‘I wish I could get rid of my relationship to them as easily,’ I said ruefully. ‘It came as a bit of a shock to Ned.’
‘But finding that missing page of the letter and realizing I was descended from someone a whole lot worse than any of the Vanes put things in perspective,’ Ned said wryly.
‘Yes, and you and Marnie must be distantly related through Lizzie,’ Gerald said thoughtfully.
‘We know – it’s weird, but it is very distant,’ agreed Ned, and smiled at me, making me feel warm all the way through to my toes.
When finally I tore my eyes away from his, I found all the others looking at us with interest.
‘We don’t care whether you’re a Vane or not, dear,’ said Elf. ‘We’re just pleased that Ned is so much happier since you arrived.’
I blushed and Ned said cheerfully, ‘Who wouldn’t be happy, with a professional gardener working for them for a pittance?’
‘And perks,’ I said, before I could stop myself.
37
Blast from the Past
For some reason, Elf broke out two bottles of elderflower champagne after dinner, though none of the revelations seemed the kind of thing to celebrate.
But it was lovely, even if the alcohol did finish me off – too little sleep, too much excitement and quite a bit of digging in the garden.
Though Ned came up to my flat for coffee … and a snuggle on the sofa – or maybe that should be a struggle on the sofa, since a large, hairy and disgruntled cat kept trying to insert itself between us – he could see I was practically asleep on my feet and didn’t stay late.
‘Tomorrow, we’ll get the ground round the long beds ready for the new turf,’ he promised, as if offering me a treat.
‘I can hardly wait,’ I said. ‘But if any of those old roses turn up, you’ve had it till I’ve put them in.’
‘It’s a deal,’ he said, and, kissing me again, went off home.
Caspar seemed delighted to have me all to himself once more, but he was going to have to learn to share.
A good night’s sleep worked wonders and the next day I was so full of euphoria born of relief and happiness that after a morning’s digging and raking, I practically floated across the courtyard towards the Potting Shed in search of lunch, wondering what Gertie would have put in the sandwiches.
The inner woman was unromantically ravenous: preparing the ground around the new long plots had been hard work, especially since Ned had had to go back to the office an hour or so earlier.
I’d sort of half noticed a knot of people at the ticket office window, but it was only when a hand grabbed my arm and swung me round that I realized I knew one of them. Enclosed in my bubble of joy, it took me a moment to register who it was.
‘Oh, it’s you, Mike,’ I said disinterestedly, because he’d receded into the past like a bad dream and now not only did he seem a total and unwelcome irrelevance, but I found I felt no trace of the fear he’d once held for me. This didn’t stop me wishing I had those butter paddles handy, though … He’d changed, too – his once-skinny frame now looked stringy, his spiky hair more grey than black and the skin of his face as sharply folded as origami.
‘Well, Marnie, long time no see,’ he said tritely, and gave me the smile that had once seemed so charming … I couldn’t imagine why. And his dark, bright eyes looked as cold as a hunting stoat’s.
I shook off his detaining hand. ‘What are you doing here? Decided to deliver your letters personally, this time?’
My attack seemed to take him by surprise. ‘I just wanted to see you. When I knew you were so near, I thought it would be good to … catch up. Somewhere more private, perhaps – maybe in that shed you were making for?’
His smile this time was chilling, but no longer had any power over me.
‘No, thanks, we’ve nothing to talk about.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, there might be a few things you don’t want your boss to overhear … though since you’re still here, he mustn’t have taken any notice of the letter I sent him. Did you spin him some story?’
‘You’re the spinner of stories,’ I said coldly.
‘So I am – and a better one than you. So perhaps you ought to have that little talk with me – here, or maybe later, wherever it is you’re living now?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Mike!’ I snapped as he reached out to grab my arm again. ‘Haven’t you got the message yet that your threats don’t work any more? Just go away and leave me alone!’
‘Having trouble?’ asked a deep voice as Ned emerged from the office in time to hear this. He came and put an arm around me and it was only then that I saw we had an audience: the visitors might have moved on into the garden, but Steve had come out of the shop and James was leaning over the ticket counter, to watch. Roddy hovered uncertainly in the open office doorway.
