Atholl only nodded, his eyes fixed on the bikini she crumpled in her hands.
‘That’s not all I wanted to ask you, actually.’
He swallowed before replying. ‘It isn’t?’
‘No. You see, that day on Skye you gave me something I couldn’t have imagined for myself – a way of beginning to say goodbye.’
His fingers twitched by his side as though he were going to reach for her, but he didn’t. Instead they both smiled, acknowledging the huge burden that had been alleviated, if only a little, by the simple ceremony they had created together two days ago.
‘Now I can give you something back,’ she went on. ‘A way to your own fresh start.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Wait there.’ She turned to rummage in the bag she’d carried on her walk yesterday, the romantic novel falling onto the floor at her feet. He stooped to return it to her and when he stood again, found her holding out a larger book with a big, hopeful grin on her face.
‘I spotted this at the store yesterday and I read it last night.’
She held it out for the perplexed Atholl to look at.
‘A book about evergreen herbs? I’m not with ye.’
‘You will be soon. Are there spades up at the But and Ben? Can we go there first before our swim?’
In their hurry to snip the tags from her bikini, pack sun lotion and beach towels and make sandwiches to take with them, the other package Atholl had brought for Beatrice lay forgotten upon her dressing table.
Chapter Twenty
The Summer Earth
The sun was already high in the sky when they reached the But and Ben and the air was alive with lazily buzzing insects and the chatter of unseen sparrows hiding from the fierce heat.
Atholl leaned on the two spades watching Beatrice walking up and down the rows in the middle of Lana’s lavender field. The gardening book was tucked under her arm, open at a particular page illustrated with photographs in blues and green.
‘So you see, it’s an old remedy for reviving neglected lavender that can’t otherwise be salvaged by pruning,’ she said.
‘Digging it all up?’
‘Yup.’
‘And burying it?’
‘Well, not completely buried, you have to leave the newest growth peeping out of the soil.’
Atholl contemplated the task.
‘There must be at least two hundred lavender bushes here; it’ll be back-breaking work digging trenches deep enough to submerge all those. Do you know anything about gardening?’
‘I’ve a little herb garden back home. Well, it’s more of a container by the back door, but I’ve kept some rosemary and mint alive for years now. And I’ve worked on a community walled garden project back in Warwick. I helped plant the potatoes!’
Atholl didn’t look as impressed as she’d hoped.
‘Look, the book says there’sa chancethey’ll regrow, and you’ll have a new visitor attraction for your crafting guests, and it’ll be a lovely asset for the workshop and café. Your visitors can look out at the sea of blue lavender as they drink their tea with heather honey buns, and you can set up that lavender oil distilling thingy that you talked aboutandyou can even teach lavender oil distillation and sell it in your own shop! Can you picture it, Atholl?’
This last part was delivered on tiptoe and with an animated stretch of her arms as she scanned the field around her, already able to envision the revived lavender on a bright spring day, as opposed to the tired rows of leggy, brittle, grey-stemmed bushes with the sparsest of flower heads drooping in the scorching heat and choked with dandelions that she could see now.
Atholl looked from her bright eyes to the ground. ‘And this gardening expert in your book, do they say how long it’ll take for them to fully recover?’
‘Well…’ she hesitated. ‘There’s no guarantee they will recover. The roots might never settle and the plants could rot away entirely.’
