TRICIA:He must be crazy about her and deeply in love to get married so young. She’s something special. Lucky bitch, eh?
My parents were waiting downstairs along with my boyfriend, a sweet boy next door who was much more in my league.
I kept them waiting while I sat down – still one arm in my gown and the other out – and looked at the images. It seemed my stupid heart was still hung up on the same tall, handsome boy with golden highlights in his hair. The boy who grinned happily from his wedding picture, arms around a cute blonde who stared lovingly into his eyes.
Osian, who made my every other boyfriend seem pale and boring.
I didn’t hear again from Tricia until two years after that.
TRICIA:What a shock. I can’t believe it.
Another link to another news article.
OSIAN JAMES RETIRES
The tennis world was rocked last night by the announcement that both Osian James and his wife, Kirsten Sheringham are turning their backs on the sport. The star, who was highly tipped to win Wimbledon this year, says he has no plans to play professionally for the foreseeable future. “There is more to life than competition, and our relationship comes first,” he told reporters outside his Connecticut home yesterday. “We just want to enjoy our life together,” Kirsten confirmed.
TRICIA:I really thought since he married so young it was never going to last but I guess he really has found *the one*, hasn’t he?
It was time to save myself from this kind of hurt. Run away from danger like I’d run away from London and away from First Aid Club.
The next day, I changed my phone number and blocked Tricia on every channel.
It was over.
I would never think of Osian ever again.
That chapter was finished.
I was determined to avoid any news of him, so much so that I never stopped to think, to guess what might have been behind the headlines.
Chapter Three
Present day
The young man interviewing me looks through my file, turning pages. My business plan, my CV and references. “Why would you leave such a successful television career for…” He half-grins. “For what London people would call the middle of nowhere?”
It’s the obvious question and I have my answer ready. “Because I didn’t enjoy the television career. I don’t want to spend an hour in make-up before picking up a trowel or secateurs. Even my gardening clothes had to be chosen by the Wardrobe Department. What you’re offering here is an amazing opportunity: to create a garden and watch it develop over time. On TV we move on as soon as the initial design is finished. It’s like giving your baby up for adoption and never watching them grow up.”
He chuckles. “A good metaphor.”
How old is this potential boss? Close to my own age, probably. How does he own such a huge stately home? I drag my mind back before it goes off on one of its journeys. What did he say, something about my metaphor?
Yes, and not a lie. But it’s not the whole truth either. I want this job with all my heart. But I also need to get away from my current position.
Our new PR manager has lined up a royal visitor which means we will suddenly go from a small gardening programme with a niche audience to a national primetime show. No TV presenter in her right mind would leave now. Not unless this TV presenter happened to have been caught on camera doing something very stupid.
If the programme becomes famous, so will I, and my mistake will go viral on social media. I will become a national joke, and none of my experience, my creative designs or my long years of hard work will mean a thing.
My new boss – if the gods smile on me – is still making up his mind.
I lean forward in my seat. “Mr Kendric, I’d love the chance to restore this incredible park.”
“Don’t you mean wilderness?” He gives me a lopsided grin, waving a hand at the view from the window.
We’re sitting in an office on the first floor of Kendric House, a huge pile of a stately home that would have been intimidating had it not been dilapidated and in very poor repair. When I first walked into the house, the massive hall made my jaw drop. A magnificent hall with a curving staircase, ornate banister, jade-green and gold decorative floor tiles. Yet a man was up a ladder retouching a faded mural with a small paint brush, and the curving staircase with ornate banisters was only clean as far as the first floor. The rest was roped off and looked like it had a hundred years of dust and mildew on it.
Mr Kendric sits in a large office furnished with a hodgepodge of furniture, some of it expensive antiques, some cheap and looking like it came from Freecycle.
