when she and her mum moved back to the village to live with her gran again, she couldn’t bring herself to visit it. It had taken all her will power to go there when she returned to the village after finishing her art and design course in Edinburgh. She was twenty-one, single and about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime – starting her own illustration and graphic design business from the study of her gran’s house funded by the £5,000 her gran gave her for her twenty-first birthday.
This was a new beginning and as such, it was time to put the past behind her. Somehow she felt she needed to. And part of that meant visiting all the places she had known and loved; places she’d been with her dad; places where she’d been truly happy.
One of those places was the old plant nursery. It was as if this was the final ghost she needed to lay to rest. She walked through the gate that day, spotted Sebastian and took the first step on the path of what she later believed to be True Love .
They’d been friends for most of her life, of course. They both grew up in the village and Jutsdown wasn’t exactly large. At the last count there were still only just over two hundred people living there. But she and Sebastian had never been anything more than friends – until that summer. That wonderful, glorious, blissful summer when she’d walked into the nursery to buy herself a plant for her new ‘office’– just one plant – as a memento of her dad, and … Sebastian had smiled at her.
His eyes were the brightest blue she’d ever seen; she couldn’t remember them being that blue at school. And had his hair been quite so fair? Or quite that wavy? It fell in a tumble of curls across his suntanned temples.
She noticed he watched her move from one bed to another; one long wooden bench-table to the next until he asked if he could help. He wasn’t working there; he too had just popped in, and his knowledge of plants was less than hers but his enthusiasm was infectious. He followed that up with an offer of a cup of coffee, followed by several long, passionate kisses, followed by–
‘What have you come to accuse me of now? Trying to kill the cat?’
Nick’s acerbic tone brought Carole back from her daydream with a rather unpleasant jolt and she almost forgot that she was there to apologise. She hadn’t even realised that she’d walked through the open gates of the new garden centre and she looked about her as if she were drowning in an ocean with neither ship nor shore in sight.
‘I ... oh ... ah ... um.’
Nick’s dark brows arched. ‘Smell the blood of an Englishman,’ he said. ‘Have you come here to quote historical quatrains and nursery rhymes?’ Suddenly a smile crept across his mouth. ‘Hmm. That’s actually rather amusing I suppose as this was historically, a nursery – and I do sell beans, as it happens.’
‘What? Oh, I see. Jack and the Beanstalk. But wasn’t that “Fee-fi-fo-fum”? Anyway,’ she said, shaking her head as if she thought the conversation were absurd, ‘No. And I haven’t come here to accuse you of anything either. Although having said that, I would like to know what my grandmother was doing up a ladder at her age and what her role here is, exactly.’
‘Why don’t you ask her?’ he said, looking away from her, grabbing a bag of compost and tossing it onto his shoulder as if it were a speck of dust.
‘Because I’ve only just found out,’ Carole replied, screwing up her nose and stepping backwards as tiny black grains of earth like jet black flakes of snow fell from the corner of the bag.
‘That doesn’t explain why you’re asking me and not her,’ he said, disappearing into the distance in just a few long strides.
Carole followed after him sidestepping piles of upturned terracotta pots, lumps of wood, half open bags of bark, discarded, dirty tools and a myriad other hazards and affronts to cleanliness.
‘Because I came here to apologise and bumped into someone
This was a new beginning and as such, it was time to put the past behind her. Somehow she felt she needed to. And part of that meant visiting all the places she had known and loved; places she’d been with her dad; places where she’d been truly happy.
One of those places was the old plant nursery. It was as if this was the final ghost she needed to lay to rest. She walked through the gate that day, spotted Sebastian and took the first step on the path of what she later believed to be True Love .
They’d been friends for most of her life, of course. They both grew up in the village and Jutsdown wasn’t exactly large. At the last count there were still only just over two hundred people living there. But she and Sebastian had never been anything more than friends – until that summer. That wonderful, glorious, blissful summer when she’d walked into the nursery to buy herself a plant for her new ‘office’– just one plant – as a memento of her dad, and … Sebastian had smiled at her.
His eyes were the brightest blue she’d ever seen; she couldn’t remember them being that blue at school. And had his hair been quite so fair? Or quite that wavy? It fell in a tumble of curls across his suntanned temples.
She noticed he watched her move from one bed to another; one long wooden bench-table to the next until he asked if he could help. He wasn’t working there; he too had just popped in, and his knowledge of plants was less than hers but his enthusiasm was infectious. He followed that up with an offer of a cup of coffee, followed by several long, passionate kisses, followed by–
‘What have you come to accuse me of now? Trying to kill the cat?’
Nick’s acerbic tone brought Carole back from her daydream with a rather unpleasant jolt and she almost forgot that she was there to apologise. She hadn’t even realised that she’d walked through the open gates of the new garden centre and she looked about her as if she were drowning in an ocean with neither ship nor shore in sight.
‘I ... oh ... ah ... um.’
Nick’s dark brows arched. ‘Smell the blood of an Englishman,’ he said. ‘Have you come here to quote historical quatrains and nursery rhymes?’ Suddenly a smile crept across his mouth. ‘Hmm. That’s actually rather amusing I suppose as this was historically, a nursery – and I do sell beans, as it happens.’
‘What? Oh, I see. Jack and the Beanstalk. But wasn’t that “Fee-fi-fo-fum”? Anyway,’ she said, shaking her head as if she thought the conversation were absurd, ‘No. And I haven’t come here to accuse you of anything either. Although having said that, I would like to know what my grandmother was doing up a ladder at her age and what her role here is, exactly.’
‘Why don’t you ask her?’ he said, looking away from her, grabbing a bag of compost and tossing it onto his shoulder as if it were a speck of dust.
‘Because I’ve only just found out,’ Carole replied, screwing up her nose and stepping backwards as tiny black grains of earth like jet black flakes of snow fell from the corner of the bag.
‘That doesn’t explain why you’re asking me and not her,’ he said, disappearing into the distance in just a few long strides.
Carole followed after him sidestepping piles of upturned terracotta pots, lumps of wood, half open bags of bark, discarded, dirty tools and a myriad other hazards and affronts to cleanliness.
‘Because I came here to apologise and bumped into someone
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