Page 77 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
As I pruned, snipped and raked, I found myself singing an old song that Aunt Em often warbled as she worked in the World Garden at the Château du Monde, her own particular pet project. I think it was called ‘An English Country Garden’ and was all about the various kinds of flowers you’d once have found there. I couldn’t remember all the words – I’d google it later …
‘Hollyhocks and something else, something else and—’
I was still singing when Ned returned, though by then I had stopped work and was regarding my handiwork complacently: the rose beds in front of the walls were entirely pruned, the soil raked over, a tilted edging tile straightened and a hole dug, ready for a replacement rose. All it needed now (other than the mulch) were the original name tags putting back, and I expected the Name Tag Fairy would be along as soon as he’d finished them.
‘Ah, my little songbird is still here,’ said Ned, breaking into my reverie.
‘Are you back already?’ I demanded, surprised.
‘It’s gone four,’ he pointed out. ‘This all looks great. Are you still keeping that list of roses we need to source where they’ve given up the ghost?’
‘Of course I am. I’ve got about half a dozen. There might be more later, but I want to give some of the ropy-looking ones a chance to bounce back. Roses are amazingly resilient sometimes.’
Then suddenly, what he’d said about the time struck me and I said, ‘I must go and check the River Walk!’
‘Leave the bags full of prunings and I’ll take those down to the compost heap in the morning,’ he said, and we walked back together to the Potting Shed to clean and put away the tools I’d been using.
Gertie and James were just leaving for home, though Charlie had dashed off earlier. But then, as Gertie said, he was only of use in a garden if there was someone there to tell him what to do.
‘He doesn’t know a dandelion from a dahlia, but he’s cheerful and willing.’
‘He seemed to like the Poison Corner,’ I said. ‘He calls it the Triangle of Death.’
‘He’s still such a boy,’ she said indulgently.
I thought Ned might vanish into his office, but instead he ignored the eternally ringing phone and said he’d walk up the river with me.
‘I need the exercise.’
‘Gardeners get exercise all day,’ I pointed out.
‘You know what I mean – a good walk is different.’
I did know and after collecting the stick and bag, we set off together. It was much later than usual and the last of the visitors had long since vanished. Dark shadows lay across the path like splashes of ink and, for once, I felt glad of the company.
23
Celestial
‘You didn’t mind my coming with you, did you?’ Ned asked after a few minutes of silent walking.
‘No, not at all, though I have been up to the falls at dawn when Ididwant to be alone. Anyway, I’d have told you straight out if I didn’t want you to come.’
‘So you would,’ he agreed. ‘Were you communing with the angels, or fairies, or whatever hangs out up here?’
His voice didn’t sound teasing, but quite serious and then he added reminiscently, ‘Dawn’s a good time of day to do that – I often did when I was staying here with my uncle and aunt in the school holidays. Theo made me promise not to go near the edge, where the rock is slippery, but Aunt Wen just said that if something with wings tried to lure me through a door into the rock face, I should decline politely. I was pretty sure she was joking.’
‘Didyou ever see or hear anything … unusual, or hard to explain?’
He looked at me sideways, through those amber-brown lion’s eyes. ‘I sometimesthoughtI heard voices and faraway laughter. And once I was certain I’d caught sight of something … winged.’ He shrugged. ‘When I looked properly, there was nothing there.’
‘Yes, that’s how I’ve felt too, and the impression of a presence and wings is very strong. It’s nothing to do with birds, because they all seem to go still and silent when it happens. But you can’t pin anything down;it could easily be imagination and the effect of light through the leaves and spray, couldn’t it?’
‘Quite possibly, but some places do have an aura about them, almost as if they were portals to another world, and this is one of them.’
‘But if therearewinged creatures,’ I said, ‘are they angels or fairies? I think Elf and Myfy are more of the angel persuasion.’
‘Actually, they think fairies and angels are one and the same thing,’ he said. ‘Not the cutesy Cottingley type of fairy, but taller, feathery winged and looking like the angels flying about in the top of the stained-glass window in St Gabriel’s church.’
