Coming Up Roses

by Rachael Lucas

Daisy shot a look at Elaine over Jo’s shoulder.

  ‘He said, in the end, that it must be the right time for Martha to be in his life, and that he hoped she’d feel the same way.’

  Elaine raised her eyebrows in return before speaking, thoughtfully. ‘Well, if that’s not a sign from the universe, I don’t know what is.’

  Daisy looked down, realizing she’d crossed her fingers without thinking. It was a pretty big thing they were wishing for. Jo and Tom were going to need every last bit of luck.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  ‘Miss Price . . . er, Daisy. Hello?’

  Daisy felt her shoulders sag. Was every day going to be interrupted by Mike Redforth ‘just popping by’, or ‘making a quick call’? She’d just settled into the greenhouse. The little portable radio was on low for company – tuned to Radio 4 – and it was muttering away happily in the background, while the garden beyond filled with the late-afternoon sounds of bees and birdsong. Polly was stretched out in the shade, luxuriating, her water bowl close by.

  A couple of hours of potting and pottering, and Daisy would feel that today hadn’t been totally wasted garden-wise. So when her phone rang, she kicked herself that she hadn’t left it plugged in to the charger in the kitchen. Now she felt obliged to answer.

  ‘Hi.’ She couldn’t even bring herself to sound enthusiastic. She’d recognized Mike Redforth’s office number straight away. Could he not just bugger off for a few days and stop being so bloody efficient?

  ‘Got a quick question for you.’

  Of course you have, thought Daisy, pursing her lips crossly.

  ‘Just following up on those garden measurements. Bloke interested in the house earlier. Wondered if he could pop in on his way back from work – about half-five?’

  Daisy frowned down at the phone. That gave her ninety minutes of peace and quiet. Tempting as it was, she conceded that her parents wouldn’t thank her if someone was actually interested in buying Orchard Villa and she turned them away because she couldn’t be arsed.

  ‘Fine. That’s fine. I’ll see you then.’

  ‘I’m out on a site, won’t make it back on time, I’m afraid. Do you mind doing the viewing yourself? He’s not going to take long.’

  Daisy rolled her eyes. Now she was expected to do his job, as well?

  ‘Fine,’ she repeated, this time rather less graciously.

  ‘Excellent stuff.’ Mike Redforth had slipped into extra-charming gear. ‘You’re an absolute doll.’ Daisy cringed. ‘Bloke seems to know a bit about the place already. That’s usually a good sign. Anyway, I’ll be in touch tomorrow, one way or the other. Have a good one.’

  Daisy looked down at the now-silent phone and sighed. She turned back to her tiny honesty plants and set to work, transplanting them carefully from their little seedling pots into ones where they’d have room to put out roots and establish themselves. Whoever it was that was turning up later would just have to take her – and the house, which wasn’t exactly in spotless show-home condition – as they found her.

  Having headed down to the kitchen to wash her compost-covered hands, Daisy looked up at the clock when the doorbell rang. It was only quarter past five – the potential purchasers weren’t due for another quarter of an hour, and she was hoping she’d have time to do a quick tidy round before they arrived.

  ‘Afternoon, Daisy, how’re you doing?’

  She stepped back in surprise, doing a double take for a second. It wasn’t George, as she’d first thought, but his twin brother, Stephen, standing on the doorstep of Orchard Villa, bouncing slightly from foot to foot, dressed in a sharp, clearly expensive suit. She held the door, cheeks frozen in a polite smile of greeting. If he was checking up on her for George, knowing she was alone following his return to Dublin, his timing wasn’t great.

  ‘Just got off the train and thought I’d pop by on the way past.’

  ‘Oh, that’s very kind, Stephen, but—’

  ‘I’ll only be two ticks.’

  ‘Come in.’ Daisy, being polite, held the door open, indicating with a sweep of her arm that he should make his way to the kitchen.

  ‘Is everything all right? George –’ she halted for a moment, not sure what to say. ‘He’s okay, isn’t he?’

  She’d had a strangely stilted text from him early that morning to say that he’d arrived in Dublin, and that he hoped she was well and would take care of herself.

