Sowing Secrets (7 page)

‘Yes, but Fran’s right. It was all walled off with the glen and it’s
part
of it now,’ he objected. ‘And it would cost a fortune to restore. I’m more concerned with hanging on to Plas Gwyn itself.’

‘But we don’t want more weekenders buying it and stopping us walking in the glen,’ Nia said firmly, which is something that I hate the thought of too: it’s such a special place to both of us, and seemingly
vital
to whatever Nia does up there. (This involves a robe, a strange little knapsack and a long staff and, just once, some kind of interment – but I’ve decided not to speculate on that one … too much. Now I just turn and creep away if she’s there.)

‘I think the glen is a burden the estate doesn’t need,’ Rhodri said stubbornly. ‘And there’s enough garden around the house to restore without it.’

‘There’s no garden around the house,’ I said. ‘It’s all grass and trees. How on earth can you restore
that
, Rhodri?’

‘Ah, but there
was
a garden once – and, what’s more, I’ve written to Gabriel Weston and he’s considering putting Plas Gwyn on the shortlist for his next TV restoration! What do you think of
that
?’

‘Oh my God!’ I said despairingly as my heart came into sudden collision with my ribcage before dropping into my boots, potted in one. ‘Are
all
my vultures coming home to roost?’

‘I thought you kept hens?’ he said, puzzled. ‘You’re not keeping birds of prey now, are you, Fran?’

‘You did say Gabriel Weston?’ demanded Nia.

‘Yes. Have you seen his series,
Restoration Gardener
?’

‘Well, would you Adam-and-Eve it!’ she said, turning to exchange an incredulous glance with me.

‘What?’ Rhodri said, puzzled.

I gathered my wits together. ‘It’s just that by a strange coincidence we watched a short DVD with clips of the series last night and saw him for the first time. Don’t forget, Rhodri, that the TV reception is impossible here unless you’ve got a satellite dish.’

‘You’re right, I had forgotten,’ he agreed. ‘And you haven’t got satellite?’

‘No, but we don’t watch much TV anyway.’

‘Just endless
Buffy
DVDs,’ pointed out Nia. ‘You’re addicted.’

‘Well, Carrie’s addicted to
Sex and the City
, and you don’t seem to mind watching either of them when we have one of our girls’ nights in.’

‘No, but I haven’t got a DVD player,’ Nia said. ‘
I
haven’t got time to sit about glued to the box – and neither have you,’ she added pointedly to Rhodri. ‘We’re both divorced and broke, and had better get on with making a living.’

‘What were you saying about this Gabriel Weston, Rhodri? We seem to have side-tracked,’ I said innocently, ‘and we don’t know much about him.’

‘Well, he’s appeared on various things over the last few years, but now he presents this really popular show called
Restoration Gardener
. He chooses a house that once had a special garden and surveys it, researches family documents and stuff, then draws plans to recreate what was there. Then his team spends a few weeks restoring part of it, at the programme’s expense. They often go back and see how the earlier ones are getting on too. It’s really interesting.’

‘And they might do Plas Gwyn?’ I asked, impressed despite my personal disinclination to have Adam delving anywhere in my Eden.

‘I don’t know – I sent in photos and details and told them there were lots of family documents, and I’ve just heard it’s being seriously considered. Though of course that’s only the first step, because even if it gets on the shortlist it still has to win the TV vote-off. But it would be wonderful if it did – and even more wonderful to have garden features again at Plas Gwyn other than a lot of grass and trees!’

‘There’s certainly nothing much there now,’ I agreed. ‘Apart from the turf maze, and even that’s getting hazy around the edges, because hardly anyone ever goes and walks around it these days, and Aled drives straight over it on the mower.’

‘
I
walk around it,’ Nia said, ‘especially at certain times of the year.’

‘Yes, and I still think it’s unfair that you came back and were allowed to be one of the Thirteen for the May Day maze-walking, but they will only let me watch from a distance,’ I said, distracted by the injustice of being excluded from participating in the local mysteries.

‘The Thirteen have to be from certain local families, especially the leader, the Cadi,’ Nia said firmly. ‘Even Rhodri could only watch, even if he wasn’t a man.’

‘I think I forgot to mention the maze in the details I sent,’ Rhodri said, knitting his brows like a Neanderthal sheep. ‘Not that it
is
a maze at all really, just a sort of winding pathway.’

‘It’s a unicursal maze,’ said Nia, who seems very knowledgeable about these things lately, ‘and it’s probably been there as long as the house, so you should look after it.’

