“Why did Raff put up with it?”
She meets my eyes at last. “He thought he was helping.” She hesitates. “I’m not sure if I should be telling you this but I know you won’t pass it on. Raff used to have a drug problem and went into recovery. He says that in the program, he met a lot of people like Nora. Love addicts. She needs to have a man in her life the way an alcoholic needs a drink. That’s why he banned her from staying with Gethin. He says the last thing an old man needs is someone exploiting his goodwill and fleecing him.”
“Would she have done that?”
Leonie shrugs. “I don’t know. Raff is a strange mix. He was very sorry for her but also very realistic. He says addicts can steal, lie and cheat to feed their craving. They create chaos and disaster everywhere. He’d hoped to point her in the right direction to find help but she isn’t ready to hear it. He says the addiction is like a tool to solve all your problems. Like having a good Hoover, you use it to clean your carpets, then bare floors,then upholstery and curtains. Before long, you start to use it to clean your bed, kitchen counters… even the inside of your fridge. It becomes not only your favourite tool but youronlysolution. And you refuse to understand why it won’t cook your lunch or make your coffee. You refuse to believe it’s the wrong tool so you just keep trying, harder and harder, louder and louder.”
“What? Hoovering your salad?” I can’t help a little giggle even though this isn’t funny, not really.
“Exactly. So love and sex addicts use romance or whatever sexual fix to help them fix everything in their lives. When that doesn’t work, they blame the people around them. So they try harder to hook a new lover.”
“And the tears?” I ask, because now I’m genuinely intrigued. Nora’s weeping had seemed fake, a convincing fake.
Leonie drinks more of her tea, thinking. “I don’t know. Raff says the pain is genuine enough but that doesn’t mean it’s not being used to manipulate. Addicts deserve our compassion but that doesn’t mean they don’t do great harm. And the worst harm they do is to those nearest to them. Until she runs out of solutions and hits rock bottom she won’t seek real help. You’re not really doing her any favours catering to her demands. It’s called enabling.”
I think about this. “So in the meantime, she is exploiting Ashe who is also very vulnerable.”
“Yes, and the added bonus is that Ashe works with Osian, who I think is the real target now.”
This brings me back full circle to my thought of the night. “Tell me something. If you felt your heart was at risk… If you thought Raff might not be faithful to you, would you take yourself out of the mix? Move away?”
Leonie’s eyes widen. “Oh, no. I trust him completely. And I am not leaving. This is my business. The café makes me happy. Why should I give it up?”
I don’t explain that I hadn’t been thinking about her but me. A moment later, she says, “But even if I lost him, it wouldn’t affect my work here. I think when you find your dream job, you don’t give it up for a man.”
Good answer. Very good answer.
I get up. “Time to go down and get nice and dirty.” I point towards my dream garden.
I’m usually the first down there – it’s a good chance to see where we are with everything and assign tasks for thePerllans. But this morning I am surprised to find Schaefer and Isaias already there. They’re scrubbing the borders around the pond.
The pond I hoped would be blue, of course is not. But last week, we discovered blue tiling all around it, like a narrow walkway. Now that it’s getting a good cleaning with lots of help and expert advice from Alex, the true colours shine a vivid turquoise, rich peacock blue, aquamarine and emerald green.
“Miss Evie!” Isaias waves to me as I approach. “When can you plant the water things?”
The ‘water things’, as he calls them, are water plants I bought a couple of days ago and potted ready for placing under the waterline when the pond is filled. And when he asks me ‘when can you?’ he actually means ‘when can we?’ Planting the fan gardens was fine, but what they really want is to get into the water plants.
How can I ever leave Kendric House? When Schaefer looks at me with such hope. Schaefer, who’d lost his business, hishome and his wife in quick succession, had spiralled down into a deep depression so dark he couldn’t even talk. Now it’s a joy to see what three weeks have done to him. He might not be laughing but his greying hair is clean, his cheeks shaved, and his clothes are the right way around. He has adopted the pond as his personal mission and has spent long hours cleaning it because he wants to see how plants might grow under water.
“If Alex is happy with the mosaic tiles,” I answer, “then we can fill the pond, which means we can start placing the plants today.”
Isaias executes a rapid moonwalk, feet, knees and hips dancing together.
Schaefer, more practical, asks, “What first?”
“Gorse, because it’ll grow big and screen the pond so it’ll be a beautiful surprise when people walk this way. Then, as they come closer to look at the water plants, they’ll discover the mosaic path.”
We spend the morning lining up pots of blue and yellow irises just inside the boundary. Schaefer digs up the soil in the curves where the ‘S’ of the pond bends and fills it with young gorse bushes. At one point he takes an experimental sniff of the yellow flowers and his expression transforms. He keeps going back to smell them. It’s only late afternoon that he admits to me the smell reminds him of coconut shampoo.
The next day we complete planting the pond ready for filling with water.
“Why this?” Isaias asks when I place several dwarf hairgrasses in the middle. “Too short. Will not show over water.”
“They’re not for show,” I explain. “They’re oxygenating plants to keep the pond healthy.”
He is fascinated, so I take a little time out to tell him more about how oxygenating plants absorb excess nitrogen from the water to convert it to oxygen and keep the pond clean so other plants can thrive. When Osian comes by late afternoon, after his team has finished pruning the roses, he finds me dictating names of YouTube channels for Isaias to watch.
“Haven’t you got enough on your to-do list without taking on educating myPerllans?” he asks.
