Sowing Secrets (25 page)

Thorns of ugliness prick your eyes.
In the garden of life
See only the rose.

I’ll do my best.

Gabe’s car vanished again from outside Fairy Glen, so I assume he’s gone back to London – though he didn’t call and say goodbye.

Mind you, there’s no reason why he should. None at all.

My Golden Showers and Mermaid are showing signs of renewed life already – that manure must have been exactly the tonic they needed!

I’ve just found a small card behind the door, half hidden under the mat, so I don’t know how long it’s been there. On it was written: ‘I’ve gone.
Officinalis.
’

That’s the Apothecary’s rose, I think. Must ask the library van if the book about old roses I ordered has arrived yet.

‘I’m back, my love,’ Ma announced breezily on the phone.

‘Hello, Ma, did you have a good time?’

‘Lovely – so much to do and see.’

‘What, the museums and art galleries?’

‘Oh, no, there wasn’t time for
that
kind of thing,’ she said vaguely. ‘We found a very good flea market, though. And I’ve brought you an Edam. I thought you could eat that on the peculiar diet you’re on.’

‘Yes, cheese is about the one thing I haven’t gone off that I
can
eat,’ I admitted. ‘Are you coming over?’

‘Saturday. Gabriel says we can exchange contracts any time I want to, so I thought I’d have a final sort-out of odds and ends.’

‘I’d better borrow Nia’s van and move any bits and pieces I want too, then,’ I agreed.

‘No rush. I’m sure he won’t mind how long you leave them there.’

‘He might need the room – he’s bound to bring some things of his own.’

‘I suppose so. How did the filming and the Plas Gwyn opening go, my love?’

‘It was a roaring success. There seemed to be hundreds of people, and although most of them probably came to see Gabe Weston, they bought tickets and went on the Easter egg hunt and toured the house too. Nia said the collection boxes they’d dotted about for the garden restoration scheme were pretty full by the end of the day, but mostly with coppers.’

‘I’m
so
glad. “Every mickle maks a muckle,” as Lachlan would say.’

‘I don’t think he would,’ I said doubtfully.

‘Well, something like that. But do give my love to Nia and Rhodri, and I’ll catch up on the rest of the news at the weekend. I must go, I’m tea dancing.’

Tea dancing
? That sounds terribly staid for Ma!

Rosie’s back from Cornwall in a strangely angry and touchy mood, and although she did say that she’d enjoyed the surfing and made a new friend (called Star, which sounds a bit hippie-child), she was tight-lipped on the subject of Tom.

Eventually I got out of her what was wrong, and – shock, horror! – it turns out that not only is Tom married, but his wife still lives with him and, until just before last Christmas, so did his lover!

Well, he
did
say in one of his emails that he’d recently ended a relationship, he just didn’t mention that it was only one of many!

‘Tom said they haven’t
really
been married for years, just lived as friends, sharing the cottage, and he doesn’t see anything wrong with that!’ Rosie said primly. ‘I said I thought it was indecent. Clara, his wife, is quite nice – Dutch. She cooks peculiar vegan food, though.’

She frowned and added, ‘You know, Mum, now I’ve spent more time with Tom I can see that, although he’s fun, he isn’t really … well, next to Colum he just doesn’t seem very
grown-up
!’

‘No, he didn’t sound in his emails as if he’d changed much,’ I agreed.

‘And he’s so restless, Mum. Always wanting to go to pubs and parties. He can’t sit still for a minute. And I’ve been thinking that, although I really like him, we don’t actually have that much in common. I wanted us to be alike, but we’re not.’

‘I like him too, Rosie,’ I said gently, ‘and it’s not his fault he isn’t what you were looking for. But perhaps now you’ll believe me when I say that it’s highly unlikely that he’s your dad.’

‘I suppose so – but at least he was better than a nameless stranger I’m never going to find!’

‘A father in the hand is worth two in the bush?’ I suggested, and she gave me a watery smile and offered to make me a cocktail.

‘No absinthe,’ I said firmly.

Next day Rosie did her usual vanishing trick back to university with half my belongings and larder, leaving me with a seriously sandy washing machine. I’m not sure it’s ever going to wash clothes again, but I may be able to use it to grind wheat.

