The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,142
hurt he was I hadn’t got in touch when I was living so near and that we should meet up for old times’ sake.
Yeah, right – he must be entirely mad. And deluded, if he thought he had any power over me now.
Besides, I had Ned’s support and strength behind me. When I went round to the Hall that evening and showed him the letter, he gave me a warm, reassuring hug and told me not to worry.
Which I wasn’t – or not about Mike, anyway. And our dinner was again from the Lucky Dragon, with encouraging messages in the fortune cookies, so perhaps that was a good omen?
34
Folly
On Tuesday, my nominal day off, there was no time to sit worrying about anything, because it was a case of ‘all hands on deck’ at the Grace Garden. Not only had Don the builder and his team arrived to make a start on the shop extension, but Ned had roped in everyone he could think of to help put together the gazebo.
He assembled his troops – me, Jacob, Charlie and Steve – in the stableyard, where the door to the barn was thrown open, revealing the various pre-cut and formed pieces, which were already painted the same pleasing pale greeny-blue as the bridge.
Charlie had unpacked it a few days ago and now he took the huge instruction manual from Ned, who was looking at it rather blankly, and told him, ‘You can ignore the first five pages of this. It’s just about unpacking everything. The pieces are all numbered, so we just need to carry it all down to the water garden and lay it out in the right order.’
‘It’ll be a doddle,’ agreed Jacob. ‘Who needs instructions anyway?’ And he seized a curved piece of the roof and bore it away towards the visitors’ gate. We all followed suit, though we left the six heavy columns that would support the roof for Ned.
It did all go together smoothly and easily too … unlike flat-pack furniture. But then, as Ned said, it was stately-home quality from a special firm, so you got what you paid for.
Myfy drifted in and out occasionally, and Gert came to bring us all sandwiches at lunchtime and see how we were getting on.
And by mid-afternoon, the gazebo had risen like a pale mirage above the pool, an airy dome on six round pillars. There was a curved seat inside and low lattice walls between the pillars. All it needed, in my opinion, was one of the more delicate climbing roses growing up it.
Once we’d all admired our handiwork everyone began to drift off, until only Ned and I remained … and the builders, who sounded as if they might be mixing cement.
‘I call that a good day’s work,’ Ned said, leaning on the column next to me as I sat on the seat looking out over the garden.
‘You were right, this is the only point where you can see the whole of the Grace Garden,’ I said. ‘Or all of it that isn’t hidden behind trees and bushes. You can even see down into the sunken herb bed.’
‘That was the plan,’ he agreed.
‘You could let the public into this part tomorrow,’ I suggested.
‘I’d rather get the last of the planting done down at the pool end and around the waterfall, first.’ He checked his watch. ‘Though, actually, we could finish that today – unless you’re doing something else?’
‘I wasn’t planning on it,’ I said, and I wouldn’t have been able to resist his eager expression even if I had. ‘OK, let’s do it. But we’ll have a cup of coffee in the office first and you can go and check on how the builders are doing while I make it.’
We only remembered it was the Friends of Jericho’s End meeting that evening when the light had begun to go and there was no time to shower and change out of our working clothes. We had scrambled eggs in Ned’s kitchen, then just made it as the others arrived. I don’t think I was the only one sitting in a semi-doze as the arrangements for the May revels next Sunday were finalized, an estimate to replace a cracked washbasin approved and a date pencilled in for June for a talk Clara Mayhem Doome had kindly agreed to give, on epigraphy in ancient Britain. The subject was her idea and no one had had the nerve to suggest anything racier.