Page 32 of Wild About You

At Belheddonbrae, Mica and Keith were starting to plant the plug plants I’d ordered. Although there was lots of bare soil now, I could imagine it in the future, with swathes of sorrel, corn chamomile and prunella; melancholy thistle and yellow rattle, with paths mown through according to my plan, allowing the grass to grow long in certain areas. Keith smiled at me. ‘Looking good, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Don’t do all the planting without me,’ I said, and we laughed. ‘I’ll be here all day tomorrow.’ It didn’t look much at the moment, but it was going to be beautiful. I dropped off a box of cookies to Mica in the potting shed. ‘Thanks for the pruning you did on the shrubs, Anna,’ she said. ‘I came down on Tuesday and it was as though a little helper had visited in the night.’

‘No problem. I was up early and I love hacking at things,’ I said. I’d come in from my pruning session pretty much coated with mud and with a broad smile on my face.

Also rescued from the general mess was an ornamental wooden and wrought-iron bench with a curved back and arms. Keith had sanded down the slats and given it a coat of wood stain, and it sat resplendent at the highest point of Belheddonbrae. After I’d chatted with Keith about plans for the following week, Fi and I settled on the bench. Before us lay the hills and fields of the estate, beginning to transformas spring made its way through the countryside, but still breathtaking in their unforgiving silhouette: dense mossy green slopes delineated by grey stone walls and hedgerows, the sky its vivid, cool blue that pierced my heart.

‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ said Fi.

I nodded. ‘Sure is.’

‘Youarehappy here, aren’t you?’ She turned her straightforward gaze on me. Nowhere to hide. Fi nurtured things, and people. She was an exemplary PA and manager, with her eye for detail and comfort, smoothing out the wrinkles in the running of the house. But I didn’t want her to feel that she had to care for me too. She would be the perfect mum when the time came, and she needed to rally her resources for that.

‘You don’t have to look after me,’ I said gently. ‘Yes, it will probably be a while before you see me dancing for joy, but I’m doing fine.’

Fi slipped her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and started swiping. ‘I was going through some old photos the other day,’ she said. ‘I found this.’ She turned her phone towards me.

It was a photograph of Fi and me. We must have been eighteen years old if we were a day, sitting side by side on a night out, arms around each other, smiling. What struck me first was our stupendous, dewy-skinned youth; how great we had both looked, and how little we had known it. Then, something more: the sweet, uncomplicated happiness of our smiles.

‘Was that at your brother’s twenty-first?’ I said. ‘I think I actually remember that night.’

‘Yep.’ Smiling, Fi looked down at the picture. She pointed at my face. ‘I was looking for something to remind you. That’s my girl. So confident, so full of hope and excitement for the future.’

‘Yes.’ I remembered that time. Remembered the future opening up in front of us, ours for the taking.

‘What I’m trying to say is,’ said Fi. ‘ThatAnna. She’s still there. You just have to find her again.’

I felt a shaft of emotion so pure I knew I had to push it back for now. ‘I mean, I hate to break it to you, but my skin is never going to look that good again, no matter how much collagen I take.’

She laughed and elbowed me playfully. ‘Oh!’ she said, and waved. ‘It’s Roshni. Now remember, do not panic, she didn’t go to finishing school, and she’s not a snob.’

‘Send me that photo,’ I said.

‘I will,’ she said.

Roshni had changed into skinny jeans, a checked shirt and a pair of red wellingtons. She was making her way smoothly across the rough ground. She raised her hand at us and smiled as she made her way over.

‘She’s been wonderful for George,’ said Fi, putting her phone away. ‘I’ll never forget the first time he brought her back here. You could see how tense he was. But she just got out of the car, looked around, smiled and said you’re worried aboutthis? I thought you had a proper castle.’

‘Hello!’ Roshni had arrived by us before I could ask more. ‘As you said you were whipping this area properly into shape, I couldn’t resist taking a peek.’

‘There’s not a lot to see at the moment,’ I said, and explained the plan, showing her my drawing on my mobile phone.

‘Amazing. How on earth did you learn how to do this?’

I gave a half-hearted laugh. ‘A circuitous route. My first job was in admin – a project assistant. I worked my way up to project manager, and studied at night to keep my interest alive. First, garden design, then wildlife conservation, so I could move in that direction in my career. Long story short, I ended up working for an ecological and environmental consultancy.’

‘Which means?’ Roshni’s hair was caught in the breeze and she brushed it back. ‘I’m sorry, I only really know about financial markets.’

I smiled. ‘It means all kinds of things, from ecological appraisals and protected species surveys, to devising strategies for people who want to manage their land in harmony with nature. Luckily, the firm I worked for was big on their staff’s personal development, so I got to strike out. I worked on a woodland management project with a contractor, and after that, I got involved with rewilding projects, sometimes in my own time, sometimes on secondment. In short, I can do a Gantt chart but I can also dig up a tree stump and replant a border.’

She nodded. ‘I’m in awe. I love looking at beautiful treesand flowers, but I can barely keep a houseplant alive. I’m more of a numbers kind of woman.’

‘Anna is totally brilliant,’ said Fi, putting her arm around me and squeezing.

I smiled, and tried unsuccessfully not to look awkward.

Roshni looked between the both of us. ‘So you’ve checked the work here, right? You can both join us for tea and cake now? George says he can’t recuperate from the drive without cake.’

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