Page 11 of Once Upon a Thyme
I dressed carefully the next morning. I’d got up early to allow myself time for a bath and to wash and plait my hair, turn out a clean white linen shirt and some slightly better-fitting jeans than my usual work ones.
Mika’s coming over . The thought gave me a pleasant buzz through my body, a little burst of energy that was unusual at this time in the morning, when the sun was barely clambering over the wall and the dew still lay its pearls along the feathery edges of the yarrow.
While I didn’t allow myself to consider that Mika would do any more than smile my way, that was more than I could usually expect from a day.
I had to take my little hints of pleasure where and when I could, and the thought of a handsome musician smiling in my direction gave me a warmth in my stomach that even tea couldn’t compete with.
I carefully ignored the mental image of Mika playing the washboard, replacing it with a more romantic vision of a viola tucked under his firm chin and those sparkling eyes smiling and long fingers drawing low, soulful music from a skilfully wielded bow over strings.
It was a pretty picture. And, as my love life resided entirely in my head these days, it kept me going sufficiently to take all the potted herbs that had added ambience yesterday back outside where I ranged them against the cottage wall.
It was supposed to give the area the look as though the cottage had grown up amongst the plants, ethereal and other-worldly, but actually gave it more of a medieval peasant vibe.
I rearranged the pots to leave the path free and was surprised by the arrival of Zeb, who must have climbed the gate without my hearing him.
‘Good morning,’ I trilled with the incipient arrival of Mika making me cheerful.
Zeb eyed me suspiciously. ‘You look…’ He stopped and was obviously raking carefully through his vocabulary. ‘Clean,’ he finished.
‘Making a good impression for when the band arrive,’ I said, perkily. ‘Could you go and feed the pig, please?’
Zeb’s mouth twisted. ‘Can’t you do it? I have a difficult relationship with the pig. She tries to knock me over.’
I became a little less buoyant. ‘She tries to knock everyone over, you aren’t special.
And I’m clean, as you so charmingly pointed out.
Plus, you’re an employee, I’m the boss, so you are on trough duty for today.
’ His obvious reluctance made me add, ‘And I have to go and cut some herbs for the buckets by the shop, before we have to close off the gardens.’
‘I could do that?’ His nervous glances towards the barn made me wonder if he knew I suspected him of being the one to leave the gates open on purpose. Was he assessing his chances of getting away with it again, when there was clearly only him and me here?
‘You don’t know what we need. And anyway, as you said yourself, you don’t know much about herbs apart from having been a chef.’
‘Which is not making me an ideal carer for Big Pig either,’ he pointed out. ‘She’s just a collection of animated chops and rashers as far as I am concerned.’
‘I’m sure she’ll forgive you.’ I nodded towards the barn. ‘And you can throw some of the ruined parsley cuttings in for the rabbits and guinea pigs; Ollie left it all piled near the shed.’
I didn’t give him a chance to demur any further, and took myself off to start filling the buckets.
We were going to keep the shop open, even though the gardens themselves were closed.
There was plenty of stock and people would just have to be cheated of the chance to cut their own herbs for a week; we needed the income.
Mallow and vervain, melissa and verbena, tall fronds of each stood fragrant and floral, their smudgy green foliage attractive against the bright silver of the buckets and the mellow old stone of the converted stable.
I was very pleased with the effect as I tied each bundle into loose bunches with agricultural twine, so that they sprawled louchely in their containers, like drunken old men in a club.
Over in the barn I could hear Big Pig starting her day with a good snorting honk in Zeb’s direction, the rattle of the feed bin lid and the whistle-squeak of the guinea pigs, alert to the fact that their food would be next.
It was all rather lovely. Zeb was doing my bidding, the band would soon be here to start filming and both I and my herbs were looking their best. The weather was good and my mother…
well, she’d been visited yesterday. I’d be able to admire Mika from afar while I manned the shop and generally tried to stop people trampling over newly established plant beds.
Today was going to be a good day and it wasn’t often that I could think that. I was far more used to getting out of bed and staring out of my window across the neatly portioned acres wondering what would go wrong.
