Chapter Ten
In the kitchen, various people are eating lunch, but I ignore them and hurry to the cupboard under the sink.
Sure enough, there are various buckets, brushes and cleaning supplies. Ten minutes later, I’m back on the terrace.
Using a scraper on the encrusted dirt might damage the tiles, so it’s the best part of an hour with soapy water and a plastic brush until the wall is clean and, slowly, the design reveals itself to me.
It’s a beautiful work of art that steals my breath.
The colour of the clean tiles is a stunningly vivid jade green in perfect counterpoint to the cobalt blue.
The border – a double line in tiny off-white mosaics – runs the entire length of the wall.
Inside the two lines are words. I have to step right back to read the full thing.
When the bare heath of life presents no bloom. Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed. Where the five—
The rest disappears around the curve of the wall; I have to go down the steps to follow it.
Where the five colours of hope beckon, my feet must follow.
“Beautiful,” someone says behind me.
I spin around to see several people standing on the terrace, watching. Llewellyn and an older lady with smooth silver hair in an elegant French twist; also Leonie with the professor and a bearded man whose name escapes me. Next to them, Osian.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you,” I stammer, aware suddenly of my wet and grimy clothes.
“You blew in and out of the kitchen filling buckets with water. We thought there was a fire,” Llewellyn says. “We came out to check, but you were so completely absorbed you didn’t even notice. People have been drifting in and out all afternoon to watch.”
A couple of them come down the steps to look closely at the wall; Osian stays where he is but his eyes follow the curving wall to the circular pocket of earth cocooned in the curve of the comma.
He is silent and reserved, which makes it harder for me to share my thoughts with him.
I’d love to show him that this is another example of what I said earlier: the clues to a previous design.
That round plot must have been a flowerbed, and, if the wording is any clue, I’d say it was full of colour.
This garden is beginning to speak to me even if I can’t hear it all just yet.
“Is that a poem?” the bearded man asks.
“Probably,” Leonie says, pulling a phone from the pocket of her orange apron. “I can Google it if you like.”
I walk all the way back up the half-dozen steps, trailing my fingertips along the tiles. There’s a reason someone created this mosaic. The wording can’t be accidental.
Follow the five colours of hope.
Osian is intrigued; I can tell by the way he can’t take his eyes off the blue wall. It’s a shame we had that misunderstanding. He was beginning to respect me, even treat me like a friend. Then whoosh – it all got flushed away.
“Raff?” Leonie calls from above. “Doesn’t this ring a bell?”
The bearded man goes to her.
“It’s a fragment of a poem by John Keats.
Called To Hope.” She hands him her phone and he starts reading in a clear voice.
The poem is not long – maybe twenty lines or so.
Only the start of the mosaic on the wall is from the poem, the last part – “Where the five colours of hope beckon, my feet must follow” – isn’t in the poem at all. So someone added it.
Why?
It’s like a puzzle.
And this wall, here, is a key to something bigger that must lie out there, under the wilderness. It’s going to need a week to investigate, properly investigate.
I’m almost too scared to hope.
If Osian can wait a bit longer before hiring the tractor.
I climb back up to where he stands. “About that tractor.”
He starts as if not expecting me to talk to him. “Ah… I can leave the numbers and contacts in the Hub for whenever you want them.”
That’s it. All he says. Not only is there no more mention of working together, but the kindness has gone from his face and voice. He’s stiff and formal.
I should say something, but what? And he doesn’t give me a chance, because he turns around and walks back to the terrace doors and disappears inside.
The aloof coolness is still there in the evening.
Dinner in the kitchen is a warming chicken and dumpling stew cooked by Leonie with help from a very young woman called Meredith.
It’s a comforting meal after my wet-and-dirty work all afternoon in the cold.
Even after a shower, I’m still cold and shivery, and the coldness coming off Osian doesn’t help.
He sits at the other end of the table exchanging the occasional comment with Llewellyn and keeping his head down.
As soon as his plate is empty, he leaves the table and disappears.
And not once do his eyes stray towards me, even though everyone coming into the kitchen stops to talk to me about the blue wall.
What is it that offends Osian so much? Does he really not want anyone to know he was once a tennis star? Why not?
Not for the first time, I wonder if his retirement had more to do with avoiding the press than ‘focussing on their relationship’. Had something happened to them to cause a scandal?
If he ever decides to tell me, I might tell him how well I understand. After all, my escape from London had a lot to do with not wanting to become an Instagram story or have my private life played out on TikTok.
I should have reminded Osian of myself from our school days so he understands why I know who he is.
I will.
First thing tomorrow.