Chapter Forty-two
The next day we say goodbye to the graduating Perllans. Kisses, hugs and a promise to stay in touch. Osian is kept busy most of the day conducting exit interviews.
I spend an hour with Evan. He is an expert people manager and helps me draw up contracts for Ashe and Schaefer, who will stay here for six months – the busy summer season.
I follow Evan’s suggested pay scale and include a bonus for positive reviews or increased bookings.
This way, he says, they have an incentive to make the gardens a success.
Amani will handle publicity for all of the partners, but she still wants to keep working on the rose arcade. It seems she’s already started a daily vlog showing progress.
Late afternoon, Osian comes to find me by the pond.
“Sorry to disappear on you last week.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his loose linen trousers. “It’s good to be back. I’ve missed you.” He looks around. “And all this.”
“Don’t get your clothes dirty,” I say, trying not to read too much into his words.
He looks tanned, especially that small triangle of skin showing through his open collar.
“I’m not here to work. Office day for me today. What are you doing?” He looks down on the muddy banks of the pond where I’m kneeling to plant forget-me-nots and irises by the water’s edge.
“As you see, I’m in my office, too,” I say, without looking up at him.
“Can it wait? I’d like to talk to you.”
I sink my hands into the water to rinse off the mud, then dry them on the legs of my dungarees. “What’s up?”
“Not here. Let’s go upstairs.”
“I still have two hours to go.”
“The water plants can wait a day. Come on. You can afford to take half an afternoon off.”
I look down on the twenty pots of blue and white flowering plants that should line this corner of the pond so they can be seen from the bench on the opposite bank. I suppose they’ll keep.
“I’m going to need a shower first.” I get up.
“You’re fine,” he says, a little impatiently.
“No, I’m not and if you say I look fine one more time I’ll fling mud on your nice office clothes.”
“Fine. Hurry up.” He turns and heads back.
Fine? For that alone I’m going to make him wait.
So I take my time in the shower, do a deep moisturising hair treatment.
I might not follow the same beauty regime as during my TV days, but my hair is a long way from my days of no-style tassels halfway between buff and boring.
So after my shower and blow dry, the glossy graduated bob swings in a smooth curtain above my shoulders.
My skin, too, gets a moisture treatment and the special gold dust shimmer cream so it glows.
Okay, now clothes.
I doubt there’s a woman in the world who hasn’t tormented a man by making him wait while she decides what to wear.
What’s needed this afternoon is a knock-out outfit that looks casual, that looks like I grabbed the first thing I saw.
Since my legs are my best feature, I decide to show them off by wearing a pair of loose-fitting fuchsia shorts, the waist tied with a cotton cord.
I pair it with a white cotton man’s white shirt that is just light enough to show the merest hint of white bra underneath.
But most of my time goes on painting my toenails a glittery bronze to match my tribal sandals.
The look on Osian’s face as I walk oh, so casually out onto the balcony is worth everything.
He’s sitting at the small table where we often have our morning coffee, and there’s a jug of ice and lemon slices, two glasses and a bottle of sparkling water.
“Thank you, this is wonderful,” I say, reaching for the water and pouring myself a generous glass.
His eyes follow my every move.
Slowly, giving him time to take in every inch of me, I replace the bottle and drag over a second chair so I can stretch my legs right to the balcony’s railings.
“I wanted to discuss the Perllans,” he says. “This first group have completed their programme.” He sounds all business, but his eyes keep stealing away to look at my legs before he drags them back to the paperwork on his lap.
“I know they’re your group, but I am so proud of what they achieved. Some of them, like Amani, have flowered. Do you know she’s designing a whole vlog about Rhys and Meinir? You know, the mural in the ballroom.”
His eyes narrow, thinking. “The bride imprisoned in the hollow tree?”
“Yes. She’s doing an interview with Alex about the restoration, but also with the professor about the legend. She says it will pique the interest of people outside Wales because no one can resist a love story.”
He nods, smiling with his eyes, which is always a better indication of his pleasure. “In a way, this first group was my test run. And it’s flagged up a few issues.”
He pauses, shuffling papers while I watch condensation on the jug with the ice. A drop trickles slowly down the side.
When he doesn’t talk I look up. “Issues like what?”
He shakes his head as if dislodging a thought.
