The Garden House – El tries to imagine it as she drives out of Tavistock towards Yelverton. She’s told Will about Angus’s throwaway comment in Church Lane.
‘The Nancy Fortescue is a boat,’ she said. ‘It’s a little boat on a lake at some sort of garden.’
She’d texted him, her excitement making it impossible to wait until his next visit, and he FaceTimed her straight back.
‘A boat?’ He sounded disappointed. ‘Really? So where is this garden? Is it National Trust?’
‘No, it’s called The Garden House and it’s run by a trust and volunteers. The trouble is, in the winter it’s only open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose you can’t get down?’
When she first thought about going to find the Nancy Fortescue it seemed perfectly natural that she should ask Will to accompany her. He’s been down to see her, between flights, several times now and somehow it has become their quest. Now, as she talked to him, she could hear noises and voices behind him, and suddenly Christian’s face appeared beside Will’s and he called out ‘Hi, El!’ Will shooed him away, laughing, but somehow El felt inhibited.
‘I can’t get down this weekend,’ Will said. ‘I’m flying. Where is it, this place? Is it far from you?’
‘No,’ El answered, feeling disappointed, as well as inhibited. ‘About ten or fifteen minutes.’
Christian and someone else were still making a noise, laughing and talking, and El suddenly couldn’t bear having this conversation with them able to overhear what Will was saying. Up until then this whole thing about Pa’s phone and the texts had been private, and she was unwilling to say any more.
‘Never mind,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ll go over and have a look round to see what it’s like. I’ll let you know if I find anything. See you later.’
She cut him off and then felt as if she’d behaved childishly. She realized that it wasn’t simply the privacy issue that was niggling her, it was listening to their voices and their laughter. She remembers, on a drive to Chagford in Will’s car, picking up a Kylie Minogue CD. She held it up, eyebrows raised, and he gave a quick glance sideways at it, grinned and shook his head.
‘Not mine. Christian’s.’
Now, she thrusts the memory away. She doesn’t want to think about it, or to examine her feelings for Will or his for Christian; she wants to concentrate on the texts: to crack the code. As she drives out towards Yelverton on this bright, late November Sunday morning, she knows, at least, that Angus and Plum and Kate won’t appear unexpectedly in the gardens. They’ll be in church and she is free to explore. In Horrabridge she turns up on to the moor and heads towards Buckland Monachorum. Up here cars are parked. Families are walking their dogs, whilst ponies graze, ready to kick up their heels and canter away if the children or dogs come too close. El drives slowly, looking for a signpost, and here it is: The Garden House. The wide gateway leads into a car park, half empty, and El pulls into a space near to the entrance where she can see a small group of people. She switches off the engine and looks around.
Did Pa come here? He loved to visit gardens, and he enjoyed his pots of plants and shrubs, especially the really big tub with the acer tree in it. Perhaps this is where he bought them. As she gets out and walks across to the visitor reception she can see that there’s a plant sales area right next to it.
El pays her entrance fee, takes a map from the friendly volunteer and walks out into the gardens. She sees from the map that the lake is near something called the Jubilee Arboretum, so she heads off that way, seeing the old house amongst the trees, noticing signs to the tearooms. The garden is quiet, deserted, the borders empty of flowers, yet here suddenly is a bright gash of colour: a bush of bare rods, shining scarlet in an unexpected gleam of sunshine. She turns into a walled garden that, even at this time of year, is beautiful, and wonders what it must look like in the summer. A stone arch is ahead and she looks through it eagerly, hoping to see the lake and the boat. The water lies still, reflecting the grey skies, skimmed with silvery pond weed, but there is no sign of a boat. El is surprised at the depth of her disappointment. After all, what would it prove: what could it show her? She walks slowly round the lake, seeing the bench, wondering if this is where Pa met the woman who sent him texts, whose voice said that she and Nancy Fortescue were waiting for him.
The stab of jealousy takes El by surprise. It hurts her to think that Pa had this other friendship, one that used codes and jokes, about which he’d told her nothing. She knows she’s being childish, but the pain is real, mixed as it is with her grief and all the regrets and this new knowledge of the terrible finality of death.
A chill breeze ruffles the surface of the lake and El jams her fists into her coat pockets and walks quickly towards the tearoom. She needs coffee, and she wishes that Will was here with her. It would have been different with Will; he would have kept her balanced, focused on the clues, on the code. She makes her way to the house and into the hall, and looks around her. She sees that there are two rooms, the second of which opens on to a terrace where picnic tables are set out. A young man appears behind her and asks if she would like some coffee and she follows him into the first room where a few people are sitting at tables and there are some delicious-looking cakes set out.
