Sowing Secrets (22 page)

‘Where were you last night?’ Mal demanded, when he finally managed to reach me just before I set off for Fairy Glen.

This was keen, since if my sums are correct it must have been the crack of dawn over on Grand Cayman.

‘At the pub,’ I said shortly, since there is no point in hedging when your neighbours are reporting your every move to your absent spouse. Anyway, it’s not like I have any guilty secrets – or any
more
guilty secrets. ‘I was looking at the plans for restoring Plas Gwyn’s gardens with Nia and Rhodri – and Gabriel Weston.’

‘Oh? You seem to be getting quite friendly with him!’

‘If friendly is showing him around Fairy Glen, and accepting a couple of lifts home from him, then yes, we are bosom buddies.’

‘Apparently he visits the house too!’

‘He visited the garden this morning,’ I corrected him. ‘He wanted to see my roses, because it helps to see what kind already thrive in the area. But my, my, how quickly news travels!’

‘I didn’t mean to sound suspicious, Fran. It’s just that he suddenly appears to be around all the time.’

‘He’s going to be around even more. Ma’s definitely agreed to sell Fairy Glen to him.’

‘She has? I thought she didn’t want to sell it as a second home.’

‘She doesn’t – he intends living here. She’s finalising things with him today.’

There was a short but expensive silence. ‘Well, I suppose it’s a good thing, because once it’s known that celebrities are buying into the area the value of all the houses including ours will go up even more.’

‘So you keep saying, but I’m not sure that
is
a good thing – and immaterial in our case, because we’ll never sell our lovely cottage, will we?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t envisage living in a rural backwater for ever when I bought it.’

‘You
didn’t
? That’s not what you said when we first met! You said we would live happily ever after in St Ceridwen’s!’

‘Well, we have, haven’t we?’ he said snappily. ‘But things change and we might want to move on sometime.’

I held the receiver away and looked at it as if it had bitten me. It made a quacking noise, so I put it back to my ear in time to hear Mal say, ‘So, does this TV gardener have any family? And how old is he?’

‘He’s divorced, and in his early forties. Older than me, younger than you,’ I said callously, since Mal approaching the big five-oh is sore point. I don’t know why he’s worried. Men are allowed to have grey hair and wrinkles, and he’s always going to be handsome, because it’s in his bones. ‘And the only thing we have in common is an interest in roses, so don’t start imagining anything.’

‘Of course not – I was just interested. I
trust
you, darling.’

‘And I trust you, too – which is just as well when we are apart for so long!’

‘Yes, but you’ll soon be coming out for your holiday, and you’re going to love it here. It’s a wonderful place.’

‘It sounds a very expensive place, what with swimming pools and maids!’

‘No, it’s just a different lifestyle, and I’m still economising: I’ve made up my mind to sell
Cayman Blue
!’

‘You really have?’ I said, amazed.

‘Yes, I’ve told Owen to look for a buyer for me – put some adverts in the boat mags.’

‘But you love sailing.’

‘Yes, and I’ve managed to get some in here, because I know lots of people with boats. But I overstretched myself buying
Cayman Blue
– maybe Owen over-persuaded me. I’ll replace it eventually with one I can sail single-handed, so I don’t have to rely on getting crew before I can take it out.’

‘That’s great, Mal! And you can repay that loan too, once it’s sold.’

‘Probably make a loss on it, like the car, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.’

‘I think it’s wonderful. If we can live according to our means, then you won’t have to take so many contracts away from home, will you?’

‘Well, there’s still a whopping mortgage to pay, and you don’t earn all that much. Still, it’ll all help.’

‘Did you look into remortgaging the house?’ I asked.

‘Not yet. I’ve been too busy. But I will,’ he promised.

‘Oh, well, I suppose this separation will have been worth it in the end, but I do miss you, Mal.’

‘How’s the diet?’

‘Oh … coming along,’ I said vaguely. ‘I had to wait for my blood count to be normal first, of course.’

‘But you’re better again now?’

‘Oh, yes, just a bit unfit,’ I assured him, because I am physically OK again really, though losing a baby even in the early stages is not something you are ever likely to forget entirely.

