Elf invited Ned to dinner and included me, but I said I felt like a quiet night in and she didn’t press it.
Caspar was all for the idea and showed signs of interest in the strawberry ice-cream I sampled after dinner, though it seemed a very un-feline-like thing to want and I didn’t give him any. I expect he’d stuffed himself full in Lavender Cottage and was just being both nosy and greedy.
He watched me from the sofa later, as I had a good rummage around in the decreasing pile of belongings in the corner. I’d soon discovered I no longer wanted a lot of my own things that I’d left stored with Treena, but I found another of the braided rag rugs of Mum’s making, in soft shades of cream, pink and blue, which smelled of the lavender it had been packed with. I put that one down by the little armchair.
There was a box containing my school books, too, and every handmade card or little gift I’d given Mum as a child. I dithered a bit over those, then decided to keep them, putting them inside the small chest I was using as a coffee table.
Then I started on all the clothes I’d stored, though I couldn’t now imagine why I thought I – or anyone else – would ever want to wear them again. But I repacked them for the charity shop in Great Mumming, where they would probably send most of them for recycling.
There were now only two small cardboard cartons I hadn’t looked at, and I pulled them out before restacking the boxes of stuff to get rid of in their place.
They seemed to have been filled with Mum’s old paperwork and odds and ends like that, so I thought I’d leave them for another day and pushed them under the big bookcase.
I don’t know why Aunt Em had thought I’d want old utility bills and letters. Perhaps she’d meant to sort everything out a bit more later and never got round to it?
Over a cup of cocoa I had a riffle through the section of old photographs in Elf’s book, lingering over the black-and-white ones of the Fairy Falls, then abandoned that in favour of curdling my blood a bit more with Clara Mayhem Doome’s newest novel.
Lizzie
As soon as I could walk the distance, I went with my sister to sell our eggs around the village and since, once away from home, she liked gossip as much as anyone else, I was often left to my own devices outside in the street, to await her … in which way I sometimes came into contact with the village children.
I envied them their freedom to roam and to play … and they found in me a ready audience for tales of fairies and little folk, boggarts, goblins and even angels – for long ago, I learned, an angel had most miraculously appeared to a local child, when she was playing by the falls above the village.
This seemed to me a wonderful thing, and godly, so that I wondered my parents had not mentioned it, but when I said so to my sister Martha, and begged her to take me to this miraculous spot, she said it was but the Devil’s work to put such ideas into idle children’s heads and if I knew what was best for me, I would not mention the matter at home.
When I ventured to say that the children had told me there was a picture of the Angel Gabriel in the church window in Thorstane, she just snorted and I took the hint and said no more.
But I thought about it, as I trudged with her up the long, steep village street with our basket of eggs, and how I would like to go to the waterfall, and perhaps see a shining angel for myself.
I learned later that the three cottages along a rough track at the very top of the village were called Angel Row, since they were near the source of the waterfall.
Of course, I took every opportunity of asking the children for more details of the angels and fairies and learned that there was a rough path down to the falls, just beyond Angel Row, and if you continued on it, you came out by the old stone bridge that led to a row of cottages and the black and white house, where lived the Graces, distant relatives of the Lordly-Graces at the manor, Risings.
I was soon deemed strong enough to deliver the eggs alone, though my small legs and frame found carrying the full heavy basket hard work, so that my spirits lifted as the basket emptied on my ascent of the hill.
27
Rabbiting
I popped up to Toller’s general store, which seemed never to close, even on Easter Day, for some supplies first thing in the morning (they have both pain au chocolat and croissants!), before Ned and I went over to the Village Hut.
Steve had already opened up and was pinning some of the bunting, which had been returned after the garden opening ceremony, along the fence.
In one of the small back rooms, used as a dressing area when they were staging pantomimes, I donned the all-in-one bunny costume, and zipped it right up. It was quite a good fit, but in the mirror I could see my heart-shaped face surrounded by brown and white fake fur and topped with big, floppy ears, and I didn’t think it was a good look.