El chooses some cake, orders a latte and sits down by the tall sash window. She surveys the other groups, glances at a little exhibition of watercolour paintings on the wall and stiffens with surprise. They remind her of the one hanging in the big room at the Pig Pen. She stands up to look more closely, notices the artist’s signature, Charlotte Marlow, and wonders if this is where Pa bought it. Another mystery. She eats her cake, drinks her coffee, trying to imagine Pa here. Her relationship with him has been based on a shared passion for the moor and literature, and she struggles with this new revealing of her own character. She tries to analyse these unexpected feelings of jealousy, first with Will and now with Pa. She’s never felt like this before and she doesn’t like it. She’s believed herself to be a generous, liberal-minded person. Now, it seems that she can’t come to terms with Will’s easy-going relationship with Christian, or Pa’s with the mysterious J of the texts.
She wonders if she should walk round more of the gardens, but somehow not finding the Nancy Fortescue has confused her. She’d pinned her hopes on it, as if in some way this would help her. She eats the last crumb of cake and swallows the remainder of her coffee feeling dispirited, but she smiles at the young man as she pays her bill and walks back to her car.
She’s hardly got home before she gets a text from Will.
Did you go? What was it like?
El stares at this text, trying to regain those former feelings of excitement at the prospect of another clue, comforted that he should ask. She replies briefly:
N F wasn’t there.
She can’t quite understand her lethargy, her lack of purpose. His next text surprises her.
Send me the photographs.
El feels perplexed: what photographs? Then she understands him. Knowing his interest, his frustration that he couldn’t come to find Nancy Fortescue or to see the gardens, he would have expected her to have taken some photographs, even spotted some clues to the codes. She’s filled with annoyance that it never occurred to her to do this: that she just walked in and walked out again. Feeling inadequate she texts him back.
Didn’t take any.
Almost instantly her phone rings.
‘Didn’t take any?’ he demands, as if he is continuing a conversation. ‘Seriously? What were you doing then?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says feebly. ‘It kind of threw me, the boat not being there. I’d worked myself up to seeing it and there was nothing there.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Well, the lake was there,’ she says irritably, ‘covered in a kind of weed, but no boat.’
‘And you didn’t ask anybody where it was, or if that’s where it usually is?’
El has an odd feeling that she might burst into tears. She can’t understand this volatility, that change from expectation and excitement to complete desolation.
‘No,’ she says wearily. ‘No, I didn’t think to do that.’
‘Are you OK?’
Will’s voice is gentler now, which somehow makes it even worse. She wants to shout at him: ‘No, I am not OK and I don’t know why,’ but remains silent.
‘Listen,’ he’s saying, ‘I can get down next Thursday afternoon, but I’d have to go back early on Saturday morning. How would that be for you? Are you working those days? Didn’t you say The Garden House is open on a Friday? Perhaps we could go together. I might spot things you’ve missed.’
El closes her eyes tightly and tries not to sound too grateful or too keen.
‘I’m working on Saturday this week,’ she says, ‘but otherwise that would be good. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was just so sure Nancy Fortescue would be there.’
‘I can imagine that,’ he says. ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing this place. So you just went and looked at the lake and came out again?’
‘Not quite,’ she answers, her spirits reviving. ‘I went into the tearooms and had coffee and cake. It was good.’
‘I like the sound of that,’ he answers, and she can hear the smile in his voice. ‘We need to get our priorities right. So I should be with you by about four o’clock on Thursday. I’ll text you just to confirm. Look after yourself, El. ’Bye for now.’
El puts her phone on the table and as she turns away her glance is caught by the watercolour hanging above the sofa. She goes closer to look at the signature. It’s the same artist: Charlotte Marlow. It hangs amongst a small group of watercolours. Pa liked to support local artists, and she hadn’t particularly noticed any one of them before. It’s a small painting and El lifts it from its peg and turns it over. The label reads: Astrantia. Moulin Rouge. El stares at it, remembering the text. She can hardly believe it. Moulin Rouge is a shrub and almost certainly is at The Garden House. She’s delighted to have cracked one of the clues and instinctively she reaches for her phone and sends a text to Will:
I’ve found Moulin Rouge and it’s not in Paris, it’s at The Garden House.
Then she hangs the painting back in its place and goes into the kitchen to make herself some lunch.