The Great Allotment Proposal (13 page)

Emily stepped through them as serenely as she could, holding her hand up when one of them got too close, the lens of his camera almost nudging her cheekbone. ‘Boys, the best piece of advice I can give you is if you go home now, you will be welcome back on Saturday,’ she said, walking backwards away from them up the path to the allotment.

‘What is that your wedding? Saturday?’

Emily smiled. ‘No. It’s not my wedding. But it will most likely be the best photo opportunity you’ve ever had in your lives. But–’ She held up a finger to silence their whinging. ‘I have very strict security so anyone I see on the island over the next two days will not be joining the party.’

‘You’re talking shit.’

She shrugged a shoulder.

‘Come on, Em. What’s it gonna be? It’s not your crappy village show, is it?’

Emily laughed. ‘It’s up to you, boys. Stay and risk it. Or go home and come back Saturday. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have dahlias to rescue.’

She started to walk away, then she paused and turned. ‘Oh and I just wanted to ask, which one of you did it?’

‘What?’

‘Which one of you broke my plant?’

They sniggered in unison. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, love. You’re bloody mad as a hatter, Emily. Mad.’

Emily stared at them all for a moment. Standing there in their shorts and T-shirts, smoking fags down to the butt, sweating in the heat, patches under their arms, some of them had brought their own chairs to sit on, the newspaper folded in the seat. One had a Thermos and sandwiches and she wondered if his wife had packed it for him before he came out to stalk her for the day.

I’m not afraid of you
, she said to herself over and over as she watched them.
I am not afraid.

She had realised as she’d spoken to Giles on the phone that whatever may or may not happen with Jack, this wasn’t about him, it was about her and her past. It was about no longer running and instead turning to face something in order to lay it to rest.

‘Oh, look at my dahlia.’ Emily covered her face with her hand as she stood in front of her flower, its fallen head swaying gently in the breeze.

Jane was standing next to her, wincing as they both stared. ‘Do you think it was sabotage?’

‘Yes.’ Emily almost scoffed. ‘Of course it was.’

Jane put her finger under the dead head and lifted it so that it stood tall again and they gazed at its shrivelled beauty.

‘Even dead it looks amazing. Bollocks.’ Emily stamped her foot.

Jane leant back against the branches of the damson. ‘How are you anyway?’

Emily reached forward and plucked the head off then twirled it between her fingers. ‘I’m OK. How’s everyone else? How are Ed and Josephine?’

Jane made a face. ‘They were pretty shaken up I think. Some bloke grabbed her by the arm and just stuck a camera in her face while she had Monty but I think Alan might have done something. Not sure what but there’s some heavy-looking security around their place. There’s been mention of arming them with crowbars.’ Jane raised a brow. ‘Of all the people I wouldn’t want to cross, it’s Alan Neil.’

Emily winced. ‘Is he mad with me?’

‘I don’t think so. I think he’s mad with them – all the paparazzi. He knows enough about show business to know it’s not your fault, and I think he was quite pleased actually, you know about you and Jack.’

Emily narrowed her eyes.

‘It’s true. And he’s packed Ed and Jo and Monty off to the Maldives or somewhere crazy-flash like that for a holiday. I kind of wish the paps would come after me so I could go, too,’ she laughed.

Emily smiled, cradling her poor broken dahlia. ‘Have you seen Jack?’

Jane shook her head. Looked at Emily with what felt like sympathy. ‘He’s gone. His boat’s gone. I watered his strawberries for him though yesterday, just in case…’ She paused.

‘What were you going to say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Yes you were. You were going to say in case he comes back, weren’t you? You don’t think he’s going to come back, do you?’

‘I don’t know, Em,’ Jane said, walking back over to the dahlias. She ran her hand lightly across the remaining flowers and said, ‘None of the rest of these are good enough.’

They were both standing, looking down at the average blooms when Annie marched up the path with her mother in tow.

‘Tell her!’ Annie said sharply, nodding towards Emily.

‘I can’t, Annie.’ Her mum almost sobbed.

‘Tell her,’ Annie said again. Then, looking over to Emily and Jane said, ‘She wasn’t going to tell you.’

Emily frowned. ‘Tell me what?’

Annie stood with her hands on her hips glaring at her mother.

‘It was me,’ Annie’s mum said with a sob. ‘It was me, Emily. I broke your dahlia.’