‘Good. Mother was asking about you the other day. She’s going to come out to Grand Cayman for a holiday too.’

‘Yes, she told Rosie, but it doesn’t sound like her sort of thing at all!’

‘Well, I am her only child, after all, and she misses me. Besides, I invited her in the first place – thought she would enjoy it and the warmth would do her rheumatism good.’

‘I expect it will,’ I said charitably. ‘So when is she going?’

There was a short pause. ‘Well, that’s the thing, she just went ahead and booked her flights, and it turns out that she’ll be here for part of the time you will.’

‘What! But, Mal—’

‘Now, Fran, just calm down! She’s arriving before you, and leaving earlier, so there’s only a
little
bit of overlap.’

‘But this is supposed to be our second honeymoon!’

‘Yes, and we will still have almost a week alone together after Mother’s gone home. But I’m working hard and can’t spare the time to drive her about the island, so it’s actually worked out well.’

‘You mean you expect me to run her about instead?’

‘I thought she would be company for you!’

‘But she hates me!’

‘You’re being silly. Naturally she can’t condone our marriage, but she’s got used to the idea, and she has nothing against you personally.’

‘Apart from my being a Scarlet Woman. She vowed she’d never spend a night under the same roof as me.’

‘She hasn’t called you that for ages, and she said she was very sorry you lost the baby. I really didn’t think you’d take it like this, Fran!’

‘Mal, you didn’t think in the
first
place. I thought this was going to be our special holiday together and—’

‘It will be, you’ll see,’ he said hastily. ‘I’ve got all sorts of things planned for after Mother goes home. Have you bought some nice clothes yet, or are you waiting until you’ve got all the weight off?’

‘Er … waiting,’ I said evasively. ‘But it sounds like a chauffeur’s uniform is all I’ll need!’

Even Mal could tell I wasn’t happy about the situation, and he did his best to smooth me down before he rang off. But I am not smoothed, I am ruffled: there was only one holiday companion I wanted, and it wasn’t his mother. He would have quite some making up to do after she’d gone.

After wandering around the house slamming doors and muttering for a while I began to calm down. I suppose it’s natural he wants to see his mother, and he couldn’t just leave her alone in his apartment all day, every day. And he
has
been working hard and trying to reduce our debts – working for
us
.

Perhaps I really had better get on with the diet now. I’ve only got until the end of May, which is not actually that far off.

OK, detox time. I’ll start on Monday when Ma will have gone home again and so not be scuppering my resolution with chocolate digestive biscuits and offers of meals out.

It was another mother and son reunion up at Fairy Glen, with Ma and Gabe all cosy over a pot of tea and a plate of Jaffa Cakes in the kitchen, greedily watched by the two fat-bellied dachshunds.

Ma was smoking and crocheting simultaneously, which rather defeated the object of the exercise. I do wish she would start crocheting bedspreads or something instead of the eternal strips, since I already have enough bundles of the stuff to stretch to the moon.

Now, there’s a thought: astronauts could skip up its grubby length instead of having to be tossed into space in a tin can. I expect there’s a blindingly obvious reason why it wouldn’t work, though, like we’re turning in opposite directions and it would get into a giant knot, or something.

‘We were starting to think you weren’t coming, my love,’ Ma said.

‘Mal rang me just as I was about to leave.’

‘With details of your second honeymoon, presumably,’ Gabe said smoothly, like the snake in the grass he is.

‘Yes,
and
to tell me his mother is coming along for part of it!’ I snapped.

Ma looked surprised. ‘Is she? I thought she didn’t like you? And I must say,’ she added, ‘it doesn’t seem at all tactful!’

I hooked up a brightly painted chair and sat down with a sigh. ‘No, but naturally she misses him, and she’ll be leaving several days before I do.’

I found I was humming ‘And Mother Came Too’, and clamped my lips together. Ma is entirely to blame for my eclectic repertoire of terrible songs.

