The Summer Season

Breakfast over, she opened the back door and scraped the crumbs of her toast out on the bird table positioned right by the hedge for the birds who so noisily woke her, and went back inside to get her laptop. She had so much to do: pitches for commissions, putting the finishing touches to her website, sorting out a leaflet to go out with the local paper, but she ignored all that. Kezzie had been so intrigued by the garden she’d broken into last night, the first thing she had to do was find out more about it.

She typed in Lovelace Cottage, and got a few matches, but nothing very concrete. So she tried again, putting Edward Handford into the search engine. Immediately a Wikipedia entry popped up:

Edward Handford – 1871–1955, Late Victorian landscape gardener and botanist of minor importance. Heavily influenced by the work of Gertrude Jekyll and Edward Lutyens, but using his own style …

His most notable work was designing the garden of Hillcrest Manor, a stately home owned by the de Lacey family, in Nottinghamshire, but he is also known for the Elizabethan knot garden he created for his wife Lily, on the occasion of their marriage in 1892, although very little is known about it …

There was a bit more about his later work, and a mention that much of his youth had been spent hunting exotic plants in India, but nothing much about Joel’s garden. To Kezzie’s disappointment, there was no plan. Kezzie printed off what she’d found and filed it for later use. It wasn’t much to go on if she was to restore the garden properly, but it was a start. Maybe Joel would have some more information about it. She’d have to ask him the next time she saw him.

‘So have you met my new neighbour yet?’ Lauren greeted Joel as he came to drop Sam off.

‘What new neighbour?’ he asked, yawning. He had found sleep hard to come by after his moonlit encounter the previous night.

‘She’s Jo Knight’s niece. Just moved in,’ said Lauren. ‘She’s very pretty. Just up your street.’

Joel at least had the grace to blush.

‘I’m not that bad.’

‘You so are,’ said Lauren teasingly, to hide the fact that the details of Joel’s love life made her feel uncomfortable.

‘Poor lamb, left all alone up there in that big house, it’s understandable he wants some company,’ she’d heard someone say recently.

Lauren was slightly aggravated by this. The one and only time she’d disastrously dated John Townley, who worked in the village garage, she’d actually heard the word ‘strumpet’ bandied about in the local high street. ‘And her with two little ones and all,’ as if by dint of having two small children she was condemned to be a nun for the rest of her life. And secondly, it made her so mad on Claire’s behalf. Lauren still missed Claire, who’d been a sane, calming influence on Lauren’s often chaotic life, and for the life of her she couldn’t see why Joel could apparently have forgotten her so easily. Or for that matter why local opinion seemed to think it was OK that he should. If it had been anyone else, Lauren would have thought he was a prize shit, but knowing as she did what a state he had been in after Claire had died, she knew the truth was more complicated than that.

‘What does she look like?’ he asked. ‘Not that I’m interested or anything.’

‘Well, she’s a bit hippyish,’ said Lauren. ‘I was teasing, she’s not really your type at all. She’s quite small – elfin looking – dark hair, brown eyes.’

‘Oh—’ Light dawned in Joel’s eyes. ‘It’s the guerrilla gardener.’

‘The what?’

‘I found her in my garden last night,’ explained Joel. ‘She told me she was doing a spot of guerrilla gardening and then had the cheek to have a go at me about leaving it to rack and ruin. She thinks I should restore it.’

‘Well you should,’ said Lauren. ‘That was the plan, right?’

‘Yeah, well, plans change,’ Joel mumbled, and a look of such sadness shot across his face that Lauren felt her heart contract. Perhaps she was too hard on him. Her experience with Troy had left her a little too eager to be unforgiving with men. They weren’t all selfish bastards.

A stab of protective tenderness came over Lauren and she touched his arm lightly. ‘Maybe it’s time they changed again?’ she said. ‘I was talking to Eileen Jones the other day, and she was saying the village want to honour Edward Handford next year for his 140th anniversary. I suggested she get in touch with you about restoring the garden. It might be just what you need and if your guerrilla gardener can help you …’

‘Maybe.’ Joel shook himself out of his reverie, looked at his watch and gave Sam a quick hug. ‘I must dash, see you later.’

‘Have a good day,’ said Lauren.

