A text came whizzing back.
I can’t. I’m broke.
I’m broke thanks to the man you cheated on me with. He can pay it. And have the champagne delivered to yours or it will be thrown out.
I can’t. I’m in Santorini.
At this point, Simon had turned his phone off and put it in his pocket because the audacity of this woman to casually mention Santorini when she knew it was supposed to be their honeymoon spot was like a knife to the heart.
There was a certain sort of pain when you realised the worst betrayals didn’t come from your enemies.
The two people he had most loved and admired had broken him.
And then he’d met Amanda with her freckled face and curly red hair and a cute smile, so innocent and so American. She looked like a doll and had an excitable energy and he knew he’d dampened it with his mood. He wasn’t being fair but he also wanted to tell her that the world was an impossible place and there were people like Anika and Charlie, and she should try and stay alone and never share her heart with anyone. Instead he’d been a complete Eeyore.
He could find her and apologise, but then he would have to tell her his sad story. No, he would just avoid her so she didn’t get brought down by his mood and his failures.
That’s all he could offer right now and until life changed, it’s how he would stay.
10
Amanda
After Amanda left Diana at the gatehouse, she unpacked her cases and put her clothes away in the large free-standing wardrobes. She explored the house some more, trying to memorise the layout and deciding which room would be the one she painted in. She took lots of photos for Lainie and shared them with her.
Then she pulled on her Converse, some denim shorts and a T-shirt from her college days. She sprayed some bug spray on her legs and arms and applied a large amount of sunscreen and then she was ready to look at the garden.
Simon wasn’t anywhere to be seen when she went outside, for which she was grateful. Diana was paying him to be there for the summer she had said, but Amanda wished it was someone jolly and personable. And what annoyed her the most was that she couldn’t work out what animal Simon was. Nothing came to mind and that irked her more than she wanted to admit. Sometimes Amanda thought her labelling of people as animals was a superpower and she wondered if her mother’s death had thieved her of her skill. She hadn’t painted since then either, she reasoned, but she knew she had named Diana correctly, even if the old woman had responded strangely to the comparison.
Amanda walked along the paths until she found an empty pond with vines creeping into its depths.
She pulled at one but instead of giving, it cut her hand.
‘You need gloves for that – it’s wisteria. It’s very hard to pull on; it needs to be cut and trained.’ She turned and saw Simon behind her with his wheelbarrow, and his scowl.
‘Okay, good to know,’ she said, feeling embarrassed at his judgemental tone.
‘There’s a spare pair of gloves in the potting shed,’ he said and then walked past her.
She followed him. ‘Are you going to the potting shed?’ she asked.
‘I wasn’t going to, but I can show you now, I suppose.’
She made a face at him behind his back. ‘That would be great, thanks so much,’ she said. Maybe if she was super nice to him, he might thaw out.
They walked in silence for a little, passing overgrown garden beds and walls with plants growing up them. They turned down a small pathway, which was filled with ferns and tropical-style plants.
‘Oh this is gorgeous, I love ferns,’ Amanda said.
Simon ignored her as he stopped.
‘That’s the potting shed,’ he said, pointing towards the structure. ‘There’s all manner of things in there for you to start gardening.’
‘Thanks so much,’ she said.
‘You don’t need to thank me, it’s your house now,’ he said without any emotion, and he dropped the wheelbarrow to the side of the path and left her alone outside the shed.
He was a donkey, she decided. A sad, grumpy donkey, like the one from Winnie-the-Pooh, always bringing the mood down. She giggled to herself as she stepped into the shed and looked around. There were stacks of terracotta pots of all sizes, and pieces of trellis and a variety of stakes. It was filled to the brim with gardening tools, and bags of what looked to be some sort of soil.