Chapter 7: Summer Storms

Capturing Geoff proved to be a turning point in my life in the house owned by Belle. I was tired and frustrated when I told our prisoner that I would bury him under the crop of potatoes, but anyone who knew me would have realised that it was an empty threat. We were all suffering from the tensions of the night, of course, but it came as a shock to discover that even Gerry, who had known me for ten years, thought I was serious.

Once I calmed down, I spent a good bit of time and effort to arrange for Geoff to be given better treatment than he deserved. He was now on the way back to the bosom of his family, under the stewardship of his brother-in-law. Perhaps the change of attitude within the house was because I stomped off in a sulk depriving Belle of the chance to tell us the tale of her adventurous escape from the dower house. It took several days for the changes to manifest themselves; I had a good deal on my mind at that time, so I was paying less attention than usual.

I certainly did not see it at the time but, looking back, perhaps I was the one who changed, and the others were merely responding to my uncharacteristic behaviour. Until Belle accosted me beside Cherry’s market stall, I had lived my life with my eyes on the distant horizon, stumbling along paths that I did not even glance at. I left university with a burning ambition to develop plants that would thrive in alien conditions by crossbreeding. I needed security and money to make my dream come true.

I took a wife to give me a secure base and designed gardens to earn money, but I paid very little attention to either. To be fair, neither Hazel, my partner in matrimony, nor Charles Brown, my boss, cared about my aspirations. With indifference on both sides, it is hardly surprising that both enterprises failed dismally. After ten years of going through the motions, I lost my job and my wife within weeks of each other. Belle offered me food and shelter in return for accepting an interesting challenge.

At first, I approached the new task as I had the old. I was innovative and hard-working but uninvolved in the lives of the people around me. Belle and the four younger women associated with her had troubles at least as deep as my own, but I simply did not care: I was there to do a quite specific job, and their personal traumas were none of my business. Each woman, in her own way, set out to woo me into supporting her in her time of trial, although only Audrey used a blatantly sexual approach.

Living in the house and working in the adjacent fields made it difficult to maintain the distinction between home and work that I had while designing gardens; within a couple of weeks, I was finding myself listening to the woes of the women and even offering advice on how to cope with them. The job I had undertaken proved to be the least of my problems, except that I needed to find another man to share the physically hard work. Gerry and I had worked together for most of the time I was with Brown’s Garden Design. He had recently been sacked and was delighted to join me. At the time it seemed like a fortunate bonus that he brought with him his daughter Jenny.

Until Belle was tricked or forced into the dower house, I was able to convince myself that the women were only showing gratitude for the small favours I had done them. They had taken the initiative, and my role was merely to respond to their interpretation of events. Looking back, my arguments at family dinners might have been a harbinger of things to come; I demolished Graham first and then Geoff when they tried to coerce Belle. When we discovered that she was missing, the remaining ladies were struck with some sort of paralysis leaving me to take charge. I worked out the meaning of the cryptic phone call Belle made, and I suggested the course of action in response to her hidden plea.

Perhaps it was this change from disinterested follower to war leader that caused the women to reassess me. Seen in that light, my threat to bury Geoff under the fields painted a more extreme picture than any of them had previously considered possible. A timid little field mouse had suddenly become a roaring lion. Each of them reacted to the change but in very different ways.

Angela, Belle’s elder twin, reacted least of all. She continued her work in the greenhouse providing the young plants that Gerry and I were starting to plant out in the kitchen garden. She was overtly friendly, but I could see the disappointment in her eyes when I spoke to her. She has felt herself inferior to her sister Cherry and I believe she had identified me as a fellow victim of life. I really wanted to take her aside and tell her that if I could fight back then she could do the same, but I struggled to find the words that would convince her.

Events began to speed up after Belle returned from captivity and I was unable to find the time to sit quietly to work out what to say to Angie. In the meantime, I smiled and talked to her when we met in the house and garden; I continued to give her hugs which she certainly seemed to enjoy. Most of our conversations were brief and centred on her divorce from Graham.

Audrey had been a problem since I joined Belle’s menage. She was accustomed to using her body to dominate every man she met. I would not be seduced by her, and we had been striving to find a more equal relationship based on friendship. She had accompanied me on my nighttime visit to the dower house that resulted in the capture of Geoff. That was the height of our friendship, and I believe she expected to build on that. My action in stomping off to bed after we returned excluded her and I am now certain that it hurt her feelings. I can acknowledge now that part of my problem was a reaction to her bra-less tits thrust against me when we returned from our mission. I am only human when all is said and done.

