Page 5 of The Allotment on Willow Tree Lane

‘Will you be OK?’ she asked.

With a lump in his throat, he countered, ‘Willyou?’ She shouldn’t be thinking about him at a time like this, but he appreciated her asking.

Her smile was small, sad and heartbreaking. ‘I’ll have to be, won’t I?’

But that’s the problem, Damon thought as he walked around the back of the lovely old church. He didn’t think he’d ever be OK again.

‘Doesn’t Rowena look beautiful?’

Ceri glanced up from where she was crouching on the floor, rubbing an imaginary speck of dirt off Nia’s pristine white shoes, to see Betsan, the vicar’s wife, standing next to her.

Betsan was gazing at the bride, who had entered the marquee on the arm of her new husband after having what seemed like several albums’ worth of photos taken. The happy couple were beaming fit to burst, and Rowena was elegant and regal in her dress of ivory satin. Her honey-coloured hair was swept up, soft curls falling around her face, and she looked radiant.

‘She does,’ Ceri agreed, ‘and so does this little munchkin.’ She straightened up and tickled Rowena’s daughter on the ribs. The five-year-old (who kept telling everyone that she was nearly six) squirmed in delight and giggled. She looked so cute in her dress, which was similar to her mother’s but shorter and not as voluminous, and her dark, curly hair was in the same style. Only now it was starting to fall down, so Ceri unpinned it, and using her fingers and a borrowed bobble from Betsan, she raked it into a respectable ponytail.

‘Thanks, Bethan,’ Ceri said. ‘What else have you got in your bag?’ It was rather large.

‘I’ve got three kids, remember? I carry the kitchen sink with me wherever I go.’ Betsan was in her mid-forties, and despite the fifteen-year age gap, was Rowena’s best friend.

‘Can I go see my mammy now?’ Nia asked, for the umpteenth time that day.

Ceri had done her best to keep Nia occupied both during the ceremony and afterwards, whilst the seemingly endless photos were being taken, and she was now exhausted even though Nia’s grandparents had stepped in to help on numerous occasions.

As Rowena glanced around the marquee, Ceri managed to catch her eye and point to Nia. When Rowena spotted her daughter, she smiled and opened her arms, and the little girl flew into them.

Once again, Ceri had tears in her eyes as she looked on fondly. Huw, Rowena and Nia made a perfect family.

‘If Rowena needs rescuing, I’ll look after Nia for a bit,’ Betsan offered. ‘She’s bound to get bored during the speeches.’

‘Thank you,’ Ceri replied gratefully. ‘I didn’t realise just how tiring children could be.’

‘You wait until you’ve got some of your own, then you’ll discover what tired really means,’ Betsan joked. She lifted a glass of wine from a tray that one of the circulating waiters was holding aloft, and Ceri did the same.

‘It will be a while yet,’ Ceri said. ‘I need to find a father for them first. Not that I’m looking,’ she added hastily, lest Betsan got the wrong idea.

Ceri had met Betsan several times since Huw had relocated to Foxmore, but she didn’t know her particularly well. She would like to, though. From what Rowena had told her, Betsan was a right laugh, and Ceri was eager to make new friends. Her old ones mostly lived in Cardiff, and with it being a six-hour round trip from Foxmore to the Welsh capital and back, it was a bit too far to pop in for a cup of tea.

Her new life was here, in this village, and Ceri intended to throw herself into it with total abandon – and that meant making friends.

‘How are you settling in?’ Betsan asked.

‘Great, thanks. I’ve even managed to get a job.’

‘I heard,’ Betsan said with a smile.

Ceri wondered how she could have forgotten that everyone knew everyone else’s business in a small place like this.

‘When do you start?’ Betsan wanted to know.

‘After May half-term.’

‘Horticulture, I believe?’

‘That’s right.’

Ceri hugged herself. She still couldn’t believe she had landed a job as a teacher in an agricultural college and, if she was honest, it terrified her. Her last job had been in a garden centre on the outskirts of Cardiff, growing plants in their polytunnels for sale to the general public, which was a far cry from teaching.

Her move to Foxmore hadn’t been dependent on getting a job because she had been willing to turn her hand to anything, so something would have come up eventually, but at least she would be working with plants at the college, and the money was good. Good enough to save a bit each month so that one day she might be able to open her own nursery.

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