Elf was waiting outside when I emerged and drew whiskers on my face with her eyeliner pencil, as the finishing touch. It certainly finished Ned off, because he couldn’t keep his face straight.
I stomped out into the garden, observed only by a puzzled Japanese couple, who took a million long-distance snaps as I obeyed Elf’s instruction to: ‘Hop, dear, hop!’
Carrying the big basket of chocolate eggs, I half-heartedly lolloped off, followed by Elf with the little paper flags, while Ned took a few photos before dashing off back to his office to print them out on A4.
The grounds of the Hut weren’t extensive and just tussocky grass and small bushes, so the eggs were not really hidden, just laid down in clutches, or singly if large, marked by a flag.
It seemed to take ages, but finally the basket was empty, and by that time Ned had returned with the pictures of the Easter Bunny printed out in glorious colour. He and Steve fixed them to the fence by the gate, over which now rose a wire arch, covered in yellow tissue paper flowers. A sign had been put out, announcing that the annual Easter egg hunt would open at eleven, for children of eight and under, and a small table covered in a white cloth now stood just inside the garden.
On it was a stack of small plastic baskets, borrowed from the pub, a heap of triangular cellophane bags (completely biodegradable, according to Elf), and a collecting box for the fifty pence admission charge. Under the table, hidden by the cloth, stood an open box of small chocolate eggs, ready for the less successful hunters.
With relief, I went back into the Hut to change and left the bunny costume draped over the back of a chair, like a very peculiar empty chrysalis. But when I attempted to remove the whiskers in the cloakroom, they proved surprisingly resistant. Elf must use waterproof eyeliner pencil. I managed to scrub them off eventually, though, leaving temporarily rosy cheeks.
Outside, there were now more people about and Elf went back to the café to open up, while Ned and I retired to the garden office for a well-deserved cup of coffee.
‘There’s plenty of time before we open. I expect James will be in soon, so you could pop over to the Hut just before eleven and watch the egg hunt start,’ Ned suggested. ‘I’ve seen it a million times so I’ll stay here and give the gravel paths an extra rake, then we can carry on digging out the long beds when you get back.’
I was curious enough to agree and found Gertie there with Steve, and also the vicar.
The Reverend Jojo Micklejohn was a small, plump woman who might have been in her late sixties or early seventies, with short, silvery blond curls, bunchy pink cheeks and shrewd dark blue eyes.
On being introduced she said, rather alarmingly, that she’d heard a lot about me and that I would always be welcome at St Gabriel’s, if Ned ever allowed me any time off.
‘I’ve been told about your lovely angel window and I’m going to visit the church as soon as I get the chance, so I can see it,’ I told her.
‘It’s a very old church, well worth seeing,’ she assured me.
Apparently, she was semi-retired, and St Gabriel’s, Jericho’s End and a couple of remote moorland hamlets comprised her whole parish.
Elf, who’d reappeared, whispered in my ear, ‘There’s
a big monster of a Victorian church in the middle of Thorstane. The vicar there has a much bigger parish to look after, but St Gabriel’s has always been the Jericho’s End church, even if it is only just outside the Thorstane boundary.’
She glanced back at the café, where I could see customers already sitting outside at the small tables and the stripy awning pulled out. It looked like another bumper day for ice-cream.
‘I’ve left Charlie holding the fort, and Daisy’s coming in shortly, but I must dash back after the hunt gets going.’
A queue of children and parents formed at the gate and the vicar stepped forward and gave a brief address, exhorting everyone not to forget the true meaning of Easter in a chocolate feeding frenzy.
‘But Easter also heralds spring, time of rebirth and renewal, old traditions and new: and in that spirit, let us commence the Easter egg hunt!’ she finished, to much applause.
Then the excited children rushed in through the gate, at which point I went back to the garden with Gertie, where James was already setting up the shop and ticket office.
