Page 13 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
Caspar said something that sounded like, ‘Too right!’ and then laid a large furry paw on my knee for a moment, to remind me he was there and hungry.
‘He’s very big,’ I commented.
‘He’s supposed to be half Maine Coon, and they can be enormous,’ said Myfy. ‘Funny, he didn’t look that big in the cat place.’
Elf took the next slices of toast when they were ready and sat down opposite to me.
‘Myfy wasn’t quite right about Ned having to restore the garden single-handedly, because he has Jekyll and Hyde to help him, though they aren’t really up to the heavier work any more, especially James, with his rheumatism.’
‘Jekyll … and Hyde?’ I repeated, tentatively.
‘Family joke,’ Myfy explained. ‘James Hyde and his sister, Gertrude, are twins, and when she married a man called Steve Jekyll, it was irresistible, though not entirely accurate as they’re both lovely and neither at all a monster.’
‘And Gertrude Jekyll is a very suitable name for a gardener, too,’ Elf put in. ‘There was that famous one.’
‘Right,’ I said resignedly, because it didn’t look as if I’d escaped the tyranny of an entrenched ancient gardener even here – in fact, there were two of them and they’d probably look on me as someone whocould do all the heavy digging. This nephew probably wasn’t so young, either.
‘Until recently, I’ve managed to keep more or less on top of our garden, which isn’t huge, and mostly lavender,’ said Myfy, ‘but there are a few rosemary bushes that have got well out of hand and gone woody, and the Rambling Rector rose at the far end is trying to take over the world.’
‘They can be very aggressive,’ I said. ‘Lovely rose, though.’
‘I don’t expect it will take you long to get the upper hand of it,’ she said optimistically. ‘And then, of course, you can spend most of your time next door. We don’t mind how you arrange your hours.’
‘Ye-es,’ I said, and then added tentatively, ‘What exactlyaremy hours … and days?’
‘Oh, didn’t I say?’ exclaimed Elf. ‘Silly me! We thought perhaps half past eight till five, with tea breaks, of course, and an hour for lunch. Tuesday will be your day off, since it’s the closing day for the café and the River Walk – we sell the tokens for the turnstile to that in the café. When the Grace Garden opens to the public, it will have the same closing day, to fit in.’
‘And, of course, you get Sundays off,’ said Myfy, ‘unless you arrange with Ned to work extra hours in the Grace Garden from Easter.’
‘We all gather together here at about seven on Sundays for dinner, so we do hope you’ll join us,’ urged Elf, hospitably.
‘How lovely,’ I said non-committally, wondering exactlywhothis ‘all’ were who gathered for Sunday dinner. Were there more Lavender Cottage residents I hadn’t met yet, or did they just mean the nephew?
‘Myfy, you can tell Marnie about the River Walk when you show her round the gardens after lunch,’ Elf went on.
‘OK,’ her sister said amiably.
I had finished my rarebit by the time Myfy was just sitting down to hers, but once she’d caught up, we all had ginger and honey ice-cream … except Caspar, who had now somehow managed to drape his front half over my knees and was snoring and drooling onto my best denim dress. He must have been at least four feet from nose to tail, the biggest cat outside a zoo I’d ever met. I decided to let him carry on.
‘Ginger ice-cream is a good choice to follow the robust flavour of Welsh rarebit,’ said Elf. ‘Though it’s not as good as the lavender and rose.’
‘And you make all of it yourself?’
‘Yes, though Charlie’s sister, Daisy, who is sixteen, loves to help me. She seems to have inherited the Verdi gene for ice-cream making! Although I make some in the old machines in the café, as you saw earlier, I also use the room next door to this one, where I have a more modern ice-cream maker and huge freezer,’ said Elf. ‘Myfy will show you when she takes you round.’
‘Yes, we’ll go out through the house and my studio at the back,’ Myfy agreed.
Elf made coffee and told Myfy how I’d been moving around various French châteaux for the last few years.
‘It’s been fun and given me lots of varied experience, but I felt I wanted to settle down over here now, and with the accommodation included, this is perfect for me,’ I explained.
‘Well, we hope you’ll be very happy with us,’ said Elf. ‘I had a feeling you were going to fit in the moment I saw you,’ she added. ‘There was something sort of instantly familiar about you.’
‘Yes, I felt that too,’ agreed Myfy. ‘But you’ve never been here before, have you?’
I shook my head, wondering what about me could have given that impression. They must have known Mum, but I didn’t resemble her very much.
Elf went into the café to relieve Charlie so he could have his lunch and I cautiously extricated myself from under the cat and stood up, somewhat hairier than before.