Despite having hardly seen her I was actually quite glad to see her go this time, since part of me had an insane urge to tell her who her probable father was.

But then, of course, Rosie would have been round there like a shot, demanding to know the truth, and he’d probably have denied it until he’d got a paternity test result. And what if the whole thing got round the village – even into the papers?

What if they did the test and it
was
Tom after all, and Gabe thought we’d just been after a big pay-off?

Too many what-ifs. Just forget it, Fran, and keep it zipped!

I’ve got flu.

OK, I’ve got a heavy cold. I’m so sorry for myself I’ve abandoned Atkins and am eating and drinking all the wrong comfort foods, assisted by Ma. When she arrived for the weekend and set eyes on me she insisted that I needed feeding up, not starving, and brought me nourishing and fattening food and drink including the most
enormous
whole Edam.

News of my near-starvation quickly spread around the family circle, and Naomi, Joe’s wife over in America, rang especially to tell me that the new version of the Atkins diet was much better than the ancient one I’d got, with more fruit and vegetables, and she is sending me a copy through Amazon.

Beth and Lachlan, who haven’t seen me for about three years, assured me I looked absolutely fine, and I shouldn’t bother about it. But then,
they
aren’t married to a slim, fit and handsome man who was probably even now surrounded by bikini-clad and twig-thin women on a coral beach, one of them his ex-wife.

And speaking of Mal, he came in for an earful when he rang me and got Ma instead. She said I was wasting away, but she didn’t tell him it would take me about ten years at my present rate to complete the job.

Ma nearly drove me crackers, bustling about like a Romany version of Florence Nightingale, humming ‘Tulips From Amsterdam’ endlessly, and attempting to cheer me up by showing me the brochures for her round-the-world cruise.

How she thought the idea of her loose on the ocean waves for weeks, together with the madder and richer of her friends, would cheer me up, is beyond me.

Flu and over-anxious Ma both now gone, but weight increasing four times as fast as I lost it, so I have a figure to die
from
, not for. I feel really down. Carrie and Rhodri have been to see me a couple of times in an attempt to cheer me up, but they are both very busy – the restoration project starts in only a couple of weeks, just before I’m supposed to go out to Grand Cayman.

Oh my God – the Flying Pig lands in the Caribbean!

I’ve also missed the Walpurgis night ceremony up at the maze, which is a big shame because I was looking forward to watching it, but at least I managed to get Ma to post off a nice card and a cheque to Rosie for her birthday, which falls on the same day.

Nia came round to tell me how the ceremony went, but says she is looking forward to next year’s, when the maze will be re-cut to its original size. She also said that Mrs Evans having to do the ritual walk using her Zimmer frame had rather held things up.

After the maze she’d gone alone up to the standing stones to perform some sort of personal Druid ceremony, and she left me a little glass bottle of what she
swears
is only dew, which I am to drink. I presume it’s some sort of magic tonic.

After she’d gone, I tried it. I can’t say I feel any different yet, but you never know, and I saved a drop or two to add to the hens’ water, because Shania has been looking a bit peaky.

Tomorrow Fairy Glen officially becomes Gabe’s and he’s moving in, but I haven’t got enough energy to care – or change the Flower Fairies bedding.

Have just assured Mal on the phone that I have lost most of my excess baggage and am nearly a shadow of my former self, and he said he looked forward to seeing the old Fran back again.

Bastard.

As soon as I put the phone down I went into the kitchen and wolfed down a whole bar of cooking chocolate, a packet of trifle sponges and a small frozen Black Forest gateau, which at least took a long time, since it was rock-hard to begin with and I had to suck it.

Carrie exchanged the copy of Atkins for a food combining book when she came round with some calorie-laden goodies to cheer me up. She said Gabe had been into Teapots to buy a big bag of doughnuts for the removal men to have with their tea, to the delight of her customers, and they’d had a nice chat before he went back.

It is a sad indictment of today’s society that my friends have more dieting books on their shelves than anything else.

I’ve already started food combining. This sounds possible: I can eat anything at all that I want, so long as I don’t mix protein and carbohydrates at the same meal.

How hard can that be?

Remembering that I still had a key to Fairy Glen, which I ought to hand back, I thought I might as well go the whole hog and give Gabe a house-warming present too. He was perhaps a bit terse last time we met, but I really should have been there to welcome him when he moved in.

