Bees can detect landmines. By exposing honeybees to the odour of chemicals used in explosives and giving them a sugar water reward, scientists have trained bees to stick their tongues out whenever they sense the correct chemical.
Up close, the lake looks less like something Mr Darcy would emerge from, and more like something some sort of swamp monster would emerge from. The water has a greenish tinge and a muddy look to it, and there are reeds all around the edges that a family of moorhens swiftly hide in.
‘No mermaids then,’ Carey says as we reach the clearing surrounding the lake.
‘Mermaids would have more discerning taste than this. Let’s face it, the only thing it’s missing is an old supermarket trolley.’
‘It looks inviting. When you get past all the sludge and slime, it’s clear further out.’ He points towards the middle of the lake where it is, indeed, clear enough that you can see the sludgy bottom with all manner of reeds and thriving slimy pond life.
‘I bet it was wonderful once. Swans and ducks, and frogs on lily pads. Look.’ He nods towards the edge of the water, and we both crouch down to see masses of tadpoles swimming, and further out, there’s the telltale ripple of a fish coming up for air.
‘Does this feel really special to you? We’re the only two people in the universe who have seen this place, Carey. At least for seven years, if not more, because I can’t imagine a ninety-two-year-old doing that walk often. It feels like we’re a part of nature itself.’
He reaches out for my hand and I let my fingers curl around his, and we stand there looking out at the water in silence. It’s a question he doesn’t need to answer. I can see his awe on his face.
It feels like we’re on the verge of something great, like anything could be possible at Elderflower Grove – magic, love, fairies and pixies and other things every adult stopped believing in decades ago.
There’s an island in the middle of the lake with an overgrown tree on it, overhanging so low that its branches dangle across the surface of the water. It looks so much like Grandmother Willow in Pocahontas that I wouldn’t be even vaguely surprised if it started talking. ‘It’s like being in a Disney movie.’
It could have been a romantic and magical moment where his lips lower to mine and we kiss as fireworks burst above our heads, but what actually happens is my stomach lets out such a loud rumble that the fish in the lake probably hears it, never mind Carey.
He finds a flat, grassy spot in amongst the tall poppies and the orangey-red star-shaped flowers of scarlet pimpernel, shrugs the rucksack off his shoulders, and gets out a fleece blanket, which he spreads carefully, avoiding squashing even a single flower. He sits down cross-legged, pulls the rucksack in front of him and starts getting our lunches out while I sit down opposite him.
I can’t tear my eyes away from the lake as we eat and drink tea from the flask he’s brought, enjoying the soft lap of the water on the grassy edges, listening to the buzz of bees visiting the wildflowers all around us, and watching for the occasional ripple that indicates life in the water.
‘Do you think they’ll keep any part of it?’
‘Honestly?’ He pulls his knees up and puts his arms around them. ‘No. Not a chance. I’ve seen the plans. No part of the estate remains.’
‘From your “friends in the right places”?’
‘Exactly.’ He rests his chin on his knees. ‘The more time I spend here, the more I start to wonder if they’re friends in the wrong places.’
When I glance at him, his cheeks have reddened.
‘Your enthusiasm is inspiring. I wish we could …’ He trails off and sighs again. ‘I just wish in general. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.’
I run a fingertip over the blue petals of a cornflower next to me. ‘This is exactly what they’re telling people to do these days. Save the bees. Don’t cut your lawns. Let patches of wildflowers grow. Bees and other pollinators are in major decline. If we went public with this – if we told people, newspapers, social media, what the local council is planning – there would be backlash. The kind that couldn’t be ignored.’
He doesn’t say anything, and it’s my turn to sigh.
Josie’s tin is sticking out the top of his bag and I reach over for it, select a letter, and read it aloud.
February 2nd, 2001
My dearest Guillaume,
Someone broke in the other night. I woke up to find a man in my bedroom, rooting through my drawers. For just a moment in the barely awake haze, I thought it was you and I was overjoyed you’d come back. Glad to see a burglar, can you imagine? He had a knife, which he threatened me with. He took my money and some trinkets, nothing that mattered. I let him. I didn’t call the police. I didn’t want the fuss. I didn’t want people poking through our house, finding your things, asking me about you.
I cried after he left. I sat at the kitchen table for hours with a knife in my hand in case he came back. God knows what I thought I was going to do with a butter knife, but I was shaking so much that I didn’t trust myself to hold a proper knife. I was so scared. My private space, invaded. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe here again. I don’t know why I’m telling you. You stopped being my protector long ago. It was one of those moments where your absence makes me feel weak, and I hate you for it. For the first time, I wished I had a neighbour or someone I could call on, but there’s no one. I’ve pushed them all away. The ‘old witch’ of Little Kettling, alone, as always.