On occasion, I had even caught myself thinking that taking over Drycott had been a mistake.
After Granny had died, when my mother had been in overall charge, I’d had the benefit of her buffering me from the worst of the effects of seasonal dips in sales.
She had the knack of never seeming to worry about anything, and, I’d been able to concentrate on digging and planting and working out what was likely to be the most profitable seeds to put in for next year.
Now Drycott was all mine, and so was the worry.
But nothing could go wrong today. I leaned against the warm stone blocks of the shopfront and felt the second-hand warmth seep into my bones.
A brief concern about hubris made itself known.
Something could always go wrong, there was never a day that passed without a minor catastrophe, but I bit my lip and squashed the feeling that doom was only ever minutes away.
No. It would all be lovely. Of course it would.
I watched Zeb conscientiously double-checking the bolts on the barn gates as he came out with his bucket swinging, and bit my lip again.
He would know I was watching. Even he wouldn’t be daft enough to fail to fasten those gates when he was the only person who could be blamed for letting Big Pig escape, and while I was actually staring at him. Would he?
I watched him put the bucket back and stand, scanning the garden.
Would he? Perhaps Zeb didn’t want this job as much as he pretended; perhaps he was sabotaging things in order to be fired?
He could say goodbye to any references that didn’t contain the words ruined the business, but maybe he had reasons of his own for not wanting to continue.
I didn’t, after all, know very much about Zeb McAuley-Wilson, other than that he’d changed career and seemed diligent about his new one. I should really think about that.
On the other hand, I thought, as Zeb stared around again, I knew more about him than I wanted to.
He’d changed his entire life. Lost his wife to divorce because of an over-demanding job, moved to a small flat – over a takeaway, if I remembered rightly – in Pickering.
But I didn’t know how he felt about anything.
That mobile, large-eyed face didn’t give much away, other than a general sense of anxiety and a desire to make the best of things that made me feel slightly guilty.
He seemed nice: pleasant, kind, and he was good with the animals despite his lack of experience.
Behind me came the sound of vehicles on the road beyond the gate, the heavy growl of big engines rolling carefully down the gradient and the whine of brakes being judiciously applied.
Why was I wasting time thinking about Zeb and his general air of sad disappointment in life, when Mika…
when the band were about to arrive? I leaped to open the main gates – they were early, it was barely eight o’clock and I’d wanted to sweep the yard and finish cutting more herbs before they arrived, but here they were, two large lorries and the minibus pulling into the car park.
I had also wanted to park them at the far end, against the fencing to the garden to allow more room for passing customers to pull straight in, but they all arranged themselves by the entrance.
They filled the entire car park, leaving barely a corridor, so any passing trade would have to drive between the two lorries to get in, which was almost guaranteed to put off any casual customers.
I snarled inwardly. I hadn’t realised that ‘filming a video’ would involve an entire team and quite so much heavy equipment.
The shop could stay open for now, but we’d have to close completely when actual filming started.
Then the minibus drew up next to the door of the shop and I hurried to look busy and engaged in case Mika was looking out of the window.
The buckets got another rearrangement and the herbs an unnecessary amount of fluffing and sorting, so I was crouching over the willowy spikes of the vervain as the band came slowly down the steps.
Simon jumped from the driver’s seat, and I watched him land on the gravel, wince and lean quickly against the side of the bus with a quick glance at the band members to see if they had noticed his less-than-athletic exit.
He needn’t have worried, they all seemed preoccupied with the task of getting out of the bus, talking amongst themselves over shoulders and shaking skirts and re-lacing boots.
There was Mika, last off the bus, resplendent in a wine-coloured jacket and bow tie, skinny black jeans and knee-high Dr Marten boots.
He looked exotic, with his dark hair blowing in the newly risen breeze, bright eyes sparking with mischief and his stubbled cheeks highlighting slanted cheekbones.
I found myself staring, peeping from between the spires of herb stems like a mortal watching the arrival of the gods from Mount Olympus.