The Great Allotment Proposal (8 page)

She read the article again and again, wishing that she’d never read it once. She knew she shouldn’t let it take the shine of the launch of her perfume – blossom in her hair at the engagement, for goodness sake? How dare they bring it back to that. The scent was her tribute to Cherry Pie Island. The smell of the first blossoms, the big puffballs of flowers and the carpet of white petals. But it made her want to curl up in her bed clutching the signature scent to her chest, to lock it away so no one else could have it. She had wanted it to be about her strength and vitality. About independence and spirit. Her memories of a time before she became ‘Fox Hunter’ and an ability to make it on her own without anything to do with him attached. And yet however many years passed – five now – she couldn’t shake him.

So she Googled him instead.

There he was in the hundreds. Pages and pages of him. She hadn’t really looked at a photo of him in years. And now there were almost too many to see clearly. She peered at the photos of him with his new baby. With Adeline at the Oscars. With him loping down the street with his bulldog, carrying a Starbucks and talking on his phone. With him wearing glasses, which she wasn’t sure he needed, looking serious as he tried his hand at directing. She studied him, the lines on his face, the slight stubble, the tan, the new tattoos. She got really close up on one picture of his face front on and examined every detail. She looked at his clothes, at his shoes, at his wedding band. And she realised that she didn’t know him at all any more. Not even slightly. His smile was the same. His eyes were the same. But otherwise he was a stranger. A person with whom her life once crossed.

Yet as they crossed, she had been snagged. Caught like a bit of flotsam on the back of his boat, bashing about through the waves as he speeded forward. And, try as she might, she couldn’t shake herself free.

‘Damn you!’ she said, slamming the laptop shut.

‘Are you talking to me, Emily?’

‘No, Winston, you’re all right.’

She had to get out. She needed an hour’s peace. She needed, she realised, to go to the allotment.

‘Oh you’re back?’ Emily said as she walked up to her patch, surprised to see Jack there watering his tomatoes.

‘Just now,’ he said, bending down to retie some of the stalks to their canes. ‘Why? Did you miss me?’

Emily got her hoe out from the precarious shed and shook her head. ‘Not really.’

Jack laughed. ‘No, I don’t suppose you did. What’s wrong with you? You look furious.’

‘I’m not furious.’

He leant on one of the canes, raised one eyebrow and said, ‘Em, you’re fuming.’

She started hoeing, severing the heads off the tiny weeds. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he said with a chuckle and went back to detangling and tying his tomato plants.

‘All right, son?’ said a man’s voice, then, ‘Oh hello Emily! Nice to see you here.’

Emily turned to see Jack’s dad, Alan Neil, walking up the path with a bag of beers in one hand and a tray of seedlings in the other. She knew him pretty well, not just from when she was a kid, but because she hung around with the kind of people that recorded at Alan Neil’s studio. The venue was infamous not just because it was based in an old lighthouse, but because Alan was one of the best producers in the business and musicians flocked to work with him. He kissed her on both cheeks when he got close and said, ‘I heard you’ve single-handedly saved the Cherry Pie Show.’

Emily saw Jack frown in the background. It was clearly news to him.

‘Did you know that, Jack?’ His dad asked. ‘Emily’s bringing back the festival. Well not exactly is it, it’s more like a hybrid show and festival. I got your email about the music, I’ll get the bands there, don’t you worry. I’ve got some brilliant little up and comers and I reckon I could pull in a few favours. You’ll have to make sure you’ve got some decent security though. Don’t want a rerun of the last one.’

Emily shook her head. ‘You might have to help me with that as well,’ she said, looking sheepish. ‘I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start with that.’

Alan winked. ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll sort it for you. You could put Jack on the door. That beard’d scare away any rogue visitors.’

Emily laughed for the first time that day. ‘No kidding. He’s like a monster.’

Jack ignored the two of them and moved on to some other plants that Emily had no idea what they were.

‘Hey, here’s Ed and the little ’un–’ Alan pointed over to the gate where Ed Neil, Jack’s younger brother, was walking over carrying a young kid, who must have only been one, on his shoulders and behind him was a tall, tanned, willowy woman dressed in a flowery cotton sundress, her hair pulled up on top of her head in a messy bun, and her face like an Egyptian goddess. She was breathtakingly stunning. Emily was almost tempted to ask her to be the face of her new campaign.

‘Blimey, Ed’s done all right for himself, hasn’t he?’ Emily said, with an incredulous look at Alan. ‘Where did she come from?’

