The Summer Season

It had been a real labour of love working on that desk, but then Claire died, and like so many other things, Joel hadn’t touched it for months. But since Kezzie’s arrival, Joel had felt something shift slightly. For the first time, he could see the point in moving on, making things better, if not for him at least for Sam.

He ran his hand over the rolltop desk lid. It really was a stunning piece of furniture, made of walnut, with several drawers on either side. When he lifted the roll top up, there were several little compartments. Joel recalled Uncle Jack sitting at it, on one of the few occasions Joel had visited as a child, and Uncle Jack had seemed very old, though he probably hadn’t been much more than sixty.

‘There’s a secret compartment in this desk, young man,’ Jack had said, tapping the side of his nose.

‘Show me! Show me!’ Joel had begged, but then they were interrupted, by his mum probably, as it was time to go home. When they’d first got to Lovelace Cottage, Joel had tried and failed to find the secret compartment, and concluded that Jack had been teasing him. For some reason tonight he had a sudden compulsion to see if it was there. He put Sam’s toys down, rolled the top back, and fiddled around in all the compartments, to no avail. Maybe there was something underneath?

He felt underneath the desk, but there was nothing. Then he opened all the drawers one by one. Still nothing. Oh well. He was about to turn and leave again, when a tiny, frayed edge of paper caught in the corner of the smallest compartment to the far right of the desk caught his eye. He tugged at it, and as he did so, realized that there was a slight indentation in the side of the desk, just small enough for him to get his fingers in. With growing excitement, he slid his fingers in, and found a knob, which he pressed. He was rewarded with a sudden click, and a small shelf swung out to greet him. On it was an old and dusty leather-bound book, the pages yellow with age.

He picked it up, and running his fingers slowly along the spine, he blew the dust off it. He opened it carefully and read: Edward Handford. His personal diary. A black and white sketch floated out to the floor. Joel picked it up and instantly recognized the girl in it, from her photographs. She was very young, very beautiful and laughing. Lily, June 1892 was written by hand underneath it. How lovely. Edward must have drawn her. Joel felt a pang. He had no pictures like that of Claire, but plenty of photographs, sad, stolen records of a far happier time.

He carried on leafing through the book. This was incredible. Edward Handford’s actual diary. A real connection with the past. For the first time in a long time, Joel felt excitement coursing through his veins. He sat down and read the first page, it was dated May 1893:

This is my last night in England, for tomorrow I leave Lovelace Cottage on a great adventure, he read. I am only sorry that Lily will not accompany me on my journey to India, but Doctor Blake thinks it would be foolish for her to travel in her condition. I will of course miss her, and am apprehensive of the journey ahead, but I cannot help but be excited by thoughts of the plants I may yet discover …

Wow. Edward travelled to India. How wonderful. Joel flicked through the diary to see if there was anything about the garden. He’d have to show this to Kezzie. Perhaps it could help her restore Edward’s layouts. Joel put the book down and laughed out loud. Despite his initial reluctance, he was hooked. Finding out about Edward Handford and restoring the knot garden was too intriguing a proposition to ignore.

Chapter Seven

It was Kezzie’s first morning working at Joel’s. She’d set off early and it was only just light. She shivered in the chilly autumn morning; winter would soon be on its way. Still, the icy rain of the last few days appeared to have eased off, and she walked up the hill, crunching through the autumn leaves, watching the sky turn from blue to metallic grey, feeling relatively cheerful. A feeble sun was trying to peep through the clouds when she finally reached Joel’s house. She pushed open the creaky front gate, and went to knock on the dilapidated front door.

‘Hi.’ Joel held Sam in his arms as he let Kezzie in. ‘You’re early. I’m impressed.’

‘I like the early mornings,’ said Kezzie, ‘you can get so much more done, particularly at this time of year when you lose the light so soon.’

‘Shows how wrong you can be about people,’ said Joel. ‘I wouldn’t have had you down as an early bird.’

‘Cheeky bugger,’ said Kezzie. ‘I may not look the part, but you will get your money’s worth out of me.’

‘Sorry,’ said Joel, looking embarrassed. ‘Can you bear with me a minute as I sort Sam out?’