The Flower Fairies linen on the little bed in the turret room is weighing on my conscience a bit too.

Laden with home-made goodies and a card with a Mermaid rose that I’d painted myself, I set out rather furtively at dusk, since not only did I want to avoid the Wevills’ beady eyes, but by ‘give’ a present to Gabe I of course actually meant ‘sneak up and leave it on the doorstep’. But I still think he’s telepathic, for the front door swung open while I’d barely had time to admire the clipped box trees that now stood either side of it.

‘They don’t really go with the cottage, I know,’ he said gravely, ‘but I couldn’t leave them in London. Perhaps Aled could add a touch of the grotesque to them next time they need clipping.’

‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ I replied, recovering from the surprise of his sudden appearance. He was wearing a loose natural linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans and bare feet. His hair looked as if he’d run his hands through it a few times, for several of the little silkworm cocoons had unravelled. All in all, he was a sight to make most women’s knees go weak, let alone one with a shared history.

‘Are you coming in?’ he asked.

I stopped staring at his bare feet, which were rather beautiful in a Michelangelo’s
David
kind of way, and remembered why I’d come. ‘No, I’ve just brought you a house-warming present,’ I said, thrusting the bottle and cake tin at him. ‘And a card. But I don’t want to disturb you, you must be busy.’

He looked surprised. ‘A present? That
was
a kind thought, Fran!’

‘It’s nothing much,’ I assured him, ‘just a bottle of my elderflower champagne – be careful when you open it, it’s
very
fizzy – and one of my legendary fruit-sinks-to-the-bottom cakes.’

‘Whose bottom?’

‘The bottom of the cake. It always does – I’m noted for it – but it tastes wonderful because I make it with butter, and dried fruit soaked for two days in dark rum. And the fruit is now on top, because I turned it over so I could ice it.’

‘I think you’d better come in and show me this marvellous cake yourself,’ he suggested, swinging the door wide and ushering me in.

‘Well, I’ll just put them down, then leave you to it. I can’t
stay
,’ I said, walking through to the kitchen.

‘Not even to join me in a glass of champagne?’

I stopped dead. ‘Oh,
no
– I’ve just remembered you don’t like champagne! You said so at the pub.’

‘Ah, but elderflower champagne is different – if it’s good.’

‘You’ve had it before?’

‘Yes, my granny used to make it.’

I hovered uncertainly while he got out two unfamiliar glasses. Looking round, in fact, the whole cottage seemed to have acquired a slightly different air, though it was hard to put my finger on any changes.

‘Let’s see this cake, then. Your friend Carrie says you’re a better cook than she is.’

‘Does she? I’m not a better pastry cook, no one can beat her at that.’

He prised the lid off the tin and stared down at the cake with its rather wobbly blue ‘Welcome To Your New Home’ icing. I’d added one of the sugar roses I’d saved from my birthday cake too.

‘You shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble,’ he said, lifting his head and smiling at me.

I don’t know what it is, since he is nowhere near as handsome as Mal, but when he smiles like that he is
devastatingly
attractive. I felt as if the sun had come out just for me, and sat down on the nearest chair quite unintentionally.

‘It was no trouble, because I make cakes all the time, unless I’m dieting.’

‘So does that mean you can’t eat a piece with me now?’

I considered. ‘I
suppose
I could, because I’m food combining, and as long as I don’t mix protein and carbohydrate I can eat anything. Cake’s all carbohydrate.’

‘You cut it then, and I’ll pour the drinks.’ With his back to me he added, ‘Is it very odd to see a stranger here?’

‘Not as bad as I thought it would be,’ I confessed. ‘Mainly because … well, I suppose I know you, you’re not a total stranger. I’ve sort of got used to you being about.’

‘That’s nice,’ he said, putting my glass down in front of me and taking the piece of cake I offered him. I’d carefully cut one with the entire word ‘Home’ on it, so it was a hefty slice. ‘I’ve sort of got used to you being about too. I hope you’re still going to come up to Plas Gwyn and help me plan out the rose garden?’

‘Oh, I’m sure you don’t need me for that,’ I said, flattered.

‘I do have a rough design,’ he admitted, ‘but I’d like to talk it through on the site with a fellow enthusiast. Please?’

