she wrote it all out when she first decided to let the house. She left it in the drawer with the cat food. She talks about stocking the freezer, getting an extra couple of months’ supply of logs, contacting the farmer who lives up the lane and who will plough it through with his tractor if it gets closed with snow. It all seems very efficient, and if dear old Sue, whose natural habitat is Bondi Beach, can hack it here, so can I.’
‘That all sounds very organised, as you say,’ Nina said, reassured. She leant forward purposefully. ‘Now, talking of being organised, what have you done about your job?’
Andy reached for a slice of toast. ‘Nothing.’
‘Why not?’
‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Mum, Graham is dead.’ Andy gripped her mug tightly with her fingers.
Nina ignored the comment. ‘You didn’t always work exclusively for Graham,’ she said crisply. ‘There are plenty of other people out there who would love you to illustrate their books. Thank God that’s a job you can do, even out here. Have you been in touch with Krista?’
Andy shook her head wordlessly. Speaking to her agent was something that hadn’t even crossed her mind.
‘God, Andy! You need a kick up the backside, darling.’ Her mother was incredulous. ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees. You’re going to have to live. I bet Sue isn’t paying the bills for this house. Even if you’re getting it rent-free – you are getting it rent-free, aren’t you?’ – she barely waited for Andy to nod before proceeding – ‘you’re going to have to pay the bills, pay for food, petrol, everything. And if necessary a solicitor. No!’ she raised her hand as Andy opened her mouth to protest. ‘You are not going to let that dreadful Rhona woman ride roughshod over you. You’ve had a couple of months to get over Graham’s death, and I know you feel you never will, but you have to pick yourself up and dust yourself off.’ She stopped. ‘Did you ever hear such a string of clichés! But I’ve always found that clichés are what people need when they’re in crisis. That is what they are for. One hasn’t time to think of bons mots. One needs a good cliché.’
Andy managed a laugh. ‘If anyone is riding roughshod, Mum it might be you.’
‘That’s what I’m here for. And is that your gardener outside? Who’s paying for him?’
‘Gardener?’ Andy looked, startled, at the window.
‘Tall, devilishly attractive man, carrying a spade over his shoulder.’
Andy suppressed a smile. ‘Bryn. That’s him.’
‘So, you had noticed he’s attractive?’ Her mother raised a quirky eyebrow.
‘Not till you said it just now,’ Andy protested. ‘I actually find him rude and unpleasant. He doesn’t like the look of me either, so I’m avoiding him.’ She bit her lip. ‘And you’re parked in his space so he’ll be even more rude and unpleasant. I wonder where he’s left his van. I don’t suppose there’s room for three out there.’
‘Perhaps he walked. It is a lovely day. Where does he live?’
Andy was silent while she thought. ‘Do you know, I haven’t a clue. I don’t even know his surname.’
Nina pulled a face. ‘I don’t much like the idea of someone like that wandering round the garden up here with you when you’re alone.’
‘Don’t be silly! I may not know him, but Sue obviously does. And so do my neighbours, so there’s nothing to worry about. And for goodness’ sake don’t rush out there and antagonise him or he will walk out on me and I’ll be left in the most awful hole!’
‘Literally,’ her mother commented with grim humour. ‘I won’t say a word, darling. But asking him about how he expects to be paid will give you an excuse to go out and have a word with him. Why not take him a coffee?’
‘I offered before and he said no.’
‘He might not say no this time.’ Nina was in management mode. She stood up, reached for a clean mug. ‘Does he look like a man who takes sugar? No. I would say not.’ She pushed the mug towards Andy. ‘Go.’
It wasn’t worth arguing. Andy pulled open the door and walked out into the wind and sunshine. ‘Bryn?’ He was pruning a hedge on the far side of the nearest bed to the house. She walked towards him and pushed the mug into his hands without giving him the chance to refuse. ‘I’m sorry if my mother is parked in your space. We weren’t expecting you. I have no way of knowing which days you come unless you tell me.’
He stared at her as if debating whether to reply or walk off, then he cupped his gloved hands round the mug and blew on it. ‘I don’t have a regular day. I come when the weather is right,’ he said. ‘If that bothers you, we can arrange something I suppose.’
‘Do you garden for other people round here?’ Andy asked curiously. ‘Is that the way you work it out with them?’
He nodded. He took a sip from the mug. ‘I work two or three days for Sue, then two days for Colonel Vaughan up at Tregarron Farm and one for the Peters on the far side of Capel-y-ffin. None of them mind when I turn up.’
‘Then I don’t either.’ Andy ventured a tentative smile. ‘I was just worried about your parking.’
‘There’s plenty of room, no problem. If people park carefully.’ Draining the mug, he handed it back to her. ‘Thank you.’
‘It’s a pleasure.’ She turned away then remembered. ‘By the way, I’m not sure what the arrangement is about paying you?’
‘Don’t worry about that either. Sue pays me by direct debit.’
She laughed. ‘I might have known she would be efficient. Good, I’m glad that’s all taken care of.’
‘So you should be. I’m expensive.’ He almost smiled, then he turned back to the pruning.
‘There,’ Nina said as she went back indoors. ‘That didn’t seem to hurt too much.’
Andy sat down at the table. ‘No. Not too much. Sue pays him by direct debit.’ She couldn’t contain another peal of laughter. ‘He’s probably a limited company!’
Catrin enjoyed that summer more than she would have thought possible. They had moved on as soon as the horse was sound, riding slowly and carefully now, sometimes through gentle well-tended farmland, sometimes through wilder hills, each evening stopping at a farm or manor house or a castle, sometimes moving on daily, sometimes staying a week or more in one place.
Realising that Dafydd often rode in a daze of inattention, rehearsing new rhymes and ideas in his head, Edmund took to leading the pack mule beside him, watching where the cob put her feet; sometimes though there were tracks where the going was easy and he would drop back beside Catrin and they would fall into stilted conversation. She was intrigued by his knowledge of healing, his way with animals. They discussed herbs and the making of salves and potions, something that was more often than not the job of the women in a household. At each outpost on the road guard dogs would race out barking and snarling but within a short time they would be clustering round him, making friends, tails wagging, begging for his attention, all hostility forgotten. It was a boon. Catrin remembered only too well previous trips with the hapless Roger Miller when