‘It’s Mike,’ I explained succinctly.
‘I thought it might be,’ Ned said, looking him over with disfavour and I was pleased to see Mike back off a bit.
‘You write a nice line in slimy anonymous letters,’ Ned told him.
Mike seemed to rally and pulled the remnants of his old, practised charm around him. ‘I can’t imagine what stories Marnie’s been telling you, but she was always a convincing liar. I could tell you a few—’
That was as far as he got before Ned, without any warning at all, punched him straight on the nose.
Mike didn’t so much fall as folded up onto the cobbles and lay there, making gibbering noises, so I knew he wasn’t dead.
It must have relieved Ned, too, because he said ruefully, ‘Whoops! I don’t often lose my temper like that.’
Lancelot and Guinevere walked slowly through the arch and approached Mike, looking down at him in a puzzled way. Guinevere pecked experimentally at his jacket, as if she hoped he was concealing something edible in the pockets and he pushed her aside and staggered to his feet, his nose bleeding copiously.
‘I’ll sue you for assault! You’ll be sorry for this,’ he threatened Ned, thickly.
‘What, because you weren’t looking where you were going and walked into that notice board by the arch?’ said Steve. ‘We all saw you.’
‘Yes, what an unfortunate accident,’ agreed Roddy in his frightfully posh voice and Mike swung round to look at him.
‘It’s a conspiracy!’ he yelled.
‘I do think, you know, that you might find a charge of assault difficult to prove,’ Ned said. ‘However …’ he looked at the results of his handiwork, and said reluctantly, ‘you need a bit of first aid before you leave. You’d better come into the office so we can stop that nosebleed. You can’t walk about like a bloody Niagara.’
‘Nicely phrased,’ I said as he put a hand under Mike’s arm and propelled him, willing or not, up the office steps.
I followed and Roddy suggested Mike sit down and put his head back, then pinch the bridge of his nose.
‘That usually works.’
I passed Mike a wad of tissues and he leaned back with a theatrical groan, though the flow of blood had already begun to cease.
‘Sorry about your accident,’ said Ned. ‘But you shouldn’t have said that about Marnie.’
‘He got off a lot lighter than he’d have done if I’d had my butter paddles handy,’ I said, and he grinned at me.
‘Did you say “butter paddles”?’ Mike said. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘I’ve got a pair of giant wooden butter paddles and I’ve had this fantasy that if you turned up, I’d clap your head between them as hard as I could,’ I explained.
‘You’re mad!’ he said, but cringed back slightly as if he thought I might whip them out from somewhere and actually do it.
I wish.
‘Have you really got giant wooden butter paddles?’ asked Roddy with interest.
‘Oh, yes, I brought them back from France and they’re unusually big. I thought they might look nice in the garden museum.’
Mike was now edging away
along the sofa as if he was thinking of making a run for the door. I dampened a bit of kitchen towel and handed it to him.
‘I’d clean your face a bit, if you’re thinking of leaving, but otherwise, hasta la vista, baby.’
‘Yeah, stay not upon the order of your going, or whatever it was Shakespeare said,’ agreed Ned. ‘And if I were you, I wouldn’t come back, or make any more attempts to communicate with my fiancée, because I wouldn’t take it very well.’
‘Fiancée?’ Mike looked as surprised as I felt – until I realized Ned had just said it to protect me.
He put his arm around me and said, ‘Yes, but don’t bother congratulating us – just go.’
‘You were the one who insisted I come in here!’ Mike got up, throwing the smeared damp wad of kitchen paper on the floor. ‘You totally misjudged my intentions. I only wanted to make sure that my wife – ex-wife – was all right and to give you a friendly warning—’
‘I really wouldn’t say anything else, if I was you,’ Ned advised him, dangerously, and Mike backed towards the door – which suddenly burst open, sending him flying back into the room again.
I expected to find a tornado had struck but no, it was just a skinny teenage boy.
He was pursued by Steve, who was shouting, ‘Come back, you!’
