I turned to look back at Ship House as I set off for school that first day. The painters were busy on the outside of the house – mostly round the back at the moment, but you could get some idea of how it was going to look when it was all done. I still couldn’t quite believe that we were actually living there now!
The school was a big, modern building – I found out later that the old one had just got Too Small.“So they built this new one instead, and turned the old building into a community centre,” someone explained. “They took down all the portakabins that we used to have lessons in, kept the playing fields and swimming pool – and now there’s a gym there, a café, a toddler play area, a games room – it’s a fun place to go to. You should come some time.”
I needn’t have been too worried about starting somewhere new. The head of 6th form, Mr Longwood, asked Rachel Swaledale to look after me while I found my feet, and she was really friendly.
While I was settling into my new school, Sapphire was carrying on with the decorating. And the shopping! I came home one day, and all the stuff for the dining room had arrived. Sapphire had gone for blue and white and yellow in that room.“It’s nice and bright, and as this is a breakfast-only room, that’s what we need. We don’t need soft romantic evening light. We want people to feel cheerful and energised, and looking forward to their day ahead.”
My garden was growing steadily – school work, helping with the decorating at weekends, and the garden were taking up pretty much all of my time. Harry was looking forward to cooking with what I’d grown.“But I think we’ll have to get some help with this garden once we open,” he said to me one evening. “You need a life too. You need time to socialise and get to know people.”
I was getting to know people though. Slowly, but steadily. Some of the other people at school had lived in the village for generations, and their grandparents were quite pleased to have a Mallerby back at Ship House. I’d been a bit worried that people might think we were rich or posh or something, but the fact that we were trying to start a business seemed to make a difference.I looked out at the sunset from the window in my tiny study (at the total jungle of a front garden) and decided that this was a good place to be, for all three of us. The painters would be finished painting the house soon, and then we could make a start on repairing the walls round the garden. We still needed someone to help us clear the front garden though – it was too big a task for us to manage alone.
Then I pulled myself together, stopped day-dreaming, and went to help Sapphire paint the study.
Sapphire had worked her magic on the study as well, and done it out in some very restful green and yellow tones. She was beginning to master the computer (with some help from me) and was experimenting with spreadsheets at the moment. We couldn’t do anything about a website for the business until we’d finished making everywhere look good – no-one in their right minds would come here with it looking the way it did at the moment! But we were making progress!
Harry used the computer too – mostly browsing the web for recipes, but he did have a couple of cooking blogs he liked to follow as well. Dee’s was his favourite: he liked her imaginative use of fresh ingredients, and he was beginning a list of Things I Absolutely Had To Grow Next Year.We’d bought some bookcases, and I’d unpacked all the books the professor had left for me: all his years of research into the Mallerby family. From time to time, I dipped into them, but I didn’t really have time to sort them all out properly. Something else I could do with some help over.
As soon as we’d finished one of the bedrooms, we invited Granny Thomas over for a visit. She was very impressed with what we’d done so far – and raised her eyebrows somewhat at what was still to do!
When Harry had gone downstairs to prepare lunch, Granny Thomas collared Sapphire.“There’s something you need to know – but I don’t think we’ll bother Harry about it. Young Tallie told me all about that Brett fellow and what he was trying to do – well, I had a visit from him.”
Sapphire paled visibly.“What did he want?”
“Your address, of course. Don’t worry – I didn’t give it to him.”
“But what happened?” Sapphire was getting upset by now, but Granny Thomas laughed.
“He got a bit more than he bargained for. You see, one of my army grandsons was visiting.”
Granny Thomas has three “army grandsons” as she calls them – Tom, who’s in the Royal Marines, Dave, who’s in the SAS, and Charlie, who’s in the Royal Engineers. I like Charlie and Tom a lot, but Dave scares me a bit.
“Which one?”
“Dave! And he really didn’t like Brett threatening me.” Granny Thomas grinned like a girl when she was telling Sapphire about it.“So he put the fear of God into that Brett character. And told him in no uncertain terms that if he ever came near me, or you, or Harry or Tallie again, then he would personally put him through the mincer. Brett believed him. So, Sapphire, if he bothers you again, let me know. And Dave will personally sort him out.”
Sapphire could hardly believe her ears.
“You mean – we’ve really seen the last of him?”
“Oh yes. No questions asked. Now, where’s that cup of tea I was promised?”
I came home to find them all reading in the sitting room.“We’re testing it out,” Granny Thomas said with a smile. “It’s very important to test things out. Now show me this garden of yours.”