Forever love,
Josie
‘That’s horrific.’ I glance at the date. ‘She would have been in her late seventies then. She must have been so scared. Even her handwriting is shakier than usual.’
Carey holds his hand out for the letter. ‘Does not wanting people to ask questions suggest that no one knew of him?’
‘Maybe?’ I look over at him. ‘I’m sorry she knew what people thought of her because I don’t think she was like that at all.’
‘Maybe her solitude made her feel better. Like she didn’t deserve anyone knowing or caring about her.’
His chin is resting on his knees again, the letter dangling from his fingers, but there’s something in his voice, a hurt of his own, that makes me want to reach out and rub my fingers across his tanned forearms.
I force myself not to be so silly and take the letter from his hand, put it back in the tin and pick out another one.
August 15th, 2004
My dearest Guillaume,
You won’t believe the afternoon I’ve had. I was minding my own business, tending the bees on the roof of the Plaza Hotel in New York when I was called to collect a swarm from … guess where … only the Statue of Liberty’s crown! We drove at top speed in a police car and dashed off on a boat to Liberty Island. I felt like I was in an action movie. The police officer who accompanied me came back tonight. He’d bought me a box of chocolates and a bottle of wine to thank me for my time. He asked if I’d go out to dinner with him, but I politely declined.
I’m an idiot, aren’t I? I haven’t seen you in twenty-five years. I should have said yes. It would’ve been nice to have some male company, even though we live on different sides of the world. We could’ve had a pleasant evening. Maybe he would even have stolen a kiss.
But, no. I’m still holding out for you. Thinking those kinds of thoughts about someone else makes me feel like I’m cheating on you, even after all these years. I’m an idiot, aren’t I?
I should have moved on long ago.
Forever love,
Josie
The sadness pervades every letter. But there’s anger now too as the dates get later. ‘His disappearance must’ve turned her life upside down.’
‘You keep saying disappearance. Do you not think he left her?’
‘I don’t know. Why, do you?’
‘Obviously.’ He scoffs. ‘In my experience, love never lasts. He probably got a better offer from someone else and cast her aside. Ghosting someone must’ve been easier back then without social media and phones.’
‘You can’t be serious. She calls him the love of her life – her soulmate. You think he just stopped loving her and moved on?’
‘What other way does a relationship end?’ He sounds bitter and, while I think he was trying not to show the hurt in his voice, he fails at hiding it. He clonks his forehead down onto the hands holding his knees up, his light brown hair flopping forward, and I bite my lip as I look at him.
I don’t know what makes me do it, but I fold Josie’s letter back into its envelope, and then reach across to tuck his hair back, my fingers brushing through the light brown strands, warm in the sun, and he lets out a sigh of contentment and his eyes drift closed.
‘You’ve really been hurt, right?’
‘No, I—’ He lifts his head and meets my eyes. ‘For some reason, you make me not want to put on a front with you. Yeah, I have. My ex-wife—’ He stops again. ‘You too, I gather.’
‘No one gets to thirty-six without being hurt, but not enough to give up on love completely. There’s no way Guillaume simply decided he didn’t love her anymore. Something must’ve happened to him.’
He grunts, but he hasn’t made any move to dislodge my hand yet, so I continue tucking his hair back, the sun-warmed strands slipping through my fingers.
‘Josie obviously thinks he left.’ His voice sounds relaxed and not as certain as he was moments ago. ‘If something had happened to him, an accident or something, she would know. She wouldn’t be looking for him in places all over the world.’
‘Maybe he was kidnapped,’ I suggest.
Instead of answering, he shifts his head and raises an eyebrow so disbelieving that it leaves me in no doubt how likely he finds my grasping-at-straws suggestion.
Mainly, I want to push him to finish the sentence about his ex, but sitting here brushing his hair back is probably weird enough, and he clearly doesn’t want to talk about it.
‘Is it warm today or is it just me?’
I murmur an agreement, too distracted by his arm muscles and how peaceful his face looks with his eyes closed that I’m not really capable of following the conversation.
Like he can sense the change in atmosphere, he pushes himself onto his knees, dislodging my hand with a clunk.
‘I’m going for a swim.’
‘In that?’ I stare at the water in horror. ‘You don’t know what could be living in there!’
‘A few fish, I wouldn’t wonder.’
‘No, I mean, pond life. Pond-skaters. Leeches. Parasite things that crawl into your body parts and start eating your brain.’