  ‘He’s grand. Sure the family’ll be pleased to have him back.’

  Daisy glanced towards the window, checking the front path. Nobody in sight.

  ‘I’m not holding you back, am I? I’ll not be long at all.’ Stephen pulled out his phone, tapping it quickly. ‘I’d be lost without this thing altogether.’

  This was a bit odd. Perhaps George had asked his brother to pop in and make sure she was okay. It was quite sweet, really.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Oh, no, got to get back. Michelle’s expecting me this evening to help with the kids’ bedtime. If I can just have a quick scoot round the garden, I’m not worried about the house. Can we just nip out the back and I’ll have a look?’

  The realization was dawning on Daisy, slowly. ‘I’m sorry, I hadn’t put two and two together. You’re here to see the house?’

  ‘The garden, yes. And your lovely self, of course.’ He gave a smile that reminded her of George.

  ‘Come on, then, I’ll show you round. I’m much more of a garden person than a house one, too. It’s my favourite part of the house.’

  Stephen followed her across the terrace and up the little flagstone steps, edged with lavender bushes. If George’s brother bought this place, maybe she could carry on gardening here. Maybe – just maybe, they’d be her first clients. She shook herself before she disappeared off on a flight of imagination.

  Reaching the top of the orchard, she turned, knowing as she did that the view was spectacular. The gardens stretched out down towards the terrace, the old house sitting proudly, nestling in amongst the greenery.

  ‘I’ve had a lot of help from Thomas, who lives in the village – he’s been gardening this place since he was eighteen. So he knew what was missing, and helped me cut back the stuff that had become overgrown since my parents moved in – they weren’t exactly big gardening fans – and if you have a look over here,’ she motioned towards the vegetable garden, neatly edged with box hedging, which she’d been trimming just the other day, ‘you can see that it’s possible to be almost self-sufficient for fruit and veg in summer.’

  ‘Grand, right enough.’ Stephen nodded politely.

  ‘I’ve been planting here using the three sisters method so you can see the beans, corn and squashes growing all together – it’s a planting method used by the Iroquois – have you heard of it?’

  ‘No, I’m not much of a vegetable gardener myself, to be truthful – Michelle likes her pots of those brightly coloured ones, can’t remember what they’re called. Striped ones.’

  ‘Petunias?’ Daisy bit back a grimace, silencing her inner gardening snob. Each to their own, and all that.

  ‘And up here we’ve got eight fruit trees – two Bramley apples’ – she ducked underneath the taller of the two, patting the trunk affectionately – ‘and there’s a russet, here’s the pear, cherry . . . and this is my favourite, the mulberry.’ She stopped beside the huge old tree, waiting for him to admire it.

  Stephen put his hands up, taking an opportunity whilst Daisy paused for breath to get a word in edgeways.

  ‘I’m not looking at the place for myself.’

  Daisy felt a sneaking moment of relief. Her gorgeous herbaceous borders weren’t going to be festooned with hideous petunias which looked like candy-striped Victorian bloomers, after all.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘No.’ Stephen looked, she realized, slightly uncomfortable. The smile was gone, replaced with a half-raised eyebrow and an apologetic expression. ‘I’m interested in buying the place for the redevelopment potential. Didn’t George
mention it last night?’

  Daisy stepped backwards in shock, uprooting a row of newly planted box cuttings in the process.

  ‘This place is – what – almost an acre?’ He continued talking, animated for the first time since he’d arrived. ‘It’s a ten-minute walk from a mainline station into London.’

  She couldn’t speak. He was still talking, but she couldn’t take in anything else he was saying. Snippets made their way into her ears. Words like ‘three decent-sized executive homes’, and ‘side road access’. The scent of crushed grass filled her nostrils as the hum of a lawnmower from a garden beyond filled the air. She remembered reading somewhere that the smell so reminiscent of summer, sunshine and happiness was actually a plant distress call – the grass emitting a compound indicating it was under attack. Funny, she thought, how these things come back to you at the most inopportune moments.

  ‘So, that’s what I’m thinking. Of course there’d be planning permission to look into, and no doubt there’d be some objection from the older villagers, but—’

  ‘You can’t turn this garden into a housing estate.’ Daisy’s voice was flat.