‘Well, my love,’ she said, after shifting her cigarette to the corner of her mouth, ‘we’re practically signed, sealed and delivered here – and parting with Fairy Glen isn’t half as painful as I expected, thanks to dear Gabriel.’

‘Don’t think of it as parting,’ he said. ‘Your room will stay just as it is, ready for you to come and go as you please.’

‘That’s very generous of you.
And
brave,’ I added as a volcanic fallout of hot ash alighted on Ma’s bundle of lace.

She brushed it absently. ‘He is a generous, kind boy,’ she agreed, ‘and what’s more, he likes the dogs.
And
the furniture.’

‘The furniture?’ The cottage is furnished in a mishmash of auction-room leftovers bought for a pound or two and painted in wild colours and designs.

‘Yes,’ Gabe agreed, ‘I want to buy the furniture too, except for anything you’d like. Most of my London stuff would look out of place here.’

That wasn’t a surprise – almost
anything
would look out of place here.

‘Me? I … no, it wouldn’t fit in with our house … but perhaps there are one or two things that would fit in my studio.’

‘Anything you want, you take it, Fran,’ Ma agreed, ‘and then Gabriel can have what’s left. I don’t need it – got a houseful already.’

She raised her mug. ‘Well, here’s to the new owner of Fairy Glen! Now, Gabriel’s going to come and stay over part of Easter, before the sale goes through; I’ve given him a key. Do you think you could pop in and make a bed up for him, Fran?’

‘I can make my own bed,’ he protested. ‘There’s no need for Fran to do it!’

‘But I know where everything is. I’ll put him in the turret, Ma.’

‘I’m just grateful there isn’t an oubliette,’ he said blandly.

‘No, the house is only
mock
-Gothic,’ Ma assured him. ‘And even if there were an oubliette, it would be bound to be damp. But are you sure you wouldn’t like my room? It’s the biggest.’

‘He can sleep anywhere he likes once the sale has gone through, but meanwhile I’ll make up the bed in the turret room,’ I said firmly.

He looked at me, eyes crinkling around the corners. ‘Not yours, either?’

‘I haven’t slept there for years, hence the girlie décor. I expect you’ll want to change that when you’ve bought the place.’

‘I don’t know, roses and fairies might grow on me.’ He put his cup down and got up. ‘I’ll have to go. I need to pick up my stuff from the hotel and get back to London. But I’ll return for the Easter egg hunt and the filming – and soon I’ll be back for good.’

‘And I hope you’ll be very happy here,’ Ma said, so warmly I started to feel a bit jealous. ‘I’ll not be seeing you over Easter, because Rosie’s going to be staying with me while she spends the week working for my vet – good practice for her – and then I’m off with the girls to Amsterdam for a long weekend.’

‘What are you going to do in Amsterdam?’ I asked suspiciously. ‘You didn’t tell
me
you were going to Amsterdam!’

‘Didn’t I?’ she said vaguely. ‘I thought I had. And I’m sure we’ll find something to do. I’ll bring you a nice present back.’

‘Not clogs,’ I said hastily.

‘All right,’ she agreed.

All the way home I had a horribly twee little song about mice with clogs on running through my head, one that Ma used to sing to me when I was little, even when I pleaded with her not to.

As a mother, she’s got a lot to answer for.

Once Ma had gone home again I started the detox diet, but after only a couple of days I felt at breaking point. Either it’s much harder than the book would have me believe, or else my body is one big toxic waste dump. I suspect the latter.

My fridge is full of fruit, but I’ve gone right off it, especially melon, due to the inside of a ripe one looking like alien afterbirth. The juicer is getting dusty – and who invented a machine that liquidises anything in seconds, yet takes fifteen minutes to clean afterwards and won’t go in the dishwasher? A man?

I don’t even feel any thinner, and I’ve been wondering what will happen to the stretched and wobbly tops of my arms if I do lose weight. Will the skin snap back at my age, or just hang in huge flaps, enabling me to glide from tree to tree like the biggest flying fox in the world?

And now I come to examine my arms more closely in the mirror, aren’t they abnormally long? Longer than other people’s, certainly – practically dragging along the ground when I walk!

