The Shell Seekers (26 page)

An hour later, she had bathed and dressed, unlocked all the doors, and eaten her breakfast. Strong coffee, a boiled egg, toast and honey. Sitting over her second cup of coffee, she listened for the sound of an approaching car. She had not before had dealings with the Horticultural Contractors, but she knew that they sent their men out to work in smart little green vans with AUTO-GARDEN written in white capitals on their sides. She had seen them buzzing about, and very smart and efficient they looked, too. She felt a little apprehensive. She had never employed a gardener in her life, and hoped that he would be neither surly nor opinionated. She must tell him very firmly, right away, to prune nothing, to cut nothing back without her permission. She would start him off on something simple and down to earth. The hawthorn hedge at the bottom of the orchard. He could trim that down. She supposed that he was capable of using her little chain-saw. Was there enough petrol for the motor in the garage? Should she go and look, while there was still time to go and get some more?

There was not time, for at that moment these anxious speculations were abruptly interrupted by the unexpected sound of footsteps on gravel, approaching the house. Penelope set down her coffee-cup and got to her feet, peering across the room and out of the window. She saw him, in the quiet, chill morning light, coming towards her. A tall young man in a khaki oilskin jacket and jeans tucked into black rubber boots. He was bareheaded, brown-haired. As she watched him, he stopped for an instant, looking about him, uncertain, perhaps, of his surroundings. She saw the set of his shoulders, the lift of his chin, the angle of his jaw. Yesterday, seeing her son Noel approach across the lawn, Penelope's heart had missed a beat, and now the same scary thing happened. She laid a hand on the table, closed her eyes. She breathed deeply. Her galloping heart settled down. She opened her eyes again. The doorbell rang.

She went through the porch to open the door. He stood there. Tall. Taller than herself. He said, "Good morning."

"Good morning."

"Mrs. Keeling?"

"Yes."

"I'm from Autogarden."

He did not smile. His eyes were unblinking, blue as chips of glass, his face thin and brown, rough with the early-morning cold, the skin drawn tight across high cheek-bones. A red woollen scarf was knotted at his throat, but his hands were bare.

She looked beyond him, over his shoulder. "I was listening for a car."

"I came on my bike. Left it at the gate. I wasn't sure if this was the house."

"I thought Autogarden always sent their men to work in those green vans."

"No. I bicycled." Penelope frowned. He put a hand into his pocket. "I've a letter from my boss." He took it out, unfolded it. She saw the letter-heading, the authentication of his identity. She was instantly embarrassed. "I never thought for a moment you weren't genuine. I just imagined ..."

"This is Podmore's Thatch?" He put the letter back in his pocket.

"Yes, of course it is. You'd . . . you'd better come in."

"No. I won't disturb you. If you could just show me what you want me to do ... show me where you keep the garden tools. Coming on the bike, I wasn't able to bring any with me."

"Oh, never mind, I have everything." She knew she sounded flustered, but that was because she was flustered. "If . . . you'll just wait a moment. I'll get a coat. . . ."

"That's all right."

She went and found her coat, and her boots, and took the garage key from its hook. Outside again, she saw that he had collected his bike from the gate, and was leaning it up against the wall of the house.

"It won't be in the way there, will it?"

"No, of course not."

She led the way across the gravel, unlocked the garage doors. He helped her open them and she turned on the light, and there was the usual confusion; her old Volvo, the three children's bicycles which she hadn't the heart to throw away, a mouldering pram, the motor mowers, a selection of rakes and hoes and spades and forks.

She edged her way through this collection, making for a decrepit chest of drawers, relic of Oakley Street, where she kept hammers and screwdrivers, rusty tins of nails, and odds and ends of garden twine. On top of this was the chain-saw.

"Can you use one of these?"

"Sure."

"Well, we'd better see if there's some petrol." There was, mercifully. Not much, but enough.

"What I'd really like you to do is trim up my hawthorn hedge."

"Fine." He shouldered the chain-saw, and took up the petrol can in his other hand. "Just point me in the right direction."

But she took him there, to be sure that he made no mistake, leading him around the house, across the frosty lawn, through the gap in the privet hedge, and across the orchard. The thicket of hawthorn, a tangle of thorny boughs, reared up before them. Beyond it, quietly, coldly, flowed the little river Windrush.

"You've got a lovely place here," he observed.

"Yes. Yes, it is lovely. Now I want you to cut it down to this height. No lower."

"Do you want to keep any of the trimmings for firewood?"

Penelope had not thought of this. "Is it worth keeping?"

"Burns beautifully."

"All right. Keep the bits you think will be of use. And make a bonfire of the rest."

"Right." He set down the saw and the petrol can. "That's it, then."

His tone was dismissive, but she refused to be dismissed. "Are you here for the day?"

"Till four-thirty, if that's all right by you. Summer-time, I start at eight and finish at four."

"What about your lunch break?"

"I take an hour. Twelve to one."

"Well . . ." She was talking to the back of his head. "If you want anything, I shall be in the house."

He was squatting on his haunches, unscrewing the cap of the chainsaw with a long-fingered, capable hand. He made no reply to her remark, simply nodded. She was made to feel intrusive, in the way. She turned and made her way back up the garden, a little annoyed, and yet amused at herself for being so outfaced. In the kitchen her coffee-cup, half empty, waited on the table. She took a mouthful, but it had gone cold, so she threw it down the sink.

By the time Mrs. Plackett arrived, the chain-saw had been whining for half an hour, and from the bottom of the orchard, bonfire smoke spiralled into the still morning air, filling the gar-den with the delicious scent of burning wood.