He set off, leaving Lauren thinking that her new neighbour sounded intriguing. She’d never met anyone before who’d broken into gardens at night. Jo was a lot of fun, so maybe her niece would be too.

It wasn’t long before Lauren got her opportunity to say hello properly. She’d just got back from the school run and was unclipping Sam from his buggy, when there was a knock on the door, and the small elfin girl she’d glimpsed through the garden hedge was standing there, looking very apologetic.

‘I’m so sorry, you’re going to think me very stupid, but I’ve managed to lock myself out. I know I left the back window open, and I’ve noticed there’s a gap in your fence. I was wondering if I could shimmy through it and hop back in.’

‘No need for that,’ said Lauren, lifting Sam up. ‘Come on in. Didn’t your aunt tell you I had a spare key?’

She ushered Kezzie into the kitchen, where she kept all her keys in a little wooden box above her wooden spice rack.

‘I’m Lauren Callan by the way,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely to meet you at last.’

‘Kezzie Andrews,’ said Kezzie, looking embarrassed. ‘I’m such a dope. Jo did mention it and I completely forgot.’

‘Do you fancy a coffee?’ said Lauren, who had only been planning to bake cookies with Sam. He was quite happy when she put him down, and he pottered about, putting magnetic letters on the fridge. Lauren knew that she’d be searching underneath the fridge for half of them.

‘That would be lovely,’ said her new neighbour, with a smile.

It would be nice to have someone young living next door, thought Lauren.

‘I’ve been meaning to come over and introduce myself properly, but I’ve been so busy sorting myself out since I got here, I haven’t had a chance.’

‘Yes, I gather,’ said Lauren. ‘Do you often break into people’s gardens in the middle of the night?’

‘Oh my God, how did you know about that?’

‘Small place, Heartsease,’ grinned Lauren, flicking on the kettle and getting her favourite Cath Kidston mugs from the cupboard. She motioned to Kezzie to sit down at the cosy kitchen table.

‘Blimey,’ said Kezzie, ‘this country living is going to take some getting used to. I expect the whole village knows by now.’

Lauren took pity on her. ‘Actually, I only know about it because Sam here is Joel’s son.’

‘Joel?’ said the girl.

‘The guy who owns the garden. He’s quite discreet, I’m sure he won’t tell anyone. I look after Sam for him. Here, have a muffin.’

She opened a Tupperware box and offered Kezzie one of the blueberry muffins she’d made a few days earlier.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Kezzie. ‘So all those children I’ve seen you with don’t belong to you then?’

‘Just the two girls,’ said Lauren, ‘they’re my terrible twins.’

‘Twins. Must be a handful,’ said Kezzie.

‘Sure are,’ said Lauren, ‘particularly when you’re on your own.’

‘I take my hat off to you,’ said Kezzie. ‘I can barely look after myself, let alone twins. If you don’t mind me saying, you’re very young to have kids.’

Lauren grimaced. ‘I was twenty-one, way too young. It’s the old old story. I fell for the wrong guy at uni, who promised me the world and then left me literally holding the babies.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Kezzie.

‘Don’t be,’ said Lauren. ‘We’re well shot of him, and even though he doesn’t pay anything towards their upkeep, I manage. I look after Sam for Joel, who’s very generous, and then work in the pub a couple of evenings a week, while my mum looks after the girls. Luckily she lives nearby. Anyway, tell me about breaking into Joel’s garden. I’d have loved to have seen his face!’

‘I was walking past the bottom of the garden and out of curiosity climbed up in a tree to see what was hidden behind the wall. I thought it wasn’t being cared for,’ said Kezzie, ‘so I went in for a spot of guerrilla gardening. I used to do it in London all the time, though admittedly there’s less cause for it here. I hadn’t realized that the garden belonged to the big house up the road. Joel should restore it. It’s criminal that he doesn’t.’

‘That’s what I keep telling him,’ said Lauren. ‘There’s a lovely history attached to the garden. The guy who designed it created it for his wife on their wedding day.’

‘I know,’ said Kezzie, ‘I looked it up on Wikipedia this morning. So I’m curious, why doesn’t Joel do something about it?’