‘Ma,’ I said, next time she phoned, ‘have you ever noticed anything odd about my arms?’

‘Why, my love, have you got a tattoo or something?’

‘No, they just seem very long, don’t you think? Unnaturally long?’

‘Oh, no, Frannie, I’m sure I would have noticed. And you wouldn’t be so attractive to all those men if you had arms like a gorilla, would you?’ She giggled.

‘
Which
men?’ I demanded, baffled.

‘I’ve had a poison-pen letter, darling, and very entertaining it was too! I must have scooped it up with the junk mail at Fairy Glen and brought it back with me.’

‘Yes, they’ve been going round the village. What did yours say?’

‘It said I had a harlot for a daughter, and I should be ashamed of dressing like one at my age. Then it raked up that silly story about Rhodri being Rosie’s father, and said you’d been carrying on with another man recently until Gabe Weston turned up, seemingly interested in restoring more than just a garden – only it put it a bit more crudely than that. Interestingly earthy analogies – fascinating.’

‘That seems pretty comprehensive – and I’m
not
. And neither do you look like a harlot.’

‘I look how I want to look,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘I don’t care about that. But which bit are
you
not?’

‘I’m not any of them,’ I said. ‘You know the bit about Rhodri isn’t true already, I’ve only seen Tom once since we split up, and that was at the Druid’s Rest when Mal was there. As to Gabe Weston—’

‘He’s a
proper
man,’ she said approvingly, ‘not like Mr Buttoned-Down Morgan! Gabriel agrees with me that any husband who callously leaves his lovely wife alone for months at a time like this deserves to find her snapped up by another man when he gets back.’

‘I’m not some kind of giant fishing fly, Ma – I’m not about to be snapped up by
anyone
!’ I said hotly. ‘What’s more, I
love
Mal, and I fully support what he’s doing.’

She ignored my hot defence. ‘We also agreed that you shouldn’t be trying to diet before you are totally recovered from the miscarriage, and you can tell Mal I said so. Anyway, you look fine to me.’

‘I’m definitely too fat, Mal’s right about that. And I’m perfectly well again now, so Gabriel Weston should keep his long nose – and his opinions – out of my business!’

‘He talks a lot of sense, and he feels quite like family already.’

‘Well, he’s
not
. And don’t you dare tell him what was in the poison-pen letter, either!’

‘I bet the Weevils are writing them,’ Ma said.

The suspicion had crossed my mind too.

So far as I can tell, the village has slumped back into seeming quiet, only underneath it is gently seething like a pot slowly coming to a boil. Everyone knows about the
Restoration Gardener
programme now, and that Gabe Weston is buying Fairy Glen, but the spate of poison-pen letters and unfounded rumours have stirred all sorts of other things up.

Could
it be the Wevills? Since decapitating my roses they haven’t done anything horrible that I know of, but perhaps they saw Gabriel helping me to prune them back and realised they had gone a bit too far, and in front of a third party.

I had meant to go to ask Carrie how she was getting on with Huw after their argument over his poison-pen letter, but I’ve been so busy trying to catch up with my work (as well as rather faint from the detox) that I haven’t really been anywhere. But then Nia summoned me to a meeting at Teapots early on Thursday morning, before it opened.

I wasn’t sure what it was about – the reception was awful because she was up in the mountains somewhere delivering a consignment of her lovely porcelain jewellery to a gift shop – but I’m sure she said something about bagging eggs. Or maybe that was
bad
eggs?

Five minutes after arriving at Teapots, my detox diet came to a spectacular end nose down in a fresh cream horn, and that was before Nia even got there.

She arrived carrying a wicker basket of small chocolate eggs and a stack of little Cellophane packets.

‘So you
did
say bagging eggs, after all. I thought I’d misheard you.’

‘Me too,’ Carrie said. She was lightly dusted in flour and icing sugar from her morning’s baking, and both she and the café smelled delicious. ‘What do you want us to do?’

‘Put one egg in each bag and then seal up the ends with this little tape dispenser thing I’ve borrowed from the garden centre. It’s just in case it rains on them.’

