Summer Season (9 page)

Lauren was feeling frustrated with Joel. While she was sympathetic to his situation, she felt he took it for granted that she wouldn’t get upset when he was late home from work, or wouldn’t mind getting Sam ready for bed on the evenings when he absolutely had to stay for that last minute meeting. And it had been worse since Kezzie had been on the scene. Lauren really liked Kezzie, she was fun and refreshing to be around, but there was something about the way she and Joel were developing a really cosy relationship that was beginning to niggle her. Somehow she felt surplus to requirements now.

Often, though, she was cross when Joel arrived late to pick Sam up. He did at least offer the chance for some adult conversation at the end of the day, which Lauren sorely needed after a day spent with small children. And recently she’d almost felt like opening up to him about the phone calls from Troy, but the moment never seemed right. But since Kezzie had started working on the garden, he always seemed in a dead hurry to get home to see what progress she’d made. On more than one occasion, he’d let slip that she’d stayed for dinner, which irked Lauren for some reason. And now, she’d found herself roped into helping out at the weekend while he and Kezzie rummaged around in the attic looking for bits of paper about Edward Handford,
which may or may not be of use to Kezzie’s garden design. ‘It’s a Saturday, Joel,’ she’d said. ‘Remember, I don’t work weekends.’

‘I know, and I wouldn’t ask you normally,’ said Joel, putting on that slightly helpless Joel face, which was simultaneously endearing and irritating, ‘but Claire’s mum’s away, and I really can’t sort this stuff out with Sam running around downstairs. It’s a one-off, I promise. I’ll make it worth your while.’

That had swung it for her. Lauren wasn’t so proud to pretend she didn’t need the money. So she had bitten her lip and agreed to do it. ‘Just this once though,’ she’d said. ‘Don’t go getting ideas that I’ll be doing it every week.’

Lauren arrived with the girls at Joel’s at 10.30 as arranged. It wasn’t as if she got the chance to lie in on Saturdays, but somehow the rigorous routine of the week slipped and she found herself unable to retain any normal standard of timekeeping. So she’d ignored Joel’s suggestion to come round for 9 a.m.

Kezzie, it transpired, had got up there early to work on the garden.

‘She likes getting up early,’ marvelled Joel, as he ushered Lauren in. ‘If I didn’t have Sam, I would savour those lie-ins for as long as possible!’

For a moment there was a conspiratorial feeling between them, as the two parents remembered a semi-forgotten life where small children didn’t get you up before dawn.

Lauren’s world consisted of two gorgeous little girls who regarded 6 a.m. as the time when the day absolutely, definitely, had to begin. The notion of having any time early in the morning, without their chattering presence, seemed impossibly weird to Lauren. She liked Kezzie, but couldn’t help feeling they inhabited different planets.

‘Lauren, you are an angel,’ said Joel. ‘Thanks so much
for doing this. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I’d pop out and see how Kezzie’s doing in the garden, before we get going on the attic.’

Lauren
did
mind, although she couldn’t quite pinpoint why.

Kezzie was out in the fresh air digging. The sun shone and a curious robin had perched on the end of her spade. Life really didn’t get better than this. For the first time since Richard had broken up with her, she felt something approximating contentment. She was finding the process of discovery in this garden so exciting. So far she’d managed to dig out the weeds from the flowerbed furthest from the gate and uncovered the ramshackle remains of the original knot garden, which was about 60m square and stood in the centre, surrounded by a gravel path that needed replacing. The ivy had so completely overtaken the rosemary and box though, she felt it might need to be dug up and replanted. Hence her desire to find Edward’s original plans. At the moment she had a rough idea of how he’d designed it – in a succession of interwoven hearts with the letters E and L interwoven in the middle – but what she was left with was such a poor and ragged substitute for the garden Edward had planned, she felt it would be better to start again.

‘I come bearing gifts.’ Joel arrived with steaming cups of tea. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Slow, but steady,’ said Kezzie, stopping for a moment to survey her handiwork. ‘I’ve cleared nearly a quarter of the garden, but it’s a long way from the former glory of how it looked in Edward’s time.’

‘Lauren’s happy to sit with Sam for a couple of hours, so I can help if you like.’

‘It would be nice to have another pair of hands,’ Kezzie
admitted. ‘Are you sure Lauren won’t mind? We said we’d be checking out the loft, not digging up the garden.’

‘Nah, she’s cool,’ said Joel. ‘And there is a lot of digging. I won’t have a chance to help you if I don’t do some now.’

‘I hate to say it,’ said Kezzie with a grin, ‘but your digging skills will come in handy too.’

‘Is that what you call facultative feminism?’ said Joel, with a grin.

‘Probably,’ said Kezzie. ‘But I’m not proud.’

Progress with two was definitely better than with one, and in no time at all they’d cleared about a quarter of the undergrowth. Now it was getting a bit clearer to see where the original patterns had grown, but both the ivy and rosemary had grown too thick, and it was going to be a hard job reshaping them.

‘You know, I hate to say this, Joel,’ said Kezzie, ‘but I think we’re going to need to dig this all over and start again. I’m not sure it’s going to be possible to get it back to its original shape. I do hope we can find Edward’s plans. It would certainly help.’

Joel surveyed their handiwork.

‘You’re probably right,’ he said. ‘I can’t work out what I’m looking at.’

‘You see this here,’ Kezzie pointed at a strand of ivy, ‘it’s interwoven with the rosemary. If the stems were thinner you could see it’s the shape of a heart, but it’s become misshapen. Come on, let’s have a break from this for now. I’m dying to see what the attic holds.’

