Page 4 of Once Upon a Thyme

The cottage was quiet. That was one thing you could say about it.

It was also tiny, inconveniently laid out, prone to leaks and ridiculously creaky in high winds.

But definitely quiet. Particularly after dark, when the gates were locked and I could sit in my kitchen alone, smelling the summer scents of the herbs beyond the open door, and listening to the scuffle in the beams above that I was very afraid might be mice.

I sat in the battered old armchair that had been Granny’s, slumped over my knees with my head in my hands. I was supposed to be working, supposed to be filling in forms and checking out seed catalogues, but my laptop was on the floor beside the chair, its screen blank.

I kept coming back to Mother. Thinking she could hire me a marketing person without even mentioning it to me. I knew what she’d say though. ‘Oh, Natalie, you know I’d love to be more involved with the business, but my health won’t let me, so I thought I could help you out this way!’

There was no point in even raising it with her.

No point in asking anything, or telling her that the business was mine now, that she had no right to interfere, even if she thought she was being helpful.

There was absolutely no point. She’d laugh, brush me off, ask me to make her a cup of tea or pop to the shop for her.

She’d avoid, deny, only talk about superficial things all the way through a conversation until I lost the desire to find answers.

Or she’d be upset, seemingly appalled at my treachery at not wanting her help, and she’d take to her bed for a fortnight.

I rocked forwards over my knees a bit further.

‘Granny, what do I do ?’ I said aloud. As usual, the shade of my grandmother remained silent on the subject, unless she was making her views known through the furtive rustling of rodent feet along the beams, and I couldn’t decipher anything meaningful from that, other than that I probably ought to put the biscuits in tins rather than leave the packets on the worktop.

A car rattled along the lane past the gardens, slowed, and began the half-turn in through the gateway, arrested when it came up against the locked main gate.

Well, what did they expect? It was half past nine and dark; how many pick-your-own herb places would still be open at this time of night?

And how desperate would you have to be for a bunch of rosemary for your Sunday roast lamb to come all the way down our lane at this time of night?

I continued to stare, unfocused, at my knees.

The evening air was doing its job of ironing out the stresses of the day with wind-borne wafts from the lavender bed undercut with the astringent smell from the fennel which hadn’t recovered from the earlier pig attack and was going to need patching up.

Tomorrow. I could do it tomorrow. Today was over and all that remained was a hot shower and to tip into my bed in the little back room upstairs.

Yes. As soon as I could muster the energy, I’d get up and go to bed.

As I tried to persuade myself to get out of the chair and head upstairs, there was a rattle at the gate.

Thieves? I jerked my head up. The shop was locked up, the till empty, and the hefty padlocks around the place were normally enough to deter casual snatchers.

Unless someone was really desperate to gussy up their roast, nobody would come over the gate among the herbs, not in the dark.

But someone was. That sound was the weight of a person climbing the gate into the garden.

One advantage of having grown up here was knowing every individual squeak and jingle it could make, and that noise was very definitely the gate dipping on its hinges as someone climbed up, followed by the squeal of rusty iron as the gate rebounded.

They’d come right over. Any second now – yes, there was the slight crunch of the gravel beneath footsteps.

There was no way to approach the cottage silently, unless you came directly over the herbs and that was asking for a broken ankle and some embarrassing questions when you were found face down and groaning in the sage bed.

I stood up and threw the switch by the back door.

Instantly, the whole garden was flooded with enough light to read small print by.

Every flower head stood stark against the darkness, every leaf arrested as though the light was glue, sticking them to the night.

Big Pig snorted, her sleep disturbed up in the barn, and some of the guinea pigs squeaked hopefully, in case this had been a sudden dawn.

In the middle of the garden, one leg raised in the act of picking his way forward, was Zebedee McAuley-Wilson.

He’d thrown his arm up over his eyes to shield his vision from the blinding levels of light and was also fixed in place by the sudden illumination.

He looked like a scarecrow that couldn’t look a rook in the eye.

