Page 26 of The Allotment on Willow Tree Lane

‘The orchard?’ He moved onto the open porch and into the daylight, and Ceri noticed how grubby his T-shirt and jeans were.

He had either been gardening in them or rolling around in the grass; she recognised the green marks on the knees of his jeans. She should do, she’d collected enough grass stains of her own over the years.

‘Do you know who it belongs to?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Me.’

That took the wind out of her sails. For some reason, even though he had answered the door and was acting like he owned the place, she hadn’t really believed he did. The house was too… vintage? A better word than old-fashioned. This house and the garden (what she had seen of it) looked like a throwback to the 1930s and she fully expected a pinafored maid with her hair tied up in a scarf and a feather duster in her hand to appear at any second.

‘Why?’ he asked, as she gathered her wits.

She said, ‘I was in the field yesterday and I spotted it through the gate. It’s a bit overgrown.’

‘So?’

‘It’s just a shame, that’s all.’ Ceri wasn’t getting anywhere fast, and despite the attraction she felt for him, Damon was seriously irritating. He clearly didn’t give two hoots about the orchard, so why should she? It was none of her business and not her problem. It would have been nice if it could have been incorporated into the allotment, but… She shrugged. People could always plant their own apple and pear trees, and some varieties grew fast enough to produce a decent crop in their third or fourth year.

‘It is,’ he agreed as she was about to walk away again. ‘But I’ve got enough on my plate with the garden. The orchard will have to wait.’

She glanced around the drive. He was right – if he didn’t want to risk the postman getting flattened by a falling tree or an unsafe branch, heshouldsee to this first. He would need to employ the services of a tree surgeon to check that the larger trees were safe, though. It would also take a fair bit of digging to remove all the bindweed roots, but the rest was cosmetic. Boiling water on the weeds sprouting up through the gravel would sort them out (kinder to wildlife than weedkiller and less backbreaking than digging them out) and the bushes could easily be trimmed into shape. There would probably be room for a few perennials or bedding plants to liven it up and bring colour to the borders once all that was done.

‘It won’t take long to set it straight,’ she said.

‘I’m talking about the garden to the rear of the house,’ he retorted. ‘And yes, it will.’ His face fell and he looked so defeated her heart went out to him.

When she found herself saying something she knew she would regret, she wished she wasn’t such a soft touch.

‘Would you like me to take a look? Gardeningismy thing, after all.’ An expression she could only describe as suspicion flirted across his face, and she swiftly added, ‘You don’t have to. It was only a suggestion.’

He wasn’t going to take her up on her offer, she realised, and thank goodness for that. She had more than enough to be going on with, and she wanted to go home and begin planning out the allotment.

But he surprised her. ‘I would like that, please. If it’s not too much trouble.’

And suddenly she was very curious indeed to take a look at his garden. She would defy any serious gardener not to be.

Expecting to be led around the side of the house and through a wooden gate that was taller than her and in dire need of a coat of wood preserver, she was delighted when he gestured for her to go inside the house.

Oh, my, she was going to see the interior of this stately old building and she couldn’t wait!

Trying not to let her interest seem too obvious, she stepped over the threshold and into a spacious hall. To her right was a door through which she could see a sofa and a wing-back chair. A guitar, propped on a stand seemed incongruous and at odds with the old-fashioned décor, but before she could get a proper look, she had to scuttle to catch up with Damon who was striding past an ornate staircase and through another door. This, she saw, led to the kitchen and she had no sooner entered it, catching a quick flash of pine cupboards and a wooden table, than he was opening another door which led outside.

Abruptly all thoughts of the house were swept away as she caught sight of the garden, and she sucked in a quick breath to let it out slowly in a low whistle.

She could tell that it had once been loved and tended to with great care, but right now it was more akin to a jungle than a garden. It had once been – and still was – a typical cottage garden, with a mix of small trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals, and flowers bloomed everywhere, jewel colours sparkling amongst the abundance of greenery.

There were pink, red, white, and yellow roses with their fragrant blooms giving the garden a romantic and nostalgic feel. Peonies were another cottage garden staple, and their tall showy blooms in shades of pink, white, and red grew in swathes throughout the overcrowded borders.

She could also see foxgloves, their pink, purple and (slightly less common) white spiky flowers adding height and texture to the planting. Their nectar-rich flowers were covered in bees and other pollinators, which were also buzzing and fluttering around the lavender, poppies, sweet peas and hollyhocks that spilled across the path, their scent filling the air with sweet perfume. All in all, the garden – what she could see of it – was a riotous, glorious mass of colour, and wonderfully whimsical and romantic. It was beautiful, wild and enchanting, and although she could appreciate the charm of it in its natural state, she knew how much more wonderful it would look if it was re-tamed.

After the first impression had sunk in, Ceri did another sweep, this time concentrating on the details. Beneath her feet, a crazy paved path, weed-infested and with moss growing between the cracks, disappeared around a corner and she wondered where it led.

Immediately beside the back door was a flower bed, and she could tell that someone had worked on it recently because it looked considerably neater than anything else in the garden. She also recognised the hyacinths growing in it as being the same variety as the ones that had been planted on Hyacinth Rogers’s grave last night, confirming her suspicions that it was Damon who had put them there.

There were so many things vying for her attention that she didn’t know where to look – a wooden archway with climbing roses tumbling all over it; a glimpse of a bench that would be a gorgeous place to sit if only you could get to it. A wheelbarrow sat a few feet away, filled with leaves, twigs and branches, and when she looked closer she could see the raw wounds of those plants who had lost bits of themselves to a wicked-looking pair of shears propped against the wheelbarrow. These poor plants hadn’t been trimmed with care, but had been hacked and assaulted, and she guessed Damon was the perpetrator. She didn’t blame him, because the easiest way to bring a garden like this back into line was to chop down everything that made getting around it difficult. But there were ways and means of doing it to ensure the plants weren’t decimated and would recover well.

‘I see you’ve made a start,’ she said, shooting him a quick look.

A spot of colour appeared on his cheek. ‘I have, but I don’t think I’ve made a very good job of it. It’s just too much, and I have no idea what I’m doing.’

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