honestly! Come and see…’ She wriggled free and, grabbing Amy’s hand, tugged her towards the stairs.
‘I’ll be right back.’
‘I won’t hold my breath,’ Kay responded, flipping the off switch on the kettle. ‘Just don’t let her sandbag you into telling her another story. You’ve got children of your own to put to bed.’
‘Yes, but they’re all boys. They don’t do fairies. Or daisy chains. Besides, Jake’s on bathroom-and-story duty tonight and I have no intention of returning until he’s mopped up the mess.’
Dom forced himself to heat up a can of soup, eat some bread. Tasting nothing, but going through the motions of living as he had done every day for the last six years. Yet for the first time in as long as he could remember, he was aware of his heart beating.
Afterwards he walked through the house, touching the things that lay undisturbed on Sara’s dressing table, coated with the thin layer of dust that had settled since the cleaners’ last visit. Opening the cupboards where her clothes still hung, lifting the soft material of a dress he remembered her wearing, rubbing it against his cheek.
Her scent lingered and he breathed it in.
How stupid he’d been. She was here. All the time he’d been running, Sara had been here, waiting for him.
Downstairs he unlocked the French windows and opened them wide. He didn’t venture beyond the paved area where they’d sat together on sunny evenings with a glass of wine, half-afraid he’d disturb her presence as she lingered in the garden. Half hoping that she’d walk out of the gathering dusk to join him.
But the garden remained still and silent. Even this late in the summer the heat clung to the walls, filling the air with the scent of late roses, and for a while he sat there, every cell focused on the wilderness that had once been a garden, hoping for one more glimpse of her before it grew too dark to see.
Then the sound of childish laughter floated towards him and instead of cutting him to the quick as it usually did, a poignant reminder of everything he’d lost, he found himself leaning towards it, straining to hear more. Holding his breath. Not moving while the sky darkened to the deepest blue and the first stars began to appear.
He didn’t move until it was quite dark and nothing was visible within the deep shadows of the walled garden.
CHAPTER TWO
“There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
KAY DIDN’T waste any time. The minute she’d waved Polly goodbye, she loaded up her wheelbarrow with the tools she’d need and headed for Linden Lodge. She’d behaved embarrassingly out of character yesterday and she wanted this over and done with.
She did her bit for the community, helped in the village school, worked hard to support herself and Polly, and she kept her head down. She never stepped out of line, never did anything to attract attention to herself, cause talk. There’d been enough of that to last a lifetime when Amy had first taken them under her wing, then let them move into the cottage.
She couldn’t think what had possessed her.
She stopped, parked the barrow.
She was lying to herself. She knew exactly what had possessed her.
The mystery of a garden locked away from view. That was what had possessed her. A chance to see more than the tantalising glimpses of it she could see from her upstairs windows. She’d wanted to see more. She’d always wanted to see more.
Polly wouldn’t have talked her into trespassing unless she’d been a willing accomplice.
As she pushed back the gate, the mingled scents of crushed grass, germander, valerian gone to seed everywhere, welcomed her. The blackbird, perched in an old apple tree, paused momentarily in his song and then continued. And she felt…accepted.
What utter nonsense.
She set about the grass and weeds behind the gate, making short work of them with her shears, so that she could open it wide enough to manoeuvre her big wheelbarrow inside.
Then, since securing the gate was more important than tidying up some mess no one was likely to see in the very near future—and she was the neighbourhood-watch coordinator—the first thing she did was to replace the bolt. She oiled the hinges, too. It was the neighbourly thing to do and little enough thanks for all the blackberries.
As if anyone would notice. The buyers—and there would be buyers; no one was going to be put off by tired paintwork, a neglected garden…it was rare for a house in Upper Haughton to come on to the market—wouldn’t give a hoot. They’d probably rip it out and replace it with a fancy new one. Which was a shame. The old one, despite the cracked and peeling paint—where paint still remained—had character.
They would probably grub out the high-maintenance cottage garden, too, and replace it with something modern that wouldn’t involve a constant battle with slugs, blackspot on the roses, the rust that attacked the old-fashioned hollyhocks if they weren’t constantly watched. They’d certainly tear down the crumbling summer house.
Maybe they’d put in a swimming pool.
She tossed the oil can into the barrow and looked around. It was still early, quiet as only a village that didn’t lead to anywhere else, tucked away from the main road, could be on a Sunday morning.
Tattered dew-laced spider webs sparkled in the low, slanting sunlight, slender crimson berries of the Berberis thunbergii glistened like droplets of blood against purple leaves that were fading to autumn crimson, and in the little orchard ripe apples were poised in that moment of perfection before they fell to the grass to be plundered by birds and hedgehogs and wasps before the insects and micro-organisms got to work and they rotted away to nothing. The food chain in action.
She walked the overgrown paths, sighing over the horticultural treasures that were struggling to survive against the more robust species. The temptation was to linger, set them free. But what would be the point? Without continuous care nature would rampage into the vacuum she created with renewed vigour. She’d do more harm than good.
She hadn’t needed Amy Hallam’s raised eyebrows to know that wasting her time cutting back the brambles had been plain stupid. In the spring they’d be back, stronger than ever, and in the meantime she was having to pay for her ridiculous gesture with time and effort that would have been better spent on her own garden.
She certainly didn’t have time to waste daydreaming about how this one would look if it was rescued from neglect, she reminded herself, and pulled on thick leather gloves before she set to work chopping up the brambles so that they’d fit into her barrow.
And did her very best to ignore the delicate branches of a witch hazel that was being strangled by bindweed.
Dom started awake and for a moment he had no idea where he was. Knew only that he was cold and stiff from a night spent in an armchair. That at least was a familiar experience.