‘All right,’ I said. I looked around the kitchen. ‘It’s odd, nothing much seems to have changed.’

‘There are a lot more bookshelves in the other rooms, but otherwise there isn’t a great deal of stuff. My gardening equipment is all out in that old shed, but I think I’ll have to replace it before it falls down.’

‘I hope you’ve moved into one of the bigger bedrooms too, now that you’ve bought the house. I’m sure Ma doesn’t expect you to save the best one just for her. Or my old room would be fine if you redecorated it.’

‘Actually, I rather like the turret, especially now I’ve got my own bed in there, even if it does take up most of the floor space. The other was a bit short and narrow. Nice bedlinen, though.’

I reddened. ‘Was it? I expect I just used the first clean set to come to hand.’

‘I thought I might leave the girlie décor in your old room. Don’t you think Stella might like it if she comes to stay?’

‘Well, Rosie does, although she says it’s over the top. Is your daughter likely to come? Have you heard from her again?’

‘Yes, we’ve been exchanging more emails. She wants to know all sorts of things about me from right back before I met her mum, so I think she’s catching up on all the years we’ve missed. She liked the pictures of the cottage, so I think she
will
come and see me, probably in June when she’s back staying with her grandparents again.’

‘I hope she does,’ I said sympathetically.

‘
Your
daughter, Rosie, is quite a character,’ he commented, rather admiringly. ‘Did she enjoy surfing with her father?’

‘Er – yes,’ I said, then swallowed the last mouthful of champagne and rose hastily to my feet. ‘Look, I must go – I’m expecting a call from my husband.’

Gabe got up too. ‘Right. And you still intend going out to the Caribbean to see him?’

‘Of course!’ I said, surprised.

‘So what Rosie said about you breaking up with him and marrying her real dad was just—’

‘Wishful thinking,’ I said quickly. ‘She’s never really got on with Mal, unfortunately. They’re chalk and cheese. Mal can’t wait to see me again.’

I think I was trying to convince myself as well as him, but I’m not sure the sincerity rang true enough for either of us.

‘Petite Lisette,’ he said at the door, but I was armed and ready for him.

‘
Hemisphaerica.
’

He frowned. ‘Haven’t we had that one?’

‘No, and it’s growing wild up the glen, so it obviously does well round here. I hope you do too,’ I added neatly, and walked off feeling quite pleased with myself.

I feel
wonderful
on food combining, and my head seems so clear too, so my work is going very well. I’m about to send enough Alphawoman strips off to the magazine to keep them going until I get back from Grand Cayman, my rose and hen calendar illustrations are mounting up, and I’ve had all kinds of ideas for cartoons.

Tom has sent me one or two more as well, but they are definitely getting odder, especially now I know about his weird domestic arrangements and can see them in a new light. I haven’t acknowledged them.

The only downside to food combining is that I haven’t lost a great deal of weight. Practically none, if I’m honest. Could this possibly be because I am combining chips, chocolate, butter and cream? I can even have chip butties, on white buttered bread – and I
do
, all the time.

I have been out and about a bit too: up to Plas Gwyn to talk over the rose garden with Gabe, and admire the stone bench Rhodri and Nia found at an architectural salvage yard, and down to the Druid’s Rest to meet the three of them in the evening. Our trio seems to have just naturally become a quartet, but Gabe at least stops me feeling like a gooseberry, since Nia and Rhodri are definitely adrift on the sea of love.

How odd that we should love each other like brother and sisters all these years, and then for that to change into something more! And all they seem to talk about lately is Plas Gwyn … though, mind you, most of what Gabe and I say to each other concerns roses.

Mal has sent me the most enormous shopping list of things to take out with me.

I’m sure he must have been getting bulletins on my friendship with Gabe, but has not said anything about it – unless he has fallen out with the Wevills.

I
certainly wasn’t about to rock the boat by mentioning it, but I did ask him if he still wanted me to buy a special dress for the holiday, which I thought might kind of gauge how he was feeling towards me.

‘Of course I do, darling. Get something pretty.’

‘All right. And I’ve got your shopping list, but it’s going to cost a fortune!’

‘Then use the credit card. That’s what it’s for,’ he said, slightly impatiently.

‘Are you looking forward to seeing me, Mal? It’s not long now, is it?’