Granny Thomas came and helped me with the evening watering, weeding and general gardening.“You’ve done a good job here, young Tallie. Looks like you picked something up from me after all.”
And I had: I had learned from her as well as from Talisman de Malherbe.
“It’s nice here. I’ll take a look around tomorrow, while you’re at school. And I’ll give you a hand with the garden at the weekend – but I must go back Monday, or my own garden will be dying.”
Granny Thomas was very interested in the archives that the professor had left me, and said that I should go to the library, and find out some more – and try and sort them out as well.
“You could use this in the publicity for the house – all this history would be interesting.” So I went to the library (which was the factory I’d seen in Talisman Malaby’s day: it has been converted into a rather nice library. And the trees round it weren’t dying any more) and headed for the local history shelves. I was just reaching for a book that looked promising, when someone else reached for it at the same time.
We did the whole confused apology thing, and the: no, you were here first; no you have it stuff, and then got talking properly.
“But I’m really interested in local history too!” the lady said. “We’ve only just moved here, with my husband’s job, and so I’ve got time on my hands while I job-hunt too. I really got into it because my husband’s family had lived in the same place for years and years, so it was very easy to make a start. Then I got addicted to it – and traced his family tree back for generations! It’s like a crossword, or a jigsaw puzzle: you keep finding one more piece, and filling in a bit more of the pattern.”She was very chatty, but very friendly with it. I mean, she didn’t come over as desperate or creepy or weird or anything, so we went on talking.
“My family’s been here for years as well, but I’ve only just moved here. And I have all these documents and stuff, and I want to sort it out, but I don’t really know where to start. I’d like to put a history together, but how do you begin? And some of the stuff, I can’t understand: I can tell it’s in Latin, but I can only read the odd word or two.”“Contractions and abbreviations – people didn’t write out the whole word if you could abbreviate it! Once you get to know them, it’s easier. Look, I don’t want to seem pushy – after all, we’ve only just met, but I could help you – and I’d love to! Honestly. It’s a bit boring being somewhere new, and not settled into anything yet. Why don’t you come for tea or something, and bring your parents as well?”
I didn’t bother trying to explain about Harry and Sapphire not really being my parents, but I did say that would be very nice, thank you. We swapped phone numbers and addresses – she lived the other side of the river.“In a huge Edwardian house! It’s a bit big for us really, but when the children all come home, we need the space. And my eldest daughter is expecting, so we wanted space for the grandchildren to be able to come and stay as well. The garden’s really boring at the moment, so we’re going to get my youngest son to re-design it for us – he wants to be a landscape gardener, so we reckoned he could start practising on us.”
We talked for a while longer, and then I headed home, with a possible tea-date on Saturday if Harry and Sapphire were free.
On my way out of the library, I met Rachel’s mum, Evie, who asked how I was settling in, and was Rachel doing a good job of looking after me (but she asked that like she knew I was going to say yes) and would I like to come for a meal after school some day. I left the library feeling as though I was beginning to settle into the village as well as into the house.
I was getting to know other people at school as well. Vesper was in my Latin class (don’t ask about the name! His parents are really into early music. They are mortified that he plays the guitar in preference to a lute or rebec or hautbois) and we took to doing our homework together when it was Ovid translations.“This guy is just going on and on about the dust on her dress,” I complained.
“Yeah,” Vesper grinned. “Cause he wants an excuse to brush it off.”
I liked Vesper, and the boys in my maths class as well, but sometimes I felt years older than them. Rachel had commented on it too.
“You’re just so mature, Tallie. You feel older than you really are.”
“Oh no! I’m old and staid and boring! Middle-aged at sixteen!”
That made her laugh, but she said, “Not like that! But grown up, I guess. Never mind, I’ll still be your friend, even though your pension’s nearly due.” And that made me laugh.
But I knew what she meant. And I knew why: it was the other Talismans. They had changed me.
Mrs Longwood called round, to introduce herself to Harry and Sapphire. Sapphire liked her straightaway, which confirmed my earlier thoughts about Mrs Longwood. After working behind a bar for a fair while, Sapphire’s a very good judge of character.
Harry got on well with her too, and we fixed a definite tea-date for Saturday.“You must let me bring something,” Harry said – and Mrs Longwood was about to say don’t bother, really it’s no trouble, but we all told her that she had to try out Harry’s latest recipes, and we needed to road-test them, so she agreed.
