Chapter Thirty-four
Fortunately, the lights are dimmed for my presentation, so I can’t see Nora or Osian. That’s not to say my imagination doesn’t provide enough pictures. Nora whispering in his ear, her hands on him. Or his hands on her, for that matter.
“The fan motif will be the centre of my design.” I press the remote to move from a slide of the gorgeous stained-glass panel above my door, to one of the cleared garden showing the slate outlines of the fans.
“The flowerbeds are still bare but by the summer will look like this.” I switch to the next slide and there’s a chorus of gasps and exclamations from my audience.
Thanks to iPlnt, my favourite software. It allows me to mock up flowerbeds with different types of plants and then the program creates pictures at different phases of growth.
So the image on the screen now shows a mature fan-shaped flowerbed with segments of blue delphiniums, cornflowers, forget-me-nots, irises and Veronica.
“The idea is to show the fans graduating from pale to dark. To mimic the way a real fan looks when opening, so it gives the illusion of movement and animation.”
The next slide shows the pink fan, then red, purple and orange. Finally, I show them a mocked-up view of the garden with the pond and all five fans in full bloom surrounded by green grass alternating with a grass/wildflower mix.
“I have an additional proposal,” I say when the lights come back on. “The official opening at the end of May needs to go without a hitch, so any problems should be identified and fixed sooner than that.”
“What kind of problem?”
The question, predictably, comes from Evan.
“Logistics mostly. How visitors will respond to the garden. Access, staffing and maybe a few unforeseen issues.”
“And your solution is…?” he asks.
“A test opening,” I answer, making my voice steady, willing myself to look confident and sure of my idea.
Evan regards me, his gaze steady.
I stand there. Just me. No slides, nothing to support me as I propose this insane idea.
I might have emotional reasons for wanting to challenge myself, but the other partners are business people.
“The aim is to test as many of the features as possible. So walking tours around the flowerbeds, information leaflets and signs, a couple of recorded demonstrations on video loop. Feel free to invite friends, relatives, anyone from the village. Free entry of course, because most flowerbeds won’t be mature yet.
We give them feedback cards to see what they think. ”
The room is silent, as if everyone is holding their breath.
“When?” Evan asks at last.
“Easter weekend,” I say.
The silence breaks into shards of noise and questions. “Easter?” “Three weeks away.” “Will anything be ready?” “How many visitors?” “Good Friday to Easter Monday; that’s four days.”
Osian, who’d had not a clue about this idea, looks shocked. Nora asks him something but his eyes are on me. He starts to rise, to come to me in case I need help. But it’s Evan who stands up and silences the clamour.
“Can we have a bit of order, please? Raise your hand to ask questions.”
Several hands shoot up at once.
Alex is the first.
“Can I do the test opening for the mosaics as well? All the ones inside the house that we’ve uncovered and restored.”
“I, also,” the professor says. “I think we have enough about the history of the house to offer a few tours inside.”
Evan holds up a hand. “I think I can see where this is going. So let’s look at logistics. Can we staff this? Can you afford to hire so many people when you won’t be earning anything?”
“We do have volunteers,” Haneen interjects in her calm soothing voice. She might pretend to be little more than a cook and mother but it’s clearly obvious her mind is every bit as sharp as Evan Kendric’s.
Several people argue back and forth that while our teenage volunteers are willing and mostly reliable, they’re young and might struggle to handle customers.
That is true.
Gethin raises a hand and when he has everyone’s attention, he says, “We are happy to help. The Jack Bevan residents might be old and some of us not very mobile”—he pats the arm of his wheelchair—“but we can man information points and entrances, hand out leaflets and answer questions.”
Had he been any closer, I would have bent down and hugged him. “Thank you. That would be perfect.”
Evan has his business face on. He might be sitting comfortably, in jeans and a sweatshirt, the remains of his dinner still in front of him, but he gives the illusion of being in a pinstriped suit at the head of a boardroom. “Will your information leaflets and signage be in both languages?”
“Of course,” the professor says. “All the signage will include details about the background and progress.”
“Good.” Evan nods. “Let’s say all signage will have in-depth information.”
Osian catches my eye, the same objection on his face.
I hold up a hand. “The garden needs plant markers identifying each of the varieties. That’s particularly important for Welsh wildflowers embedded in some of the lawns.
So unless we want the garden to look like a library, there’s a limit to how much information can go on each sign. In both languages.”
“A significant objective of your project plan,” Evan argues, “was to celebrate Welsh plants and the complex ecological history of the area. To communicate the importance of this regeneration of the Bannau Brycheiniog. How will you do this without making the information available?”
He’s right. This is one thing I should have thought about. That’s exactly why the test opening is important, to catch all these little points. “How about leaflets?” I offer as a possible solution.
Raff is shaking his head. “In my experience most leaflets end up in the bin, or simply ‘forgotten’”—he mimes inverted commas on the word forgotten—“on tables here and there and you have to clean them up later. And with evolving projects they go out of date very quickly. It’s a wasted expense printing hundreds, if not thousands. ”
I’m a bit overwhelmed with all these challenges at once. Rallying my confidence isn’t easy with so many people arguing different points. Raff is right. But I need a bit of quiet to think of an alternative.
“How about a compromise?” Osian suddenly offers. “Placing a QR code on each of the labels. Something that leads to a web page where you can include as much detail as you want.” He gives me a generous smile and my heart turns over. I love this man.
