by Gwyneth Rees
‘Well, if I don’t look while you’re doing it,’ I said, ‘you’ve got to promise to let me be the first person to see it when it’s finished, OK?’
He nodded earnestly. ‘Of course.’
So while he lifted his paintbrush up to the canvas again, I turned my attention to the garden. I had already unravelled most of the convolvulus from the roses, but there was still plenty of it choking the other plants and flowers. And although I had weeded the first section of the garden path, there was still the rest of that to do. Both of these tasks seemed enormous, so before I continued with either of them, I decided to tackle the one thing that would take the least time to complete. I would polish the face of the sundial. After all, this was meant to be a sun garden, so the sundial was a pretty important feature.
I had to go back to the house first, to ask Mrs Daniels for some polish, but when I got as far as the outhouses I found her in the yard arguing with my brother. She seemed to be the one doing all the shouting while Ben stood there looking sheepish.
‘You’re not a gardener!’ Mrs Daniels was yelling at him. ‘You’re a murderer!’
‘With respect, Mrs Daniels, I think that’s going a bit far,’ I heard Ben say quietly. ‘It’s only a plant, after all.’
‘Only a plant!’ Mrs Daniels looked like she might be about to have some sort of fit, she was so red in the face. ‘My husband raised that plant from seed! He built that arched trellis for it himself! And every summer since he died, it’s grown more and more beautiful!’
Ben swallowed. ‘Look, I’m terribly sorry. But it will grow back again.’
‘Not this summer!’ she snapped. ‘Not for a long time! Maybe never, with you nurturing it!’
‘What’s happened?’ I asked curiously, going over to join them.
They both turned to look at me.
‘What’s happened is that your brother has just butchered my Geoffrey’s best clematis!’ Mrs Daniels burst out.
‘The really beautiful one that was growing around the arch between the two rose gardens,’ Ben added, to give me a better idea of just how bad a situation this was. He turned to Mrs Daniels again, looking contrite. ‘Look, I’m really sorry, but it was an accident. I thought those brown bits were dead. I didn’t realize the rest of the plant was attached to them.’
‘You didn’t realize the rest of the plant was attached to them?’ Mrs Daniels was staring at Ben as if he’d just announced that he didn’t realize his hair was attached to his head. ‘I don’t know how you talked your way into this job, young man, but I’ll tell you one thing – you’re no gardener. My Geoffrey would turn in his grave if he could see what you’re doing here. I’m going to see Mr Rutherford right now. As soon as he hears about this, you’re going to be looking for a new job. And don’t expect any references from us.’
As she stormed off I gasped, ‘Ben, what are we going to do?’
My brother looked defeated as he turned to look at me. ‘I’m not sure there’s anything we can do, May. After all, she’s right, isn’t she? I’m no gardener.’
Ben and I went back to the cottage to await our fate.
‘But where are we going to live if you get the sack?’ I asked him, fighting back tears.
‘It’s OK,’ Ben said, doing his best to sound like he was in control of all this. ‘The council hasn’t had time to put anyone else in our flat yet. We’ll be able to move back in straight away. I’m sure we will.’
‘But I don’t want to move back in!’ I said, feeling the tears start to well up in my eyes.
‘May, we don’t have a choice.’ Ben was sounding impatient now. ‘Look, I don’t want us to lose our new life here any more than you do. If there was something I could do about it, I would. But if Mr Rutherford sacks me, that’s it, isn’t it?’
‘Couldn’t you just explain everything to him?’ I said. ‘Maybe he’ll let us stay then.’
‘Let us stay? When he realizes I faked a reference in order to get this job and that I’ve been lying to him from the beginning?’
‘Maybe he’ll still want to help us.’ I told Ben how Mr Rutherford had lost his mother when he was little – just like I had – and how his sister had looked after him – just like Ben looked after me – and how that might make Mr Rutherford feel sorry for us and especially want to help us.
But that was clearly the wrong thing to say to my brother.
