The unscheduled stops add an extra couple of hours on the journey so it’s nearly 7:15pm when we finally crest the hill and look down on Kendric House. In the sunset it does indeed lookspink. A faded echo of the pink wash it used to have. A beautiful butterfly, wings outstretched like an embrace.
We pull into the carpark at the front, and my car slots into its old spot as if it’s been kept vacant for me. Everything feels so natural, so familiar, as if I never left.
With one exception, I don’t have keys because I’d left mine in Evan’s office so many months ago.
“Go in,” Osian gives me his keys. “I’ll deal with the luggage.”
I’m barely through the door where there’s a scream. Ashe, crossing the entrance hall with a stack of books, “EVIE” she drops everything on the floor and flies to throw her arms around me. “Oh my God Evie!”
So much for slipping in and going upstairs unnoticed.
Others come: Shirley leaning on her walking frame, Ricky who also shouts my name, a growing crowd of surprise and cheering. I’m passed from one hug to another. Alex lifts me up in the air and twirls me around. Even the professor, normally reserved, takes my hand in both of his with a delighted, “Oh my dear, my very dear. Wonderful to see you.”
There are various calls of “Oh thank God!” and even a “Thank fuck she’s back.”
Raff pumps Osian’s hand. “Good job, great job. Thank you.”
Haneen cries, Leonie cries, I cry. And laugh, wiping my face with the back of my wrist.
“How did you find her” Someone asks.
Osian puts my suitcases down on the floor. “Haneen stole the address from Evan’s paperwork.”
Evan and Haneen exchange a look and she shrugs. “It’s not easy to say no to Osian.”
Don’t I know it.
“Just this once I’ll forgive you,” Evan tells her l before striding towards me. “I knew you’ll be back sooner or later.” He grins but his voice is hoarse with emotion. “Welcome home. Evie.”
Home? Yes, I’m home.
“Dinner in ten minutes,” Haneen says.
“Dinner?” I ask surprised. “Is it a partner’s meeting?”
She shakes her head. The professor explains, “we mostly eat together these days.”
“Economies of scale.” Alex’s smile doesn’t quite hide the reality. There are big problems here and everyone is having to watch the pennies.
Osian quickly changes the subject. “Do you want to see your garden before we eat?” and he leads me through the house and out on to the terrace.
I’ve seen the pictures, of course. That time Sue showed me the review on her tablet. Pictures taken at the hight of summer when the flowers were at their best. But picture don’t do justice to the scale of Hope Gardens.
Even from the terrace, even with the fading sun, my garden offers me the best welcome of all. It’s a delightful swathe of green, sprinkled with wildflowers. The patches of colour in the distance tell me the fans are still in bloom, just as I had designed them. Late flowering plants for the autumn: blue and white hydrangea, pink Guernsey lilies, yellow and red gladioli, bluesalvia sagittate, orange sunflowers... The names come back to me like names of my family, my best friends.
And behind them? The long serpentine arcade of roses is heart stopping.
I’m sorry I left you. Please forgive me.
Osian takes me in his arms and lets me sob and sob against his shoulder. Happy tears, but when I want to go down the steps into the garden, he doesn’t let me.
“It’s about to get dark and you don’t want to trample anything.”
“O ye of little faith.” I give his chest a jokey shove. “Am I ever likely to forget where everything is and put my foot in the wrong place?”
“Tomorrow morning. I promise. We can go down in the morning. After coffee on the balcony.”
So I let him take me back inside to dinner.
