Page 97 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
‘Good idea,’ agreed Thom. ‘I always want to spend hours in the garden. It reminds me of the Chelsea Physic Garden, which was about the only thing I missed when I left London.’
Then he gave me a wry sideways glance and a half-smile. ‘Well, perhaps therewereone or two other things.’
I said nothing, though I couldn’t help remembering all the times I’d walked in that garden with Thom, and how we’d sit talking over lunch or tea in the café. Happy memories.
I remembered, too, that we’d seemed to be spending more and more time together before the row, although hehadbeen away at his cottage for several weeks before it. I’d felt lonely without him, which was how I’d come to be at the party where I met Marco … and I really couldn’t imagine now why I’d fallen so hard for him!
We walked down from the car park to the narrow humpback bridge, which was on the opposite side of the road to a large and thriving-looking pub.
‘It’s called the Devil’s Cauldron after the huge, deep pool below the bridge,’ Pearl explained.
When I stood in the middle and looked over the parapet, I saw the mesmerizing rush of dark water cascading down into the pool, swirling and churning, as if stirred by a giant hand.
I’d probably have carried on standing there indefinitely, except that Simon’s yearning for ice cream got the better of him.
The café, Ice Cream and Angels, had an old ice-cream seller’s tricycle parked in front, the cold box over the front wheel now planted up with bright flowers, and there were tables outside. But we went in so that I could see the pictures for sale on one wall, painted by the proprietor’s sister.
They were strange and semi-abstract depictions of what might have been waterfalls and small winged creatures … all illusion rather than substance.
‘The whole history of ice-cream making is on the other wall,’ Pearl said, as we sat down at a table in the window. ‘They still have all their old equipment and make their own ice cream in really interesting flavours.’
‘Their coffee’s excellent too,’ put in Thom.
He was right. We all had cups of frothy, delicious coffee, served with biscotti, and then big glass sundae dishes filled with the ice cream of our choice. Mine was rose, but Simon had three different scoops: mint chocolate, raspberry and lemon.
‘That may not have been the healthiest of late lunches, but it was certainly delicious,’ Pearl said, as we went to the counter to pay.
‘Oh, all my ingredients are wholesome and natural,’ said the small, elderly, turquoise-haired woman who had taken our order and now sold us the tokens we would apparently need to get through the turnstile to the riverside walk.
‘It was really scrumptious,’ I assured her. ‘I need to come back several times, so I can work through the flavours!’
We went through an ornate Victorian cast-iron turnstile that clanked importantly, then made our way up a gravel path beside the river, while Thom explained how the scenic little valley had once been hugely popular with Victorian day-trippers, then, between the wars, became an artists’ colony.
‘It fell out of fashion after that and got a bit run-down, but it’s become a real tourist hotspot again more recently.’
‘There’s more to attract the visitors too, now the gardens are open to the public,’ Simon put in.
The path was becoming narrower and rougher, the furtherwe got, and it skirted round outcrops of rock, the thick roots of ancient trees and clumps of thorny gorse. The valley itself began to narrow, the trees closing in on either side.
We finally arrived at a viewing platform at the bottom of the Fairy Falls, which thundered down from a rocky precipice a long way above. The old painted iron railings along the edge were shiny and slick with damp.
We only stopped there briefly, before Thom led the way up an even steeper and rougher path that eventually brought us, hot and breathless, to a stone shelf that jutted out a little, edged for safety with more of the painted iron railings.
Once I’d caught my breath and looked around, I thought there was something magical about this spot.
The water poured straight out of an opening in the cliff face and rainbows danced in the sunbeams that slanted through the leaves. But the very air itself seemed to quiver, as if it was just a taut, invisible veil between ourselves and another, more ancient world …
I can’t really describe the effect it had on me, but Pearl seemed to feel it too and moved quickly to lean right over the edge of the railings, as if she’d caught sight of something wonderful.
I saw Simon take her hand and pull her back a little, then retain his grip on it, as if afraid she might suddenly take it into her head to try to fly away.
I looked at Thom, only to find him watching me curiously.
‘It’s quite some place, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘It has an atmosphere all of its own.’
‘It certainly has – as if you’ve stepped into another, mystical world and anything outside it has faded away into unimportance.’
‘Do you want everything else to fade away?’ he asked gravely.
