The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,11

cheap, too, and if we do it now on the laptop, the SIM will arrive in a day or two. You don’t have to hide behind a disposable phone any longer.’

I thought that seemed a good idea and it took no time to sort out. I refused her offer to get Jericho’s End up on the screen while we were at it, though.

‘No, I’ll wait and see it for real,’ I said. ‘At least I did look for the road to it from Great Mumming on an old UK car atlas I found under the passenger seat, and it isn’t that far away as the crow flies. Have you been there?’

‘Yes, a few times, but only to a biggish house called Risings up on the left of the road before you get into the village proper. The owner’s an overbearing woman with two Pekes that she’s convinced have delicate constitutions. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t bring them to the surgery in Great Mumming, but I make her pay through the nose for dragging me all the way out there for every upset stomach.’

‘Weren’t you curious enough to drive into the village for a look?’ I asked.

‘No, I always seem to be rushed for time. I know it’s supposed to be a beauty spot with waterfalls and stuff,’ she said vaguely. ‘But I will come and visit once you’ve settled in and … well, actually, I know someone who will be working there from Easter right over the summer, so I expect I’ll be popping in occasionally to see how he’s getting on, too.’

She looked faintly self-conscious and I gazed at her in surprise.

‘A boyfriend?’

‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘Just – someone I met a few months ago. A friend. He’s an archaeologist and he’s got funding for a dig at Jericho’s End. There’s some kind of small monastic ruin near the river on the village outskirts, more or less opposite Risings. It’s never been properly excavated.’

‘A small monastic ruin doesn’t sound very exciting.’

‘To Luke, lumps of mud and random bits of burned bone seem to provide endless excitement.’

Treena had always insisted that she was never going to get married, or live with anyone. She liked her independence and her own way of doing things too much, and had her animals for company. Seeing what happened to me had probably reinforced that determination.

But now I wondered if there was a softening around the edges … though there certainly wasn’t around mine. Once bitten, more than twice shy. Forever shy.

We’d both turn thirty-six this year – we’d been born within a week of each other, and in fact it was at the antenatal clinic that our mothers met and became such close friends. Treena and I had always had joint birthday parties, twins of a kind.

I tactfully changed the subject. ‘This Ms E. Price-Jones sounds very kind in her letters, and there’s a sister, too. They’re expecting me about ten tomorrow and I’m to go into the café, Ice Cream and Angels, which is at one end of Lavender Cottage. She sent me a little map on the back of the last letter, but it was in pencil so I’ve only just noticed.’

‘Strange name for a café,’ Treena commented.

‘Yes … and oddly enough, “ice-cream and angels” was the last thing Mum ever said.’

I’d never told even Treena that before. Now I’d remembered I felt doubly excited. First Jericho’s End and now the name of the café were connecting my new life with Mum in a way I couldn’t wait to discover. I hadn’t forgotten Mum’s warning, but I felt there were answers waiting for me.

‘Really?’ she said. ‘Then I think that’s a good omen, don’t you?’

4

Going to Jericho

Treena was to set out early for Happy Pets in the morning, since she was taking the first drop-in session. Over breakfast she presented me with a large-scale Ordnance Survey map of the Thorstane and Jericho’s End area.

‘The turn to the village is easy to miss if you haven’t got sat nav.’

‘I sneer in the face of sat nav,’ I said, larding butter onto toast and adding some of last year’s bramble jam. ‘After all, when I went to France I only had an ordinary car atlas and a load of Post-it notes with road numbers written on them stuck along the dashboard – not to mention having to drive on the wrong side of the road – and I found the Château du Monde OK.’

Not that I actually remembered much of that nightmare flight