‘I don’t want him to feel sorry for us! He advertised for a gardener, not a charity case. If he doesn’t want me as his gardener any more, then that’s that. We’re just lucky we’ve still got the flat to go back to.’ He went to look for the phone number of our old local authority – or whoever it was he had to phone to make sure that we did still have the flat to go back to. We hadn’t had the phone connected here yet and Ben’s mobile didn’t have a signal until you got further up the hill away from the village, so once he’d found the number, he went out to find a spot where he could make the call.
He hadn’t been gone long when there was a knock on the door and I went to answer it, thinking he must have come back for something.
It was Mr Rutherford. ‘Hello, Mary.’
‘Oh . . . hi . . . umm . . . hi . . .’
‘May I come in?’ He was looking over my shoulder for Ben.
As I stepped back to let him in I said, ‘Ben’s out. He’s gone to phone somebody.’
He started to look around the cottage and I saw his eyes stop at the history book he had lent Ben. It was lying on the table, bookmarked in the middle. Ben hadn’t finished reading it yet and now I guessed Mr Rutherford would want it back.
‘Ben didn’t mean to kill that cremy . . . clemy . . .’ I began.
‘Clematis, I believe it was called,’ he told me solemnly. ‘One of Mrs Daniels’ favourites unfortunately. She’s very upset about it.’
‘Are you going to sack Ben?’ I asked, biting my bottom lip to keep it from trembling.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ He paused. ‘You see, Mrs Daniels seems to think that Ben isn’t a proper gardener and I’m afraid she’s saying that either Ben has to go or she will. I’m not sure I could manage without her, quite frankly. So I was wondering if Ben would have another word with her. Apologize a bit more. See if that helps. That’s what I came to tell him.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I have to go out now, Mary, so will you pass on that message for me, please? Tell him I’ll call in on him again this evening and see if we can sort this out.’
As he started to leave, I saw him glance at our shelf of books. His gaze stopped at the gardening books and I felt slightly faint as I saw him read the titles. I felt even fainter as he began to read them out loud: ‘First-time Gardener . . . Gardening for Beginners . . . The New Gardener’s Handbook . . .’ I tried to snatch Clueless in the Garden off the shelf before he could spot it, but he was too quick for me. His hand flew up to grab it and I had to stand and watch as he flicked through the first few pages.
‘Ben bought all those books for me,’ I lied as he put the book back, ‘because I’m interested in gardening too.’
‘Really?’ He turned to look at me. ‘Have you read them yet?’
‘Umm . . . well . . . no . . . not yet, but—’
‘Well, I suggest you look and see if there’s anything in any of them about clematis,’ he said. ‘And if there is, perhaps you’d be good enough to show it to your brother.’
I knew I was the only one who could help Ben now. And I knew that I had to be very careful how I went about it. After all, if I threatened Mrs Daniels she might get angry and if she got angry, who knew what she might be capable of doing? I remembered her comment about the cellars again – about how a child could easily get locked down there if they weren’t careful. I decided to write a quick note for my brother, just in case: DEAR BEN, I HAVE GONE UP TO THE HOUSE. IF I DON’T COME BACK SOON, MAKE SURE YOU GET MRS DANIELS TO OPEN UP THE CELLARS. LOVE MAY.
Now I reckoned I was pretty much covered – unlike the stupid heroines you often get in T
V programmes and books who just walk into obviously dangerous situations without telling anyone where they’re going first. I guess that makes the story more exciting, but it also makes the heroine so dumb that she deserves to come to a sticky end, if you ask me.
Mrs Daniels was in the kitchen, chopping up vegetables.
‘Excuse me,’ I said nervously as I stepped into the room.
She turned to scowl at me. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want to talk to you about Ben.’ I took a big breath before stammering, ‘Y-you see, if you’ll just tell Mr Rutherford that you don’t want Ben s-sacked after all, then I won’t . . . I won’t tell about the t-tower room.’ My face was burning hot and my hands were clammy.
Mrs Daniels looked astounded.
‘I’ve seen you coming down from there,’ I continued quickly, ‘but I haven’t told Mr Rutherford . . . and I won’t tell him. I won’t tell anyone. Not if you don’t . . . if you don’t . . .’ I lost my voice completely then.