‘They look rather pretty like that, too,’ I said, admiring my handiwork.

‘If you frill out the ends of the bags on all of them we’ll be here for the rest of the day! I already suspect we’ll be finding the damn things for months afterwards. You
can
still come up at first light on Easter Sunday to help hide them, can’t you, Fran?’

‘Yes, all right – providing I can eat every tenth one.’

‘Have you seen how many there are? You’d be sick after the first few minutes!’

‘Just joking, though the smell of chocolate is starting to get to me.’

‘Do you want a cream horn, Nia?’ offered Carrie. ‘They’ve got home-made strawberry jam at the bottom. Fran, have another one, and pour yourself some coffee.’

She took one herself and we settled down to bag and eat simultaneously.

‘I’ve got an old bath in the back of my van,’ Nia said.

‘Isn’t that taking personal hygiene a bit far?’ I commented.

‘It’s not for me, it’s for the cows to drink out of at Home Farm so we can have the sarcophagus back,’ she explained. ‘And what’s more, I found the stone gryphon under a trough in one of the barns!’

‘Gabe will be pleased,’ I said, which reminded me. ‘Ma’s had a poison-pen letter now, more or less accusing me of having affairs with Tom
and
Gabe Weston! And it said Ma looked like an old slapper. She found the whole thing highly amusing – you know what she’s like – and said she thought one, or both, of the Wevills must be sending them. I think she’s right!’

Nia looked up. ‘Well, they’re the obvious candidates,’ she agreed.

‘Oh, no, surely not, they seem so nice!’ protested Carrie, troubled. ‘Mona was in here only yesterday, and I can’t believe she would send such a horrible letter about me to Huw!’

‘Well, think about it – none of this started until they moved here. The village was quiet and pleasant but now half the inhabitants seem to be at loggerheads and open warfare has broken out at the WI!’

‘Have you made up with Huw yet, Carrie?’ Nia asked.

‘Yes, and he’s abject,’ she said rather smugly. ‘Of course he realised how stupid it all was once he’d got over the shock, and he keeps buying me presents to make up.’

By the time we’d refilled the basket with bagged eggs it was almost time for Carrie to open the café, and the cream horns were but a slightly queasy memory and a few crumbs on a plate.

‘Do you want to come up to Home Farm and then on to Plas Gwyn with me?’ asked Nia. ‘It would give you a bit of fresh air. You look pale.’

‘No, I’d better go and make a bed up at Fairy Glen for Gabe, because I don’t know what day he’s arriving.’

‘Come up for tea tomorrow, then; as far as Rhodri is concerned,
every
day at half-past three everything stops for tea. And is Gabe actually moving in, or just staying temporarily?’

‘Temporarily, I think, but the sale will soon be through – the power of money! He wants Ma to carry on treating Fairy Glen as her holiday home: they’re in love, and he and Ma are going to live together happily ever after, so the poison-pen writer picked the wrong March.’

‘It’s all worked out very well,’ Carrie said, ‘them getting on like that. You’ve not so much lost a cottage as gained a—’

‘
Please
don’t say brother,’ begged Nia. ‘Remember?’

‘Oh, yes – though, actually, I do find it hard to – and then there was that big handsome blond man … ’ She stopped, looking embarrassed.

‘You
saw
Tom?’

‘Only briefly, getting out of his car,’ she said regretfully.

The second cream horn was getting to me and I began to feel
really
sick.

‘Anyone want the detox diet book?’ I offered. ‘And what am I going to try next?’

‘I’ve got a copy of Atkins – even that can’t be as extreme as detox,’ suggested Carrie.

‘OK, I’ll give it a go,’ I agreed, and she went to fetch it. It was a very ancient-looking copy, the pages loosening with age. I think
my
pages are too, so it might be the ideal book.

‘Give it up,’ Nia urged me.

‘No way – it’s only a few weeks before I go out, and Mal’s expecting Svelte Me, not Thundering Great Carthorse Me. Not,’ I added bitterly, ‘that the holiday is going to turn out quite like I thought, because his mother’s invited herself on it. He thinks it will be good because I can drive her around and look after her while he’s at work!’