The boy ignored him and, fixing a pair of glowering blue eyes on Ned, flung out a dramatically pointing hand and demanded: ‘Are you my father?’
‘Oh God, that’s all we need, the Bloody Child,’ said Ned wearily, ‘though it’s clearly Melodrama Week, not Shakespeare. Who are you and why on earth should you think I’m your father?’
‘Because that’s what Mum told that journalist last year – I overheard them. But she said she could only reveal it now because my dad – the man I thought was my dad – was dead. He’d been paying maintenance, you see.’
‘Well … not really,’ said Ned, still frowning.
‘Then the story came out and some of my friends said stuff – but Mum wouldn’t discuss it with me and I didn’t know where you were until I saw you on the telly the other week,’ the boy finished in a rush.
‘Right … so you’re Sammie Nelson’s son?’ he ventured.
‘Yeah, the one she was pregnant with when you threw her over and she had to leave college,’ the youth said accusingly.
Now I came to really look at him, he did remind me of Sammie, though fairer. But he didn’t look a bit like Ned, which was hardly surprising.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mike sit back down again, with an expression of enjoyment on his face.
‘Look—’ I began, then broke off. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Jonas,’ the boy said sulkily.
‘Right, Jonas, I’m Marnie Ellwood and I was in the same year as your mum at Honeywood Horticultural College. Ned was in the year up and though they did briefly go out together, she threw him over, because she’d got off with the presenter of a documentary that was being filmed there. Is that the man you thought was your father?’
The boy, who looked very young and very angry, nodded. ‘He thought I was his, too, and he lived with Mum for a bit, but then he went back to his wife after I was born and I hardly saw him. He had a heart attack.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said Ned gently, ‘but … I’m afraid he was your real father. How old are you?’
‘What?’ Jonas looked taken aback, then said, ‘Fourteen,’ then added his birthday and Ned and I both did some rapid arithmetic.
‘She met your dad in late April the year before you were born and dumped me within the week – so there’s no way I could be your father,’ Ned said.
Jonas took some convincing, but when Ned said in exasperation that he’d even take a DNA test, if that made him feel better, he finally gave in. ‘But why would Mum sell lies to the newspaper?’
‘I think “sell” is a bit of a clue,’ I suggested.
‘Yes, she must have needed the money badly,’ agreed Ned. ‘And she didn’t actually come out and say I did all those things to the journalist, just suggested them. But none of them was true and I can prove it.’
The boy slumped and Steve, presumably deducing that the drama was over, slipped back out.
‘I hitchhiked here and it’s taken me all day,’ Jonas said accusingly, as if it was our fault. ‘No one seemed to be heading in this direction. It’s the back of nowhere.’
‘That’s why we like it,’ said Ned. ‘But hadn’t you better let your mum know where you are? She must be worried sick.’
‘I left a note, but I turned my phone off so she couldn’t call me,’ Jonas said. ‘Not that I expect she’s even noticed I’m not there yet.’
But there he did her an injustice, for the door burst open for the second time and a woman threw herself at him, shrieking, ‘Jonas!’ and tried to shake him.
I’d have known her anywhere, even if she was about twice the size she’d been at college. The excess weight was all well distributed, though, and she probably still looked pretty when she wasn’t snarling.
Jonas fended her off. ‘Leave me alone! I know the truth now.’
‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. ‘I’ve never told you anything but the truth!’
She whirled round on Ned. ‘What have you been telling him?’
She hadn’t noticed me, and started when I said, ‘Hello, Sammie – fancy meeting you here.’
‘You!’ she exclaimed, eyes widening. ‘I’ve heard all about you and the Heritage Homes Trust! What—’
‘You really shouldn’t believe all you hear,’ Ned interrupted. ‘Or read.’
She looked at him in a baffled way and then turned back to Jonas. ‘What were you thinking of? Didn’t I tell you—’
‘He says he’s not my dad and I believe him.’
‘All right – I never said he was, did I?’ she snapped.
‘You let that journalist think he was.’
‘Well, I needed some money, once the maintenance from your dad stopped,’ she said, as if that excused it. ‘And now I’ve had to fork out a fortune for a taxi from the station to get here.’
