‘The important stuff? I don’t even know where to start with that.’
Lynne bent over and rifled through the ridiculously large pile of magazines on the table.
‘Look, here, and here. There she is. She’s a model, and got chucked out ofCelebrity Big Brotherthis year for being a bitch. But she’s had counselling and it’s completely changed her and she’s the nicest person you could hope to meet now. Everybody says so. And she was in the village today! She was walking past the butcher’s, and Pat had the ferret tied up outside again, she didn’t even flinch. She’s so cool!’
Rosy rolled her eyes, briefly considered if the reverential tone in Lynne’s voice was enough to warrant an intervention, and took the magazine off her friend to glance at the figure that was causing so much excitement.
Wouldn’t you bloody believe it! There was Perfect Hair smiling at the camera, flicking her oh-so-captivating mane and clinging on to some kind of celebrity beefcake. Great, so not only was she physically perfect, she was super rich, known by millions up and down the country and apparently good with ferrets. Who wouldn’t want her as their neighbour?
Chapter Five
‘Look, your bag is there, but I’ve got to get off now before the train leaves. I love you lots. Try and remember to be human—’
‘Oh, do fuck off!’
‘I’m going, but seriously, I’m not around the corner any more. Remember that last anger management woman, she was helpful, what did she say? Try and wait patiently in queues, smile if people ask you for your autograph— Ow!’ Matt quickly sidestepped Angelina’s swipe at his legs and grinned. ‘And try and keep person-to-person violence as low as possible. Nil, ideally!’ Laughing now, he started to back away down the train corridor as she swatted at him as if he were a particularly persistent mosquito.
‘I don’t think you understand how difficult my life is,’ his sister shouted after him. He could hear the smirk in her voice.
‘Oh, I do! Love you!’
‘The world is full of idiots!’
Matt speed-walked away, as years of experience had taught him to. He couldn’t help but notice the peaceful nature of the station as he headed for the exit. Posters advertising surfing on the north coast and tours of moors dotted the walls, with a card for Jonny’s Mackerel Trips and a mobile phone number. A seagull flew under the cast-iron bridge that straddled the tracks and was followed by three more, cawing messages back and forth, planning their next picnic. If he were in London he would have been menaced by a one-legged, one-eyed psychotic-looking pigeon by now, and the posters would be reminders about unattended luggage and Tube strikes.
He left the platform and headed out of the tiny station, just in time to hear Angelina’s squawk outdo even the gulls.
‘Seriously, are there no conductors on this bloody train?’ Her voice was one that could carry.
He adored his younger sister. She had always been the spoilt baby of the family and that had contributed to the person that she had become. Matt and Angelina had lost their parents when they were still very young. Their mother had been widowed soon after Angelina’s birth and then, plagued with grief-induced depression, had eventually taken her own life when Matt had been eighteen. A difficult age at the best of times but to lose his mother in such a fashion had been more than devastating. He was just old enough to take responsibility for his sister but not really old enough to understand the enormity of his choice. It had been a steep learning curve.
He knew that he had a tendency to worry that Angelina may take the same path, and found that throughout her childhood, and still as an adult, he was constantly checking for any signs that she was struggling with mental health issues and was unable to ask him for help. This perpetual fear was his mother’s legacy and as yet there was no shred of evidence that Angelina was anything other than over-indulged with a love for the dramatic, but still that worry was there, niggling and ever-present.
Immediately after their bereavement he had retreated into a world of his own creation, finding solace in the allotment his mother had taken on and dragging Angelina there in all kinds of weather. He would lose himself in soil and seedlings, digging and weeding, and Angelina, who had no interest in any of it, would be overindulged by a whole posse of gardeners who showered her with colouring books, cupcakes and adoration. If she hadn’t known how to play to an audience before, she very soon did.
Somehow they had managed to grow into well-rounded adults.
Matt smiled again as he pondered this. ‘Well-rounded’ may be a bit of a stretch for Angelina, but she was a devil of his own making and she did have her good side. As the baby of the family, a cute freckled curly-haired eight-year-old, and all he had left, she had been spoilt rotten by both him and the allotment crew, his grief channelled into making life as easy as possible for her. With the inheritance his mother had left them, Matt had not just been able to feed them and maintain the family home, but he had been able to make sure his baby sister had wanted for nothing. He had overindulged her, laughed at her extremes and failed to chastise her even when she would throw stones at his head. Which she did with frequency.
