished into the ether. Which was very unlike Joe.
‘History?’ Mam’s tone was not encouraging. But there was possibly just the slightest glint in her eye.
‘Didn’t you say you’d been meaning to join Professor Humphries’ group at the Boadicea?’
‘I can’t possibly go there.’ Mam was looking alarmed.
‘No, of course not. Not yet. But we could make a start here. I’ve got my laptop, and didn’t you say there were loads of old photos in the attic?’
‘Well, yes. But nobody’s going to be interested in that old stuff.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. They’re always starting with old photos on Who Do You Think You Are? We could at least go through them. And then we could put anything that looks as if it might be interesting together, and take it along for Professor Humphries to look at, when you’re feeling better.’
‘Well…’ said Mam. The thought of venturing somewhere new was clearly giving her the heebie-jeebies.
‘There might be photos of Plas Eden,’ persisted Carys, doggedly. ‘Didn’t you say Granddad used to take photos when he was head gardener there? Maybe they show how the gardens used to look. You’ve always loved gardens. Those would be interesting.’
‘Well, yes…’ Mam allowed. Her face relaxed. ‘Your Granddad was so proud of that garden. Blodeuwedd’s Garden. That’s what they called it, you know. Except we used to call it the Whispering Garden. When we were kids, that is.’
‘Oh?’ prompted Carys. Mam’s eyes had brightened. Her face had lost its little-old-lady look and seemed a little more like Mam.
‘Mmm.’ There was a definite gleam to Mam’s eyes this time. ‘Whenever the wind blew through the leaves, it was like voices, whispering. Whispering secrets you could never quite hear.’
‘That sounds a bit spooky,’ said Carys, to humour her. Trying not to notice the slight shiver down her spine. She’d never been good with ghost stories.
‘Oh, you know what imagination kids have.’ Mam’s eyes were far away, lost in memory. ‘I suppose it was a bit spooky. But I don’t remember ever feeling afraid. Sometimes, you know, it used to feel as if somebody was there. Watching over us. And the statues. Keeping us safe.’
‘A guardian ghost,’ said Carys, smiling for her mother’s benefit.
‘Beautiful, it was,’ her mother murmured. She appeared to be drifting off once more. Suddenly, her eyes shot open. ‘It was always such a pity, so it was. You and David Meredith. Such a pity.’
Carys blinked. All these years, and not a word on the subject. Mam had seemed so relieved when she and Dad had waved Carys off at the train station, on her way to take up her place at Manchester University, without a trace of David Meredith in sight. Surely she wasn’t about to change her mind now?
It was bad enough, thought Carys, having the prospect of bumping into David in the village every time she ran an errand, without Mam singing his praises. Did Mam – who had never been exactly subtle when it came to matchmaking – really think so little of Joe?
‘And him such a nice boy, too,’ said Mam, as she drifted off into a doze.
Later that evening, Carys left Mam happily installed in front of her favourite film and made her way into the kitchen, retrieving her mobile on the way.
There was still no text or ‘missed call’ message on the little screen. Carys put the kettle on and reached for the teabags with a feeling of emptiness opening up inside her. It was these moments, the few moments of stillness in her day when Mam was dozing or watching TV, that she missed Joe.
It was strange: from the beginning of their relationship, they had agreed they would each keep their separate interests and social life and not always do things as a couple. In Chester, she had spent several evenings a week – sometimes whole weekends – alone in the flat without ever once feeling lonely. Time on her own to slob around, not do the washing up and watch every girly programme she could think of, had seemed a luxury. But that was knowing that soon Joe would be appearing through the door, and their life would pick up its threads once more.
She tried ringing him again. But the phone in the flat was on answer phone, and Joe’s mobile was still switched off. England must be playing, she told herself. Or maybe in his current bachelor state he was fitting in a few more games of pool. He felt far away. Almost as if he didn’t exist any more. She ached with missing him: his voice, the clean-shirt smell of him, and the smile that lit up his face when she came through the door.