But instead of laughing back, Alan just gave her a tight smile and started to walk towards Ed and his family.

Emily looked at Jack for back-up that what she had said wasn’t weird or out of line, but Jack was staring resolutely down at his perfect lines of plants.

‘Emily, you know Ed, don’t you?’ Alan said, pointing from Ed to Emily and back again.

‘Yeah. The annoying younger brother,’ she said with a smile and a wink. ‘You’d always be like “Jaaaack, it’s your girlfriend” when I rang and then you’d giggle down the phone. D’you remember?’

Ed nodded and blushed a touch as he held out his hand to shake. When Emily’d last seen him, he’d been a scrawny, geeky little thing, into building balsa wood models with his brother and model aeroplanes and generally following along after Jack with big doe eyes. Now he was still fairly scrawny but in a city banker kind of way: pink low-slung shorts, a cream striped casual shirt, a woven belt and deck shoes.

‘And this is Monty,’ Alan said, pointing to the toddler who had clearly softened Alan in his dotage. ‘And Josephine.’

‘Hi,’ Emily said, reaching round Ed to extend her hand to his wife.

Josephine smiled shyly as she shook Emily’s hand, said hi, then lifted Monty off Ed’s shoulders and went to look at the chickens on the neighbouring plot.

‘So how did you two meet?’ Emily asked Ed, who was taking off his rucksack and opening it up to get stuff out for Monty.

They all seemed to pause for a second, stiffen at the question.

Emily swallowed. Wishing suddenly that she’d left it at the earlier comment to Alan. She didn’t know what the problem was, but it was clearly some unspoken balloon above them that she was unwelcomely prodding.

‘Hey, guys!’ Annie arrived, saving the moment, and everyone relaxed, letting Emily’s question disappear into the afternoon. ‘I’ve got vanilla sponge and cherry pie and some chocolate muffins. All leftover from the cafe and it has to be eaten by the end of the day. Monty, I see a chocolate muffin with your name on it,’ she said, smiling at the toddler. Next to Annie was her little niece Gerty, dressed in a red tutu, pink boots and a black and white striped T-shirt, around her neck was a camera and she was snapping shots of the allotment’s decrepit shed.

‘Don’t go too close to that, Gerty, that thing’s a death trap,’ Annie said as she unloaded packages from the cafe.

‘But it’ll make a good photo,’ said Gerty, going closer, kneeling down for a shot of the rotten, lichen covered door.

‘Well just be careful,’ said Annie, then looked over to the others and said, ‘She’s going for that Young Photographer of the Year Award.’

‘Get a good shot of that shed, Gert, and you’ll be in with a chance,’ Ed said with a smile as he went to join his wife, handing Monty his cup and bending down with them to look at the chickens. Alan went over to give Jack the tray of plants he was carrying as Emily lay her rake down next to the sweet peas and wandered over to Annie.

When she got near she made a show of helping her undo the cake packets while whispering, ‘Why are they all so funny about Ed’s wife?’

Annie looked furtively over at Ed and Josephine and then towards Jack and Alan. Jack had glanced up, clearly aware of what they were talking about. ‘I don’t think I can tell you here,’ Annie whispered back, trying to keep her lips still like a bad ventriloquist.

‘Just tell me,’ Emily muttered.

‘Gerty, mind the shed,’ Annie called over to her niece. Then really quickly under her breath said to Emily, ‘Because she was married to Jack.’

‘What?’ Emily said, a touch too loud, and she heard Alan cough behind her and knew it was a warning.

Annie made a face and nodded.

Emily stood open-mouthed for a second, but before she had a chance to glance over and stare at Ed, Josephine and Monty looking at the chickens, the shed collapsed with a giant bang.

‘Gerty!’ Annie yelled as the whole structure toppled to the left, the supporting side wall hitting the ground with a smack and the roof bashing down on top of it. Gerty sprang back on her bum, clicking the shutter of her camera by mistake. The surprise made her cry as Annie scooped her up and away from the wreck.

Jack jogged over to check that they were OK and when it was clear everyone was fine, stood next to Emily watching a couple more bits of wood snap and the walls slide further sideways, before saying quietly, ‘Got your gossip?’

Emily turned to look at him. ‘I had no idea,’ she said. ‘I’m really sorry.’ Not even bothering to mask the fact they’d been caught gossiping.

Jack just shrugged. ‘It’s life.’

‘And you’re OK with it?’ she asked, glancing sideways to see Josephine cuddling a shocked, crying Monty.

‘What would the alternative do?’ he said. ‘There’d be no family.’