Mrs Daniels couldn’t seem to speak herself for several seconds. Her kitchen knife was pointing at me though. ‘If I don’t what?’ she finally snapped. ‘Tell everyone that your brother isn’t really a gardener?’
I felt my insides churning up with fear, but I knew I had to keep calm. ‘That’s right,’ I replied hoarsely. ‘If you don’t tell on him, then we won’t tell on you.’
‘We?’ She fixed me with her most penetrating stare.
‘Alex knows about the tower room too.’
‘Oh, does he?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘And does anybody else know about it?’
‘No.’ I decided it was best not to mention Lou. ‘And we don’t know who it is you’ve got up there or anything. We just know you take food to them every day . . .’ I trailed off. ‘Maybe it’s someone you’re trying to help . . . ?’ I finished weakly.
She kept her eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t know who I’ve got up there, eh? Well . . . in that case . . . if you promise to stop spying on me and you forget all about that tower room . . . if you do that, then I’ll tell Mr Rutherford that your brother can stay.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ I gasped.
‘But I want him to ask me whenever he doesn’t know what to do with any of my Geoffrey’s plants in future. You make sure you tell him that from me. I want him to ask me, instead of just going ahead and chopping at everything.’
‘OK,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ll tell him.’
As I raced away from the kitchen, I wondered how I was going to explain all this to Ben. Perhaps I should just tell him that I had talked to Mrs Daniels and persuaded her to forgive him. Would he believe she was capable of having a change of heart like that for no obvious reason?
I also thought about the promise I had just made to Mrs Daniels to forget all about the tower room. It was going to be difficult to do that, especially now that Mrs Daniels had more or less confirmed that my suspicions were true. After all, if she didn’t have anything to hide, she wouldn’t have done that deal with me just now, would she?
I went back to the cottage to tell Ben the good news.
He could hardly believe it. ‘She actually said she was willing to give me another chance, just because you told her how sorry I was?’
‘That’s right. So long as you promise to ask her about anything you’re not sure of in the garden from now on.’
‘I’ll happily ask her about everything in the garden, if that’s what she wants! I think I’d better go and thank her. Maybe I should go down to the village and buy her some flowers.’ I hadn’t seen him look so relieved in a long time. He looked a lot younger when he was looking relieved, I thought.
I pulled a face at the thought of Ben buying Mrs Daniels flowers, but he ignored me and set off to the village anyway. They usually had bunches of flowers for sale in a bucket just inside the door of the little foodstore, though fortunately they were never particularly nice ones.
I went back to the walled garden to find Alex. The door was locked when I got there so I called out to him.
‘Where have you been? You’ve been gone ages!’ he said as he let me in. His face was smudged with bright yellow paint and I saw that there was paint all up the paintbrush he was holding and all over his hands. He was going to have to clean himself up before he went back to the house, if he didn’t want to be found out.
‘Mrs Daniels had a row with Ben and she wanted to get him fired, but it’s OK now,’ I explained quickly. ‘But, Alex, she knows we’ve been spying on her and she’s pretty mad about it. So I promised we’d stop.’
‘Did she tell you anything about the tower room?’
‘I don’t think there’s any big secret up there after all,’ I answered, avoiding looking at him. ‘I think I got that wrong.’
‘Really? So why has she been going up there then?’
‘Just to . . . to check out the floor and stuff and to . . . to keep an eye on it.’
‘But why is she taking trays of food up there?’
‘Umm . . . well . . . she wasn’t really. She must have just happened to be holding them when she went up there those times we saw her, I think.’
Alex looked puzzled. ‘Why would she be holding them?’
‘I don’t know. That’s just what she said,’ I muttered weakly.
He narrowed his eyes. ‘That doesn’t sound right to me. Now you’re making me think that maybe she is up to something fishy. I think we should tell Dad.’
‘No, Alex! She’ll get really angry if we do that.’
‘I’m not scared of Mrs Daniels! Anyway, it’s not her tower room – it’s Dad’s. If he says we can go up there, then we can. I’m going to ask him tonight.’