Her fingers paused over ‘create message’. But she didn’t want to irritate him unnecessarily, or provoke him into suspecting her of keeping a watchful eye on him. Or, heaven forbid, nagging. Joe didn’t do nagging. He was always complaining of being nagged by his mother and sisters even though their fussing over him seemed to Carys well meaning and very mild. And it wasn’t as if he actually lived with any of them any more.
She made the tea, aware of an uneasy clenching in her stomach. Maybe Joe was right. Maybe she was being unreasonable, expecting him to accept that she could abandon him for a couple of months. She began arranging bourbons next to custard creams and a fan of chocolate fingers on one of Mam’s favourite side plates decorated with roses. And that being so, maybe she was even more of a fool to think she could change him.
She couldn’t entirely put the blame on Joe. From the very beginning he had been clear about never wanting marriage, or children and the whole family thing. Each Christmas had been just the two of them. Popping in briefly to see his mother on Boxing Day and popping up to see Mam, equally briefly, on the day before New Year’s Eve. Carys swallowed, hard, the wobbles in her stomach redoubling themselves. Maybe, in his own mind at least, Joe had every right to be so hurt and so irritable with her.
Carys placed the tea and plate of biscuits on a tray. She couldn’t bear this uncertainty. She and Joe needed to talk about this. Not via email or text, but face to face. With complete honesty. All cards on the table. And then deal with whatever that might bring. At least the air would be clear between them. Tomorrow, she would ask Gwenan or Nia to make good that promise to look after Mam for a few days so she could go back to Chester.
A swell of strings made its way from Mam’s room, filling the entire house with sounds of lovelorn anguish. Mam, being slightly deaf, always had the sound turned up to an ear-splitting level that was inescapable in any room of the house. And her taste in screen heroines, being of the old-fashioned self-sacrificing kind, could seriously do Carys’ head in at the best of times.
Before she could make the arrangements to go back and see Joe, Carys realised, she needed to be clear what she was going to say to him. And for that, she needed to know in her heart exactly what it was she wanted.
Yesterday, this morning, an hour ago even, she could have said what she wanted without a moment’s hesitation. Now she found she was not so sure.
‘There you are, Mam,’ she said, placing the tray with tea and biscuits on the table at her mother’s side.
‘Thank you dear,’ said Mam, who had tears in her eyes and was clearly enjoying herself hugely. ‘Aren’t you having one?’
‘We’re nearly out of milk,’ said Carys, slightly hesitantly. ‘I thought I might just pop along to Low-Price, so we’ve got enough for the morning.’
‘Of course, dear,’ said Mam, her attention back on her film, with the aid of a custard cream and two chocolate fingers.
‘I won’t be long,’ said Carys. But already Mam was well away, vaguely waving a chocolate finger in her direction in reply.
Relieved, but still feeling slightly guilty (and hoping Mam didn’t investigate the contents of a fridge awash with cartons of milk), Carys grabbed her coat and bag and shot out into the fresh air. The streets of Pont-ar-Eden might not be the same as a walk on the beach, but at least she could be alone with her thoughts for a while. Time to clear her head, make her decision, and set herself on the course she must follow for the rest of her life.
Not that, Carys had a sneaking suspicion, this was going to prove easy. Especially with the familiar outlines of the Plas Eden estate looming over the village, everywhere she looked.
Chapter Seven
Halfway down Plas Eden’s long, tree-lined driveway, David Meredith paused, set down the barrow of slate chippings next to another pothole, and stretched his aching back.
This definitely felt harder than it used to be, he considered ruefully. Just a few hours ago, he had felt full of energy. His leg hadn’t given him a single twinge as he’d made his way down to the kitchen to join Rhiannon for breakfast. Things, it seemed, were taking a turn for the better. He’d set to with a vengeance, tackling the list of the most urgent jobs with the exhilaration that he was at last returning to normal. Life could go on the way it always had done.
But he was only halfway through his first task, and already the exhaustion was creeping back. His bad leg felt as if a dozen red-hot pokers were stabbing inside the bone. Maybe Huw was right; maybe it really was time to call it a day, face the facts and let Plas Eden go.
David tipped the load from the wheelbarrow into the pothole, took hold of the ancient rake, and set to work again. It wasn’t just his accident. Long months of enforced inactivity had brought him face to face with uncomfortable realities that could be so easily buried beneath a busy life.
