The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,64
get people volunteering to help in the garden, too.’
‘If their services are free, that would be really useful,’ he said.
Gert said she was going back to the greenhouse, but Ned could shout when he wanted her help spreading the liner in the pond, while Steve and James elected to unpack the stock and play with the sticky price labelling gun.
I returned to my beds of thorns, where there was no feline presence, not even a furry Cheshire Cat grin hanging in the air.
Once Ned had lined the pond, he couldn’t resist the lure of the rose garden either and, leaving Gertie starting to line up some pots of damp-loving plants ready to go into the top marshy area, he appeared with gauntlets and secateurs of his own, and started cutting back the blocked path from the pond end, working even faster than I was.
I had to dash off to check the River Walk, which was obviously going to regularly punctuate my afternoon activities, but I dashed straight back again and, by then he’d made such inroads that after only a few minutes we met in the middle.
‘Livingstone, I presume?’ he said.
‘Since I’m sweating cobs and filthy, I’m certainly no Sleeping Beauty,’ I said. ‘But I’m glad we’ve cleared all the way round.’
‘So am I, and I think that’s more than enough for one day,’ he said. ‘I’ll take all the tools back and clear up, if you want to get off.’
‘No, I’ll help you, because I want to borrow a pickaxe from the Potting Shed, if you don’t mind,’ I told him. ‘I need to take out two rosemary bushes with really deep roots and it’ll loosen them more easily.’
‘Do you know how to use a pickaxe?’
‘I certainly do!’
‘Help yourself, then,’ he said. So I did, choosing the smaller of the two … and then, suddenly, I remembered the quiz night and dashed off for a quick shower, and change of clothes.
As I trotted through the lavender garden, Caspar appeared from the bushes and ran after me, making complicated spluttering noises.
I was starting to suspect he might be Russian.
15
Back to Black
My chosen outfit for the evening was black jeans, black T-shirt, black sweatshirt and my best Doc Marten boots. The effect was lightened slightly by ruby lip gloss and the butterflies decorating the boots, which was just as well, because otherwise the patrons of the Devil’s Cauldron might have thought the Grim Reaper had popped in for a quick pint.
Elf was waiting for me in the café, in which one dim light burned behind the counter. Sounds of feline indignation sounded from the other side of the closed stable door to the cottage kitchen.
‘Myfy will be out in a minute,’ she said. ‘Caspar didn’t seem to like the new flavour of cat food and is demanding something else.’
‘Yes, I can hear him,’ I agreed with a grin.
Elf was also wearing black, though her tunic was alleviated by a large and chunky necklace of turquoise beads, which matched her hair, and her spike-heeled boots added about three inches to her height.
I admired her beads while she put on a silver quilted coat and she told me she’d bought the necklace in Mexico some years ago, when on holiday with her friend Gerald.
‘We always have our annual holiday together and like to go somewhere new each time. We wanted to see Machu Picchu, and we decided it would be much better to do it before we got any older, because of the altitude. We didn’t want to pop our clogs there, however spectacular it was.’
‘I suppose the same went for Everest?’ I joked, but she replied quite seriously.
‘Oh, that had no appeal – so many people queue all the way up the mountain when the weather’s good, and there are squalid camps and litter. I’m told it really isn’t a magical experience at all, now. But we might try Tibet,’ she added, as if it was a new kind of tea, possibly one with added yak milk and butter.
‘Where are you going this year?’
‘Just Iceland, because our big one next year will be an extensive tour of China, including the Great Wall and the Terracotta Army.’
Myfy slid through the stable door at this point, fending off Caspar’s attempt to follow her with her foot, and closed it.
‘Elf does more globetrotting than Michael Palin,’ she said, catching the last sentence.