Page 39 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘Wow! I really didn’t think you’d have got more than a few feet in bynow, though I suppose you have actually been at it for quite a while,’ he said. ‘Did you have some lunch?’
‘No! Is it that late already?’
‘It’s well past one.’ He walked cautiously towards me, ducking where tall brambles reached out overhead. ‘This path is really slippery.’
‘I know, it needs the moss scraping off and then, once the light can get to it, it should all dry off.’
‘The public won’t be coming down here until it’s safe, anyway. I’ll rope it off, so they can only walk around the fish pond, and goggle at you while you’re working.’
‘I think watching me lop briars might soon pall,’ I said.
‘I’d better order another information board for in here, though there isn’t a lot to say about it yet.’
‘You were right about the old metal plant tags – I’ve spotted a few at the front of the beds already.’
I took my long gauntlets off and pushed my hair behind my ears.
‘I’d really like to completely clear each bed and properly prune the roses as I get to them,’ I confessed. ‘I think we’ll find some interesting old varieties in here. But I’ll resist until I’ve cut a way round the paths.’
‘If we have the tags, we should be able to replace any roses that have died off, though they might have changed names over the years.’
‘That tag over there is for an Eglantine Briar … which I think is a Regency name. But the tags are Victorian, aren’t they?’ I said. ‘The name had probably changed by then, so that’s odd.’
‘Perhaps they found the original planting list,’ he said. ‘I haven’t come across it, but the family papers are well and truly jumbled up, so it might be in there somewhere.’
‘It would be handy,’ I agreed. ‘But it’ll be a while before we can put in replacement roses anyway, because even once I’ve cleared the beds, we’ll need to feed them up with a good rich mulch.’
It sounded like I was going to cook them a big dinner, rather than provide a lovely thick layer of well-rotted manure, if I could find some.
Ned dragged the bag of clippings I’d just filled back to join theothers near the gate to the Grace Garden, while I started filling a new one, but after a few minutes he took the larger pair of secateurs from the barrow and began clipping away the higher branches that tangled over my head and made the paths such a tunnel.
‘Yer office phone’s been ringing off the hook this last half-hour, lad,’ said a dour voice behind us. ‘Gert and me could hear it from the shed while we were having a bite and a brew.’
‘Oh – thanks, James,’ Ned said guiltily. He patted his pocket. ‘I think I must have left my mobile there, too … and I only came to make sure Marnie’d had some lunch. Marnie, this is James Hyde,’ he added.
‘Hi,’ I said, to the somewhat wizened and bent elderly man, who was actually smaller than me and wearing a red knitted bobble hat and an indescribably filthy overcoat, which seemed to be minus its buttons, for it had been tied round his waist with a bit of frayed rope.
His rheumy pale grey eyes examined me, then looked at the path I’d cleared and seemed to arrive at some measure of approval.
‘Pleased, I’m sure,’ he said. ‘And Gertie says if you’ve not had a bite yet, there’s a cuppa and a spare cheese and pickle sandwich going.’
‘I meant to pop back to the flat for something – I’ll have to get more organized,’ I said. ‘But I got carried away.’
‘Looks like it,’ he said. ‘Ned, hadn’t you better go and see who’s been ringing you? It might be a job.’
‘I suppose I had better get back to the office,’ he said reluctantly.
‘And I’d be very glad of that sandwich,’ I said to James, so we returned to the Potting Shed, to be greeted by Gertie, who was boiling up a kettle over the paraffin stove.
Despite their being twins, Gertie didn’t resemble her brother in the least, being tall, raw-boned and sturdy. Her iron-grey hair was cropped and her unadorned complexion sallow, seamed and rayed into sun-lines around her eyes.
Ned left us to it and we all bonded over stewed tea, the spare doorstep sandwich and slabs of lardy cake, which was apparently Gert’s speciality and fuel of choice. It was just as well I was burning off so many calories.
The boundaries were set and I made it clear I had no intention ofencroaching on James’s preserve of the bedding out front, or Gertie’s vegetable garden domain, beyond the wall at the bottom of the Grace Garden.
‘And I can manage the herb beds round that sundial on my own, too – been doing it all my life,’ she said. ‘But then, you’ll have more than enough work, helping Ned with the rest of it.’
‘He seems to want me to sort out the rose garden first, while it’s still early in the year, and I love roses, so I don’t mind. But if you need me to help with anything else, just shout.’