After that, it was a day much like the two preceding ones, except that Ned and I were so engrossed in digging out our new long beds, which were laid out in a fan shape, that Steve had to come down and remind Ned to go and do his tours of the garden.
Paradise was proving popular.
That evening I ate my Sunday dinner in Lavender Cottage again, with Elf, Myfy, Jacob, Gerald and, of course, Ned. As before, the conversation was wide-ranging and entertaining. The only fly in the ointment was Ned’s tendency to keep making bad rabbit jokes and puns. I suppose it was hard to resist, but eventually I rather snappily told him to stop rabbiting on and he took the hint.
Hare today, and gone tomorrow …
Replete and sleepy, I made my way back to the flat through the café, although Caspar had raced right through the cottage and beaten me to it.
I woke feeling an urge to walk up to the falls and see if anything there would like to communicate with me – perhaps even give me a small hint as to what Ned’s reaction would be if I finally confessed to my Vane connection.
As I climbed up by the falls, however, I saw that Myfy and Jacob were already there, standing hand in hand on the railed flat rock next to the source.
They had the appearance of mythical beings, clothed in magic: both tall, robed in black and with long silver hair lifting gently in the breeze.
I turned and crept quietly away.
The day grew cloudier, the sun intermittent, but it didn’t seem to stop the visitors who, interested in gardens or not, appeared determined to drain every last drop of entertainment from Jericho’s End that they could.
The garden had magic of its own and tended to draw people in, even when they’d only intended a saunter round the paths and a spending opportunity in the shop to prove they’d been there. Ned had already had to re-order postcards of the Poison Garden.
In fact, the Poison Garden had proved to be a major draw. People took it in turns to stand and read the information board about the deadly plants and their more grisly effects. Many of them wanted to go inside the enclosure, so Ned would have to organize his special Poison Garden tours soon. I didn’t think he should fob that one off on poor Roddy.
The koi in the fish pond were popular too, though we’d had to place signs around it, asking people not to feed them after we found whole sandwiches floating in the water, along with a Krispy Kreme doughnut with one bite out of it. We hoped that was a human bite, rather than fish, because it would probably be instant death to a koi.
Luckily, most visitors were sensible; it was just the odd one, or parents who thought it was fine to let their small children run about screaming at the tops of their voices, despite the signs warning them that they must be under parental control at all times.
Not all the plants with toxic effects were in the Poison Garden. It’s surprising what some everyday garden plants can do to you, if brushed against, or ingested.
Some visitors, too, were frankly weird, trying to buttonhole Ned for long discussions on the history and uses of the mandrake, or taking an unhealthy interest in the effects of the rosary pea vine, but none was weird in the way Saul had been …
As the days had passed since he accosted me in the rose garden, I was feeling more relaxed about my encounter with him: nothing had come of it, after all, and there seemed no reason why our paths should ever cross again. And come to that, no reason, even if he did suspect who I was, why he should tell anyone else.
No, I thought it was safe enough … right up to the moment when, hooking the rope back across the path where we were working, on my way to lunch, I heard a faintly familiar woman’s voice squeal: ‘Marnie? Is that you? It is!’
And there was a small, raven-haired woman, looking at me over the top of her glossy garden guide with wide, startled hazel eyes.
It took me a moment to place her, but when I did, my heart sank: she was one of the veterinary nurses at Mike’s practice.
‘Non – you are mistaken. I am Genevieve, a student volunteer from France,’ I said, hastily assuming a French accent, probably overlaid with a veneer of Lancashire.
She laughed and lowered the guidebook. ‘Oh, you were always a joker! But I know it’s you, it was just the short hair that made me look twice.’
I didn’t think I’d ever been a joker, but I gave up on the French accent. ‘Hi – Melanie, isn’t it?’
‘Melinda, Melinda Smith,’ she said. ‘And still working for Merchester Veterinary Centre, though I’m the senior veterinary nurse now.’
‘Congratulations,’ I said, without really being aware of what I was saying. ‘I didn’t know you were keen on gardens?’