Oh no, ‘body parts’ was not a good thing to mention because it draws my attention in all sorts of inappropriate directions, and he glances downwards with a raised eyebrow like he can tell what I’m thinking.
‘Eels!’ I say to get my mind off said inappropriate direction. ‘It’s exactly the sort of place there would be eels.’
‘Eels don’t live in British lakes, but you watch too much TV – has anyone ever told you that?’
‘Freshwater sharks! Crocodiles!’
‘Again, those are horror movies, not real life.’ He laughs. ‘What’s the worst that’s going to happen? I’ll be eaten by an angry mermaid?’
‘Well, it’s not impossible …’
‘Get your phone out then because a video clip of that will make us millions.’ He gives me a wink as he bends down to put his phone on the blanket and unlace his walking boots. ‘Are you coming?’
He cannot be serious. ‘No! Not in a million ye—’
‘It’s a beautiful day for a swim.’
‘Yeah, in water. That’s not water, that’s a swamp. With swamp-like things living in it that would really welcome the fresh blood of an intruder after all these years.’
He grins as he stuffs his socks inside his boots and then walks backwards, barefoot across the grass, which is bad enough due to the undoubted presence of stinging nettles in this wildflower meadow, never mind actually getting in to that water.
‘You’re fully clothed! Your jeans will chafe on the walk back!’
I realise I’ve accidentally turned into someone’s mother because he laughs out loud, his eyes twinkling as he walks away. ‘If you want to see me strip, Miss Harwood, you only have to ask. However, the answer would be “no”, so yes, while in polite company, I intend to swim fully clothed. Come back on a moonlit night, however …’ He waggles suggestive eyebrows and I can’t help giggling.
He’s a total conundrum of a man. Fun and laid-back, cheeky and good-natured, serious about the things that matter, and yet sharp and standoffish too. I don’t know what happened with his ex-wife, but it was obviously bad enough to leave emotional scars, and yet sometimes, he seems like a naughty schoolboy who the teachers are always trying to stop doing silly things with potential for grievous bodily harm.
Instead of wading in carefully, he reaches the edge of the bank and then dives in one smooth move, avoiding the green slime and creating a huge splash in the clearer, deeper area of the water, and there’s a flurry of terrified peeping as the moorhen family scoot into a different patch of reeds.
I feel like I’m on the set of Pride and Prejudice, but Mr Darcy never looked this good. Not even when played by Colin Firth.
Carey surfaces with his wet hair stuck over his face and shakes it back. ‘Water’s lovely!’
He takes a breath and dives down again, and when he resurfaces this time, he calls, ‘No eels!’
I watch as he swims around, and to be fair, it does look inviting, and I kind of wish I was brave enough to join him. Although maybe a better plan is to wait and see if he gets any infectious diseases or parasitic ticks in the next few days, and maybe I can join him next time.
It’s probably weird to just sit here watching, so I go through the tin of Josie’s letters and select the final letter in the box. There are plenty more we haven’t read, and it feels like skipping to the last page of a book to see if you’ll like it or not, but it also might provide some answers.
January 3rd, 2007
My dearest Guillaume,
I’ve just been asked to go to Fiji this summer to care for their bees. Do you remember how often we spoke of it being our dream honeymoon location? Sometimes I think the universe is deliberately playing tricks on me by sending me to places that remind me of you. Gracie tells me I am too old to be travelling now, but I like to travel – it makes me feel like I’m doing something rather than sitting here and waiting to rot.
I’m in the banquet hall tonight – I always set an extra place for you, even though I know you won’t be here. I still dream of the nights we danced around the ballroom. The way you were so determined to get up those steps after the accident. You promised me that we would dance in the ballroom when you recovered, and we did. The moment you took those first steps is still one of the greatest of my life. The way you made me tell you where my favourite place in the house was and then refused to kiss me until you could kiss me there, and those torturous months while you learnt to walk again, so you could be strong enough to make it to the library and we could finally share that one magical kiss. There has never been a more wonderful kiss in the history of the world.
You thought my love had healing properties. You recovered so quickly after that. It wasn’t long before we were dancing in the ballroom every night. The greatest years of my life. I’m grateful to you for that. I often get angry when I write these letters, but my new year’s resolution is to be grateful for what I have, and I had a love greater than most people will ever be lucky enough to know. For that, I thank you.
Forever love,
Josie
Carey has made it to the island on the other side of the lake. He pushes his body up on both hands and climbs out of the water, and even from this distance, I can see how the wet T-shirt clings to well-defined back muscles, and I take another sip of my tea to hide the fact I might be drooling.