‘He’s had a really difficult time,’ said Lauren. ‘His wife died very suddenly last year. She had an undiagnosed heart condition that no one knew about. Joel was restoring the house and garden for her. I think he’s lost a bit of hope with it now.’

‘Oh, bugger,’ said Kezzie, ‘typical of me, I’ve gone and put my great clomping size 10s in it again. I told him he should restore it. God, I wish I’d known.’

‘Well you didn’t,’ said Lauren, ‘and I have been saying the same thing for months. Maybe it’s time he started to do something about it.’

‘I did offer to help him,’ said Kezzie. ‘I’m setting up a gardening business and maybe eventually planning to show a garden at Chelsea. If Joel would let me I’d love to recreate Edward Handford’s knot garden.’

‘That is a fantastic idea,’ said Lauren. ‘I think we should both work on him, don’t you?’

Later that day Joel was at home, thinking about what Lauren had said earlier about his guerrilla gardener. He wrapped Sam up snugly and opened the back door, stepping out onto the patio. The last throes of a crimson sunset set the trees alight, and a shiver ran down Joel’s spine as he stood looking out onto his garden properly for the first time since Claire’s death. It was neglected and overrun. It wasn’t just the sunken garden at the bottom that needed attention, the grass on the main lawn was too high, the flowerbeds that lined it were choked with brambles and ivy, and the bushes needed pruning badly. Even up here on the crumbling patio, where the remains of a little wall and some cracked steps bore the evidence of something previously much grander, the rose bushes that had once formed an arbour were wild and rambling, and could do with cutting back. Joel sighed. It was such a huge job. One more thing for him to think about, and one of many reasons not to tackle it. Everything had halted since Claire died. The house and gardens were frozen in a time warp of his grief. And yet, and yet …

Despite the neglect, and the thought of hard work, for the first time since Claire had died, Joel was suddenly reminded of the vision he’d had when he came here, and saw the legacy he’d been left. This had once been a beautiful home and gardens, but because Uncle Jack had lived alone for many years, both house and garden had suffered. Joel had wanted to restore both to their former glory when Claire was alive, and had lost heart. But as he held Sam, and watched him laughing at the bats that were swooping and diving over his head, Joel felt something stir inside him. He’d lost Claire but he still had Sam. Maybe it was time to start again.

Since Claire had died, Joel had barely spent any time in the garden, and only had half-hearted attempts at the DIY he’d started inside. The ancient scullery, which he’d stripped out, extended and thoroughly modernized, with the intention of making it the heart of a happy home, had been finished for over a year. But far from being a heart, it felt like an empty shell, with its expanse of gleaming surfaces, and cupboards filled with pots and pans that Joel hardly ever used. The lounge, which had French windows that opened onto the garden terrace, had still to be redecorated, and he hadn’t had the heart to start on the dining room. When he and Claire had moved in, one of his first actions was to strip out the dark wooden panelling in the hall, which Claire had found gloomy. He hadn’t got round to replacing them with lighter wood, nor had he carpeted the floor as he intended, so every day the bare floorboards of the hallway were just another reminder of how the house was in limbo. It was no wonder. Kezzie had thought the place was empty, he realized, looking at the house through her eyes. The windows and front door needed painting, and the back guttering was looking fairly crazy. He’d have to sort that out soon with winter approaching.

Joel loved the view from the top of the garden, which sloped gradually away from the house for nearly two hundred feet. The sunken garden was in the left-hand corner of the plot and the main part of the garden ended at the bottom of a lane, which led straight on to a farm. When Sam was a bit bigger, he was going to enjoy seeing the horses in the farmer’s field, which ate the apples from the apple tree next to the right side fence at the bottom of the garden.

The autumn sun cast a fiery light on the trees, as he stood with Sam watching the rooks cawing in the branches above them, and the sheep on the far side of the hill gently baaing. It was this view and the sunken garden, which had first captured his heart and convinced him that this was the home for them.

‘Let’s go and look at the secret garden, shall we, Sam?’ he said, and carried his son down the slope towards the garden. He unlocked the gate and surveyed the ruin of what must once have been a magnificent display of plants. Joel remembered showing Claire this garden before they moved in and how she had been as inspired as him to restore it to its former glory. She’d been in the early stages of pregnancy then, and both of them had been looking forward to a wonderful future together. The reality of parenthood was still a long way off, and they had joked about working on the garden together in the summer, while the baby slept in its crib.