She was cool to me the next day, spending time with Jenny on the plans for the al fresco restaurant while I shut myself away to read the stored messages on the mobile phone I had taken from Geoff. I am pretty sure that we would have returned to friendly feelings for each other if it had not been for the entry of a snake. Richard Arbuthnot, despite his reptilian nature, looked tall, dark and handsome. Just at the point where I had begun to assert my position at the head of affairs, I brought in Richard to challenge my position in our little Eden. Not my smartest move.

You probably detect some antipathy to Richard, the man I chose to design the outdoor café. He is a quite obnoxious man, but he happens to be very good at his job. He is patronising to men, but ladies seem to find him charming; he is fifty years old now but the grey hairs at his temples just make him more handsome and distinguished, according to Audrey, at least. He is even more smarmy since his wife ran off with his first boss: by the time Audrey and Jenny returned with him from Gallow’s Hill where they were showing him the lay of the land, he was walking between them with an arm around their waists.

Angie seemed impervious to his charms, clinging to me when he was introduced to her. Both Jenny and Audrey frowned at this little cameo. The real surprise was Belle, who refused to meet Richard, retiring to her room when his Mercedes swept into the courtyard. I recalled hearing some gossip of an encounter at the Chelsea Flower Show one year, but that was normally my busiest time of year, so I probably did not listen carefully to the story. While other garden designers went to London to stroll around the imaginative constructions at the Chelsea show, I was racing around the local area designing gardens that would never be commissioned.

For the remainder of the year, I would expect to build one of every two or three gardens I designed. The television coverage of Chelsea, however, inspired people to reconsider their own havens. Brown’s charged plenty for a preliminary survey and outline plan; once the excitement of Chelsea was over, sober reflection resulted in my sketches being pushed into the bottom drawer of someone’s desk. It was those assignments that were largely the cause of my reputation for surliness.

Left to myself, I would have told the prospective customers to save their money, but old Charles insisted that the work was a dripping roast for the company. I did as I was told but I made no attempt to hide my disapproval of the waste of my time and the money of the potential customers. It rubbed salt in the wounds that I had designs exhibited at Chelsea in five of the years I worked for Brown’s without once visiting the actual show. On the eve of the private viewing, when gardeners from all over the world were arriving, I was on my way home to design gardens that would never be built.

One of my Chelsea gardens was presented jointly with Richard. I had suggested the theme of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Richard designed the mini ziggurat, and I dressed it with suitable plants. Charles and Richard were interviewed on television at the awards ceremony where both claimed credit for the original idea; Charles did at least claim that it was a team effort. Neither of them mentioned my name, resulting in yet another yelling match with Hazel who wanted me to assert myself. Since I was only doing the job until I had saved enough to begin my crossbreeding programme, I was unbothered.

It was during that same television interview that I saw Richard’s wife. Until he introduced her, I thought she was one of the somewhat scantily clad models that used to be employed at car shows and other events. She was probably forty at the time, but she was stunning in looks and daring in costume. She had been the personal assistant to one of the partners in the company Richard joined straight from school. During the divorce it became clear that her services were a good deal more personal than Richard had supposed. Not only did she admit that she had been having an affair with her boss throughout her marriage, but DNA evidence proved that Richard was not the father of any of their three children.

Developing the Babylon design had established the working relationship I forged with Richard. He wanted to select the plants that would dress the stepped structure he proposed. I flatly refused to surrender even a minority voice in the selection of plants and Charles was forced to back me. Richard conceded ungraciously, getting his revenge by keeping any mention of me out of the ears of commentators. The professional gardeners mostly knew the truth and many of them refused to work with Richard afterwards.

I did, however, since he is one of the few architects who takes a holistic approach to buildings and plants. Publicly he looked down his aristocratic nose at me grubbing, metaphorically speaking, in the ground at his feet, but privately he never again questioned my authority to choose whatever living plants I pleased to suggest. The present job of building a kitchen and designing clearings and tracks to enable hot food to be delivered to couples dining alone required minimal input from me. I would provide hanging baskets of night-scented plants but would otherwise have no input to the project.

Audrey and Jenny between them would liaise with Richard. Since the divorce, he has added a reputation as a lothario to his other sterling qualities, but both of the women are old enough to deal with him without my help. I admit that I was a little concerned for Jenny, but she is almost thirty years old and is bringing up two children as a single mum, so I convinced myself that she would cope with anything Richard had to throw at her. Audrey, I reasoned, would be glad to rise to the challenge.