Emily glanced at Jane and then back at Annie’s mum, confused. ‘Why?’

‘I didn’t mean to,’ she said, taking a couple of steps towards her. ‘I’d just heard so much about it and I was curious. I didn’t think you girls would be able to grow anything, especially not with the soil here, so I just wanted to see it, I suppose. I wanted to see if it was as special as everyone said.’ She held her hand up to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry, Emily. Especially with all this other nasty gubbins going on. I just wanted to see it. But when I was going over I tripped and…’ She bit down on her thumbnail before carrying on. ‘Oh it broke. It just snapped. Emily, I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never broken anything and I know people will think I did it on purpose but I didn’t, I promise. And now Jonathan is telling everyone that the show will be at the pub again and none of our entries are valid under his bloody criteria. I thought my cow tomato was a sure-fire for ugliest vegetable.’

Annie, who had been standing behind her glaring, started to laugh.

Her mum turned around, confused.

‘Sorry,’ Annie said, holding a hand up. ‘Sorry. I just…’

Emily looked down at the dead dahlia in her hand and then up at Annie’s mum’s distraught face. She would never have let something get this serious in the past. Yes she had been so proud of that dahlia, but she didn’t need a rosette to confirm how well they’d done to grow it from nothing. She might be growing up, but, she was beginning to realise, that didn’t mean losing everything about herself because quite a lot of it was good.

She let her fingers close, squashing the petals in her hand. ‘It’s OK, Winifred. Don’t worry about it. You’re welcome to a nose around our allotment any time you like. It’s only a flower. Lots more will grow in its place.’

‘Are you sure?’ Annie’s mum looked dubious.

‘Of course I’m bloody sure. Now, Annie, text your stupid brother and tell him the show is most definitely still on. Winifred,’ she said, going over to put her arm around Annie’s mum’s shoulders. ‘We can’t have the tomato cow going unseen, can we?’

Annie’s mum sniffed and shook her head with a little laugh. ‘Oh I am sorry, Emily.’

‘Fiddlesticks,’ Emily said, then laughed, ‘I’ve never said that before. Right. Let’s take action. First things first, Jane, there’s a bottle of champagne hanging by a string in that butt over there and there are glasses in the packing box. You pop that open while I go and water Jack’s strawberries. He
is
going to come back. And when he does, we need him to win.’

She caught Annie’s eye just as she was marching off to get the hose and didn’t miss the pity in her expression.

‘He
is
coming back, Annie,’ Emily said. ‘He has to.’

Chapter Seventeen

Friday afternoon, Annie, Emily and Jane stood in the kitchen of Mont Manor and watched the men putting up the marquee. The giant flat canvas was like a mirage in the heat.

‘We’re watching to check they do a good job, aren’t we?’ Annie laughed as all the men heaved at the ropes, their T-shirts tucked into their shorts, their muscles straining.

Emily frowned and nodded. ‘Absolutely. This is by no means gratuitous staring.’

Jane backed away from the window to retrieve her martini. ‘I drink way more when I’m with you, Emily.’

‘It’s medicinal,’ Emily said, waving a hand to dismiss her. ‘It’s been a traumatic week.’

Jane picked out her olive on its cocktail stick and slid it off with her teeth. ‘How did you get rid of the paps in the end?’ she asked.

Emily pulled out one of her new wooden country kitchen chairs and, sitting down, said, ‘I offered them something better.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not quite sure yet,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘We’re going to have to wait and see.’

Jane raised a brow. ‘Mysterious.’

Winston came in to get them all to come and look at his beautifully painted living room. The pineapples gone, the whole room had been reverted back to the palest yellow. Emily sighed. ‘Ahh, the yellow room. Thank you, Winston,’ she said, going over to kiss him on the cheek.

‘It’s my pleasure.’

‘It’s perfect,’ said Emily as she lay down on the carpet, flat on her back to take it all in. ‘It’s exactly, exactly perfect.’

Winston laughed and went off to clean his brushes.

‘Lie down and look up,’ she told Annie and Jane. ‘It’s calming.’

‘Are you going to make us do Mindfullness exercises?’ Annie asked as she crouched down to the floor.

They lay in a star shape, all their heads meeting in the middle.

‘See, isn’t it mellow?’ Emily said.

‘Kind of,’ said Annie.

