“Oh, that.” He visibly relaxes. “You don’t have to worry about that. It’s taken care of. Now, how do you want them to start?”
I’m not entirely convinced by his ‘taken care of’, but clearly he wants to move the discussion on.
“I think the rose arcade can wait. All it needs is pruning but the fans need planting from scratch. If the bulbs are planted in deep layers, we’ll have flowers for six to eight months. But we need to start ASAP.”
“Two workers per fan?” he asks.
“That’s what I was thinking. At 25 metres long by 20 metres at the widest arc, each fan is almost the size of an average back garden.”
“That’s perfect. Not too much for two novices to practice.”
“They’ll need supervision.”
“That’s what I’m here for. Tell me what you need them to do and I’ll make sure they do it right.”
“Well… if the students can—”
“Not students.”
“Isn’t your business called a training…” I can’t remember what he said he’d call it.
“ThePerllanCentre for Wellbeing,” he answers. “It’s not a school. Maybe call them residents. Or”—he thinks for a moment—“participants.”
Despite the way this morning started, we have both begun to relax. Garden talk has done its magic and defrosted the atmosphere between us. Osian slides down in his seat and props his feet up on the railing in front of us. The morning sun comes out from behind a cloud and washes the terrace in a soft goldenlight. The shadows from our table and chairs are dark grey over the crumbling slate tiles on the floor.
Being outside in the fresh air, talking about gardening, the smell of spring, the freshly ploughed earth in front of us, the wide, wide ten acres of land waiting to be made into a beautiful garden… can anything be better?
A little cheerful spark lights up in me, and I can’t resist poking a little fun at Osian. “You know if your business is called thePerllanCentre, your students—” I catch myself. “Participants will end up being called thePerllans.”
“Perllan”—he pronounces his double Ls the Welsh way—“means orchard. Remember? You were the one to suggest the name. Otherwise, it would still be called the East Patch. You can’t call my participants ‘the orchards’.”
“I bet you fifty pounds.”
Osian cocks an eyebrow at me. “Weren’t you supposed to rename your North Park?”
“I have.” I grin because he’s clearly intrigued. Curiosity and reserve don’t go together so if he really wants to know he’ll have to unclench or I’m not telling him.
I, too, shift to sit more comfortably, and cross my legs so my foot can swing lightly with my mood.
He waits. When I still don’t enlighten him he tilts his head up, speaking to the sky. “God, she’s going to make me work for this.”
Laughing despite myself I say, “Okay, okay. Don’t have to enlist divine help. I’m calling it Hope Garden. Actually, plural: Hope Gardens because they’ll be a sequence of gardens.”
He glances at me, eyes bright. “That is an excellent idea.” He thinks for a minute. “You’re tying in the poem from the blue wall, aren’t you?”
His gaze goes over my shoulder to where the blue tiled wall curves down the steps to the brown earth below.
“Not just the wall,” I say, without looking behind me. No need because I’ve memorised every detail already. “I’m actually tying in the whole house with the gardens. Because I still feel there’s a link we have not discovered. And don’t forget the stained-glass panel over my door, and the Blue Lady who shows up where you least expect her all around the house.”
“So?” he asks. “What colours are you using for the fans?”
I can’t help smiling because thinking about this makes me really happy. “The first will be blue.”
“Not pink, like the stained glass over your door?”
I shake my head. “Blue first, next one purple, then over by the sweet gum tree”—I point farther into the cleared wilderness—“pink, and nearest the pond yellow-orange and finally red.”
“No white?”