Emily frowned, unsure at his reasoning.

Jack smiled. ‘You can’t stop what will be, Em,’ he said, then reached forward to grab a slice of vanilla sponge. ‘Your shed is buggered.’

Annie rolled her eyes. ‘Tell me about it. All our tools are in there.’

‘What’s that?’ Jack nodded his head towards what looked like the corner of a wooden box sticking out the earth where the side wall had collapsed.

‘I don’t know.’ Emily said, taking a step forward. ‘Looks like a wine crate. Maybe it’s vintage champagne. That’d be fun.’

Annie and Jack followed her forward. Handing his vanilla sponge to Emily, Jack bent down and pushed the earth away from the top of the box and then scooped it out from the sides. ‘You want me to pull it out?’

Annie nodded.

He kicked the wall of the shed out the way and hauled the box out from the ground, carrying it over to one of the chairs and plonking it down.

Emily handed him the vanilla sponge back and dusted the rest of the earth off the lid of the box. ‘It
is
a wine crate. I think there might be wine in here,’ she said. ‘How do we get the lid off?’

‘We pry it open,’ said Jack and went over to his own shed to find a hammer.

They all gathered round as he teased the lid off the box with the hammer claw.

Gerty was the first to look inside when the top came free, breaking out of Annie’s hold and nuzzling her nose in to get a good look. ‘It’s old books,’ she said.

‘Books?’ Emily frowned. ‘I thought it was wine.’

Annie stepped forward and picked up one of the leather-bound volumes. ‘It’s diaries,’ she said, flipping through the pages. ‘It’s the diaries. Enid’s. That Jane and Holly have been looking for. This is them.’

Emily took another one out of the box. ‘Blimey. She buried them.’

‘Why would you bury your diaries?’ Jack asked.

‘Because they say something you don’t want anyone to see?’ Annie said.

‘What do they say?’ Gerty asked.

‘I don’t know, Gert,’ Annie said, ruffling Gerty’s hair. ‘But I think we’ll probably find out soon enough.’

‘Shall we read them now?’ Emily asked.

Annie shook her head. ‘No I don’t think so. I think we have to give them to Martha. They’re hers, aren’t they? Enid was her mum, after all. And if she doesn’t want to read them, then I think Jane should. She’s the one who’s been looking for them.’

Emily shrugged. ‘Can I just have a sneak peek?’

‘No.’ Annie laughed and whipped the diary out of her hands. ‘Have some cake instead.’

Emily settled for a slice of cherry pie. When she held it in her muddy hands, the cherry juice oozed down over her fingers and she licked it away, feeling like a real pro gardener, unconcerned by a bit of earth with her cake.

She watched Jack eating the vanilla slice and Gerty taking photos of Monty laughing at the chickens. She looked at Ed’s arm draped over Josephine’s willowy shoulders and Alan lounging back on a deckchair letting the sun warm his face. You’d have to be pretty tough to make sure that that wasn’t destroyed, to rise above the bitterness and let what will be be.

She glanced back to Jack and caught him watching her as she watched them. He glanced away sharply.

Or maybe it was like her with Giles. That by the end – when, looking back, he’d obviously met someone else, when he wasn’t coming home at night, when his mind was clearly elsewhere when she was talking to him – she had realised that they hadn’t loved each other for months, maybe years. That she was actually uncomfortable. That, at an age when she was meant to know what she was doing, she had made a mistake, one she couldn’t see a way out of without a huge, earth-shattering media explosion.

One that happened anyway when he left her at the altar for Adeline.

Annie came over and stood next to her. ‘I saw the article today. Are you OK?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’ Emily nodded, the cherries in her mouth popping as she chewed and spoke. ‘I wasn’t. But now I am.’

Chapter Eleven

The taxi dropped Emily at the gates of Mont Manor at midnight.

The building loomed eerie and bleak in the darkness, but as soon as she punched in the code, the whizzy automatic lights of the previous owners kicked in and the place lit up like a football pitch. She had to shield her eyes from the glare as she walked to the front door, her stilettos dangling from her fingers.

Once inside she paused for a moment, leaning back on the wood of the door, allowing herself a moment to breathe. To congratulate herself for getting through it, for getting her message across, for launching her product and not allowing anything to get in the way of it. But the article had been mentioned of course, the paps on the door shouted about her and Giles back together, the purchase of the house questioned by acquaintances who asked if they should be worried about her. But the perfume had been loved and the giant photographs of a young her among the island cherry trees she hoped had put paid to the engagement blossom references.