"He's come, then," said Mrs. Plackett as she appeared through the door, for all the world like a ship in full sail. She wore, as it was wintry, her fur pixie hood, and carried her plastic bag containing working shoes and pinafore. She knew all about Penelope's decision to employ a gardener, just as she knew almost everything that went .on in her employer's life. They were very good friends and kept nothing from each other. When Mrs. Plackett's daughter Linda was "caught" by the boy who worked in the Pudley garage, Mrs. Keeling was the first person Mrs. Plackett told. And Mrs. Keeling had been a tower of strength, fiercely opposed to the notion that Linda should marry the feckless fellow, and knitting the baby a lovely white matinee coat. And in the end she had been right, because soon after the baby was born, Linda met Charlie Wheelwright, as nice a chap as Mrs. Plackett had ever known, and he had married Linda and taken the little bastard on as well, and now there was another baby on the way. Things had a way of working out for the best. There was no denying that. But still, Mrs. Plackett remained grateful to Mrs. Keeling for her kind and practical counsel at a time of real stress.

"The gardener, you mean? Yes, he's come."

"Saw the bonfire smoke as I cycled through the village." She took off her fur pixie hood, unbuttoned her coat. "But where's the van?"

"He came on his bike."

"What's his name?"

"I didn't ask."

"What's he like?"

"He's young, and well-spoken and very good-looking."

"Hope they haven't sent you one of those fly-by-nights."

"He doesn't look like a fly-by-night."

"Oh, well." Mrs. Plackett tied on her pinafore. "We'll just have to see." She rubbed her swollen red hands together. "Bitter morning, it is. Not so much cold as damp."

"Have a cup of tea," suggested Penelope, as she always did.

"Well, I wouldn't mind," said Mrs. Plackett, as she always did.

The morning was on its way.

Mrs. Plackett, having chased the Hoover round the house, polished the brass stair rods, scrubbed the kitchen floor, dealt with a pile of ironing, and used at least half a tin of furniture polish, took herself off at a quarter to twelve, in order to be home again, in Pudley, in time to give her husband his dinner. She left behind her a house shining cleanly and smelling sweetly. Penelope glanced at the clock, and set about preparing lunch for two. A pot of home-made vegetable soup was put to heat. From the larder she fetched half a cold chicken, a crusty loaf of brown bread. There were some stewed apples in a dish, a jug of cream.

She laid the kitchen table with a checked cotton cloth. If it had been sunny, she would have laid the table in the conservatory, but the clouds hung dark and low and the day had never come to anything. She put a tumbler and a can of beer by his place. After-wards, perhaps he would like a cup of tea. The fragrant broth began to simmer. Soon, he would come. She waited.

At ten past twelve, when he had still not appeared, she went in search of him. She found a neatly cut hedge, a smouldering bonfire, and a stack of little logs, but no sign of the gardener. She would have called him, but as she did not know his name, this was impossible. She went back to the house, beginning to wonder if, after a single morning's work, he had decided to chuck his hand in and go home, never to return. But, at the back of the house, she found his bicycle, so knew that he was still around. She walked across the gravel to the garage, and there came upon him, just inside the door, sitting on an upturned bucket, eating a dull-looking sandwich made of white bread, and apparently engrossed in what could only be The Times crossword.

Discovering him at last in such cramped, cold, and uncomfortable surroundings filled her with indignation.

"What on earth are you doing?"

He sprang to his feet, startled out of his skin by her unexpected appearance and the tone of her voice, dropping his paper and knocking over the bucket, which made a hideous clatter. His mouth was still full of sandwich, which he had to chew and swallow before he could say anything. He turned red and was obviously enormously embarrassed.

"I'm . . . having my lunch."

"Having your lunch?"

"Twelve to one. You said it would be all right."

"But not out here. Not sitting on a bucket in the garage. You must come into the house, and have it with me. I thought you understood that."

"Have it with you?'

"What else? Don't your other employers give you your midday meal?"

"No."

"I've never heard of anything so dreadful. How can you possibly do a day's work on a sandwich?"

"I manage."

"Well, you don't manage with me. Throw that horrible bit of bread away, and come indoors."

He looked nonplussed, but did as he was told, not throwing the sandwich away, to be sure, but wrapping it up in a bit of paper and stowing it in the bag of his bicycle. Then he picked up the newspaper and stowed that away as well, retrieved the bucket and set it in its accustomed corner. With all this done, she led him indoors. He shed his jacket, revealing a much-mended navy-blue guernsey sweater. Then he washed his hands, and dried them, and took his place at the table. She set before him a big bowl of steaming soup, told him to cut bread and help himself to butter. She took a smaller bowl for herself and settled down be-side him.

He said, "This is really very kind of you."

"Not kind at all. Simply the way I've always done things. No. That's not right. Because I've never had a gardener before. But when my parents had any person to work for them out of doors, they always joined us for the midday meal. I think I never realized things were done differently. I'm sorry. Perhaps the little mix-up was all my fault. I should have made myself more clear."

"I didn't realize."

"No, of course you didn't. Now, tell me about yourself. What's your name?"

"Danus Muirfield."

"What a perfect name."

"I thought it was quite ordinary."

"Perfect for a gardener, I mean. Some people have names that are exactly right for their professions. I mean, what could Charles de Gaulle have been but the saviour of France? And poor Alger Hiss. Born with a name like that, he simply had to be a spy."

He said, "When I was a boy, we had a rector in our church and he was called Mr. Paternoster."

"There you are ... that just proves my point. Where were you a boy? Where were you brought up?"

"Edinburgh."

"Edinburgh. You're Scottish."

"Yes, I suppose I am."

"What does your father do?"

"He's a lawyer. A Writer to the Signet."

"What a lovely title. So romantic. Didn't you want to be a lawyer too?"