‘No car?’ asked Ned.
‘Lost my licence,’ she snapped. ‘Just what I need when I’m trying to run a business.’
‘Oh, yes, it said in one of those articles you had a garden design business,’ I said. ‘Willow Wand Garden Transformations.’
‘You were speeding again, Mum,’ Jonas said, but she ignored him and turned to Ned.
‘The least you can do is drive us back to the station,’ she told him, as if it was all his fault.
But before he could reply, Jonas said wistfully, ‘Seeing I’m here, couldn’t I at least see the garden first, before we go?’
Ned looked at him with interest. ‘You like gardens?’
‘Yeah, and you’ve got one full of poison plants – cool!’
‘OK then,’ Ned said. ‘Come on – we’ll sort out that lift when we get back.’
He went out, followed eagerly by Jonas, and Roddy, who had been effacing himself in the background, murmured an excuse and followed suit.
I didn’t blame him – I wished I could, too.
Sammie seemed to catch sight of Mike for the first time and they eyed each other curiously. Since there seemed nothing else to do, I said, ‘Sammie, this is my ex-husband, Mike Draycot.’ Then I added brightly, ‘Anyone for coffee?’
‘I’ve had a bit of an accident,’ Mike told her and she sank down next to him.
‘You poor thing, you’re covered in blood!’ she said, sympathetically.
‘I’m all right,’ he said bravely. ‘But … if I’ve grasped things right, hasn’t something you said to the newspapers about Ned Mars been twisted out of context, so it’s led to today’s unfortunate contretemps?’
‘Yes, you’re quite right. I sold a little human-interest story about Ned last year, when I was very hard up and it wasn’t my fault they twisted it to suggest something else, was it?’
‘Not at all. Funnily enough,
I was just explaining to Ned that all the stories Marnie’s been telling him about me were just made up to get his sympathy …’
I tuned the rest of the conversation out, but when I’d drunk my coffee I broke in and said, ‘I can hear them coming back, so if I were you I’d pipe down before Ned hears you, Mike.’
When Jonas came in with Ned, he looked about five years younger and pink with excitement.
‘Mum, the Poison Garden’s got a deadly plant in a cage in the middle – a rosary pea – and in the other corner, there’s a waterfall with some steampunk metal flowers that open and close and—’
‘He’s a real gardener,’ said Ned, smiling.
‘Ned says when I’m sixteen I can come and do work experience in the garden for the summer, if I want to,’ Jonas said.
‘Well, that’s very nice,’ said Sammie weakly. ‘Now, about that lift …’
‘I have a car parked just over the bridge and I’d be happy to drive you anywhere you like?’ suggested Mike as smoothly as a man can who is covered in crusted gore.
‘Would you really? That’s very kind of you,’ said Sammie, fluttering her false eyelashes at him.
For a minute, I wondered if I should warn her not to accept anything other than a lift from him, but then gave a mental shrug. She was more than a match for Mike, I reckoned.
When they’d gone, Ned and I looked at each other and said, simultaneously, ‘Phew!’
‘I wonder what’s next, Plague of Frogs?’ he said.
‘I’m sincerely hoping Plague of Exes was the last one,’ I said. ‘And by the way, thank you for pretending we were engaged when Mike was being obnoxious. That was kind of you.’
‘Yes, wasn’t it just?’ he agreed blandly. ‘Do you fancy coming round later for another session of paper sorting?’
‘Only if you promise me it’s going to be a Lucky Dragon evening,’ I said firmly.
38
Something in the Air
Our usual work ethic seemed to have unravelled next morning, so it was just as well it was a Tuesday.
We spent a couple of hours sorting out the final selection of photographs, plans, lists and other interesting material for the museum display, had a rummage round the old stables where Ned was sure he’d seen several Victorian hand-blown glass bells for forcing vegetables and rhubarb (not that ours needed any forcing), and then went to see how the builders were getting along.
The Garden of Forgotten Wishes: The heartwarming and uplifting new rom-com from the Sunday Times bestseller Page 37
