Page 88 of The Allotment on Willow Tree Lane

Ceri walked into the smallest of the polytunnels, which she mentally referred to as the plant hospital, and took a final look around. In some ways she would be sorry to leave the college; Mark had been brilliant, really supportive, and most of her students had been lovely. It was just a pity that one or two of them had made her life a misery. She still wasn’t entirely sure who had filmed the soil-eating incident, or which parent had sent in the complaint, but she had her suspicions. It was fairly evident who had taken the photo of her and Damon at the allotment, so she suspected Portia Selway was probably behind it, although she didn’t have any proof.

Feeling a little sad, she stacked a load of seed trays and swept the benches clean. There, it was all set for the next teacher. She was aware she would be leaving the college in the lurch, and they’d have to scramble to find someone to take her classes in September, but after everything that had happened, she couldn’t face coming back in the autumn.

She had no idea what she was going to do with herself, apart from tending to her allotment, but she was sure something would come up. She wasn’t choosy (not as far as jobs were concerned), so she should be able to find another one soon, even if it didn’t involve working with plants.

With a final glance around the polytunnel, Ceri picked up her bag and removed a letter. She would find Mark and tell him that she was going to resign, and then she would pop along to Mrs Nash’s office. It was only right and proper that Ceri gave her the letter in person.

‘Um, Ceri…?’

She turned and was surprised to see several of her students standing at the entrance to the polytunnel. ‘Hi.’ She looked at them curiously, wondering what they wanted.

One of them, Kyle, stepped inside. The rest of them shuffled in after him.

‘We, um, wanted to say sorry, like, for, you know… stuff. We told Portia and Eleanor not to do it. Here.’ He held a package in both hands, and thrust it towards her. It was wrapped in pretty pink paper with white flowers. ‘We got you this. To say sorry. And because we think you’re an ace teacher. We love your lessons – they’re fun. I want to be a gardener when I leave college.’

Ceri was taken aback. She popped her bag and the letter on the table, and took the gift from him, absently noting that it was heavier than she’d expected. Her gaze travelled over the faces, and she saw that tentative smiles were mixed in with wary expressions.

‘Thank you.’ She was more than a little touched.

‘Go on, open it,’ Kyle urged, and the others nodded.

She began to tear the wrapping paper off, wondering what she might find, and as they moved closer and began to crowd around, she started to worry that the students were setting her up for something nasty.

But when she saw what they’d given her, she began to laugh. It was a cake with an allotment made of fondant icing decorating the top.

‘Guess what flavour the cake is?’ Kyle said. ‘Chocolate!’

‘That’s wonderful. Thank you.’ Her eyes were beginning to sting and she hoped she wasn’t going to cry. She’d done more than enough of that over the past day or so.

‘Well, aren’t you going to give us a slice?’ the boy asked cheekily.

‘Would anyone else like some?’ She smiled at them.

A chorus of ‘yes, please’ and ‘I would’, was accompanied by nods and smiles.

‘I think there might be plastic cutlery in that cupboard over there, and some paper plates,’ she said, gazing at the cake and marvelling at the attention to detail. Someone had taken a great deal of time to make this. ‘There’s a bottle of strawberry cordial, too, and some cups, so if anyone would like a drink to wash it down, help yourselves. Shall we go outside and sit on the grass to eat it?’ She picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder and walked towards the door.

‘Ceri, you’ve forgotten something.’

She glanced over her shoulder, and saw what Kyle was holding. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Can you rip it up and put it in the bin for me, please?’

Ceri waited just long enough to watch the lad tear her letter of resignation into quarters and drop it in the recycling bin before heading outside to join the rest of her students.

‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when Mrs Moxley said she knew all about Victor and Hyacinth,’ Damon said.

Ceri was snuggled up to him on the sofa in the parlour. The French doors were open, a warm breeze ruffling the curtains and filling the room with perfume from the flowers in the garden. A bottle of wine was open on the coffee table and she was pleasantly full from the supper they’d just eaten. It was hardly what people would expect a rock star to be doing on a Friday evening, but Damon wasn’t any old common-or-garden rock star. He washerrock star, and he had been the one to suggest they had a quiet evening after the excitement of the past two days.

He was saying, ‘As soon as she said it, I thought it was odd that she and Gran were friends if Gran had been having an affair with her husband, but when she said V was Gran’s half-brother, it all made sense. According to Mrs Moxley, Lloyd Jones, Hyacinth’s dad, had been having an affair with a woman in the village, and Victor was the result.’

‘So, who is your dad’s father, if it isn’t Victor?’Gosh, this is all veryLady Chatterley’s Lover, Ceri thought.

‘No idea. The only thing I’m sure of, is that it’s not Charlie Rogers.’ He chuckled. ‘Go Gran!’

‘Are you going to tell your dad?’

‘As I said, I don’t think there’s any point. He’s only interested in people who have been dead for a couple of thousand years.’

Ceri’s heart went out to Damon. She felt lucky that she had such supportive and interested parents. Which reminded her: she’d better tell them about Damon before someone else did. Her dad would be thrilled. He loved heavy metal.

---