Page 80 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘Yes, but not paid,’ Charlie said. ‘Well, I’ll get off now if you don’t want me for anything else.’
‘And I must go and check the River Walk,’ I said. ‘I’ll come back afterwards, just to see if there’s anything last minute that wants doing, though, Ned,’ I promised, before I went.
But when I returned, he was alone in the courtyard, looking bemusedly at a metal sculpture of a galleon on a white wooden plinth.
‘Where did that come from?’ I asked, then guessed as I came nearer and realized that the effect of a ship in full sail had been cleverly constructed from bits of curved and wavy scrap metal, welded together. ‘Did Jacob make it? It doesn’t move, does it?’
‘No, it’s static and it is a present from Jacob and Myfy. They remembered you mentioning we could do with a donations box at Sunday dinner and Jacob whipped this one up out of bits of odds and ends he had lying about. There’s a coin slot on top of the wooden base.’
There was, too, and a little door in the back for emptying out the loot.
‘It’s lovely. It just needs a sign on it to encourage people to put money in.’
And when I’d popped into the office and carefully lettered ‘Captain Nathaniel Grace’s Collecting Box: help restore the Grace Gardens’ on a bit of card, we stuck that on and then carried the ship into the shop.
‘The finishing touch,’ I said as we placed it in the middle of the floor.
‘Captain Nathaniel seems to be taking over – and he wasn’t even the one who began the garden!’ Ned said.
‘I know, but his descendants did, and everyone loves a pirate, especially children. We should order that range of promotional items for the shop with the galleon logo on, now, too.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Ned admitted, and ran a nervous, exhausted hand through his hair, which made it stick out even more. ‘That damned phone’s ringing again, but I’m not answering any more calls tonight.’
For the first time, he seemed to become aware of my slightly shattered and dishevelled appearance.
‘Look, Marnie, we’re both tired – why don’t we meet in the pub in an hour and I’ll buy you dinner, in return for last night?’
‘Sounds good to me,’ I agreed, and I thought that once he’d got some food and a couple of pints of Gillyflower’s Best Bitter inside him, the old enthusiastic and optimistic Ned would probably re-emerge.
24
Fêted
I think the food and beer, over which we slumped in exhausted but not unamicable silence, followed by an early night, must have done the trick for both of us. Next morning I woke up full of bounce and although naturally a little tense, Ned was much more his usual self again.
While he was pulling the rope barriers across the paths, I washed away a copious amount of peacock poop from right under the arch, where the ribbon was to be tied. It wouldn’t exactly have created the look we wanted to achieve.
James, Gertie and Steve all arrived together later and had the shop ready to open long before the Clara Mayhem Doome party were escorted through the rose garden and up to the office by Myfy and Elf. At least I’d ensured they’d be offered decent coffee there!
Gerald and Jacob followed them, bearing the big, covered jugs of lemonade and paper cups, which they set on the small table to one side of the courtyard, next to Gert’s lardy cake, while James looped the yellow ribbon across the archway.
I was interested by my first glimpse of Clara, who was a very tall, strongly built elderly woman, with a bold Roman nose, bright dark eyes and a lot of curling dark grey and silver hair. She was dressed in a long, quilted scarlet velvet coat that had a sort of Old Russian vibe going for it and her earrings were wooden matryoshka dolls. I’d seen photos of her on the book jackets, of course, but they didn’t do the reality muchjustice – or reflect the impression that she was almost crackling with energy.
Gertie told me that the angular, middle-aged woman with short, pepper-and-salt hair who’d accompanied her was Tottie Gillyflower, last of the brewing family.
‘Friend of Elf’s and runs the Thorstane Bee Group,’ she added.
When Steve opened the visitor gate briefly, to let in the TV cameraman and a businesslike-looking young woman who might as well have had ‘Reporter’ stamped on her forehead, I could see visitors queuing outside.
I moved back behind Gertie, out of sight of any filming. Gertie was humming that ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree’ song, though in this case it wasn’t a person coming back, but a garden.
The sun shone with surprising warmth, the ribbon and all the bunting fluttered gaily, the cameraman placed himself for a good angle and Steve came out of the shop and swung open the entrance gate.
A steady stream of people flowed past the ticket window, until the courtyard was almost full and Lancelot, over-excitedly displaying himself on the Potting Shed roof, had had his photograph taken a thousand times.
Then everyone fell quiet as Clara, escorted by Ned, came out of the office. A path cleared like magic in front of her and she made her way to the allotted spot at one side of the arch.
I was glad to see that Ned had remembered the large pair of scissors, which he now handed to her, before making a short speech welcoming everyone and hoping they would be as interested in the ongoing restoration of this important apothecary garden, as he was.