“If you’re going to have a web page,” the professor says, also sounding more excited, “why not add the political and historical background too? Show why there needs to be an environmental regeneration after centuries of government neglect when Wales was used as a rubbish dump.”
The discussion gets even livelier after that, with suggestions back and forth about what information to include.
Then a hand rises from someone at the back.
It’s Amani, a twenty three-year-old Asian girl and the youngest of the Perllans.
“Can I…?” Then she hesitates and the hand goes down. She must feel a bit of an outsider.
“Please,” Evan prompts. “This is why we have these presentations. To exchange ideas.”
“It’s… um… when I was at uni, I was studying educational psychology and…” Again she falters.
Haneen, sitting nearest to her prompts, “Oh, yes?”
Amani swallows. “You want visitors to discover and learn?” she asks, still timidly.
“Discover more than learn,” I answer. “I don’t want to force-feed people facts.”
“Nor I. That would be…” Alex pretends to snore, and his head drops down as if he’s fallen asleep. A few people laugh.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Amani says. “But you could try something more interactive.”
We’re all listening, which seems to give her more confidence. When she speaks again, her voice is livelier and more excited. “If you, for example, make some of the information on the plants like a game – a quiz. I don’t know, maybe something like…” She pauses, trying to come up with an example.
But already her idea has sparked something for me. “Like, find the rare weed that only grows on rocks in this area. Or which tree in this park can live the longest?”
The professor is so excited he might as well be jumping up and down. “Or how many of the white flowers can be found in ancient Welsh legends?”
“And link them to some of the murals in the house which depict the legends,” Alex agrees.
The entire room vibrates with energy and enthusiasm.
My nerves have disappeared, morphing into the good kind of butterflies.
I love these people. My partners are as generous with their ideas as they are with their labour.
In my TV career, everyone was too competitive to ever share ideas; they hoarded every drop of inspiration in fear of someone else stealing credit.
“I can provide gifts for the winners,” Leonie suggests. “Free dessert or some discounted meals.”
“Won’t this look like a hack?” Nora suddenly joins the discussion, despite not being a partner. “Taking advantage of the real reason people are visiting to bring them to your business.”
There’s a moment of stunned silence. I can’t believe she just said that. The cow! The complete and utter cow! And to Leonie of all people – the woman who’s taken her in and given her a place to stay.
“I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing,” Nora says, voice affectionate like a razorblade dipped in sugar. “But you don’t want it to look like you’re coming in with an irrelevant offer just to promote your café.”
“Actually, the café in particular is an ideal match.” I keep the anger out of my voice, but with difficulty. “Because a lot of what we’ll have in the garden will be herbs and edible flowers.”
I’m lying. It wasn’t part of the planned garden, but now it is. I’ll make sure of it. Bloody Nora!
I smile at Leonie. “If you could feature a particular herb in your menu, we’ll make it a promoted herb of the week and include it in the quiz or game.”
“I like that idea,” Haneen says. Her voice is smooth as always, but now has a slight edge. Haneen doesn’t like Nora either, even if she won’t ever say so. “Could Leonie include recipe cards that people can buy? Like how to cook with tarragon. Or maybe ten recipes for sorrel.”
“I have an article about the role of herbs and certain plants in Welsh folklore,” the professor says. “You’re welcome to use excerpts in your recipe cards.”
Did I mention that I love these people?
“Good. You all have plenty to consider and action over the next couple of weeks. I can coordinate staffing and volunteers. Now I think it must be time for dessert.” Evan signals the end of the presentation.
People move back to the table. When I look at Leonie, Raff has swapped seats with Ashe and is now sitting beside her, a protective arm around her. He looks very angry.
“I don’t care if she has to roll a sleeping bag out on the hill, she is not spending another minute in our flat.”
Leonie tucks a loose blonde curl behind her ear. “You can’t throw her out. Not in the middle of the night.”
“I can, and I have. It’s done.”
My eyes, of their own will, skip to the far end and find Nora wiping her tears.
Osian says something and she shakes her head and cries harder.
Ashe tries to console her, but Nora shakes her head as if the world has ended.
As she tries to stand up, she wobbles and Osian instantly gets up to help her.
They leave the table, his arm around her back, her head on his shoulder and both hands clinging to him. As they reach the stairs, Osian looks back towards the table. I quickly look away, pretending I hadn’t been watching.
With my back to the stairs, I can’t see what he’s doing.
Ashe looks up at him, her mouth shapes the word ‘what?’, the way we do when we speak to someone too far away to hear.
Then she points a finger to herself, again as a question, before leaving the table and going to join him.
I turn and see her join Osian and together they walk with Nora up the stairs.
“Clever lad,” Shirley says in a soft voice. “He’s helping but making sure he’s not alone with Nymphet Nora.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call her that,” Haneen says quietly. “People are starting to repeat it.”
My own worries are also about Nora. Now that Raff has kicked her out ‘in the middle of the night’ she has the perfect excuse to need someone else to give her a bed for the night. And Osian can’t resist helping someone in trouble.
She’s single, no longer Llewellyn’s girlfriend, no longer off limits – those thoughts sink in my mind like a fishhook and pull painfully. Another night for me to worry about sounds from next door.
This is far too much like school. Watching him choose someone else instead of me.
I swore never to put myself in this position again.
For the first time, I wonder if Kendric House will ever be a comfortable place to live. Should I leave? Save my heart instead of my pride just this once?