Page 12 of You Only Live Once
‘Fair enough.’ He spread his hands and rolled his shoulders and tipped his head one way, then the other, loosening the muscles after his long flight. Even with jet lag, he looked hot. It really wasn’t fair. I remembered the teenage head pat and the thoughts dissipated. ‘By the way, your rent is in an envelope next to the bread bin.’
I snapped my head up to look at him. The green eyes gazed down, challenging me with an unconcerned air.
‘I told Felix to inform you that I was not prepared to take rent as it’s a favour to a friend.’
‘I wasn’t aware that we were friends too. That’s nice to know. But either way, I’m still not accepting any money for work I do in the garden.’
‘Then perhaps I won’t let you do any work in my garden,’ I said, drawing myself up to my full height of five foot two, over a foot shorter than him.
He grinned widely, the perfect white teeth contrasting against his tan, apparently amused, and I knew for sure that his line earlier about only having a good side was complete rot.
Ten minutes later, I was walking around my garden with Jack. After a few minutes, he pulled up, and it took me a few steps to realise he’d stopped.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘You.’
The comment seemed unnecessarily blunt and I folded my arms across my chest.
‘I was about to say “and before you get defensive” but I can see from that stance I’m already too late.’
‘I’m not defensive. I haven’t said anything. Yet.’
It looked like he was trying not to smile. ‘You don’t need to say anything. Like I said, the way you’re standing and the way you’re looking at me says it all.’
I made a snort of disagreement.
‘Perhaps I should have been more clear. What I meant when I said “you” was that if we’re going to do this, you need to stop apologising every two seconds for the state the garden is in. It’s easy to see that there’s something beautiful here and it’s also easy to see how that could get out of hand. It’s a large plot. It’s a lot for one person to take on, especially if they’re not going to have help.’
‘It wasn’t that I was against having help, as such. I thought I’d be able to manage it and that it would be a good distraction and a bit of exercise, fresh air – all that sort of stuff. But it got out of hand quicker than I was expecting and then the thought of having to explain what I wanted to a complete stranger, when I didn’t even know what I wanted…’ I let the sentence drift off and gave a shrug to punctuate it.
Jack nodded. ‘I get it. But there’s nothing to be ashamed of here.’
My face must have said otherwise.
‘There isn’t,’ he reiterated. ‘Besides, gardens are always changing and evolving. The garden that was here when you bought the place might have been beautiful, but you have plans to build on that, and make it even more beautiful. Was this here when you got here?’
We’d arrived at the wildflower meadow, which was showing very early signs of bursting into life.
‘No. That’s my one and only attempt at doing anything with the grounds here. I thought with the name of the house and everything it should have a meadow. But I had help from the family.’
Jack turned back from the meadow, placing his back against the gate and resting the heel of one foot on the lowest bar.
‘Why do you think having help is such a bad thing?’
‘It’s not that I think it’s a bad thing. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.’
‘You want to show people you’re capable of doing things for yourself.’
‘I suppose. I know people want to help, but after…’ I paused for a second, finding the right words, ‘everything that happened, I just sort of wanted to do things myself. Doing anything with someone other than Mike felt wrong, somehow. And as I couldn’t do anything with him any longer, I decided I had to do it all myself.’ I looked around at the overgrown garden. ‘I think maybe I was wrong.’
Jack took a deep breath and looked past me into the distance, back towards the house.
‘Lily, I can’t begin to pretend that I know what you’ve been through, and I am concerned that you were strong-armed into letting me stay here. If you want me to leave, I will do so with no hard feelings. But if you do want me to stay, I will help you make this amazing space into whatever you want. But only when you’re ready for someone to help you do that. In the meantime, I can cut back the worst of it so that you can at least have pathways to walk through and think and enjoy the space a little easier. The last thing I want to do is force you into anything or make you feel uncomfortable. Like anything, you have to be ready for this change.’
I studied him for a moment. Calm, relaxed, happy in his own skin. It had been years now since I’d last seen him at Mum’s funeral and I barely spoke to him, except to thank him for coming. Jack’s time away had not only improved his looks but there was a layer of something else now. An insight that hadn’t been there before. The chip that he’d always carried on his shoulder about the unfairness of family expectations seemed to have been knocked off, or at least reduced drastically in size. Clearly all was still not happy families in the Coulsdon-Hart country pad, going by the fact that he had asked my brother to collect him from the airport and was staying with me rather than in one of the many, many rooms his ancestral home had to offer. But he’d obviously found a better way to handle it now, and I was glad for him.
I gave a glance around the garden and took a deep breath. ‘I’m ready,’ I declared.