  Stephen laughed, his tone slightly edgy. ‘Come on, Daisy. That’s hardly what I’m talking about. I can see you’ve done a lot of work here, but there’s loads of other gardens, aren’t there?’

  ‘Not like this one.’ Daisy looked down towards the house. This place had stood here for years. These lawns had seen the feet of generations of children running up and down. She could hear the echoes of Victorian garden parties, and imagine the family sheltering here during the war. She pictured a young Thomas here, sleeves rolled up, waistcoat on, digging the garden whilst the lady of the house looked on, asking for his advice on what best to plant that summer.

  ‘Well,’ Stephen turned to make his way back towards the house, and a welcome escape, ‘it’ll take a bit of time to think about, I’m sure. But George seemed to think your parents were pretty keen to sell the place ASAP. We’d give them a good price, of course.’

  We, thought Daisy, narrowing her eyes in fury. No wonder George had slunk off so quickly last night.

  ‘I think you’ll find they’re not in that much of a rush.’ The words were icily polite.

  ‘Well, I’ll give Mike a ring first thing.’ He came back, seemingly confident. How dare he presume to know what her parents would think over her? She could feel a wave of fury building inside her chest, her ears thrumming with noise.

  With an awkward half-wave, Stephen suggested he let himself out. Daisy nodded curtly, and let him go.

  She watched from the kitchen window as he sped off in the convertible she recognized from her first date with George.

  ‘Bastard, bastard, bastard,’ she hissed under her breath, then yelled out loud, ‘You absolute shit,’ startling Polly, who barked at her in agreement. Picking up a mug, Daisy threw it across the kitchen in temper. It shattered against the metal door of the Aga, shards spinning across the stone flags of the kitchen floor.

  What the hell was Stephen playing at? Worse still, she realized, George, that lying shit, had clearly been fishing for information from the first time they’d met, realizing the money-making potential that lay in an acre of prime land close to the middle of the village, with access to the back garden via a little lane. She swung the kitchen door open and stormed out into the garden, where she collapsed in a chair and burst into tears. Her head was thumping.

  Oblivious to the sunshine, not hearing the riotous birdsong that surrounded her, Daisy sat with her head in her hands for a long time. As hard as she tried, it was impossible not to imagine the trees of the orchard being ripped up by the roots, the carefully planted vegetable patch scooped up in the jaws of a digger, a crude wooden fence dividing the long garden into what Stephen had referred to as ‘manageable chunks’. Every time she chased away one picture in her mind, another appeared. She could even visualize the houses – they’d be called something hideous like The Old Orchard, no doubt, with not a sign left of the beautiful old trees that had been wiped out in their creation.

  She felt her phone buzzing in her pocket, but ignored it.

  It buzzed again a few moments later. She stood up, deciding she needed a drink. Polly, who was wise enough to stay out of the way, was lurking in her bed. The floor crunched underfoot. Sighing, Daisy picked up the dustpan and brush and started clearing up the mess she’d made. That was the trouble with having a tantrum alone – there was nobody to pick up the pieces afterwards. Tipping the china shards into the bin, she turned to the fridge and looked inside. A lump of dried-up cheese, half a litre of milk, and a load of garden vegetables. Not even a bit of leftover wine or a tin of gin and tonic to be seen. She’d have to head up to the little supermarket for supplies.

  As she started walking, she realized her phone was still buzzing insistently from her pocket. With a sigh, she pulled it out to check.

  Miranda, flashed the display. Daisy answered, talking as she walked up the hill to the shop.

  ‘I hope your day’s been better than mine.’

  ‘What’s up? Your turnips in a tangle? Are your peas playing up?’

  ‘What’s up is –’ Daisy paused for a second, still too angry to think straight. ‘The bloody parents have dropped me in it with the estate agent from hell, it turns out that George is a lying snake in the grass, and—’

  ‘Hang on. Rewind.’

  Daisy heard splashing from Miranda’s end.

  ‘Rewind to where?’ Daisy took a deep breath.

  ‘Start with Gorgeous George.’

  ‘Stop calling him that,’ hissed Daisy. ‘He’s a complete bastard. They all are.’