After a few seconds of staring, Emily asked, ‘Has anyone seen Jack by any chance?’

‘No.’ Both Annie and Jane said it in unison.

Emily didn’t say anything else.

‘Em, he doesn’t hang around. You know that. I don’t know if he is coming back, you know?’ Annie said quietly.

Emily nodded, her hair scrunching on the dust sheet on the floor beneath her. She didn’t say anything for a moment. Annie reached out so that her hand could hold hers and she gave it a squeeze. ‘I know,’ Emily said.

No one spoke.

Then Jane reached over to her bag, fumbled around for the diary and said, ‘Let me read you this…’

He sent me a letter today saying he’d be in London on the 18th. It asks if I want to join him. He says he knows it’s forward and unexpected, but if this war has taught us anything it is to seize opportunities when they arise. He says that if I don’t join him then he’ll be forced to go and see his family which will be a dry, boring affair. And he’d rather spend his days laughing at the moment. He said that I was the only person he’d met who had made him laugh without thinking about it. (I’m assuming with me rather than at me, the latter would not be promising.)

Here look this is what his note says: If you want to join me for dinner, I’ll be staying at the Ritz.

The Ritz! I’ve never been to the Ritz. Can you imagine if the only time I went was with a war on? What would I wear? I can’t believe I’m thinking about what I would wear rather than whether I should meet a stranger for dinner.

Of course I’m going to meet him. If we can’t make beautiful memories at the moment, what can we do?

Emily rolled over onto her front and propped her chin up on her elbows. Annie did the same.

‘She went to the Ritz to meet him?’ Emily said, mouth open in shock. ‘Go Enid!’

‘Yeah, I know!’ Jane nodded. ‘There are pages and pages of description about what it was like. She got really nervous about going, didn’t tell a soul. She wore a blue silk dress of her mothers that she re-sewed at night without anyone knowing. It’s amazing. She got a lift in the ambulance up to London and said she was so nervous she couldn’t open the back doors when it pulled up. The doorman came over and helped her in the end. She never said any of this, did she? I never even heard her talk about it with my mum.’

Annie reached out and took the diary from Jane, flicking over the pages. ‘Does she talk about the evening? How it went?’

‘Yeah.’ Jane leant over and turned a couple more pages so Annie could see where to read from.

‘It was lovely. More so than I’d hoped. I don’t need to write it down because I will remember it forever.’

‘Damn you, Enid,’ Annie said with a frustrated laugh.

‘We sat in the bar together, we smoked, we talked about everything, we laughed, he held my hand. I’ve never had my hand held with such reverence before. I’m not stupid. I know it will be nothing more than a night. But it was truly the best night of my life.

Mum asked today if I’d seen her dress. I said maybe someone had stolen it off the line. She looked suspicious. I think it’s because I can’t stop smiling, although no doubt tomorrow’s shift will put paid to that.

The weather is boiling. It’s insufferable. I want to be back at the Ritz.’

Annie shut the diary. ‘I’ve just realised that this only ends badly,’ she said. ‘I’ve had this ridiculous smile on my face reading it and I know it ends badly. What happens next?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jane with a shake of her head. ‘It’s in the next diary. We’ll have to wait and see.’

Emily rolled onto her back again. ‘It sounds like it was perfect while it was happening, doesn’t it? Wartime stripping them of all inhibitions. It’s fabulous. Surely it’s better to have experienced it, than not?’

It was only after she said it, that Emily realised she could have been talking about her and Jack. And the idea of her having kissed him and him never coming back didn’t seem in any way a good thing. ‘Or maybe I’m wrong,’ she said, pulling herself up to standing and heading for the door. ‘Makes me want to go to the Ritz,’ she added in as throwaway, casual a tone as she could muster.

Chapter Eighteen

Saturday morning was the hottest on record. As Emily walked through the marquee with Jonathan deciding on the best places for the competition stands, she was reminded of the original Cherry Pie Island Festival.

‘So I’ve drawn a plan. The big hitters in the centre, the more minor stands further out to the side. We need to the give the vegetables the space to be appreciated.’ Jonathan was holding his clipboard out to give Emily a good look.

‘Jonathan?’ Emily paused at the doorway of the marquee.

‘Yes, Emily?’

‘When did you become so old? You’re what, thirty-five? Have some fun!’

‘What like you, you mean?’ he said, his tone disapproving.