Page 108 of He's the One

“You’ve made a good start.” James nodded at the pile of rubbish. “Want me to take that away?”

“Please.”

“What’s the next step?”

“I need to rebuild the archway and strengthen the walls. It had an upper floor, but I don’t know if that’s to be restored.”

“I’d say no.” James looked inside. “Best not to encourage kids to climb because there isn’t room for a proper staircase. This would work for a photoshoot for a bride and groom. We could put a couch inside. Rig up interior and exterior lights.”

“Maybe lay a patio along here next to the wall,” Col suggested.

“Pizza oven at the end. Build a covered area so guests had somewhere to sit if it rained.”

“It would mean taking the ivy off the wall, in this section at least,” Col said.

“I’ll talk to his lordship. It wouldn’t take much to transform this whole section.”

Col could almost see wedding guests mingling, eating canapes and drinking champagne. Then he thought of Theo getting married at Asquith, this folly being part of it and his stomach churned. They couldn’t make him get married, could they?

“If there’s anything else you need, call me,” James said.

“There is something. Theo’s accommodation.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It needs renovating. I could fix it up. In my own time. Theo could help. But I’d need plasterboard, plaster, paint… Things like that. Do you think the marquess would agree to providing the materials if I did the work for free? Plumbing, plastering and joinery I’m fine with. Theo said the electrics were recently done.”

“Is the accommodation really that bad?”

“I wouldn’t want to live in it.” Col felt heat fill his face when he realised how that could be taken. “I didn’t mean…”

James chuckled. “I’ll take a look. But send me details of what you need.”

“Thank you.”

“No. Thankyou.”

Col worked all morning without interruption. Once he was certain the tower was stable, he pulled the ivy off the wall at the side, then climbed the ladder to inspect the conical roof. There was ivy all over that too and Col was able to drag some away but needed to be higher to get all of it. He climbed off the ladder onto the top of the wall and looked down into the hidden garden.

It was strange knowing no one had stepped foot in it for years. It was so overgrown it was hard to make out what was in there. Plants had gone wild, overrunning each other.An English jungle.But there were hints of a red brick path snaking around beneath the greenery.

The garden was dominated by a large tree, ivy climbing the trunk, though maybe not as much as he’d have expected. The mature oak looked to be around seventy years old and had the remnants of a tree house in the lower limbs. He thought of Theo and his siblings playing here and felt a pang of jealousy. This was a place for adventures. The back garden of the house where he and Dominic had lived had been paved over. It was too small to ride a bike, though neither of them even had a scooter.

There were strange shapes dotted around, their identity obscured by ivy, though Col thought they were statues or water features. At the far end, he spotted an octagonal summer house with an arcaded base. Paint was peeling from the wood and vines had wrapped themselves around every post and all over the roof so it looked as if it was some strange living structure. Col kind of liked the way this place was its own little world, doing its own thing, plants and insects gradually destroying or transforming all that was man-made. If the Earth was ever stripped of people, this was what it would revert to.

He began to pull at the ivy covering the roof. It came away easily, almost like a blanket, but he had to cut it into sections before he could throw it down. Col chuckled when he discovered an old weather vane. He worried for a moment that he’d pull it off along with the ivy, but it stayed in place. Along the horizontal metal arrow sitting above the direction indicator was the silhouette of a fairy who was followed by a fox then a rabbit. He wondered if that had been for Theo’s sister. It looked in good condition and was still firmly attached to the apex of the roof, which itself seemed okay. Though he needed to move some of the slates back into place.

Once the roof was clear, and he’d adjusted the slates he could reach, Col climbed back down. He was moving the ivy into a pile to be disposed of, though not into the compost because the plant would keep growing, when he spotted Theo’s father approaching. Col stood upright.

“Is the folly salvageable?” the marquess asked.

“Yes, sir. I’m going to make the frame for the archway this afternoon. Then I can rebuild the actual arch. The stones are all here. None seem to have been pilfered for some other use, as far as I can tell.”

“I gave orders nothing was to be touched.”

Col hesitated, then said, “I saw marks on the stone that implied something had been driven into it.”

“A digger.”

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