  ‘All men? All people?’

  ‘Everyone. Seriously. The parents have sold me down the river with the slimiest estate agent going. The doorbell goes this afternoon and it’s George’s brother standing there, virtually with a bulldozer parked on the pavement outside, plans in hand for building three houses in the back garden.’ She ran her free hand through her hair.

  ‘He can’t do that, surely? You can’t just wipe out the house – isn’t there some kind of preservation thingy in place?’

  Daisy flopped down on the bench in the market square. Unlike her sister, who spent most of her life chatting on London buses and as she marched from one business meeting to another, phone tucked under her ear, Daisy couldn’t concentrate on shopping and talking at the same time. She crossed one leg over the other and sat back, listening to Miranda.

  ‘He doesn’t want to wipe out the house. He wants to come in via the lane at the back, hoick out half the garden and leave three bloody great red-brick monstrosities in its place.’

  Daisy heard Miranda sigh. After a moment, her sister began again, choosing her words carefully.

  ‘Look, Daise. I know you’ve spent the last few months working on that place.’

  Daisy sat up, bristling. She had a suspicion she knew what was coming next.

  ‘But the thing is . . . it’s not like it’s our childhood home. And you knew you were only house-sitting. You need to be a bit Zen about it, let it happen.’

  Bloody hell, was everyone in on this Buddhism thing?

  ‘Let it happen?’ Daisy yelled down the phone. An old lady, walking past with her West Highland terrier on a tartan lead, looked at her disapprovingly. Daisy glared back at her.

  ‘Calm down.’ Miranda was adding more hot water to her bath now; Daisy could hear the taps running. The contrast between her luxurious relaxation and Daisy’s state of fury was too much to bear.

  ‘I don’t want to bloody calm down! They can’t just come in here, buy a house, and then sell it to the highest bidder when they decide they don’t fancy it after all.’

  ‘Um, Daisy.’ Miranda’s voice was deliberately calm now. ‘What you’re describing there is the British property market. That’s exactly what they’re going to do.’

  ‘And what about Thomas? And the garden? And all the—’

  ‘You need a drink,’ said
Miranda. ‘And I don’t mean to sound like Mum, but you sound knackered. Have you had a long day?’

  Daisy thought back. It was less than twenty-four hours since she’d sat in the pub having dinner with George, kissing him goodbye as he slunk off back to Dublin.

  Just enough time to get out of the way whilst Stephen dropped the bombshell, Daisy realized, with fury. He’d mentioned last night he had difficult decisions to make – well, this one hadn’t been that hard for him, had it? He’d dropped her in the shit and jumped on a plane.

  ‘Bastard,’ Daisy hissed, once again.

  ‘Daisy?’ Miranda’s voice startled her.

  ‘He’s a complete shit,’ she snapped at her sister, furious.

  ‘I don’t think you can say that.’ Miranda’s voice was measured and calm in reply. ‘Come on, everyone’s got to make a living, haven’t they?’

  ‘Yeah, but ripping apart the garden I’ve just spent months renovating is not okay.’

  Miranda gave an almost imperceptible tut, followed by a sigh.

  ‘Look, seriously, if you like him, I don’t think you can write him off on the basis that his brother’s interested in buying Orchard Villa and sticking a couple of houses in the garden.’

  ‘Yes, I can. And to be honest –’ Daisy realized even as she spoke in temper that the words held the truth – ‘he might be good-looking, but that’s not enough for me.’ She frowned for a second, recalling George’s face, double-checking. ‘Nope. Nothing.’

  ‘Even if you weren’t furious about the garden being turned into a housing estate?’

  ‘Even if.’ Daisy’s tone was final.

  Miranda had never understood Daisy’s love of gardening – it wasn’t surprising, really, that she couldn’t quite appreciate why this cut so deeply. There was no point trying to force her to understand.

  ‘Look, darling, I know you’re feeling shitty. You’ve had a crappy day. The parents have gone native in Nepal, or wherever they are this week. But you’ve got a room waiting here for you as soon as you want it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Daisy felt the sting of tears forming, and screwed up her eyes to chase them back.