He waves from dry land. ‘I think there’s something living over here. Possibly Bigfoot.’
‘You’re hilarious,’ I mutter, even though it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if Bigfoot was living on that island. It doesn’t look like it’s been disturbed since the last century – anything could’ve taken up residence.
He shakes water off like a dog that’s just had a bath, and although it’s a mental image that shouldn’t be sexy, any formation of Carey and wet undeniably is. He bends under dead trees with fallen branches, and disappears as he goes to look around the island, and even though internally I’m still shouting something about the dangers of being barefoot, I wish I was over there too. It looks like the kind of place you could put a little hut and sit for hours with a book, watching the wildlife all around.
Including the eels. Probably.
I can hear the snapping of branches as he moves, and suddenly there’s a flurry of angry quacking, and Carey dashes into view and leaps feet-first back into the water, being chased by an enraged duck.
It stands on the bank screeching at him, staring him down until he’s swum a satisfactory distance away. I’m doubled-over with laughter as the duck waddles back to its nest with a final threatening quack in Carey’s direction. Of all the things to be scared of, he definitely is scared of infuriated ducks.
As he swims towards me, I lean back on my arms and turn my face to the sun, and I feel a sense of calm that’s been missing from my life lately. With the manor house just visible through the trees behind me, a gorgeous Mr Darcy splashing around in the lake, and no sound except for the chirrup of birds, it really does feel like being on the set of a Jane Austen adaptation. All I need is a bonnet and a parasol.
He reaches the edge and finds the least sludgy part to climb out, directly in front of where I’m sitting. I go to tease him about the duck, but …
Oh, holy abs, batman.
His T-shirt had to be white today, and it leaves nothing to the imagination. Every muscle is showcased by the see-through wet top, which draws attention to each one in turn, from distinct abs to the slight smattering of fair hair covering his chest, to wide shoulders and a defined collarbone.
He pushes himself out of the water on both hands, arm muscles straining against wet fabric, flexing, and my mouth has gone drier than a box of Weetabix. I squint upwards and use my hand to shade my eyes from the brightness of the sunlight behind him, making him look like some golden god glistening with water, his torso carved of pure marble.
There is a lot to be said for outdoor work.
I down a shot of now-cold tea before I can get any words out. ‘Fun?’ There. One word will have to suffice for now.
‘Would’ve been better with company.’ He grins, and it makes my knees feel weak even though I’m sitting down.
He’s definitely noticed my staring. ‘Should I start enquiring if your family is in good health?’
An unexpected laugh bursts out. ‘You know Pride and Prejudice?’
‘I’ve seen the TV adaptation. Can’t forget that scene. It made me determined to dive into any lake I come across since.’ He nods to the letter forgotten in my hand. ‘Did you read any more?’
‘There was an accident.’
‘With the letters?’ He looks worried.
‘With Guillaume.’ I read the letter aloud because I’m not having him dripping all over it. ‘She’s signed off on a positive note, but it’s not exactly the sweeping final goodbye I was expecting.’
‘Maybe it’s not the last letter,’ Carey says. ‘Maybe it’s just the last one that would fit in the tin. Maybe there are more hidden in other places, like the one you found with the key.’
‘Maybe it was the last one she wrote before he came back?’ I say hopefully.
I expect him to laugh and say something dismissive, but he cocks his head to the side, water dripping from his hair. ‘I love your optimism. I thought it was annoying at first, but no one’s looked on the bright side in my life for a very long time, and I like that you do.’
I didn’t even know that I did, but something feels right about Elderflower Grove. Like we’re both here exactly when we’re meant to be.
‘How are you scared of bees, but you’ll plunge your hand into dark crevices and dive into unholy-looking water without a second thought?’ I ask as he sits down on the blanket, water seeping from his jeans, and pulls his boots across, brushing water off with his socks before putting them back on.
He squeezes water out of the longish top part of his hair and thinks it over before answering. ‘Because you’re the first person in a really long while to care whether I hurt myself or not.’
I bite my lip to stop the intake of breath. It’s such a simple answer but it feels heavy and honest. I shouldn’t touch him again, I’ve already crossed god knows how many lines today, but I reach out and slide my hand over his as he’s lacing up his boots. ‘You had better get used to it.’
A look passes over his face and all his features soften. He sighs and his body loses some of his usual tension. His hand covers mine, and he meets my eyes and gives me a soft, gentle smile that makes something tingle inside me. A little fizzle that sparkles through the air between us and I don’t think it has anything to do with the magic of Elderflower Grove.