A tendril of worry curls inside me. The numbers keep growing and it’s his house, after all. “Well…erm, everyone here, that’s you and your family,” – I count four on my fingers – “Alex, Llewellyn, the professor, Wyn since he can’t go home. Rhian because she says her mum is going to her nan’s and she’d ratherstay here. That’s nine. And then the Squad from The Glyn which makes eighteen.”
He gives me a speculative look. “Are you okay cooking for so many?”
I nod. And give him a confident smile that hides my real worry. “Yes, cooking is the easy bit.”
“What’s the hard bit?” Evan has a very direct way of asking questions. No wonder he’s a computer programmer. In whatever binary code they use, there’s no room for extra words. It’s also the way he organises people. He can just look at a group of builders, volunteers and partners and work out the best way to divvy out the jobs. If he wasn’t so nice, he’d be in danger of being a robot.
“Nothing is hard, just time consuming and fiddly and potentially awkward. For a start, there’s setting the table and rounding up enough chairs. And…erm…if it’s okay with all of you, I was hoping someone might clear up the ballroom again because it’s a mess at the moment.”
“It’s a lot more than a mess. With the west wing and top floors cleared out, everything stored there had to be moved. So, everything’s gone into the ballroom. We’re also using it to stock-pile building material, cleaning products, pipes and coils of electric cables.”
My heart falls; that’s a problem I hadn’t even considered. Hiding in the kitchen I’d missed the logistics of what needs to happen.
I look around the kitchen. “We can eat here even if not very glamourous.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realise the kitchen won’t do. There are three steps which will be impossible for a wheelchair and anyone with mobility issues.
Mentally, I scroll through all the options. Llewellyn’s conference rooms? No, even if he agreed to move all the equipment, none of the conference rooms are big enough.
One dimple ghosts in and out of Evan’s cheek as if he was about to smile. As if he’s got an idea. “Come with me, I want to show you something.” He knocks back the last of his coffee and rinses the cup in the sink.
I drop my phone into my apron pocket and follow him out of the kitchen.
He leads me through the ballroom towards the back doors. This is one of the odd things about this house. The ballroom sits at the exact centre of the house, it’s the middle part of the X. The room itself is octagonal in shape, some of walls have large double doors, one door leading to each of the wings, a double door faces the entrance, and finally, at the back, under the galley, a door leads to the back of the house. I’ve never seen this part because it’s always been locked.
It's breathtaking. One wide room, maybe forty feet, it runs between the north and east wings and faces the garden.
There are old-fashioned tall arched windows that reach floor to ceiling. Light floods through and hits the dark oak floors in a hundred white squares of light.
“Wow!” I breathe, looking around. “What is this place?”
“They used to call it an orangery,” Evan says. “That’s Victorian speak for conservatory.” He walks to the first window and turns the handle. It opens out on to a wide terrace. “Beyond is the north garden.”
North garden my eye! It’s a mess of dead plants. “This is what Watson was supposed to work on?”
Evan’s derisive snort tells me what he thinks of Watson. “But we will get someone else, or several someones to deal with all the gardens. There’s too much land for one gardener. So, we’re splitting the land into three parts. East garden, north,” – he points ahead – “and the lands by the river.”
There’s a river, of course. I remember now when Haneen explained Kendric Park? “This place is enormous.”
“It doesn’t look like much, now,” he says scanning the endless wild tangle of bushes, brown and grey. “Try and imagine it all green and beautiful, it could be something very special.”
Did I compare him to a robot? Now he’s looking over the property, his wistful far away voice hides a deep passion. He might be a computer geek, but he really loves Kendrick Park.
“If I had the money, I’d spend it all on the gardens,” he says, sadly. “Unfortunately, we have to wait until someone else is willing to invest their own money into the restoration.”
“Isn’t this what you did with everyone else? I mean Llewellyn and Alex and…”
He nods, then changes the subject. “Maybe for Christmas we’ll have snow. Everyone says we’re getting a storm in the next couple of days.”
The icy wind makes me shiver, and Evan closes the glass door.
“Thank God I’ve arranged for all the shopping to be delivered in a couple of days, otherwise our Christmas dinner will just be bread and butter.”
Evan follows me around the huge room. “One of the best meals I ever had was Haneen’s bread and butter last Christmas.”
When he talks about her in this way, it’s impossible not to hear the love, the complete devotion he feels for his woman. It’s more than a little difficult for me not to grieve my Welsh Hagrid.Oh Raff, my darling, where are you now? What are you doing? Are you happy, warm, laughing about washing sand out of your hair?
Evan’s next words bring me back to reality. “What do you think about using this room for your Christmas dinner?”
Oh.