‘Right,’ he said vaguely. ‘And you’d be surprised how the rest of the garden’s changed over the centuries. There used to be a big terrace, and there was a pond with a fountain, only Mother filled that in when I was small so I wouldn’t drown.’

Rhodri’s mother was mega protective, which is why he was taught at home until he finally went off to Eton or Rugby or whichever posh public school his name was down for and thenceforth only ever appeared in the school holidays.

‘It would give the place a bit of publicity if they chose Plas Gwyn for a TV makeover,’ Nia said. ‘Contacting them was a good idea, Rhodri!’

‘You needn’t sound so surprised!’ he objected. ‘But I don’t suppose they will choose us – we’re a bit out of the way.’

I said nothing, torn between realising how good for Rhodri it would be if Plas Gwyn was chosen, and being appalled at the thought of Rosie’s incarnated maybe-father practically on the doorstep.

‘They might, but even if they do I expect this Gabe Weston only spends a couple of days actually on site filming,’ she said, pointedly looking at me. ‘His minions probably do the hard work.’

‘Which would include me,’ Rhodri agreed. ‘I’ll have to do a lot of the donkey work myself. Aled’s not up to much – he should have retired years ago, but he just loves driving that mower around.’

‘And clipping things,’ Nia put in drily. ‘I’ve never seen a pleached walk quite so pleached, the stilt hedge looks half naked, and what that bit of topiary by the front gate is I’m not going to even
try
to guess, but it looks obscene.’

‘I asked,’ he said gloomily. ‘It’s suppose to be a rocket.’

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ I said. ‘I think you should put a little sign in front of it, telling visitors.’

‘If there are any visitors. I don’t really think we stand much chance of winning the garden restoration because I’m sure the other properties are a lot more deserving.’ Rhodri smiled his rather heartbreaking smile at me. ‘But I’m glad
you’re
happy and your illustrations and cartoons are so popular, Fran. Nia’s been telling me all about it and how well Rosie is doing with her veterinary science course.’

‘She was always mad about animals,’ Nia said. ‘It was a logical choice. And what about your Zoe, Rhodri, wasn’t she doing some modelling?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, though only in a part-time sort of way – and she’s getting married soon.’

‘She’s a very pretty girl,’ I said kindly, though she’s tall and skinny with big bug eyes in a triangular face and reminds me of nothing so much as a praying mantis, but with Rhodri’s sweet nature.

‘I’m glad I don’t have any children to complicate things,’ Nia said complacently. ‘My sister, Sian, is enough to cope with. She’s convinced I’m swindling her out of her birthright just because I’m buying the cottage from Mam and Dad! But I’m paying a fair price and they wanted it in instalments to live on in their retirement, so it’s suiting us all round – except Sian.’

‘She’s not married?’ asked Rhodri.

‘No, though she’s been through men like a dose of salts,’ Nia said. ‘Works for a newspaper down in Cardiff.’

While we had been talking we seemed to have demolished a plate of pastries between us, though I suddenly had a deep yearning for one of Carrie’s luscious gingerbread dragons, with scales in scalloped red icing … I think this is what comes of deciding to diet: all I can think about now is food.

‘I think we should all go up to Plas Gwyn and see what fresh ideas we can come up with on site,’ suggested Nia. ‘Maybe see what’s stored in the attic.’

‘That would take more than one afternoon,’ Rhodri said, ‘but we could have a quick look now.’

Rhodri wanted to pay for everything but we insisted on going thirds, and I took the money up to the till. I emerged from the teashop five minutes later rather sheepishly holding a paper bag.

Being the smallest one, I sat crammed into the back of Rhodri’s impractical old Spyder sports car. ‘Have to swap this for something more useful, Rhodri, like an old Land Rover,’ Nia said, and he winced. I don’t think she will divorce him from his car; that’s one bridge too far.

Halfway up the drive we met his cousin Dottie (whose name is quite apt) riding towards us on a large bay horse with three white socks.

She halted next to the car and looked down at us disapprovingly, especially me with a half-eaten gingerbread dragon in one hand. ‘Came to see you, Roddy – didn’t think you’d be out gallivantin’ with gels when the house is falling to rack and ruin around you. And you the last of the Gwyn-Whatmires!’

‘Did you want anything in particular, Dottie?’ he asked, wincing again.

‘Cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Made it myself. Come on, Rollover!’

Fortunately she seemed to be addressing the horse, for it moved off skittishly sideways, was gathered in and trotted briskly off.