I must admit that I wondered at the soundness of my reasoning when I saw the three of them return from Gallows Hill. Richard’s arm about their waists was to be expected but I was slightly shocked at the laughing, adoring looks, the two girls were giving him. My unease increased when Jenny asked if I would put her kids to bed since Richard was taking her and Audrey out to dinner.

“You haven’t got the contract yet Richard, so you can’t put it on expenses,” I churlishly reminded him.

“My treat, old boy,” he replied, with a vulpine grin. “No price is too high for the company of such charming ladies.”

Audrey and Jenny giggled like schoolgirls.

I had a sulk and did not see the pair before Richard arrived in his opulent motor car to whisk them away. He chose to attract their attention by sounding the horn which set the women scuttling to obey the summons. Jim and I had gone to prepare the bath and he, like me, had little interest in the proceedings. Enid was enthralled by the entire episode, readily identifying her mum with the most gorgeous of the Disney princesses.

Enid was permitted to sit quietly on the bed while her mother prepared herself for her date with prince charming. Her innocent excitement as she later related everything to us while I shampooed her hair was, I suppose, touching but I responded by letting the soap get in her eyes once or twice. I am sure that I wanted Jenny to look her best and to enjoy herself, but it was particularly difficult to hear that she was wearing her prettiest, lacy bra and tiny knickers for a first date with a sexual predator. With typical male logic, I wondered why she would wear them if she had no intention of showing them to her date.

“Why don’t you take mummy on dates?” Enid demanded as I was drying her after the bath. She still had the dreamy look on her face, but her eyes returned from the distant prospects of Fairyland to focus sharply on me.

I responded to her by chasing her into my bedroom to dress in the nightie laid out for her. She said nothing while I had the nightly fight with Jim to get him out of the tub. I had pulled the plug, but he was still sitting amongst the suds playing with his toys. No one else allowed him to take his little boats and ducks into the bath so I must accept that I had manufactured my own troubles. On the other hand, he does not say more than a few words to anyone else while he and I chat together like old pals.

“Do you think I’m as beautiful as mummy?” Enid continued when Jim and I finally joined her on the bed. “I’m to be a flower girl when she gets married again.”

“Perhaps she’ll marry the man she is having dinner with,” I suggested.

“But we want her to marry you, Daddy Bill,” she insisted; Jim, silent now we were in the presence of his sister, was enthusiastically nodding his agreement.

Over the years I have learned to keep my mouth tightly closed when I feel like saying something that will cause offense or argument. I should have done that now, but there is something about the total, transparent honesty of Enid and Jim that forced me to respond.

“I don’t think your mummy even thinks of me as a husband. We work together and like each other but there is more to being married than just being friends.”

“Love!” Jim was succinct. “Do you love mummy?” Enid continued to probe the heart of the matter.

“I rather think I do love her,” I sighed. “Now who picks tonight’s bedtime story?”

As usual they both got to pick a story; and also as usual, we all three fell asleep while I was reading the third story. Sometime later, I was awakened by the door opening to find that someone, probably Gerry, had covered us up as we lay side by side, and turned off all but the nightlight on my dressing table. Jenny and Belle were standing together in the doorway silhouetted in the light from the corridor at their backs. Jim was sleeping on my pillow, his body between my eyes and the light.

“I can’t believe you’re thinking of giving up this for that idiot Arbuthnot.” I had been about to speak when Belle’s whisper penetrated the silence. Jenny mumbled something but I could not distinguish the words. “That won’t work with Bill He doesn’t play games with people: if he can’t tell you the truth, he’ll say nothing.”

“I’m not getting any younger, Belle. I’m pretty sure I love Bill, and the kids adore him but he was making no moves. Richard is witty and charming, so what’s so wrong with letting Bill know he has competition?”

“Arbuthnot is the exact opposite of the frog prince. When you kiss the charming Richard, he turns into a toad. When I stopped him after one kiss, he ratted me out to my third husband, telling him that we had been having a full-blown affair. He may build great houses, but he destroys people without conscience.”

There was more mumbling from Jenny, but again I could not hear the words.

“You might get away with tonight’s little tete a tete,” Belle resumed. “But accepting a date alone with that arsehole will finish any chance of friendship with Bill. He needs to be handled in a very different way. Angela is the only one who is close to understanding what he needs, and she’ll get him too if you don’t clean up your act.”

Jenny turned away as Belle was speaking; when she had finished, the door slowly and quietly closed. I lay for a long time pondering on what I had just overheard, putting it into the context of all the other things that had happened to me since I met Belle beside the market stall just a few weeks before. It was too much to take in all at once, but I resolved to distance myself somewhat from Angela: I like her but there is no possibility of romance between us and I should be careful in future to give her no grounds for hope.

