The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,152

until he reminded me that the Morris Dancers were going to come and perform on the Green this morning.

‘I said I’d go over early to help Steve rope it off, ready – and look at the time!’

‘Sorry if I’ve distracted you …’ I said, admiring his broad and well-muscled back and then running a finger down it, which might have caused us to be even later, had not Caspar nudged the door open and jumped onto the end of the bed, where he stared accusingly at us.

‘Have you been here all night, Caspar?’ I asked.

‘He probably squeezed through the cat flap and has only come back to make you feel guilty,’ said Ned heartlessly.

Whichever it was, having a cat stare fixedly at you in this sort of situation is very off-putting, so we got up. I declined Ned’s offer of breakfast (I’d probably have been the one cooking it) and left for a shower and a change of clothes in the flat.

Caspar came with me, but then vanished into Lavender Cottage in search of his own breakfast, with a few parting remarks that it was probably just as well I couldn’t understand.

I didn’t rush over breakfast or my shower – I no longer thought my boss was going to fire me for being late … or any other reason. My head was filled with a rosy vision of the future: the two of us, rooted here in the garden, for ever …

I felt full of boneless wellbeing, and also, light-headed from lack of sleep … or something.

Humming (‘An English Country Garden’), I got Treena on the phone and said, ‘Have you got half an hour to spare?’ and when she said she had, told her all that had happened the previous night – or almost all. There are some things you don’t tell even your best friend.

When I finally went to look for Ned, he was alone in the garden lining up pots of dwarf lavender to put in the low bed near the wetland area, his back turned to me. And a very broad, familiar back it was, too …

For a moment I felt suddenly shy, but then he turned and saw me and a happy smile lit his face.

‘Marnie!’ He loped over and hugged me, so that my feet left the ground and the breath was squished out of my lungs, before kissing me. ‘Did I tell you I loved you?’

‘You might have done,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t know why you should, though, because I’ve behaved like an idiot!’

‘Never mind – you’re my idiot,’ he said fondly, which was strangely comforting, now I could see how I’d turned a Wayne-sized molehill into the most enormous mountain.

I helped him put in the lavender and then, just before ten, he insisted we go and watch the Morris Men.

‘This first session is really just for us, the villagers and locals. You’ll see – everyone will be there.’

They were, too: Elf, Myfy, Jacob, Gerald … loads of faces I recognized from the village. Even Cress and Roddy, though not Audrey Lordly-Grace, who I expect only turned out if there was a celebrity in the offing.

The middle of the Green had been roped off for the dancing and the bunting brought out again to decorate it. We all gathered round to watch, Ned and I next to Gert and James, and then a man playing a lively tune on a fiddle led the stamping, jingling troop of dancers out of the Village Hut.

They were all big men and their strange garb of beribboned straw hats, brightly patched waistcoats and white trousers tied in at the knee with more ribbon and bunches of small bells should have made them look silly … and yet, they looked oddly impressive, instead.

They took up their places in the centre of the Green and began an intricate dance that involved much waving of red handkerchiefs.

Gerald appeared and started to play his violin along with the fiddler and the tempo picked up for the next dance, in which the Morris Men hit each other with wooden sticks – or at least, crashed them together with a lot of loud noise.

I found it all quite riveting and then, when they’d finally finished, the fiddlers struck up a different tune, one that set my feet tapping.

‘Circle dance time,’ said Elf, whose turquoise head had bobbed up next to me. ‘We all join hands – this is Sellinger’s Round.’

Ned took my other hand and everyone began to circle, though I’d have had