Page 29 of Happily Ever After
‘Why?’
‘What an odd question.’ Jay rubbed a hand through his hair. ‘Because they are here and you are here and it’s my job and I thought you might like to know what’s growing? Besides, I’m fed up with weeding and you look as though you might like some company.’
I was a little bit dumbfounded. For a son of Lady Tanith, Jay was incredibly straightforward and ordinary and, dare I say it, thoughtful. Then it struck me that renouncing your heritage, having a mother who had trouble processing this fact and a brother who could hardly bring himself to mention you, might make him rather lonely too. I looked at him. His hair was, as usual, awry and there was something rather endearing about the bare knees and socks, like a grown upJust William, only lacking the gang and awful dog.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘That would be nice.’
‘Good.’ His face was animated now by a broad grin. ‘Come on. I’ll show you the roses first, very romantic are the roses.’
I had to sit down hard on the urge to tell him that I knew he was gay and so he could stop the slightly arch allusion that he was wooing me. It might have been my imagination, but that tattoo on his wrist seemed very much more in evidence today, the little bouquet tied by the rainbow flicking into view as he pointed to various shrubs and reeled off Latin names.
‘I’m impressed,’ I said, when he’d shown me hissorbus aucupariaand a particularly lovely bed ofdianthus caryophylluson our way to the roses. ‘How do you know all their names?’
Jay gave me a knowing smile. ‘Years of study, hours spent memorising, working with them on a daily basis – and the names are written on little labels, look.’ He pointed. Thrust deep among the leaves were indeed small white labels with the Latin names written on.
‘Oh. I thought you were being clever.’
Jay’s smile broadened. ‘Andi, you are too easily impressed. Actually, I wrote the labels, so I have to know the names anyway, but gardening is ninety per cent basic grunt work and ten per cent being stylish. So I like to wheel out the knowledge when I can.’
‘Ten per cent stylish,’ I said, trying not to stare obviously at his outfit and messy hair.
‘I scrub up well. Do you like plants? Have you ever done any gardening?’ The smile had faded now and he was rubbing his wrist as though unaware that he seemed to be trying to erase his tattoo.
I shook my head. ‘Never had a garden. Buses aren’t known for their acres of…’ I hunted around for something to use as an example; ‘grass,’ was what I settled on.
‘I suppose not. You’ve never lived in a house at all?’ He really did seem to want to know and it was refreshing change from Hugo’s lack of curiosity about my upbringing.
‘No. I was born on the bus – no, actually I was born in a hospital, my parents being prepared to compromise their society-smashing beliefs for childbirth. But I always lived on the bus, so no gardens unless you count hours spent playing in parks.’ I looked out across the shining grass, where sunlight glimmered off the distant pond and chased through flickering leaves in fairy-wing shadows. ‘It’s lovely though,’ I said, half to myself. ‘I didn’t know what I was missing.’
‘Also a phenomenal amount of getting soaked to the skin, muddy to the elbows and stung, prickled, snagged and ripped by rampant vegetation,’ Jay said. ‘It’s not all skipping through daffodils in the sunshine, whatever Wordsworth might lead you to believe.’
‘Wordsworth, that well known market gardener?’
‘He was the only author I had to hand.’ Jay beamed at me again. ‘I bet your sister has got a garden.’
So, he’d remembered my outburst about Jude. I felt that hot sweatiness pull close around me again. ‘Well, yes,’ I admitted. ‘But she learned gardening at school, they all had little plots they were allowed to grow things on. It was averyposh school.’ Then I remembered that he had probably gone to Eton or somewhere and wanted to bite my tongue off.
‘Don’t be bitter, Andi,’ Jay said quietly, which I thought was a bit rich coming from someone who’d dumped an estate and a mother onto his brother. ‘She’s still your sister, and it’s not her fault that you didn’t get the life you wanted.’
I snorted, unbecomingly, at that.
‘Anyway. I had better go and make myself look busy. Will you be all right?’ His question surprised me, as did his tone. It was oddly gentle and concerned and it crossed my mind to wonder whether he thought Lady Tanith was planning my downfall, in league with Mrs Compton.
‘Yes,’ I said stiffly. ‘Of course. Thank you very much for showing me the garden.’ I didn’t immediately move off, and neither did he. We stood for a few seconds as though reluctant to part.
‘Oh, and I still need my jumper back,’ he said eventually. ‘So, you know, next time you’re passing, because it’s bloody freezing at 5a.m. now.’
His levity was cheering. He wasn’t holding anything over me. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve only got one jumper.’ I looked him up and down. ‘Actually no, I can believe that.’
‘Oy! I’ll have you know that I have a varied wardrobe; it just so happens that one is my favourite jumper and it keeps out the cold really well. So unless you want me to fade away to nothing but a small cough and a bloodstained hanky like one of your louche hero-types, get it back to me, please.’
I grinned as I turned to walk back to Templewood Hall. Jay might be Hugo’s brother and as all kinds of messed up as the rest of the family, but he was kind and he made me smile.
He must take after his father’s side of the family, because he surely didn’t get that sense of the ridiculous and humour from his mother.
14
BAG END – THE HOBBIT, J R R TOLKIEN