‘No, Alex!’ I practically shouted.
‘Why not?’ he demanded.
‘Because if you do that, she’ll make your dad fire Ben.’
‘Dad won’t fire Ben just because Mrs Daniels says so,’ he said.
‘Yes, he will! Or else she’ll leave instead. And he needs Mrs Daniels to run the house.’
‘Well, he needs Ben to run the garden.’
‘No, he doesn’t . . .’ I broke off, flushing. ‘You see, Ben isn’t really a proper gardener . . . and . . . and Mrs Daniels’ husband was, so she’s been able to tell.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Alex looked even more puzzled now. ‘What do you mean, Ben isn’t a proper gardener? He must be, or Dad wouldn’t have hired him.’
It seemed like I didn’t have any choice but to tell Alex everything, if I was going to get him to leave Mrs Daniels alone.
‘The thing is,’ I began nervously, ‘we changed Ben’s references a bit to make out he had some gardening experience when he didn’t. You see . . .’ I looked at Alex, praying that I could trust him with this information – and that he was still going to be on my side once he had it. ‘You see . . . he’s not really a gardener at all.’
Luckily, instead of being angry with us for deceiving his dad, Alex thought the whole thing was really funny. He pointed out that since his dad didn’t know the first thing about gardening, he wouldn’t be able to tell whether Ben was a real gardener or not, in any case. However, he did agree that Mrs Daniels was different.
When I told him how Mrs Daniels hadn’t denied it when I’d suggested she was hiding someone in the tower room, he looked quite excited. ‘So you’ve blackmailed her into silence, have you?’ he said, when I explained the deal I’d just made with her.
‘I wouldn’t call it blackmail exactly,’ I protested, because, put like that, what I’d done didn’t sound very nice.
‘I would,’ Alex said. ‘You won’t tell on her so long as she doesn’t tell on you. That’s blackmail.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I argued. ‘I think it’s a fair deal. After all, why should she be the only one to get what she wants? This way, Ben’s secret is safe and so is hers.’
Alex started to grin. ‘I’d love to know who it is she’s hiding up there. Do you think it’s a secret lover? Hey – that’s probably the only way Mrs Daniel
s can get herself a lover – by keeping him locked up so he can’t escape from her!’
‘Stop being stupid,’ I said crossly. ‘Mrs Daniels still loves her husband, even though he’s dead. That’s why she’s so protective of the garden – because it was his and she doesn’t like to see people spoiling it.’
‘Well, I’d still like to find out who she’s got up there,’ Alex said. ‘We’ll just have to make doubly sure she doesn’t catch us spying on her from now on – that’s all.’
‘Alex, we can’t spy on her any more,’ I protested, horrified. ‘We’ve got to just leave it. She’ll be looking out for us now.’
‘We’ll leave it until things have calmed down a bit,’ Alex agreed, ‘but there’s no way I’m going to forget about that tower room completely!’
We now had just over three weeks to get the garden ready for the competition and I was beginning to realize that three weeks wasn’t a long time. The following day Alex finished his first painting and announced that he would help me in the garden for a few days before starting on his next work of art.
I immediately wanted to see his picture now that it was completed.
He sighed. ‘OK. Come and tell me what you think.’
I stood back and looked at it. It wasn’t what I had expected. Alex had filled the whole canvas with the head of a single yellow rose. I thought it was very striking – especially considering he had never used oils or painted on a canvas before. There was a strange background of grey rectangles and I asked him what that was.
‘Those are bricks,’ Alex told me. ‘That’s meant to be the garden wall.’
I looked across at the nearest piece of exposed wall and saw what Alex meant.
‘If we hang it on the wall, it should look pretty cool, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘I’ll paint the stems straight on to the wall – sort of like a mural. And the heads will be the paintings themselves. I thought we could put the rose over there behind that rose bush – it’ll look like a giant rose just behind the real ones – and then we could have a row of giant sunflowers along the bottom wall where it’s totally bare. What do you think?’
