Page 19 of Once Upon a Thyme
‘I could go.’
I stared at him. ‘But… but you don’t know her.’
Zeb gave me another hair-bouncing smile. ‘We’ve met. Over Zoom, when she recruited me. Maybe it’s time I met her in person and told her that I’m only staying for the month on sufferance?’
‘But she wants a sandwich,’ I said weakly.
‘I’m a bloody chef, I think I can knock up a cheese and pickle without too much trauma. Besides…’ He stopped so suddenly that the unsaid words made a little gulp in his throat, as though he was swallowing them rather than letting them out.
‘Besides, what?’ I asked, when it became evident that he wasn’t going to finish under his own steam.
‘Besides, it might be good for her to know that you can’t always drop everything and run when she calls,’ Zeb muttered, leaning forward so he was talking to his outstretched knees. ‘I can talk up how important it is that you’re here, keeping an eye on what’s going on.’
‘You wouldn’t mind?’
It might have been my imagination, but Zeb seemed to look from his jeaned legs up out across to where Mika was holding court, making the rest of the band laugh uproariously again. It was only a flick of a look, and he might really have been checking to see where Simon was, or that Big Pig hadn’t chanced another excursion across the borders, but to me it seemed he was looking at Mika. ‘No problem,’ Zeb said. ‘It doesn’t really need two of us to sit here and ogle them, does it?’
‘I’m not ogling,’ I said, offended.
‘Of course you’re not.’ Zeb started to get to his feet. ‘Anyway. Would you like me to go and make your mother a sandwich? It might be best if you text her back and warn her that I’m coming though, otherwise I’m just a random strange bloke turning up at her door.’
‘You aren’t random and strange,’ I said, without thinking.
Zeb paused, halfway up the door frame, looking down on me where I still sat on the step. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. ‘There was me thinking you thought I was…’
‘She’s already met you on Zoom,’ I finished and his mouth dropped from the half-smile it had been wearing to look as though it had caught on his teeth.
‘Oh, yes. Right.’
‘I’m texting her now.’
‘Okay. I’ll head over. Which house am I aiming for?’
I had my head bent over the screen; it was hard to see the letters in this flame of white light. ‘The first house next to the stream. The stepping stones cross right to her front garden gate.’
Zeb hesitated for a moment, but I was too busy sending the text to ask if he wanted anything else, then he was gone. I heard his car start and the spit of gravel as he turned out onto the lane.
I waited until he was safely out of sight. Then I got up to go and ogle the band and see how the filming was going.
7
It was chaos in my garden. At least, to me it looked like chaos. I had to admit that everyone present had probably done this many, many times and therefore knew exactly what they were doing, but it didn’t seem that way.
A man with a camera was running around making beckoning and arm-gathering motions to anyone nearby; at the same time three men trundled behind him carrying heavy equipment as though they wanted to put it down but didn’t know where. Simon was arguing earnestly with a lady with an iPad who kept trying to show him something on the screen while he shook his head and gestured frantically at the air. In the middle of it all and seemingly unconcerned, stood the band. Mika was still making everyone laugh.
The air smelled bitter: of crushed stems, of bruised and battered greenery, an apothecary’s practice room.
I wandered down around the edge of the garden, across the furthest paths, trying to keep out of the way while making it clear that this was my patch and I was very much present, like a ghost that doesn’t want to be seen but wants its presence to be felt.
When I drew level with the pond, Mika hailed me.
‘Hi, Tallie! Don’t worry, it’s always like this at this stage.’
I froze, self-consciously trying to flatten myself against the climbing rose which clambered up the wall, and wondering if pretending to be pruning it would be a step too far. Mika, handing his viola to the most dreadlocked band member, came over. His feet didn’t seem to touch the gravel, as though he made no noise approaching me. He must have done, but my heart was capering wildly in my ribcage and, as a result, drowning out any sounds quieter than that of the band’s generator. I could swear I saw stars.
‘Sorry, we seem to be making a bit of a mess,’ Mika went on. ‘It will all be put right before we go. Simon’s very good at that sort of thing.’
He’d reached me now. I remembered, finally, that I was wearing a clean shirt and my most flattering jeans, and that this wasmygarden, and straightened from the slightly obsequious crouch that I’d fallen into. ‘Er. Okay,’ was all the witty repartee that I could come up with. Iwantedto say that they were crushing the border edging, could they please stop walking on the beds, that it was a lovely day, wasn’t it? That I hoped they had everything they needed, that everyone seemed very disorganised but I expected the filming would get done at some point and that I was delighted The Goshawk Traders had chosen Drycott Herbs to film at. But I was too afraid that what might fall out of my mouth was, ‘You are the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen,’ so I kept it closed.