‘Well, I like them, but it’s my mother-in-law who’s really keen – she’s trying to find Ned Mars, because she was a huge fan of his programmes.’
She was looking at me curiously now. ‘You haven’t been here all this time since you left Mike, have you? We all thought you’d gone to stay with that family of yours in France, but I heard Mike went over there to look for you and you weren’t.’
‘I’ve been travelling about,’ I said vaguely. ‘I’ve only just got this job and—’
‘We didn’t blame you for taking off like that; we all thought he was creepy,’ she said. ‘We still do. Was he violent?’ she added eagerly.
‘No, not physically violent,’ I said, looking round to make sure no one else was within earshot, which luckily they weren’t. ‘I just … found it impossible to live with him anymore and a clean break seemed the best thing.’
‘He did tell us that … well, that you’d been ill and it had given you a sort of nervous breakdown, so you’d been sending out strange letters to people.’
‘I bet he did,’ I said bitterly. ‘But I don’t want to talk of the past, I’ve moved on – and so has he, hasn’t he? What’s his new wife like?’
Her hazel eyes went even wider. ‘But Mike hasn’t remarried. He was engaged at one time, but after she moved in with him, she changed her mind pretty quickly and broke it off.’
‘Not … married?’ I repeated numbly. ‘But my sister, Treena, bumped into that receptionist, Sylvie, and she told her he had remarried!’
‘Oh, that Sylvie! She only ever gets half of the story. She moved to a new job in Ormskirk soon after you went, but she’s still friends with one of the other girls on reception and must have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.’
I expect I’d turned a whiter shade of pale, because she said, ‘Are you all right?’
I summoned a smile. ‘Fine – I just need my lunch. That’s where I was off to when you spotted me.’ I paused. ‘Melinda, would you mind not mentioning to Mike that you’ve seen me? I mean, I don’t suppose he’d be interested anyway, but I’d … well, much rather he didn’t have any idea where I was.’
‘Of course – you can trust me,’ she breathed, and I could see she’d been unconvinced by what I’d said and still thought Mike was a wife beater. Which I
suppose he had been, in a way, even if the scars were all on the inside.
I wasn’t entirely convinced that Melinda would refrain from telling all her friends she’d seen me, but I hoped it wouldn’t get back to Mike’s ears. Perhaps it wouldn’t. He’d never been one to socialize with his employees.
‘Thank you – and it’s been lovely bumping into you like this,’ I lied, and then made my escape into the thankfully empty Potting Shed where I could try to get a grip on myself in privacy.
I thought I’d managed it, too, though it can’t have been a total success because Ned asked me later if anything was wrong. I confessed to a headache, but nothing a quiet night in wouldn’t cure.
‘Good,’ he said, ‘because although it’s your day off tomorrow, the builder I know is coming first thing in the morning to see how easy it would be to incorporate that outbuilding into the shop, and you’re the one with all the bright ideas, so it would be good if you could be there.’
‘OK,’ I agreed, then escaped to check the River Walk, which was already devoid of any visitors. I suppose many of them had just come for the day, or for the weekend, and were now headed home. They had mostly been more thoughtful with their litter disposal, too, and I didn’t linger over the walk, but dashed back to my flat as soon as I could.
There I checked the time, then managed to catch Treena on the phone before she went off to do the evening surgery. I hadn’t yet told her about my meeting with Saul, but now that all came tumbling out, as well as today’s unfortunate meeting with Melinda.
‘Though perhaps she will keep quiet about seeing me,’ I added.
‘Perhaps,’ she agreed, but she didn’t sound convinced. ‘Try not to worry, though, because he’s got no hold over you any more, has he? And why should he care where you are now?’
‘I don’t know, but it would be like him to just suddenly turn up.’
‘Don’t worry, you can always hide behind this Ned of yours, if he does.’
The Garden of Forgotten Wishes: The heartwarming and uplifting new rom-com from the Sunday Times bestseller Page 28