I stood by the open door and watched him cautiously drop his arm, blink a few times, and then, adjusting to the light levels, see me.

‘Can you turn it off?’

‘I can, but I’m not going to,’ I replied, folding my arms in what I hoped was a matter-of-fact way. I didn’t go quite so far as to lean nonchalantly against the door behind me though, I wasn’t quite that good an actor and my heart was still pounding at the sight of someone in the garden after dark.

‘Okay.’ Cautiously, because he was presumably still blinded by the floodlights, Zeb began to pick his way forwards, squinting down at his feet and blinking ferociously.

I waited until he’d got all the way before I turned off the light and watched him shake his head and screw up his eyes, adjusting back to the more normal level of light from the kitchen bulb.

He stopped when he got to the door. ‘May I come in?’

‘What for?’

He looked past me into the kitchen. ‘To talk about what we do next.’

I reached out and pulled the door closed, so its solidity was at my back. ‘There is no “next”. I fired you, remember?’

He’d been gone when I’d returned from selling a few bunches of herbs to some guilty-looking customers who’d obviously only turned up to see The Goshawk Traders.

At least they’d bought something; the band had just got back onto the bus and gone.

My eager eyes had sought out Mika, but he didn’t look back at me as they drove away.

He’d been involved in conversation with someone I couldn’t see and I’d been flustered and overheated and forgotten the price of the sprayed angelica heads.

But at least the contrast had been nice and quiet, and, once Ollie had been persuaded out from the compost corner, it had been a pleasant remainder of the day.

‘You can’t fire me. You didn’t employ me.’

‘But I don’t want you here.’

‘Then I suggest you tell that to the person who did employ me? Your mother, I think you said?’

I looked over at the distant outlines of the ivy that clambered enthusiastically over the far wall and muttered that she wouldn’t listen.

‘She’s paying me, you know. For a month’s worth of marketing advice,’ Zeb went on.

‘More fool her,’ I replied tartly.

‘No, I just meant, if she’s paying me, then where’s the harm in letting me stay on? You might not want me, but I could be useful.’

‘Useful, how?’

He didn’t speak for a moment. The silence rattled with seed heads in a passing breeze and an owl hooted atmospherically.

The air was warm and heavy with scent but it was so familiar as to hardly register.

‘Look,’ Zeb said finally, and there was an urgency to his voice that took my attention away from the gently swaying ivy back to him.

‘My business is new. I need some testimonials to put on my website and your mother has promised some extravagant praise if I can just turn this business around. I need the work, and you…’ he tailed off to stare pointedly at the chamomile bed.

‘You need some proper marketing,’ he finished.

‘We could help each other. Plus, it’s already paid for. ’

He was only half-lit in the amber light that came past me through the window from the kitchen lamp.

He was hunched, the silhouette of his hair almost trembling with eagerness against the sky and there was something about his keen slender shape, bent forwards with the desire to stay employed, that reminded me of Ollie.

The owl hooted again and then flew, a ragged, torn-paper outline across the air of the garden.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, come inside,’ I snapped. ‘It’s ridiculous trying to talk to you when you’re grovelling in the dark.’

I opened the door and went into the kitchen, not looking to see if he followed, but I could hear his feet on the brick floor as he came in. I put the kettle on.

‘It really is lovely here,’ he said. His tone was humble.

‘Stop it.’ I fetched the mugs. I had to dig for a spare; Ollie would know if someone had used his mug and he wouldn’t like it, so I found an ancient bone china cup at the back of the cupboard. ‘I’ve been working here since I could toddle, there’s nothing you can tell me about the business.’

There was a furtive squeak from somewhere in the rafters. I hoped he hadn’t heard it.

‘All right. Maybe you don’t need help with the day-to-day stuff.

But what about The Goshawk Traders? If Simon decides that they do want to film here, you could do with someone to help manage that.

You’ll want to publicise the fact that the gardens were used in their video, maximise visitor numbers for as long as possible afterwards.

And what are you going to charge? You’ll have to close the gardens while they’re here, so you need to allow for… ’