They put the tools away and walked up to the house. Lauren was in the kitchen feeding Sam, while the twins were watching TV in the lounge.

‘Oh, lord, is it his lunchtime already?’ said Joel. ‘I’m so sorry, I hadn’t realized the time. Do you want me to take over?’

Lauren rolled her eyes.

‘No, it’s OK,’ she said, with evident sarcasm. ‘You carry on, I’ll be fine here. I’ve only got to feed the girls and put Sam down, so I may as well make you both some sarnies. I notice you’ve got bacon in the fridge.’

‘Are you sure?’ Kezzie felt uneasy, aware there were uncomfortable ripples beneath the surface. She had asked Joel if he was sure that Lauren didn’t mind helping out and he had waved her concerns away with an airy, ‘Oh Lauren’s fine,’ which Kezzie felt was a little glib. But Lauren seemed to recover her good humour and said it was no problem, while Joel had clearly managed to overcome any spasms of guilt quite quickly, and was already heading up the stairs to the top landing. He unhooked a trapdoor, which opened to reveal a wooden set of stairs that took them up into the loft.

‘Come on then, gunga din,’ Joel said, ‘let’s see what we can find.’

The loft was dark and full of spiders, but Joel managed to remember where the light switch was. Light came through from the rafters. No wonder the house was so darned cold. With winter coming on, it was about time he put some insulation in. And investigated the state of the roof. Another thing to add to his To Do list.

Right. He stepped over the packing cases he and Claire had dumped up there, so long ago. Detritus of their former life, when they’d lived in London, and been poor and happy.

‘I think the stuff belonging to Uncle Jack is over in the corner. We started going through it once, but never really had time to do it properly.’

‘Ooh, this is just like
Cash in the Attic
,’ said Kezzie, with contagious enthusiasm. ‘I wonder what we’ll find.’

Joel began rooting around in the ancient crates and boxes,
picking through stacks of old Christmas cards, Uncle Jack’s school reports, and Connie’s photo albums. He was not quite sure what he was looking for, but he had a growing feeling of excitement. Since Kezzie had arrived and he’d found Edward’s diary, Joel’s long-submerged curiosity about his long-dead ancestor was being rewoken. Suddenly it really mattered to him as much as it clearly did to Kezzie that they find out something about Edward and his garden.

‘Oh, wow, look at these,’ he said excitedly, as he found some old pictures rolled up together tucked under the eaves. Carefully, he unrolled them. There appeared to be several more of Lily, like the first one he’d found, and one with her holding a newborn baby.

‘That’s strange,’ said Kezzie peeking over his shoulder, ‘she looks sad for someone with a baby. What else is there?’

‘Look at these,’ said Joel, as he leafed through and discovered some delicate watercolours of different flowers and birds, drawn by a different hand, ‘aren’t they lovely?’

‘Hey, look,’ said Kezzie, pointing at a picture of a robin, perched on a step, ‘I’m sure that’s in the garden – see the gate behind it? Did Lily draw these, do you think?’

Joel squinted at the tiny signature in the corner of the painting. ‘I think it says LH,’ he said.

Carefully he rolled the pictures up again, and they carried on looking for a while longer, until Joel said, ‘Here, this looks promising,’ as he stumbled across a dusty old trunk in the corner. He carefully opened the trunk and caught his breath as he saw it contained books and papers, and letters all neatly stacked up inside. There was writing on the inside of the lid. He shone his torch on it:
Harry Handford, Lovelace Cottage, Heartsease
bore the inscription.

‘So who’s he?’ said Kezzie.

‘No idea,’ said Joel. ‘I’ve never heard of him, but he must be some relation, I guess. Mum would know.’

‘Look at all these letters,’ whispered Kezzie, her eyes shining. ‘It’s like we’re touching history.’

‘It is, isn’t it?’ agreed Joel. His excitement was growing now. This was fascinating, he’d had no idea any of this was here.

They started flicking through the bundles of letters, some addressed to Mr and Mrs Handford, some to Lily, some to Harry Handford. And several from Edward to Connie, talking about the work she was doing as V.A.D. in France.

‘Oh look,’ said Kezzie, ‘this is from Edward to Lily.’ She picked up the letter and began to read.

‘Oh and look at this.’ Kezzie had uncovered a diary, which was lying underneath the batch of letters she’d been reading through. Joel peered over her shoulder and shone the torch on the spidery handwriting. ‘I think this is Lily’s diary.’

‘Oh, how very sad!’ exclaimed Kezzie. ‘Just think of them having that lovely garden, and hoping to plant flowers in it to celebrate the births of their children and then they lost a baby.’

‘Tragic,’ agreed Joel. ‘I have a feeling they had a lot of tragedy. I think Lily might have died quite young, but I’m not sure. I should ask Mum.’ He felt a sudden odd surge of kinship with Edward, who’d clearly known heartache too.

‘This is amazing,’ Kezzie said, ‘real social history. You must show Eileen – you know, who lives on our road. She’s interested in all this stuff, and wants your help on the committee. I reckon a gardening museum would be interested in this. It’s fascinating.’

‘And it’s taking up an awful lot of our time,’ said Joel. ‘I think we’d better get this trunk downstairs and look through it at our leisure.’

By the time they emerged from the loft, blinking in the sunlight and covered in dust, Lauren had fed the children, put Sam down for his nap, and produced a monster pile of bacon sandwiches. She was sitting in the lounge watching
CBeebies
with the twins.