The boy who had once held the broken stem of a camellia snow flurry and responded to my tears by asking me out. He’s always been like this.
Meredith comes over with his lunch which he must have ordered earlier. A long baguette filled with ham, cheese and salad.
“I’ve also drunk Evie’s coffee; can you please give her a fresh cup?” he says, before taking a bite of his baguette.
“So,” I say, going back to business. “What do you suggest I say when Ashe or anyone else is upset?”
He finishes chewing, swallows, then answers. “Nothing. That’s what you say. Nothing. Don’t rush in trying to offer the right words. Saying helpful things only forces the grieving person to think about you, to find polite things to say when all they want is to be allowed to cry. Just act like it’s normal and carry on with whatever you’re doing.”
After lunch we go back to work. I seek out the two men and ask them to come with me. As it happens, Ashe is chatting with Isaias, so all three are following me down the steps by the blue wall when I run into Llewellyn.
“I was looking for you.” I stop to talk to him. “Can I have a little of your time tonight to prepare slides for the presentation Saturday night at the partners’ meeting?”
His eyes are on Ashe, who still looks a bit fragile. We’re all standing on the steps and she’s on the step below him, which makes the normally slight Llewellyn seem like a tall and imposing stranger.
“You haven’t met thePerllangroup, have you?” I introduce all three even though Ashe’s eyes are a bit wide with anxiety. But Llewellyn shakes hands in his usual considerate and humble way, which seems to put her at ease.
“I run the Digital Hub, so if you need to use the computers, you’re all welcome. Just pop in whenever you need.” He smiles easily.
Then, turning to me, he says, “You don’t need to worry about this Saturday. Alex has asked to swap with you. He and the professor have something they want to show us.”
“So I don’t have to do a presentation?”
“Not this week. You can do yours at the next partners’ meeting. In two or three weeks.”
Good news; the best. If we hadn’t been standing on old crumbling slate steps, I’d be doing a happy dance. Alex and the professor, God bless them, have given me much-needed breathing space.
Time I intend to put to great use.
“So,” I say to the threePerllans with me. “How would you feel about working on the yellow and orange fan garden? We can make something really amazing there.”
All three faces look back at me with various degrees of hope. Not a lot in the case of Schaefer, but it’s definitely there.
“Orange is my favourite colour,” Ashe says, and there are two spots of colour in her cheeks, which had been very pale before.
“Fan gardens?” Llewellyn asks. He’s still here behind us; I thought he’d gone back inside. “Is that like fans as in groupies, or fans as in propellers?” he asks.
This time I laugh out loud. “You’ll have to wait for the presentation. By then, my three helpers will have made a small miracle.”
They too look intrigued. But I only smile widely.
There are a few flowering plants that grow very fast and I intend to use them in the orange-yellow fan. Since it happens to be next to the pond, it’s the perfect choice. Because I’ve decided to plant gorse around the pond. If Osian wanted me to give thesePerllanshope, nothing brings as much joy as the transformation from brown soil into something that looks – and smells – like gorse.
As I jump the last three steps and head toward the pond, I fully believe Osian’s worries are all about this. I have no reason to suspect a deeper and more troubling trigger.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The next thing that happens is so unexpected, it catches me with my defences down.
Saturday night, Alex and the professor are in a state of excitement throughout dinner. We barely have time to put our forks down before the two of them are up and switching on a projector to show us something.
Osian, sitting directly opposite me, looks down at his half-full plate of lasagne. He’s not been himself all week since thePerllangroup started. I keep catching him staring into space, and he’s not eaten much. Last Wednesday, he ordered his usual breakfast of two bacon sandwiches, then left one of them untouched. Since then he’s had only coffee in the morning.
The lights dim around us and the projector comes on. There’s a map of Wales and next to it a picture of a man in 19th-century clothes.
“Tonight we bring you a Welsh story,” the professor starts. “We have always suspected that the art detailed in Kendric House, such as murals, mosaics and stained glass, are all woven with stories. Some easy to trace, others not so. The one wewant to show you tonight is more complex because it seems to combine Welsh and English features and a mystery we cannot solve. So we need your help and suggestions.”
He pauses and Alex bends to click the mouse on his laptop next to the projector. The picture changes. Now it’s the mural Alex was working on before. Fully restored now, the colours are deep and beautiful. There’s a thick green forest with a large oak tree in the centre. In front of it stands a bride in a pretty gown, a wreath of flowers on her head and hair flowing down to her elbows. Behind her in the distance is a rider in black on a grey horse.
