Page 6 of Best Summer Ever

Living and working on the estate, like on many other estates up and down the country, was a lifestyle rather than a job. It was a way of life that blurred the work–life balance but was happily embraced by those who took the jobs on and looking around at the beautiful landscape and more immediate surroundings at Wynbrook, I could understand why.

‘Hello Daisy,’ said Dad, stooping to briefly kiss my cheek when I was close enough. He was taller than both Mum and me and broad, too. They were both a little greyer than the last time I saw them, I noticed. ‘Are you on your own? I did think you must be when I spotted your car while I was putting the mower away.’

Laurence, not that he wanted to visit all that often, wouldn’t have dreamt of making the journey to Norfolk in my car. He much preferred his vehicle which offered sleek, air-conditioned comfort to my old banger with its intermittent cooling system, squishy seats and passenger window that had a tendency to open of its own accord. He’d tried to get me to change my little runabout on many occasions, but I’d always resisted.

‘Yes,’ I confirmed. ‘I’m here alone. But how are you, Dad?’ I asked, wanting to at least get us over the threshold before I told my tale – or the pared-down version of it that I wanted my parents to know.

‘Having a total nightmare,’ Dad groaned, once he’d got his boots off and was washing his hands with a bar of soap at the sink and ruthlessly scrubbing his nails with a wooden nailbrush. ‘A fella was supposed to be coming today to take on the maintenance and running of the cut-flower garden, but he called to say he’s had a change of heart.’

‘Oh no, Robin,’ Mum similarly groaned, as she passed him the hand towel in a well-practised manoeuvre. ‘That’s someone else letting you down.’

‘It is,’ he sighed. ‘So, I’m still no further forward.’

‘The cut-flower garden?’ I frowned, sadly knowing I was about to let him down too. ‘I didn’t know there was one.’

‘It was Algy’s idea,’ Dad explained. ‘I tried to nip it in the budat the start of the year, but he was insistent. One whole half of the walled garden has been given over to it.’

‘Does the manor need that many cut flowers?’ I asked, focusing on the practicality of the project, rather than my memories of the walled garden.

I knew it was a vast area that Dad was describing.

‘They’re not for the house,’ Mum told me. ‘They’re supposed to be for sale – a scheme to run alongside the pick-your-own fruit farm. Your dad got everything sown, grown and planted up, but now the season is in full swing, he can’t maintain it as well. Not properly anyway, not with so much else to do.’

‘Can’t Theo help?’ I suggested, referring to a Wynmouth resident who was a part-time gardener and part-time potter. ‘I thought he worked here with you regularly during the peak time now, Dad.’

‘He does as a rule,’ said Dad. ‘Well, he did. He’s just gone on paternity leave again.’

‘Him and Wren have got three little ones now,’ Mum wistfully added.

I had known there was another baby on the way as my friend Penny had bought Theo and his partner Wren’s tiny former fisherman’s cottage in Wynmouth ahead of them moving to somewhere bigger before the new arrival came along.

‘So that leaves me on my lonesome again,’ Dad tutted, ‘and getting nothing properly done.’

‘Just like me in the house,’ Mum forlornly added.

I hoped Algy was on the mend now and he’d soon be back on track, but I couldn’t help wondering why he had been so keen to get such a labour-intensive garden project up and running when he knew how difficult it would be to secure seasonal staff.The full-time roles on the estate were always filled, but the seasonal summer jobs, especially those which required some specific skill, were a different matter entirely.

‘Algy was asking after the cat again,’ Mum said as she filled the kettle, now Dad had finished washing his hands.

‘What cat?’ I asked, as distracted as they both were.

‘Have you seen it?’ Mum asked.

‘No,’ said Dad. ‘I haven’t, but in all honesty, I haven’t had time to look for the damn thing.’

‘I didn’t know Algy had a cat.’ I tried again.

‘He hasn’t,’ said Mum. ‘He spotted some mangy feral specimen and started feeding it at the kitchen door, but it disappeared and he’s been fretting over it.’

‘Is the food he’s been putting out still being eaten?’ Dad asked.

‘Yes,’ Mum confirmed, ‘but we don’t know by what.’

‘Maybe you could set up a wildlife camera?’ I suggested.

‘Maybe, Daisy,’ said Dad, pulling out a chair at the table and offering it to me, ‘you could tell us what you’re doing at Wynbrook on a Monday afternoon so soon after starting your new job?’

‘Well, yes,’ I swallowed, feeling the whiplash impact of the sudden change of conversational direction that shone the spotlight firmly back on me, ‘perhaps I could.’

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