There was no escaping that he was no longer the boy who had taken over the running of Plas Eden. He was only five years away from forty. No great age nowadays, but he had to admit that even before he took to that ski slope, he’d been aware of his body slowing down. Only a little, but in the world of outward bound and adventure courses, a little was enough. The guys he had first worked with had long since moved on to less physically demanding roles in management, leaving the up and coming twenty-somethings to take their place.
David grimaced. Maybe it had been that sense of being left behind, of something to prove, that had sent him flying so recklessly down that Swiss ski slope in the first place. That, and impressing Rachel. God, just how clichéd could you get?
He paused in his raking to glance up at Eden, just visible between the trees. There had been other women, of course, over the years. But none who had shown the least enthusiasm for burying themselves in a family business in the back of beyond, where a trip to Tesco, some twenty miles away, was the height of local shopping.
So much for the lord and master of his own country pile being the object of every woman’s desire, he thought, placing the rake in the waiting wheelbarrow. At least not when the grand house turned out to be shabby and falling apart – unless inhabited by paying guests – plus one aunt and one disabled grandmother already firmly installed.
With Rachel, he’d thought it might be different. For one thing, she’d worked at the outward bound centre in Talarn and thrived on country life. He’d loved her energy, her laughter and her amazing ability to persuade the most terrified schoolboy to take that step backwards over the cliff and abseil to the ground. At twenty-five, Rachel had seemed unfazed by anything, even the endless attention that Plas Eden required.
But then Rachel had been offered the job in a Swiss ski centre. It was the chance of a lifetime, and only for a year or so. There had been a slight feeling of hurt, but he had hid it well. After all, they had the rest of their lives before them, what was the hurry? He should have known that long-distance relationships rarely work, and how quickly they would grow apart during the year. In the days before his accident, they’d scarcely been on speaking terms, his long-anticipated holiday a disaster even before true disaster struck.
David quickly pushed the thought out of his mind and gave the pothole a good stamping under his boots to bed in the slate.
‘Impossible,’ he muttered, shaking his head. It wasn’t only Rachel who had moved on. The friends he had kept in touch with from school and university had scattered far and wide, some in England, some in Europe, with at least one in Dubai. They had carved out careers and businesses for themselves, settling down with wives and children. A few were even divorced and on their second family. He’d been, considered David, to endless weddings in th
e past five years. But take away Plas Eden, and what had he achieved? Even Huw had built up a business empire of his own, with a smart new house, a wife and children and a holiday cottage in the south of France.
His leg was becoming unbearable. David cursed under his breath. He’d been warned that overdoing things too soon could set his recovery back. He just hadn’t believed it. He took the handles of the wheelbarrow and slowly began to make his way back towards the house. Without the responsibility of Plas Eden, he might at least be free. But to walk away would leave him with a terrible sense of failure: of having betrayed Dad and all the Merediths before him who had brought Plas Eden back from the brink, whatever it had cost them personally.
Besides, the thought of not being here, of never being able to come here again, left a deep emptiness inside. Even now, he couldn’t imagine life without the house and the tangled melancholy of the gardens. The statues whispering gently to each other in their little glade. And he would miss the silence. The lack of rush. The kite now circling round the hill on the seaward side; the owls calling to each other through the woods at night. The hedgehog that snuffled its way across the lawn after the cat food Rhiannon put out once the cats were safely ensconced indoors.
He paused as the distant gate clanged open, followed by the purr of an engine making its way ever so gingerly towards him.
‘Damn!’ The Adamsons were out for the day, heading for the top of Snowdon by train, and the next set of guests weren’t due to book in until this evening. The last thing he needed was Huw, back for another assault on the future of Plas Eden. Sure enough, a black four by four came into view and swerved around the worst of the potholes with a practised air, before drawing up beside him.
‘There really is no point,’ remarked Huw, lowering his windows with an impressive whirring sound. ‘The entire thing needs resurfacing.’
‘Well, at least this will ensure it doesn’t get any worse, for now,’ returned David, trying not to bristle at his younger brother’s tone.
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