The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,73
would: air and light and space to breathe and a good manure mulch equalled rose bliss.
Ned must have escaped from his office while I was eating, because I discovered him cleaning the folly when I got back. He had the pressure barrel of water he’d mentioned, plus buckets, squeegees and scrubbing brushes for the places where the slime resisted.
He was already damp and faintly green, and too engrossed in his task to be self-conscious about last night’s heart-to-heart, even if he felt it. He immediately sent me back to fetch the stepladder, so he could reach to scrub the pediment, and when Steve, driven by curiosity, returned with me to have a look, he ended up spending the next hour scrubbing the urn and its pedestal.
When Steve had gone and the temple and urn had been rendered spotlessly white, and ourselves a dirty greenish colour, Ned and I admired our handiwork … and then I suddenly glanced at my watch which, despite its dampness, was still working.
‘Look at the time! I meant to give that Rambling Rector in the cottage garden a radical pruning before I went to check the River Walk, but I’ve only got time to change into something dry now, so I’ll have to do it afterwards.’
‘You get off, then. We’ve finished here for the day so I’ll put the tools away.’
‘Great,’ I said gratefully, ‘and I only have one rosemary bush to get out of Myfanwy’s garden in the morning and then I’ll return that pickaxe I borrowed.’
‘No rush,’ I heard him say, but by then I was dashing off to render myself less like a slime monster before my walk up to the falls. Which was just as well, because there were a lot more people about than before, though all on their way back down towards the gate.
My haul was three of the ubiquitous plastic water bottles, a couple of crushed cans, the wrapper off a sandwich and a pair of stiletto shoes in a bin, with the heel snapped off one of them. I hoped the owner had carried something more suitable for walking with her.
I didn’t dawdle, since I was determined to cut back that rose, and there would be plenty of time another day to sit by the falls and think, or dream, or commune with the angels/fairies, or whatever. And possibly, with Mum.
17
Well Trained
To my surprise, when I got back to the Lavender Cottage garden I found Ned there, hacking back the Rambling Rector in a no-nonsense manner.
When I thanked him, he said, ‘I thought it wouldn’t take long with two of us and I do feel my side of the gardening has monopolized most of your time so far.’
‘It looks much better already, and at least I can now walk under the archway without having my hair raked by brambles.’
He’d thoughtfully brought the long gauntlets and secateurs I’d been using, as well as his own, so after I’d disposed of the rubbish and the stilettos (there is no special recycling box for dead shoes), I set to work at the other end of the trellis.
We always seemed fated to meet in the middle of everything we do together, but this took a lot less time than the rose garden path. We’d finished and were admiring our handiwork, when Elf called us from the back door with a loud, ‘Coo-ee!’ which was something I’d thought they only said in Australia.
‘Spotted you from the window,’ she said, when we reached her. ‘And I thought you’d be ready for a cold drink – and perhaps to try my new ice-cream.’
We went through the scullery into the café kitchen, where the glad sight of two large glasses of home-made lemonade greeted us. My throat felt as if it was lined with bark.
‘Charlie’s finished the cleaning and has gone home; he’s such a hard worker, that boy.’
‘I might be able to give Charlie a bit of work in the garden, if he’s got time to spare,’ Ned suggested. ‘I know he’s not a gardener, but a bit of muscle is always useful.’
‘Good idea, though he’ll be volunteering at that archaeological dig up at the ruins right after Easter so—’
She broke off what she was saying and instead gazed in a horrified way at the window behind us. When we turned, we saw a large, marmalade-coloured face pressed against the glass, green eyes glittering and pulling the cat version of that figure in Munch’s painting The Scream.