Kezzie was still in the process of drawing up plans, but she’d agreed with Joel she would make a start on tackling the weeds in the garden and find out what lay underneath. Given that winter was on its way, it seemed a good opportunity to try and tidy things up.

‘Feel free to come in and have a cup of tea whenever you want,’ Joel added, as he expertly changed his son’s nappy. Gross, thought Kezzie. She’d been very grateful to discover that Richard’s daughter was already fourteen. She couldn’t have coped with a baby.

‘Right, that’s you done,’ Joel tickled Sam’s tummy and he giggled infectiously. OK, the nappies were gross, but Kezzie had to admit Sam was cute.

‘You’re very good with him,’ Kezzie said, as she followed Joel, still carrying Sam, cosy and warm in his winter coat, into the garden.

In the short time Kezzie had been in Heartsease, the leaves had fallen from the trees and she was now crunching them on the ground. She loved being outside this time of year, but preferred to garden in spring with the hope of summer and all the glories that were to come.

Joel pulled a face and Sam immediately giggled.

‘Do you think so? I feel fairly useless on the parenting front most of the time. Lauren is much better with him than I am. I used to leave it up to Claire, because she was so good at it. She was a natural mother right from the start, whereas I was all fingers and thumbs. Now she’s not here, I muddle through, but I wouldn’t say I was much cop at it.’

‘He doesn’t seem to be doing too badly,’ said Kezzie, as Sam gurgled contentedly in his dad’s arms. ‘And you’re probably doing better at it than I would. I’ve not got a maternal bone in my body. I wouldn’t know where to start with a toddler.’

Joel smiled. ‘It’s nice of you to say so, but I’m sure that can’t be true. Haven’t any of your friends had babies?’

‘A couple have,’ said Kezzie, shuddering. ‘But they’ve put me off for life.’

‘Surely you don’t mean that?’ he said teasingly. ‘I thought most women wanted children, underneath it all.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ said Kezzie, firmly. ‘This planet’s overpopulated enough without me adding to the numbers. Besides, I’m far too selfish to become a mum. I like my freedom too much.’

Joel took Kezzie down the garden towards the shed.

‘I think you’ll find everything you need here,’ he said. ‘Uncle Jack did have a sort of layabout handyman, who occasionally cut the hedges back, but clearly he didn’t know what he was doing, which is why the garden’s such a mess. I did have a go at keeping the weeds under control, the first summer we were here, but then Claire died, and …’ his voice trailed off. ‘Well, let’s say I’ve barely touched it since.’

‘Well, I’m here now,’ said Kezzie. ‘And I can’t wait to get going.’

‘I’d better shoot off,’ Joel said, anxiously looking at the time, ‘or I’ll be late dropping Sam off at Lauren’s. Can I leave you to it? There’s a spare key hanging up in the kitchen, if you need to go out. I’ll get you a set cut so you don’t have to come up so early next time.’

‘It’s no problem, really,’ said Kezzie, which was true, it wasn’t. She liked the feel of an early autumn morning, like this one, when the sun was beginning to peep through the mist, the crows were cawing mournfully in the trees and the air was crisp and clear.

As Joel left, she gathered together a fork, trowel, rake, spade, some garden shears, and bin bags and put them all in a wheelbarrow. She let out a deep sigh of satisfaction. She was going to enjoy this.

Lauren walked through her front door after the school run with the twins jabbering excitedly in her ear about their harvest festival, which was to take place the following week. Sam had fallen asleep in the buggy, so she left him in the tiny hallway that led into the kitchen. The girls were demanding to make cookies after lunch, which was often an afternoon treat for all of them. Lauren was on the point of agreeing, when she noticed her answer phone was flashing.

‘Just give me a minute, girls,’ she said, helping them off with their coats, which she hung up in the small understairs cupboard. ‘Why don’t you run upstairs and wash your hands while I get lunch ready?’

The girls thundered up the stairs, and Lauren clicked on the answer message while she took a bag of flour and a packet of chocolate chips out of the larder.