‘He can’t do that to your second honeymoon, the swine. It’s – it’s unfair! He owed you this holiday,’ Nia exclaimed indignantly.

‘And the wedding vow ceremony – so romantic,’ Carrie agreed.

‘Well, I presume that’s still on: we’ve got several days to ourselves after Mrs M. goes home.’ I brightened. ‘Perhaps he’ll take some time off work then.’

‘It’s probably a sign that Mrs M. accepts you’re married to her son at last, if she’s agreed to stay under the same roof with you,’ suggested Carrie. ‘I mean, if you’re driving her round and everything, she can’t ignore you, can she?’

‘I wouldn’t put it past her,’ I said gloomily. ‘And another thing: how can I wear a decent swimsuit when I’m practically deformed?’

‘You’re only a bit plump, for goodness’ sake!’

‘Nearly spherical, and with huge long arms like an orangutan!’

Nia rolled her eyes and said, ‘Last time it was your tiny, pea-brained head! For God’s sake, stop getting fixations about the size of your body parts – there’s nothing wrong with you!’

Only Carrie was sympathetic: she said it was strange the way if you looked at something long enough it started to seem odd and out of proportion, and sometimes when she was trying to spell a word the more she thought about it, the odder it looked.

This could account for some of the weirder spellings on her menu blackboard: I’d already noticed that today’s specials included ‘Current Buns’, ‘Mades of Honour’ and ‘Ginger Parking’.

I made the bed up in the turret room with Rosie’s old Flower Fairies bedding. Well, Gabe did say he wanted to get in touch with his feminine side.

I’ve had a quick look at the Atkins diet and it looks easier to follow than the detox: I can basically eat anything I want, so long as it’s protein and the odd leaf. There has to be a catch somewhere.

I will officially start it on Monday, but I have transferred anything non-Atkins from my fridge and freezer to Fairy Glen’s, ready, so perhaps the next TV series will be
Fat Restoration Gardener
? Can’t see it, somehow.

Friday started fine, with the thought of Rosie coming home later to give me something to look forward to.

I worked all morning in the studio, and had just got back in for lunch when the doorbell rang, and there, to my complete astonishment, stood Mrs Morgan!

This was a first: she’s never visited me when Mal’s not here before. I probably goggled at her, for she said quite sharply, ‘Well, Frances, are you going to keep me standing here in this sharp wind, or invite me in?’

There was an old Volvo saloon parked in the drive, and an elderly woman with a frizz of pepper-and-salt hair seemed to be having a picnic in the driver’s seat. She gave me a severe look as she unscrewed the lid of her Thermos.

I dragged my attention back to my mother-in-law. ‘Of course, do come in. But isn’t that your friend outside in the car? Wouldn’t you like to bring her—’

‘She’s not coming in: this won’t take long,’ she stated, and, stepping past me, inspected a chair carefully for unspecified filth before sitting on it.

‘Tea?’ I offered, politely baffled.

‘No, thank you. I mustn’t keep my friend waiting too long.’ She paused, eyeing me doubtfully, but that may have been fear that I was about to explode out of my clothes like the Incredible Hulk. I
knew
I shouldn’t have had the second cream horn.

‘As you know, Frances, I consider your marriage bigamy in the eyes of the Lord. The bond of wedlock is for ever. However, Maldwyn
has
made a commitment to you, and therefore I cannot be happy about the ambiguity of the current situation.’

‘I’m not ecstatic about it myself,’ I agreed, though I wondered where the ambiguity came in. ‘But it
is
only six months. I’m so glad you’re coming out to Grand Cayman too,’ I added, lying heroically.

‘I felt it was my duty to try and instil some degree of propriety. I am deeply disappointed in Alison: when she helped Maldwyn to get this contract, she should have considered how it would look with them both living on the same island, especially when you remained at home.’

‘On the
same
island?’ I stared at her, what she’d just said sinking in. ‘You mean
Alison
is working on Grand Cayman too?’