He had, in fact, created a monster, but a much-loved one. A monster that had gone on to astonishing success as a person famous for being famous and not much else. Terribly short skirts, complicated hair and no apparent cut-off point seemed all that was necessary. And she was pulling in more money than anyone could have dreamt of.
As he approached his car he watched as Scramble, with paws on the driver’s-side window, leapt onto the passenger side where he pretended to be snoring. Scramble then did his whole oh-I’ll-just-have-a-stretch-after-my-doze routine before yapping a hello as Matt unlocked the door.
‘Hmm, despite all your protests I think you and my sister have far too much in common!’ As he scuffled the dog’s messy head, Matt glimpsed his boots on the floor of the car and decided to head straight to work. Every time he had been to Penmenna Hall it had been full of people. For him to get a solid idea of where he wanted to take things, how he wanted to shape them, he preferred silence, and from there things would begin to make sense.
Working in the allotment after his bereavement hadn’t just provided focus for his grief but had gone on to shape his whole adult life. His younger self wouldn’t have considered becoming a gardener but that was exactly what he had done, very successfully.
In his early twenties he had won a place as apprentice to the famous French plantsman, Jean-Jacques La Binette, and under his tutelage had been involved in designing gardens across the world: New York, Hong Kong, London. However, leaving Angelina under the care of family friends for extended periods as he worked abroad hadn’t felt right so with Jean-Jacques’ support and the last of the inheritance he had started his own consultancy – one in which he not only designed but implemented his ideas. Over the years he had, according to magazines, gained a reputation for ‘bold new design combined with encyclopaedic knowledge and endless charm’. He wasn’t sure about the end bit but the rest he quite liked. The solitary nature of his work appealed deeply but as his reputation grew, a host of wealthy clients scrabbled for his creative stamp on their gardens and he spent less and less time by himself.
Indeed, his clients had developed a tendency to follow him around offering refreshments and, well, all sorts. They seemed to be particularly present, some armed with camera phones, when he was digging. The nature of the work meant he’d have to be all gung-ho and shirtless, and whilst it had amused him when he was in his twenties, as he got older he began to feel resentful and a little bit grubby.
However, his reputation – thanks to both these predatory older women (who all seemed to have remarkably good contacts) and Jean-Jacques – was what had secured him the chance to escape. The husband of one of his biggest clients ran a well-known production company and Matt had been asked to host a TV show, to be aired more or less as it was filmed, based on a Cornish estate that had been recently rediscovered. He wasn’t entirely sure whether it was because of his own professional expertise, his relationship to the now famous Angelina, a ploy to get him away from the TV executive’s slightly rapacious wife or perhaps an amalgamation of them all – but with an itch to do something new it had come at exactly the right time. Hence his move to this part of the world and this new project. He was expected to develop plans for the gardens that would grow over time to become a spectacle and ensure it was filled with plants that would look equally stunning in the short term whilst the others developed. A Herculean task – but one he was going to love.
He enjoyed projects that seemed insurmountable; his work had made up for all sorts of gaps in his life. Deliberately made gaps in his life. Growing up looking after his sister had left him with a healthy respect and love for women. A healthy respect and love that he didn’t mind sharing with lots of women. But a lifetime of Angelina’s knickers left in the hallway, make-up all over (all over!) the bathroom and the fact that his sister synchronized menstruation with a full moon had put him off commitment. Angelina was enough. He wasn’t writing off marriage and children and all that went with it – he was just going to wait till forty. That way Angelina would be settled by then (surely) and he would have had long enough by himself to accept those female touches all over his house once more. It would be just his luck to have seven daughters and not a son in sight. As lovely as he would find it at the time, he wasn’t ready for that risk just yet.
But even with his non-commitment policy, which he determinedly made clear at the start of any dalliance, there always seemed to be fallout. Moving to Cornwall was a break from it all; he would not be getting involved with anyone. No one. Not a soul. Keira Knightley could turn up in her wellies and a negligee and he’d still say a firm no. This year he would be concentrating on work, having some time to himself and not dealing with the messiness that women seemed to bring to life. Besides, he had read somewhere that celibacy was good for creativity, and creativity was mandatory when starting a new project. Yes, celibacy was the way forward for him for the next little while, and he was going to embrace it.
He pulled up outside Penmenna Hall and took a moment to appreciate the rosy fingers of sunlight dappling the granite of the old house, warming it far more than it should on such a cold February afternoon. He was going to concentrate on developing the old vegetable gardens first, plant them up with heritage vegetables and try and recreate the exact look and feel they would have had when the garden and the house were at their peak.
