“I’ll run as many as I can. Each course is six weeks long, so you do the math.”
Do the math. It’s an American expression. A reminder of his marriage to the American Kirsten Sheringham.
I shake the thought away. “Will you run all year?”
“Theoretically. Not when the ground is frozen, which is a shame. Winter is hardest on people when they’re depressed.”
“Have you thought about building a greenhouse? You could do the planting inside during the colder months,” I say, infected with his enthusiasm. “You know, potting, propagation.”
“Or experiment with different vegetables, crossing different varieties…” He trails off and stares into the distance, thinking, trying out the idea in his head.
I give him time and go to look out of one of the windows at the back of one room. It overlooks the patch of land he’s going to be working in his project.
Even this project is a trace of the old Osian. Like when I looked at the garden and saw traces and clues. The boy who once refused to believe gossip about our teacher; his courtesy, evenwhen students chased him for selfies; the kindness and care when he handled my broken plant then searched for a nursery that sold that rare hybrid – they were all clues to the caring thirty-three-year-old man, now, who wants to help others.
“It hadn’t occurred to me.” Osian joins me at the window. “But indoor planting could work. I’ll need to wait until I’ve made enough money. Greenhouses aren’t cheap to build and I don’t want to take out a loan. I hate debt.”
“A mortgage is a kind of debt,” I point out.
“Yeah, I don’t have one of those either.”
Surprised, I twist around to look at him. “You don’t—” Then I stop myself. My curiosity has overcome my manners. “Sorry, none of my business.”
“It’s all right,” he says lightly. “I bought my own house outright. It’s not difficult in a small village like Solva. In the last few years, the area has become more popular and more expensive, so I made a profit when I sold it.”
“You sold it?” Again I ask before I can stop myself.
“What do you think is paying for all this?” He waves at the newly decorated rooms. “My investment into a new—” He stops himself in time but I saw the way his mouth began to shape the letter L.
Life?
“A new enterprise,” he says. “Once the accommodation is ready, I can start on my garden, get the grounds ready for planting. Hopefully, my first residential course will start middle of March.”
“So this will be your garden of wellbeing?”
His eyebrows quirk up. “Garden of Wellbeing. That’s a good name. Maybe a little on the nose, but certainly in the right direction.”
“The ornamental orchard?”
“I like the word orchard. But it’s not ornamental. It’ll be vegetables and maybe fruit trees if enough of them are still viable.”
“No, I meant what it was before.” I nod at the view beneath the window
He no longer thinks me an idiot, so I’m not getting the polite pitying expression. Just a little frown.
“Sorry,” I laugh. “I tend to go a hundred miles a minute sometimes and not explain properly. I think I know what your garden used to be a hundred, even two hundred years ago.”
“How?”
“Want to see?” I ask, in an echo of his question to me earlier.
Chapter Seven
We have to find a window that shows a better view of his patch, from the base at the point where the two wings diverge.
“Probably best in the room earmarked for the kitchen.” Osian hurries to the last room.
We’re both energised, eager for more discoveries.
