“We shouldn’t discuss other people’s business. It’s not nice,” I suggest, in my best mentor voice.
Ricky huffs, filling the wheelbarrow with more twigs. “Osian isn’t gay.”
No, he’s not. Even without knowing about his past, I can tell he’s straight.
Because there was a moment, a fraction of a moment between us. Upstairs. We nearly hugged, and there was a tiny frisson of interest, and not only from my side. I might not be a player with hundreds of affairs, but I can read sexual tension when it’s in the air.
“Tell me about the Squad?” I ask, to move the conversation away from Osian. It would be awful if he should return to the terrace to find out how we’re using his tools and find us talking about him. It would add proof that I came here chasing him.
We work hard for hours, and Osian never comes.
About 2pm, I stand up and step away, hands pressed into my back to massage the stiff muscles. We’ve cut away all of the vines and the wall is exposed. It curves all the way down, the end spiralling in on itself like a comma.
“What is that writing along the top?” Rhian asks, following the design with her eyes.
The tiles graduate in colour from dark blue to pale. All along the rim there is a border created with smaller chips of tiles in light green and white.
“It’s some kind of decorative border,” I say, looking closer.
“It’s all that crusted shit and glue from the ivy roots.” She really likes using the word shit. I make a note to help her find a better expression later.
She bends down and tries rubbing the tile with her fingers.
“We’ll clean it. Do you want to take a break, first? They must be serving lunch…” My words fade as Rhian and Ricky both sprint up the steps to the terrace and into the house. They must have been starving, poor kids.
The rumbling in my stomach reminds me I’ve had no lunch either. Yet, two steps up and something makes me stop and turn back to the mosaic on the wall.
This is such an unusual feature. If I relax my eyes, there’s some kind of shape.
I walk back down the curving steps for a closer look. They’re words. A long string of words. Too many to be a title like ‘The Garden’ or ‘this way’; it feels more like message.
Years ago, I worked on a project for the National Trust with Dame Maxine Pinkerton-Smith, the best garden restorer in the country. She used to say that every garden has a secret and her job was to discover it.
What is the secret here? My eyes go to the wall, following the border of mosaic writing.
Suddenly, my hunger for lunch is nothing to my curiosity.
I run back into the house.
Chapter Ten
In the kitchen, various people are eating lunch, but I ignore them and hurry to the cupboard under the sink.
Sure enough, there are various buckets, brushes and cleaning supplies. Ten minutes later, I’m back on the terrace.
Using a scraper on the encrusted dirt might damage the tiles, so it’s the best part of an hour with soapy water and a plastic brush until the wall is clean and, slowly, the design reveals itself to me.
It’s a beautiful work of art that steals my breath. The colour of the clean tiles is a stunningly vivid jade green in perfect counterpoint to the cobalt blue. The border – a double line in tiny off-white mosaics – runs the entire length of the wall. Inside the two lines are words. I have to step right back to read the full thing.
When the bare heath of life presents no bloom. Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed. Where the five—
The rest disappears around the curve of the wall; I have to go down the steps to follow it.
Where the five colours of hope beckon, my feet must follow.
“Beautiful,” someone says behind me.
I spin around to see several people standing on the terrace, watching. Llewellyn and an older lady with smooth silver hair in an elegant French twist; also Leonie with the professor and a bearded man whose name escapes me. Next to them, Osian.
