The Summer Season. Julia Williams
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her. He was completely unlike any of the boyfriends she’d had before. Kezzie had had the unfortunate habit of spending most of her teens and her early twenties attracted to the wrong kind of guy, and after a disastrous liaison with a small-time drugs dealer had forsworn men, until just before her thirtieth birthday when she’d met Richard.
For starters it was unusual for Kezzie to be dating someone with a job – let alone someone like Richard in his late thirties, with such a high-powered job. Not only that, with a failed marriage behind him (‘She left me, sadly,’ he’d explained to Kezzie that he’d have done anything to make the marriage work, but his ex had been equally determined to move on), Richard also had a fourteen-year-old daughter, Emily. Kezzie didn’t even know anyone who had a baby, let alone a full grown teen. That aspect of things hadn’t been ideal, Emily being as unkeen on Kezzie as Kezzie was on her, but Kezzie had been overawed by the trendy, open-plan loft living apartment Richard had owned near Clapham Junction and ashamed to take him back to her small rented flat in Finsbury Park. But Richard was totally unfazed by the differences between their lifestyles – or some of them at any rate, later on it would be all too clear that he disapproved of the drug taking and late night partying – but to begin with he’d said, ‘We’re not that different, you and I.’
‘Really?’ Kezzie was incredulous. She stared at his fair hair, public school boy good looks and his smart shirt and Armani suit. ‘We inhabit different planets.’
‘Maybe we do now,’ said Richard, ‘but I didn’t always earn good money. And I might have gone to public school but my parents worked hard to get me there. My dad ran a pub you know. I spent most of my time at school pretending he owned a chain of hotels.’
Kezzie laughed, ‘And I used to lie to people about which estate I grew up on.’
‘See,’ said Richard, with his crooked grin, which made her fold up and melt inside, ‘not so different after all. I don’t pay any attention to trappings. They don’t mean anything. It’s the person inside who counts.’
And of course, that was how it had all gone so wrong. She had turned out to be different from the person he thought she was.
‘That was then, this is now,’ growled Kezzie to herself and continued with her work, while trying to put painful thoughts of Richard and what might have been behind her.
As she worked, she cleared away the brambles and began to see the box was really out of shape and ragged. Once upon a time, though, it had clearly formed a pattern, woven into which was rosemary and a kind of ivy she couldn’t identify.
What was hidden in this wonderful place? Ever since the day she’d climbed up the oak tree and peeked over the wall, she’d fallen in love with this secret garden, and it looked like it was about to surrender some of its secrets to her.
The more she uncovered, the more excited she grew – the box, ivy and rosemary definitely formed an interconnecting pattern. Eventually she uncovered enough to see it was in the shape of a heart.
Suddenly, she realized what she was looking at; she’d studied this kind of design. ‘It’s a knot garden,’ she said out loud. ‘That’s amazing.’
A security light flooded through the iron gate. She looked up and saw to her surprise there were lights on in the derelict house she’d seen the other week. A torch was bobbing its way down the garden. Shit. Although she’d imagined someone must own the house, it had looked so ramshackle, she’d assumed no one was living in it. She must have made a mistake. Gathering up her things, she ran to the corner of the wall and slung her bag over the top. She was scrambling up the wall, trying to grab for the branches of the oak tree, when—
‘What the hell are you doing in my garden?’ said a distinctly male and very attractive voice.
‘Um—’ Suddenly Kezzie felt very foolish. She had a feeling that guerrilla gardening might not quite have made it to this quiet corner of Sussex …
Joel shone his torch into the eyes of a petite woman – a very pretty woman he had to grudgingly admit. She had short, dark hair, and an elfin look and was dressed in oversized combat gear, which made her look like a little doll. She’d dropped back to the ground when he’d accosted her.
‘I didn’t realize it was your garden,’ she said. ‘I saw the high wall and was curious, so I climbed up the oak tree and discovered your garden. I thought it looked uncared for.’
‘So you thought you’d care for it did you?’ said Joel. ‘Perhaps I prefer it this way.’
‘How can you possibly like it like this? All your beautiful plants being strangled to death by convolvulus. It’s criminal neglect. It deserves being brought back to life. If it were mine that’s what I’d do.’
‘Well it’s not yours, is it?’ said Joel, resenting this stranger telling him what he should or shouldn’t do in his garden. ‘So quite frankly it’s none of your business, and I should ask you to leave.’
‘No, it’s not,’ the stranger looked a bit sheepish. ‘Sorry, I get carried away sometimes. I saw your garden and didn’t think anyone lived in the house. It looked a bit neglected. I just wanted to help.’
Neglected. You could say that.
‘Well, it’s a work in progress,’ said Joel.
‘Doesn’t look like there’s much progress happening,’ said the stranger.
‘I’m a busy man,’ Joel said defensively. ‘I work full time, and I’ve got a young son I’m bringing up alone. There are only so many hours in the day. Not that that’s any of your business either.’
What the hell was he doing even chatting to this girl? By rights he should call the police.
‘Oh,’ his strange intruder looked a bit dumbfounded for the first time since he’d met her. ‘Sorry, I didn’t know.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ said Joel. ‘Really it’s nothing to do with you what I do or don’t do with the garden. I’m going to ring the police.’
‘No – don’t,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s not like I vandalized the place. Honestly, I know I shouldn’t be here, but I only wanted to make it better. You could come and see what I’ve been doing if you like.’
Joel tried and failed to look authoratitive. He could hardly call the police and say someone’s broken into my garden and improved it, could he? Despite himself he was intrigued by this girl who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Show me then.’
She produced a torch and shone it into the undergrowth in the furthest corner.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’ve been cutting back the brambles and digging up the weeds, and look what I found.’
She pointed to a ragged edge of box, with rosemary and ivy intertwined.
‘I think it must be part of a knot garden,’ the girl said, her eyes shining. ‘Did you know it was there?’
‘Yes,’ said Joel. ‘This place belonged to my great great grandfather, Edward Handford, who was a semi-famous garden designer in the nineteenth century. I think, if memory serves me right, he created a knot garden for his wife, Lily, when they got married.’
‘Edward Handford? I’ve heard of him,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t he influenced by Gertrude Jekyll? I think there was a brief mention in a book I read about an Elizabethan knot garden he’d created. Is this it then?’
‘I believe so,’ said Joel, slightly stunned that a complete stranger would even know about his great great grandfather. He frowned. One of the things he’d meant to do when he moved in was ask his mum more about his family history. He’d been fascinated with what he’d dubbed the secret garden as a child, when he’d visited as a boy. But then Sam had come along, and Claire had died, and like so many things in his life, his interest had stalled. But his strange night-time visitor had piqued it again. He