I was glad the drive was short, because I was starting to feel a bit queasy, and tossed the dragon’s tail out into the bushes for the squirrels. Come to that, this last couple of weeks I’ve felt odder and odder. Am I coming down with something? It’s that sort of brink-of-illness feeling – or maybe brink-of-overdue-period feeling? I’m so erratic, and it always makes me feel bloated and strange.

Yes, come to think of it, I’m sure that’s what it is, because I’m Emotionally Weird, always a sign.

Plas Gwyn is a collection of mossy, ancient grey stones that evolved haphazardly round three sides of a paved courtyard. The oldest part is the three-storeyed hall, with the solar tower poking up above the roof and Zéphirine Drouhin and the knotty trunks of old wisteria entwined around its nether regions; then there is the seventeenth-century wing where Rhodri would have his private apartments, and the stables and outbuildings of various kinds, ripe, as Nia pointed out, for conversion into studios, gift shop and refreshment room.

The cast-off furnishings of centuries were stored on the top floor of the hall, which opened right into the roof and was accessible by a twisty stair that made you wonder how they carried some of the larger pieces of redundant furniture up there – and how some of them were to be got down again.

‘The thing is,’ Nia said, as we finished our tour of the main house and passed through a low door and down two well-worn stone steps into what was once the kitchen, ‘you need to channel the visitors around so that they
have
to exit through here into a gift shop. Then they step out into the courtyard and there will be the tearoom and the workshops in the old stables – more lovely spending opportunities! And in the summer you could put little iron tables and chairs outside here.’

‘I’d need to employ people, though – there’d be wages to pay,’ Rhodri pointed out gloomily.

‘You already have Mrs Jones and her team of local ladies to come in and clean, and open it to the public on summer weekends,’ I pointed out. ‘They would probably be happy to work more hours.’

‘Yes, and Carrie will staff the tearoom,’ Nia agreed, ‘so you would just need to find someone to run the gift shop, and, if you made it the entrance to the house as well as the exit, they could sell the tickets too.’

‘He’d need signs along the drive to direct cars to a parking area,’ I said. ‘You could rope off that flat bit next to the paddock. And people could come to the workshops in winter even when the house wasn’t open, so that would work well.’

Rhodri was looking dubious about becoming the area’s major employer – in fact, apart from the hotel, pretty nearly the
only
employer – but as we went around and Nia enthused, he began to look more relaxed.

I thought it all sounded possible too, with hard work, and Rhodri would be able to keep his family home, scrape a living and still be comfortable in the new wing with the family ghost. (The Grey Lady is a quiet, benign female presence who closes the great oaken doors gently from time to time and tiptoes across the dark wooden floors so as not to disturb the living occupants.)

Rhodri is going to get some plans drawn up for the gift shop, tearoom and studios, and Nia volunteered to help him to sticker the furniture that is being consigned to the attic, the new wing or the old hall, so that strong removal men can come and change it all about.

She was having fun, I could tell by the bright colour in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes, so after a while I left them to it and walked off home to feed the hens and do a bit of work before driving into town.

The work didn’t get done, though; instead, I drew a cartoon of Rhodri as a sort of amiable heraldic lion with the caption ‘Come to Plas Gwyn for a roaring good time!’

When I checked for emails later there was one from Mal, which I’d expected, but also another blast from the past from Bigblondsurfdude, which I nearly deleted unread with the spam, except that it said ‘Thanks!’ and curiosity got the better of me. Just as well it did.

Hi Fran!

Thanks for your message. No, I’m not married. I was in a long-term relationship but we broke up before Christmas. Your daughter sounds great – almost made me wish I had kids! Yes, you’re right, we’ve got a lot of catching-up to do. Hope to call in and see you sometime soon.

All the best,

Tom.

My
message
? For a minute I thought I really had flipped and emailed him back … until the truth dawned and I realised where my missing email printout had gone. It comes to something when your children plot against you.

I opened Mal’s message expecting it to be a soothingly mundane list of instructions or fascinating details of how clever he was being, but it was far from that: more an accusation, really, though I’m not quite sure of what. Enjoying myself in his absence, maybe?

Apparently Owen Wevill emailed him after he and Mona spotted an intruder in our garden the other night, when they couldn’t sleep due to the sound of my late-night party. Of course they weren’t complaining about the noise – on the contrary, they were glad to know I could enjoy myself while my husband was away, and were sure that my old friend Rhodri would do his best to keep me entertained, now he was back living in the village!

I was livid and sent a reply off straight away.