The other thing I determined before sleep reclaimed me, was that Jenny going on another date with Richard Arbuthnot would mark the end of our association. I was committed to the market garden until the harvest was gathered in, but after that, I would leave them all. Gerry could easily keep the garden viable now I had set things in motion and Jenny would be excellent as the host of the al fresco restaurant. I drifted off to sleep, planning to travel to difficult climates where I could use my skills to make gardens; it is all too easy in Britain to be a garden designer. Jim flung an arm out, punching me lightly on the ear, so my final thought was that he and Enid were the only people I would really miss.

When Gerry woke me just after six, my mind was still processing the conversation I had overheard between Belle and Jenny. He and I were going to an auction sale of farm equipment being held about two hours away; we wanted to arrive early enough to take a good look at possible purchases. I would be out of reach of the women in my life and Gerry would be too fully occupied with inspecting the goods to bother me with personal matters.

Everything worked out as planned until lunch time. The equipment was used but in reasonably good condition, so we agreed between us on an amount we were prepared to bid. The sale would continue selling household goods in the afternoon, but the outdoor equipment was to be sold before twelve. We waited until the end although it was clear after the first few lots were sold that the prices were far higher than we were prepared to pay. For our needs it will be more economical to hire what we want. That way, someone else will be responsible for maintaining the gear; anything you buy at auction is at your own risk.

With so many potential bidders around, it would have been difficult to find a place to eat, so we agreed to begin the drive home without stopping for lunch. This had already been my longest time away from the market garden since I moved to the old farmhouse, and I spent the first hour of the journey plotting ways to induce Gerry to extend my holiday by stopping somewhere en route. I was still coming up with dafter and dafter reasons when Gerry cut through the fog in my brain.

“If you take a left here Bill, we can stop at the Wheatsheaf for a bite of lunch. It’s after one but some of the old gang might still be there.”

The Wheatsheaf is a pub close to Brown’s Landscape Gardens and was our local when Gerry and I worked there. We spent most of our time out on site, of course, in those days but we would meet in the ‘Sheaf to exchange stories about the people who were having gardens constructed. Ten years ago, there would be thirty or more of us in there on a Friday evening, with the office staff joining the field hands. Now there were only five familiar faces, and one of these was the landlord.

Of the other four, only one was still employed by Brown’s; the others had been made redundant like Gerry and me. They interrupted their darts match to join us in grumbling over the changes we had endured, but they left when our food was delivered, not before they asked if I was planning to take on more workers in the market garden. Mike, the landlord, stopped at our table for a few minutes but he was called on to change a barrel. We ate in silence. Meeting the four former colleagues reminded me how lucky Gerry and I were to have found our jobs with Belle, and I was feeling slightly guilty at not being in a position to offer work to the darts players, when Gerry pushed his empty plate away and attacked me.

“What are your intentions towards my Jenny?”

“Where did this come from, Gerry? I like Jenny a lot – I got her a good job and a place for her and the kids, didn’t I?”

“It’s not about a job or a home, Bill, and you know it. She needs a man, a father for her kids; they already call you ‘daddy’ for heaven’s sake. Why don’t you marry the girl and be done with it.”

“What about love? Isn’t that supposed to be the rock on which a marriage is built?”

Gerry’s face was red, and he barely allowed me to finish before he yelled at me, attracting glances from the dozen or so other customers.

“Grow up, Bill! You sound like a teenager bleating about love. You like each other and that will last longer than love, believe me. I don’t want her getting mixed up with that architect. He’s cut from the same cloth as her ex-husband and they’re both bad news.”

“You’re her father! Why don’t you put your foot down? Tell her to stay away from Arbuthnot.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do but I need to offer her a choice. I can’t tell her to give him up and settle for a lonely life. That’s why I thought I could offer you as an alternative.”

“And what makes you think she would accept my proposal, should I choose to offer for her?”

“Well, I know she likes you and I’m pretty sure she would take you for the sake of the kids.”

Mike returned just then, and I slipped into a state of fugue. I was aware of Gerry and the other customers discussing his proposition, but my mind was so fully occupied with my own problems that I simply tuned them out. I felt that I had been in a dream for most of my life and now someone was shaking my shoulder demanding that I wake up. For years I had tolerated a poorly paid job and a horrendous marriage just so I could, in some distant, indeterminate future, do what I really wanted. Now I could no longer ignore the real world.