I don’t want to owe them anything. It’s the only way I’ll be free to live my life the way I choose to live it.
Whatever happened to Ash, I still believe in the words he spoke to me on the train platform.Life is too short not to do what you love. And I’m tired of living to please my parents.
Mum and Dad leave work soon after I do, arriving home in time to see me carrying my bags to the front door. The shock on their faces makes me feel oddly numb.
‘If you walk out that door, you’re gone for good,’ Mum warns.
‘Marian,’ my dad interjects.
‘If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get,’ I reply, avoiding my dad’s gaze.
I can’t deal with the thought of him being hurt. I have to keep my eyes set on my goal. It’s time to follow my own path.
Part Two
CHAPTER TEN
‘You’re full of shit,’ I say to Evan. ‘It’s warmer here than in Surrey. Where’s all this rain you keep bleating on about?’
‘You’ll get it soon enough.’ He throws me a lazy grin from the driver’s seat.
I think that was an unintentional double entendre, but I can never be sure with Evan. There’s always been an underlying tension between us, the kind that a tussle between the sheets would probably cure, but that sort of thing would have been inappropriate before.
I doubt it would be a good idea now either, seeing as we’re about to start working together, but at least I’m fully qualified. When I was doing my training, the balance of power was far too heavily weighted in his favour.
We met while I was doing a horticultural operative apprenticeship at RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey. I’d secretly been looking into doing a Level 2 qualification with the Royal Horticultural Society when I saw that applications for their apprenticeship programme were open. On a whim, I applied, but I didn’t think anything would come of it. I couldn’t believe it when I landed a place.
The lady who interviewed me said that my designtraining was an asset and easily transferable, but I think she was touched on a personal level by the stories I shared about Nan.
Accepting the apprenticeship required a leap of faith, a full-on jump into a new career. It was a two-year, fully paid position, but the salary was a pittance compared to what I’d been earning at Knap. I can’t deny it – I was terrified to walk away.
My dad and I speak every couple of months or so, but our conversations are strained. He texted me the same night I left home, asking me to keep him abreast of what I was doing.
It took several months for me to pluck up the courage and confess that I’d left Knap in pursuit of gardening. He was shocked. I can’t imagine what my mum thinks: that I’ve lost my mind, that I’m having a breakdown, that I’m breathtakingly stupid … Probably all those things and more.
She and I haven’t spoken since the day I walked out. She’s estranged from her own mother, so I shouldn’t be surprised that she has it in her to cut me out of her life. My chest feels tight when I think of her, so I try not to do it often.
Christmases are the worst. I may have hated living with my parents at times, and often I felt desperately lonely, but only now do I appreciate what it means to be truly alone.
Sometimes the weight on my shoulders feels so heavy, but not when I’m gardening. When I’m surrounded by nature, I am happy and light.
Evan was one of the staff members who trained me, a down-to-earth Aussie with a cheeky sense of humour – he was only three years my senior and we hit it off immediately.He used to work at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, but had been living in the UK for a few years – his mother is Welsh.
I was gutted to see him go towards the end of my apprenticeship when he accepted a job at Berkeley Hall, a privately owned estate on the Welsh side of the border with England, but we stayed in touch.
Once I’d qualified, I managed to secure part-time work staying on at Wisley, filling my free hours working as a gardener for private clients. But it’s been tough financially, and my living arrangements have also been a challenge. For the last three years, I’ve been a lodger in a family home, living with a couple in their late thirties who have two small children. They’re nice enough to me, but I’ve always felt like I’m encroaching on their space. It has never felt like home.
‘Almost there,’ Evan says.
He collected me from Wrexham train station in a big black estate-owned Range Rover and is wearing his uniform of a dark green polo shirt with black shorts and brown boots. I’ve seen him donning the Berkeley Hall get-up on his #hotgardener profile on Instagram. His handle is his name, Evan Kite, but his friends and colleagues have taken to using the hashtag in the comments to tease him because he occasionally posts bare-chested pictures of himself.
I’m a little mortified that he puts himself out there in this way – you’d never catch me posting half-naked pics of myself for likes – but there’s no denying that the sight of him shirtless does get me a bit hot under the collar.
He’s gorgeous – tall at just over six foot, well built, witha head of thick, short, scruffy hair – and so likeable and easy-going that I’m surprised he hasn’t been snapped up. He was dating someone in the early days of my apprenticeship, but that ended and to my knowledge he hasn’t been serious with anyone since.
I drag my eyes away from his toned forearms and tanned hands gripping the steering wheel and feel kind of edgy.
Now thirty to my twenty-seven, Evan is still senior to me, but he’s not my direct boss. I’m one of three gardeners and he’s assistant head gardener. We both answer to the head gardener, Owain, who interviewed me over the telephone a few weeks ago. It made my heart pinch to hear his warm Welsh accent – the way he rolled his Rs was exactly the same way Ash had – but he was a lot older, in his early sixties from what Evan has told me. I sensed he had already made up his mind about hiring me on Evan’s recommendation. Jobs rarely come up at Berkeley Hall, so I’m lucky.
