The door to the gatehouse opened and Diana stepped out in a green tweed suit and sturdy walking shoes, holding a dark wood stick with a silver rabbit on top of it and her dog on a tartan lead.
‘Good morning, Simon, I’m so pleased you didn’t decide to give in to instinct and keep riding past the house.’ She smiled at him and he frowned.
‘Me? Not keep my word? Never,’ he half joked.
How did she know he had been unsure?
‘If I were you, I would have gone past this mess of a garden.’ She pointed her stick at some roses that looked like they were grasping for prisoners to wrap their thorns into. ‘Come along and I will show you the shed.’
They walked along the driveway and then left of the house, the garden becoming more unruly as they went.
There was a dark wooded area, which Simon was careful to watch Diana walk over, as some of the pathway was mossy and slippery. He made a mental note to clean that up as soon as he could.
The light became brighter and then they came to a clearing where a small wooden cottage stood amongst what looked to be grassy meadow.
‘This is the wildflower meadow,’ said Diana. ‘I used to catch all manner of insects here as a child, especially butterflies.’ She handed him a key. ‘It’s all set up for you,’ she said, gesturing to the cottage.
‘I thought you said it was a shed,’ he murmured.
‘It is a shed, but we made it a liveable shed.’ She smiled at him, her brown eyes twinkling.
‘I don’t believe anything should be on display that isn’t lovely and the gardener needs something nice to live in. I had someone come by who gave it a spit and polish and put all the necessities out for you.’
She pulled at the dog’s lead. ‘Come on, Trotsky, we have to take our walk.’ She then turned right and walked along a small path, pressed down in the grass from years of feet tramping through the meadow.
Simon stepped over the grasses towards the house. There was a path underneath, he could feel it, but for now he was knee-deep in plants and wild waving grass.
The key was old, iron and simple. It felt rough in his hand and wasn’t attached to anything. He liked how it felt, the weight and the age, he thought as he came to the front door. He dropped his backpack at his feet, put the key in the lock and twisted.
It opened easily, and he could smell the cleaning supplies when he opened the door.
His eyes adjusted to the light and he saw a lovely, simple room – a small kitchenette with a microwave still in its box, a kettle, a toaster oven, and some bench seating with red striped covers on the cushions.
There was a bed, a double with plain bedding and a red mohair rug at the end of it for colder nights. Panel heating was more than enough for the small space and there was an armchair and a desk and seat.
He carried his backpack inside and opened a door, finding a bathroom that was small but perfectly functional.
This was certainly more than a shed, he thought as he walked around and opened cupboards and drawers. There was everything he needed and more. Perhaps his summer here would be more tolerable than he thought?
But where were the gardening tools?
Simon pulled a cap from his backpack to keep the sun from his eyes and he left the cottage. He needed to bring his bike up here and then he would have a good look around.
Soon he was walking round the house, trying to get an understanding of the land and the gardens.
There was a sense of order under the chaos – he could see paths and walls – but so much was overgrown and messy. He wished he could have seen what they used to be like before they became wild and chaotic.
He would have asked Diana but she was nowhere to be seen, so he peered through one of the ground floor windows of the house. There was a dining room, with a large marble fireplace and a painting in a gilt frame of the bay of Moongate with a full moon hanging over it. It was an enormous painting and would have required at least four men to carry it, if they were willing to risk their back health. The room was also furnished with rugs and old furniture that would have been elegant in the 1920s but now seemed old-fashioned and uncomfortable.
But as far as he could see it was clean and orderly. Anika would love to live in something as grand as this, he thought, but he pushed her memory away. She had made her choice, and she’d chosen Charlie over him.
Simon walked the rough outlines of pathways and felt stone walls under the vines that seemed to grow everywhere. He wished he knew the names of some of the plants so he could care for them properly. He could have rung his mother and asked, maybe even taken photos of them to send to her, but then she would ask questions and tell him all about what happened after he left the non-event wedding, as he called it in his mind. He loved his mother but she loved to gossip and if he spoke to her the news of his whereabouts would move faster than Anika at a Selfridges sale.
No, he would just have to see if Diana had any gardening books, as he was fairly sure he wouldn’t have internet access in the gardener’s cottage.
As though he had summoned her, Diana rounded the corner with her dog, right by an empty pond.
‘I was just thinking about you,’ he said.