Of course, when the summer came and Sam was born, Claire was too exhausted to do much more than sit at the top end of the garden on the cracked patio, which was large enough to accommodate a table and chairs, bemoaning the loss of their tidy little London patch, while Joel had been so determined to get the house just right for her, he hadn’t taken the time to sit out with his family in those precious, precious moments. He regretted that so deeply now.

Joel swallowed hard, and blinked a tear back. He couldn’t go on like this, living in the past and never looking forward to the future. He no longer had a future with Claire, but he did have one with Sam. Maybe he should let Kezzie have her way and help him restore the garden. It would be something to look forward to, something to achieve. And maybe, just maybe, it could help him heal.

Edward and Lily

Summer 1892

Lily – how often Edward would later think of her as she was in those early days of their marriage at Lovelace Cottage, when they had shut the world out – his mother had gone on a trip to London – and they had sent the servants away, and lived for a blissful few days as if they were the only two people left on earth.

Lily, as she lay in their marriage bed, dark hair tumbling all about her, looking at him with those lazy, alluring come-hither eyes. He’d never even known what that meant until now.

Lily, waking up as he flung the shutters wide open to allow a bright summer morning to flood sunlight into their little kingdom.

Lily, protesting about him getting up and leaving the warmth and comfort of their marriage bed. Lily, wanting to always keep him to herself.

Always Lily, laughing, joyous, as they wallowed in the sensuous happiness of being together, alone, with no one but themselves to consider.

In his memory, the sun always shone on those early days of marriage. Every morning they would awaken, and walk down the lane at the end of the garden to fetch milk and eggs from the farmer. Then Lily would make breakfast on the stove, determined to show him that not all domestic skills were beyond her.

Often he sketched her, sitting in the garden, or lying on the grass, staring up at the bright summer sky.

‘Come and join me,’ she’d say. ‘You see the world differently from here.’

And together they would lie and look up at the bright, white clouds scudding across the azure blue sky. Lily seeing all sorts of things in them he could never have imagined. Where he saw soft, rolling shapes, Lily saw castles, animals, witches and princesses. He loved the way she allowed her imagination to transport her somewhere completely different. She had an other-worldly quality that he found entrancing.

At other times they walked down the hill to the brook, and followed it to where it widened to a stream and then a river. There they would picnic underneath an old willow tree, delighting in the freedom of being unchaperoned, and leaning against each other, talking about their plans for the future.

‘We shall have six children,’ declared Lily, ‘three boys and three girls.’

‘When we come back from India,’ promised Edward, who had arranged for them to go on a three-month expedition to Lahore in order to search for exotic plants. ‘We can bring back plants for each of the children we are going to have. I shall build a greenhouse, so we can nurture them.’

‘And plant them in the knot garden,’ said Lily. ‘It will be wonderful, you’ll see.’

Those days seemed endless and gloriously heady, in Edward’s memory, filled with laughter and fun and love. He wished the time could stretch out endlessly, but alas, honeymoons cannot last forever, and all too soon, real life intruded. Work must be done, Lily must become the lady of the house, though he hadn’t quite realized how very ill-suited she was to the task, prone as she was to wandering off into the gardens to smell the roses when she was meant to be telling Cook what to prepare for dinner. Or helplessly looking to him for advice when it came to the servants’ wages. Though she had been brought up to it, Lily simply didn’t possess the right character for the ladylike genteel world she had to inhabit; her spirit was far too free for that. And with his mother away for several months, there was no one for Lily to ask. He knew she chafed at the constrictions of afternoon teas with the neighbours and visits to the poor of the parish. His wild and wandering Lily, tamed and hemmed in by domesticity. He should have known it would lead to trouble.

Chapter Five

Late. Late again. Joel hated clockwatching, particularly when he had to discuss painful decisions about funding cuts that a few months of coalition government was forcing the small charity he worked for to make. Redundancies he had reluctantly had to tell Dan Walters, the director, were going to be necessary. At the very least they’d have to have a job freeze, and this at a time when services were going to be more squeezed than ever.