A little ashamed of my flirty behaviour, I turn my chair so my feet are under the table and we face each other.
“For example, some are more… let’s call them demanding cases. And five weeks is nowhere near long enough to make a real difference.”
This concern surprises me. He seemed very positive before. “They all seemed to improve and come out of their shells,” I say.
“Yes, of course, a lot of improvement. But some cases have deeper...”
Another pause, mid-sentence. He reaches out a finger and wipes the drop of condensation which has now reached the table. There’s something else on his mind. Yes, we need to talk about the Perllans, but that’s not all.
“Deeper?” I prompt him again.
He takes his finger away from the jug and switches back to business talk. “Deeper and more complex conditions that aren’t going to be resolved in five weeks. I had no idea Schaefer wanted to stay; he didn’t tell me before he asked you for a job.”
Ah, now we come to the point of this talk. “Is it a problem that I offered him a contract?”
“It’s one of the things I hadn’t considered. I should set up a system for how to deal with this. Ideally you would have discussed it with me first.”
“You weren’t here,” I point out – but gently because he’s right. We should have consulted him.
“These are vulnerable people and…” He moves the water jug aside and puts the papers on the table. “Schaefer gave me permission to discuss his case with you.”
“He’s just a garden assistant. I don’t need to know his private business—”
“In this case, yes you do.” Osian meets my gaze. He has a small frown between his brows. “Schaefer has suffered from clinical depression. On and off. He’s on medication which keeps him on a more even keel, but he wanted me to tell you that he can sometimes have bad days. Sometimes very bad days.”
“I never noticed. I mean, he’s a bit taciturn at times.”
“The thing about gardening is that you don’t need to chatter, so when you feel like life isn’t worth living, it doesn’t show.”
He’s talking about Schaefer but I can’t help wondering how much of this might have been personal experience once upon a time.
“It wouldn’t matter if he was only going to work on the flowerbeds, but if you need him to interact with the public, which”—he sends me a questioning look—“sometimes you do…?” He leaves a space for me to fill in.
“I can keep his duties away from that but if he’s in the garden, visitors will ask questions. Is this a problem?”
“It might be,” he concedes.
Do I have to withdraw the offer? Hell, hell, bloody hell. The idea makes me feel terrible because Schaefer was very happy when he got the job.
“I’m so sorry, Osian. You’re right. I shouldn’t have agreed to employ him without asking you.”
“Hey,” he says gently. “It’s not an insurmountable problem if you can put in a few adjustments.
People with depression understand their condition and they know when a bad day hits.
I’d suggest agreeing with him that if he’s having one of those, he tells you at the start of the day so you give him work in a different part of the garden.
Maybe one of the sections that aren’t open yet. ”
You have to admire Osian – he really cares. I listen as he takes me through a list of recommended best practice for working with depression. He then takes me through what Amani and Ashe might need. They are not depressed in the same way, but they still need support.
“I have a new group starting tomorrow. But I’ll be around if you need me or want me to take him back to work with me. This new group will be here until the middle of June.”
Hope Gardens will open to the public in the last week of May, so it’s not an ideal place for a new group of vulnerable people.
“Don’t worry,” he says lightly. “I’ll have them working in the orchard. Time we planted some real carrots and cabbages, don’t you think?”
“I’ll miss us working together,” I can’t help saying.
His face stills for a second. Then he exhales, long and intense before his eyes drop to his hand, the one curled around his water glass. He studies the almost-melted ice cubes that skim back and forth on the surface.
He’s silent so long that when he does speak, his voice startles me.
“I’m sorry about last week. My sister asked if I’d babysit.” He wrinkles his nose. “Not babies. Two, four and five.”
“Childsit,” I suggest. As if word choice really matters.
“My God, Evie.” His voice is so low it could be lying on the floor.
“I never thought about children before. I’ve always been a nice-enough uncle.
I mean, I remember birthdays and Christmases and so on.
I’m good for an evening of babysitting or a trip to the beach. But a week; seven days and nights?”
“Why was it so long?”
His mouth twists in a grimace. “My sister and her husband were… erm…” He gives me a meaningful eyeroll.
“Arguing?”
“That’s one way of putting it. They went to some hotel in Edinburgh away from everything and everyone to… reconnect. To focus on each other.” The way he says ‘reconnect’ and ‘focus’ tells me these are not his words but theirs.