‘Hey, babe.’ Oh God, Lauren sat down quickly on one of her pine kitchen chairs, feeling her knees turning to jelly. Troy. Again. Lauren had still not decided what to do about him. She hadn’t rung him back, nor had she discussed the situation with anyone else. Mum was out of the question, she’d have flipped her lid if she knew Troy was trying to get in touch again. Lauren didn’t feel she knew Kezzie well enough to confide in her. That left Eileen, who was a reliable source of comfort, or Joel. When Claire was still alive, Lauren wouldn’t have dreamt of confiding in Joel. He was her friend’s husband, with whom she got on well, but it was Claire who knew all her secrets.

Lauren had met Claire out walking with Sam when he was a baby and the twins were two years old. The girls had been particularly lively that day, and Lauren had had another call from the CSA to say they hadn’t heard from Troy, and she’d been up to her neck in debt. Somehow, over a coffee in Keef’s Café, the whole story had come out. The two women had hit it off immediately. Claire was looking for someone to care for Sam when she went back to work, and somehow Lauren had come away agreeing to register as a childminder so she could look after him. Thereafter when she’d had a wobble about Troy or anything really, it was always Claire she’d turned to. Claire had been such a good friend to her, and Lauren felt a familiar gut-wrenching sense of loss, at the thought that she no longer had her friend for support. Claire had always been full of sound practical advice, and Lauren missed her wisdom. When she died, Lauren had on occasion found herself confiding in Joel, but it wasn’t the same, and she wasn’t sure if she should ask his advice on this.

She listened again to Troy’s message. ‘Have you thought any more about it, babe? I need to know soon. Call me.’ She clicked the answer phone off. She couldn’t face this right now.

Joel was so dog tired by the time he got home he’d completely forgotten Kezzie was there. For a moment, when he came in the kitchen and saw a half-drunk cup of tea on the drainer, and the kitchen door wide open, he’d had the sudden dizzying sensation that Claire was back, somehow returned to him. He’d had lots of those moments in the early months, but it had happened less often of late. He nearly called her name, but stopped himself in time, when a very dishevelled and rather muddy Kezzie appeared, divesting herself of her wellies as she went.

‘Mind if I leave these here?’ she said, putting them by the back door. ‘It seems a bit silly taking them back and forth each day.’

‘Yeah, no problem,’ said Joel, as he put Sam down and let him potter around the kitchen.

‘You look knackered, if you don’t mind me saying,’ said Kezzie. ‘Fancy a cuppa?’

‘That would be great,’ Joel yawned. ‘It’s been a long day. But first I need to get munchkin here into his bath.’

‘No rest for the wicked,’ said Kezzie.

‘None indeed,’ said Joel, with feeling. ‘Come on, Sammy boy, bathtime.’

‘Ba, Ba!’ Sam clapped his hands and giggled.

When Joel had first bathed Sam alone, he’d hated it. He worried about the slipperiness of a wriggly baby in water; he was scared the water was too cold or too scalding. Some of Joel’s tension had seemed to affect Sam and bath times had been neurotic, miserable affairs.

But one time, knowing he was going to be late from work, Lauren had offered to bath Sam for him. When Joel had come to pick him up, he had discovered Sam happily sitting in the bath blowing bubbles and pouring water over his head.

Joel had immediately invested in a couple of plastic cups and bubble bath, and bath times had been a cinch ever since. It was the one point in the day he felt he could really relax with his son.

He was sitting on the floor, singing stupid songs while Sam put bubbles on his nose, when Kezzie came up with a cup of tea.

‘That looks fun,’ she said.

‘Fun, fun,’ burbled Sam.

‘It is, actually,’ said Joel, ‘an unexpected but absurdly simple pleasure of fatherhood.’

‘Are you hungry?’ said Kezzie, ‘only you look half starved. Do you ever eat?’

‘I don’t often cook for myself,’ admitted Joel. ‘Lauren feeds Sam most days, and while I don’t mind cooking, there never seems much point for one.’

‘Thought so,’ said Kezzie. ‘You stay there. I’ll forage in your kitchen, and see if we can’t get you a square meal for once.’

Half an hour later, with Sam happily ensconced in his cot, cuddling his favourite toy rabbit, Snuffles, Joel emerged downstairs to the smell of something delicious on the stove.

Tears prickled his eyes. It was a long time since anyone had cooked for him. He came into the kitchen to find Kezzie stirring a bubbling pot.

‘I’ve rustled up some pasta,’ she said, ‘I hope that’s OK.’

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