There was an imperative female voice in the background. ‘Look, something’s come up and I’ve got to go. Talk to you later—’bye!’

Somehow I felt unsettled rather than reassured by this conversation … and where on earth
did
I put the guilt card? Must search for it! Also for my sarong and flip-flops, which I haven’t seen since last summer.

Eureka! I discovered the sarong behind the sack of Happyhen in the utility room. I must have rested a pile of clean laundry on top of it at some time and it slithered down behind.

The guilt card was in the cutlery drawer under the cake forks. I usually eat my cake fast, using both hands, which accounts for my not having seen it before.

Having now found the wherewithal to pay for it, I had another look at the truly horrendous list of things Mal wants me to take out. This includes all the copies of
Small Boats Monthly
that have arrived in his absence, three large bottles of his favourite mouthwash, aftershave and a small fortune’s worth of toiletries, pills and potions from Boots the Chemists. I am also instructed to buy a huge bottle of duty-free sherry for Mrs M., whose only tipple this is,
en route
.

Must check my baggage allowance again. And will bottles of mouthwash explode in the hold? Or the aftershave?

‘Well, my love, you’ll never guess where I’ve been,’ Ma said perkily down the phone.

‘Probably not – tell me, it’ll save time.’ I propped myself against the wall, resigned to a long conversation.

‘Visiting that village where you said the Wevills used to live!’

I stood up straighter. ‘You
have
? Why?’

‘To snoop. And do you know, they had poison-pen letters there, as well. And they stopped after the Wevills moved away.’

‘They did? Good heavens, that looks a bit—’

‘I told you it was them!’ she interrupted triumphantly. ‘Anyway, I thought I’d let you know.’

‘But what are we going to do about it, Ma? I mean, presumably you haven’t got any proof?’

‘Only circumstantial, so
I’ve
sent an anonymous letter to the police, telling them. It’s up to them now to make the right connections and put a stop to it.’

‘Ma!’ I protested, but I could see she’d thoroughly enjoyed her Miss Marple act.

‘Is dear Gabriel settled in? When I last spoke to him on the phone he said how kind you’d been, taking him a cake and making him feel welcome. I’m coming down soon and he’s going to show me his plans for extending the cottage a bit at the side, if he can get planning permission. Another bathroom and bedroom, I think, with a study underneath.’

‘I thought he wasn’t going to change anything!’

‘Fran, of course he’s going to update the cottage a bit, that’s part of the reason I wanted to sell it! I’m sure he’ll love the place, you’ll see, and anything he does will only improve it. Now, what about you? Are you still intending to go out to see Mal?’

‘Of course!’ I said firmly. ‘I can’t wait.’

‘Hmm,’ she said, unconvinced. But then, she was never in favour of him going out there and leaving me in the first place. ‘I worry about you, Frannie.’

‘There’s no need to worry about me. Honestly, everything’s fine.’

‘You’ve just started humming Bob Marley, my love,’ she pointed out. ‘“No Woman, No Cry”. Not a good sign in my book!’

I have spent the day in the nearest city and am
exhausted
.

I
hate
clothes shopping – that’s partly why I make my own tops and wear jeans most of the time. And after all that there wasn’t much that looked good on someone the approximate shape of a dumpling, so in the end I decided to make do with what I already have, i.e., the aged cotton trousers, loose shirts, ancient faded sundresses and flat sandals I wear for gardening.

But I did finally discover that special dress in a small but desperately expensive shop. It’s in cream linen and magically makes me look taller and much thinner. You wouldn’t believe the price! I had to use my newly discovered guilt card for the first time, which was fortunately stowed away in my bag for safety, and as I signed my name I felt like a thief and had this urge to shout, ‘I confess, I have no money to pay for it!’

But then, I suppose Mal will be the one actually paying for it in the end, and he did tell me to buy something smart.

It was addictive: on the way back to the car I bought a new swimsuit with control panels (I wish it could control my eating habits), and a pair of strappy sandals with high heels to go with my new linen dress. The guilt card took another hammering, and it just goes to show how easily I could get into the habit of spending money I haven’t got. But at least the sandals will mean I won’t look quite such a roly-poly little thing at the ceremony … so long as we’re not standing on soft sand, that is.