‘So where do I come in?’ said Lauren. ‘I don’t have a lot of spare time.’
‘I know you don’t,’ said Eileen, ‘but we could do with some young blood, and as one of the restoration projects we’ve got in mind is the Memorial Gardens, particularly the play area, I thought a mum like you might be perfectly placed to tell us what’s needed.’
‘That’s blackmail,’ said Lauren, laughing.
‘I know,’ said Eileen, ‘but could you help? It would be great if you could.’
‘Oh go on,’ said Lauren. ‘And I’ll try and see if I can get Joel Lyle involved. You know Edward Handford was his great great grandfather, don’t you? Joel was planning to restore the garden at Lovelace Cottage when he and Claire moved in, but he’s not got round to it yet.’
‘How stupid of me,’ said Eileen. ‘I dabble a bit in local history, but I hadn’t made the connection. I’ve always been fascinated by Edward’s story – he created that garden for his wife, when they got married. I’d love to see it.’
‘I’ve only seen it once, but it’s a bit of a mess,’ said Lauren. ‘I think it needs a lot of work.’
‘Hmm,’ said Eileen, ‘I wonder how Joel might feel if I suggested we helped him restore it.’
‘I don’t think he’s much of a committee person,’ said Lauren. ‘And since Claire died, he seems to have lost heart a bit with the house. I’m not sure he’s going to want to help, but there’s no harm in asking.’
Chapter Four
Kezzie poked her head out of her bedroom window. The dawn chorus had woken her up again. She still couldn’t get used to the fact that she could hear their chatter, which would have been drowned out in the noisy bustle of London. Apart from the sounds of wildlife, it was much quieter here though, and sometimes the stillness drove her a bit mad. But she loved the cottage, which like her aunt was quirky and homely, and full of trinkets Jo had acquired on her many travels abroad. She was grateful for Jo’s impetuous generosity. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask anyone for help, knowing she’d get none from her parents, who were in their own loved-up retirement cocoon in Spain.
But thanks to Jo, Kezzie now found herself buried in the Sussex countryside. The plus side was she did find the quiet soothing, and enjoyed living so close to nature. The downside was that she knew no one and the contacts she’d cultivated in London with the aim of setting up her own freelance gardening business, now seemed a long way away. The redundancy she’d willingly taken from her job at the website company was enough to tide her over for the time being, and she had some freelance web design work, so getting a gardening contract wasn’t urgent. But she’d have to get a job soon, so her plan today was to get down to it, and start planning her future.
Kezzie got dressed and ate her breakfast in Jo’s kitchen, looking out at the garden. She loved this room, which was dominated by a huge Aga, and decorated in muted yellows and oranges, which gave it a cosy, warm feeling. It felt very much the hub of the house, and Kezzie spent a lot of time here.
It was a beautiful, sunny October morning and the birds were running riot in the hawthorn bush that belonged to her neighbour. Kezzie hadn’t spoken to her properly yet, though she had said hello once or twice to a rather frazzled-looking young woman with long, fair hair, pushing a buggy accompanied by two little girls. Blimey. Three children and she barely looked out of school. Kezzie couldn’t help but thank her lucky stars that she’d never made that mistake. It had been bad enough discovering that Richard had a daughter. Kezzie had had no desire to play stepmum to Emily, to Richard’s evident disappointment.
‘You have to grow up some time, Kez,’ he’d said, and Kezzie had laughed and said, ‘I don’t see why I have to.’ Now she wasn’t so sure.
Breakfast over, she opened the back door and scraped the crumbs of her toast out on the bird table positioned right by the hedge for the birds who so noisily woke her, and went back inside to get her laptop. She had so much to do: pitches for commissions, putting the finishing touches to her website, sorting out a leaflet to go out with the local paper, but she ignored all that. Kezzie had been so intrigued by the garden she’d broken into last night, the first thing she had to do was find out more about it.
She typed in Lovelace Cottage, and got a few matches, but nothing very concrete. So she tried again, putting Edward Handford into the search engine. Immediately a Wikipedia entry popped up:
Edward Handford – 1871–1955, Late Victorian landscape gardener and botanist of minor importance. Heavily influenced by the work of Gertrude Jekyll and Edward Lutyens, but using his own style …
His most notable work was designing the garden of Hillcrest Manor, a stately home owned by the de Lacey family, in Nottinghamshire, but he is also known for the Elizabethan knot garden he created for his wife Lily, on the occasion of their marriage in 1892, although very little is known about it …
There was a bit more about his later work, and a mention that much of his youth had been spent hunting exotic plants in India, but nothing much about Joel’s garden. To Kezzie’s disappointment, there was no plan. Kezzie printed off what she’d found and filed it for later use. It wasn’t much to go on if she was to restore the garden properly, but it was a start. Maybe Joel would have some more information about it. She’d have to ask him the next time she saw him.
‘So have you met my new neighbour yet?’ Lauren greeted Joel as he came to drop Sam off.
‘What new neighbour?’ he asked, yawning. He had found sleep hard to come by after his moonlit encounter the previous night.
‘She’s Jo Knight’s niece. Just moved in,’ said Lauren. ‘She’s very pretty. Just up your street.’
Joel at least had the grace to blush.
‘I’m not that bad.’
‘You so are,’ said Lauren teasingly, to hide the fact that the details of Joel’s love life made her feel uncomfortable.
‘Poor lamb, left all alone up there in that big house, it’s understandable he wants some company,’ she’d heard someone say recently.
Lauren was slightly aggravated by this. The one and only time she’d disastrously dated John Townley, who worked in the village garage, she’d actually heard the word ‘strumpet’ bandied about in the local high street. ‘And her with two little ones and all,’ as if by dint of having two small children she was condemned to be a nun for the rest of her life. And secondly, it made her so mad on Claire’s behalf. Lauren still missed Claire, who’d been a sane, calming influence on Lauren’s often chaotic life, and for the life of her she couldn’t see why Joel could apparently have forgotten her so easily. Or for that matter why local opinion seemed to think it was OK that he should. If it had been anyone else, Lauren would have thought he was a prize shit, but knowing as she did what a state he had been in after Claire had died, she knew the truth was more complicated than that.
‘What does she look like?’ he asked. ‘Not that I’m interested or anything.’
‘Well, she’s a bit hippyish,’ said Lauren. ‘I was teasing, she’s not really your type at all. She’s quite small – elfin looking – dark hair, brown eyes.’
‘Oh—’ Light dawned in Joel’s eyes. ‘It’s the guerrilla gardener.’
‘The what?’
‘I found her in my garden last night,’ explained Joel. ‘She told me she was doing a spot of guerrilla gardening and then had the cheek to have a go