When he and Claire had first mooted a move to the country, Joel had been tempted to jack in his job and retrain in carpentry – something that had been a slightly obsessive hobby in his pre-married life, but which had gone by the board in the years since he’d met Claire. But with a big mortgage, and a baby coming, both he and Claire had decided this wasn’t the time. So the compromise had been that he joined the charity Look Up!, which catered for the needs of the blind, as a finance director. Up until now he’d enjoyed it, feeling at least he was working on something that made a difference to people’s lives. But hearing the staff regaling stories of the difficulties encountered by various service users, who were finding it harder and harder to get the help they needed, had made him feel pretty depressed about the future.

The meeting broke up, to Joel’s relief, but he felt gloomy as he left the room. In the main, people were supportive of his domestic situation. Most of them had families too, but everyone else worked hard and late in the office; Joel didn’t like them to think he was being a slacker, but he knew he was already late for Lauren.

Finally – too late – he understood Claire’s point of view. She’d frequently complained about the stress of leaving work early to get home for Lauren on the couple of days a week she’d worked (thank God they’d employed Lauren while Claire was still alive. It had ensured at least some stability for Sam). Joel hadn’t understood. Like so much else. Too late. He’d always been too late.

He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

‘Can we review the situation in a month, Joel?’ Dan said, calling Joel back in. ‘Any chance you can get those figures I need by tomorrow?’

Joel surreptitiously looked at his text message. Lauren. Of course. Where r u? The message glowed at him, bristling with resentment. It was amazing how guilty Lauren could make him feel. But then he often felt racked with guilt these days.

‘Sure thing,’ said Joel, looking forward to another late night date with his laptop.

‘Brilliant,’ said Dan. ‘On my desk, first thing?’

Joel had never been late yet delivering figures, but Dan always made him feel as if somehow he were likely to be.

‘First thing,’ he promised, and tried not to leg it out of the meeting room and to his office.

He rang Lauren as soon as he was back at his desk, rooting around for the information he needed to take home with him that night.

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll be with you as quick as I can.’

Thank God he’d got a job not too far outside Chiverton. Switching jobs when they moved to Heartsease had felt risky at the time, but turned out to be a godsend. There was no way he could manage a job that involved a big commute now.

Ten minutes later he came flying up Lauren’s path, his heart pounding, sweating like a pig, and feeling like he might be about to have a coronary any minute. Lauren already had the door open, Sam in her arms, bag ready, disapproval rippling from her every pore. He couldn’t blame her. If life was tough for him, he knew it was equally hard for her. Lauren had told him snippets, and Claire had told him more, about Troy, the feckless father who’d left her in the labour ward, and on several occasions she’d confided in him how tough she found it being a single parent.

‘I’m so sorry, Lauren,’ said Joel. ‘I was stuck in the meeting from hell.’

‘It’s not me you’ll have to answer to, it’s my mum,’ said Lauren, her voice tight with evident frustration. ‘I’ve just had to put up with twenty minutes of nagging about why I let you get away with it. Mum did offer to stay with Sam, but I don’t like to leave him with anyone else.’

‘I’m really sorry,’ said Joel, again, feeling terrible. It was unusual for Lauren to actually say what she thought. ‘I promise I’ll do better next time.’

‘You always say that,’ said Lauren, but her tone was softening.

He took Sam from her. ‘Thanks, Lauren,’ he said. ‘Look. I don’t say it very often, and I should.’

‘Should say what?’ He could still feel some hostility.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Since – since Claire died, I don’t know what we’d have done without you, Sam and I. You’re always there for us, and I take you for granted.’

There was a silence and Joel felt more awkward than ever.

‘And I am sorry,’ he added.

‘Oh stop,’ he detected a wobble in Lauren’s voice. ‘You know I’d do anything for the pair of you. It’s the least I can do for – for Claire.’

She turned away from him for a moment, and he thought maybe she’d wiped a tear away from her eye, but she looked back and added casually, ‘Oh, by the way I had coffee with your guerrilla gardener. Her name’s Kezzie and she thinks you should get back on with restoring your garden.’

‘I gathered,’ said Joel.

‘I think it’s a great idea,’ said Lauren. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I told her I thought you should.’