It was just as well Harry had brought some food with him, Mrs Longwood said, because her youngest son, Jake, had turned up unexpectedly. And he had a bottomless pit for a stomach…He was very appreciative of Harry’s baking though!“I’ve been living off baked beans, spaghetti bolognaise and whatever was on special offer for the last three months! This is bliss.”
It was a bit embarrassing when I discovered that Mrs Longwood’s husband was the Mr Longwood who was head of 6th form. I went very quiet.
Jake was the one who wanted to be a landscape gardener. He’d had a six month contract at a park in Wales, but the budget had been cut, and the project shelved half-way through, so he was home again. He took me into the garden – partly to tell me what he was planning to do with it, and partly to get me away from his father.“I remember how weird it is to meet your teachers out of school! But he’s okay, really.”
I started asking him about his plans for the garden.“Well, there’s loads of clearing and pruning to do. Then mum wants a really interesting and exciting garden for the grandchildren to play in. I thought tree house, maze, sandpit – but the challenge is to make it look good as well. And anything I do here can go in my portfolio. Do you like gardening?”
So I told him about Ship House, and what I’d done there already and what was still to do.“The contractors are coming to do the wall starting Monday, and hopefully that’s not going to take too long. Then we need to get as much done as we can before the winter, and get it looking good enough to photograph in the spring.”
Jake was fascinated.
“So you’re going to be trying to restore and update a whole garden? Are there any historical records?”I laughed. “Boatloads! Your mum said she’d help me sort through them.”
“Well, that’s her field. She did a Ph.D. in Mediaeval History, you know – that’s how she met my dad, researching his family. She’d be a brilliant person to help you, especially if you have got records going that far back, but even if you haven’t. She was an archivist as well, at our old county library, until the cuts to library grants.” This sounded really promising.
“Now, about this garden of yours – what exactly are your plans for it?”I had to say I didn’t know. The kitchen garden and orchard I’d had definite plans for – but the front? That was a different matter.
“Can I come and look at it?”
“Well, you can, but it’s a total jungle.”
“I want to see it – to get a feel for its bones.”
“It doesn’t have bones – it has brambles!”
But it was fun talking to Jake, and by the time we all left, we’d agreed that Jake would come round tomorrow to see the garden – and Mrs – “do call me Alice” – Longwood would come and sort through some stuff with a view to looking at the really early records.
The contractors had repaired the garden wall, and the ugly chain-link fencing was gone. The new bits of wall didn’t have the ivy growing over them that the old bits did, but the brick was as good a match as we could manage. Jake was more and more fascinated by the garden each time he came.
“This part looks like it was some sort of decorative shrubbery once. But that statue looks old. I can’t work out how come nobody nicked it all the time the house was empty.”I could. Ship wouldn’t have let them.
“Tallie, this garden is fabulous. Or could be, once again. Listen – what are your plans for doing it?”I hadn’t got any, and he knew that. He went on a bit diffidently.
“Because I’d love to be the one to do it. And I’d do it for very little, if I can use it afterwards as an example for my portfolio. My parents say I can live with them rent-free, but I need to earn enough for my food, and my share of their bills…” He was beginning to gabble in his nervousness.
I put him out of his misery.“I think it’s a great idea, if it suits Harry and Sapphire as well. Especially Sapphire – she’s the one with the vision for this really.”
Sapphire came out and joined us among the brambles. Jake listened as she talked about what we needed.“We need car parking, but I don’t want it to be too ugly. I want to market this place as good for family holidays, so we’ve got to make this pond secure or get rid of it. I thought we might make a children’s play area at the back of the house – between Tallie’s vegetables and the orchard, as that’s very safe. I want the garden to appeal to grown-ups and teens as well – and it has to look great on arrival. Can you show us some plans and give us some costings?”
“Give me a week, and I should have something to show you. As I told Tallie, I’m happy to keep my wages to a minimum, if I can show other prospective clients round the garden – by prior arrangement with you, obviously. I don’t have my own company yet, so I’d be sub-contracting heavy work like the tree-felling: if I get a couple of quotes for those sorts of jobs, that would give us a ball-park figure…”Jake had been hesitant with me, but he was beautifully business-like with Sapphire.
The long and the short of it was that he did get the contract, and began clearing the ground outside almost straight away. Inside, meanwhile, the decorating was continuing apace.
Sapphire had found the original front bedroom wallpaper reproduced, and the room looked like it had in Aunt Violet’s time.
Aunt Violet’s room looked quite different – but I didn’t mind. The bedroom off it had been done out as a small twin-bedded room, so the two rooms could be let together to a family. The bathrooms were finished – one of the smaller bedrooms was turned into two en-suite bathrooms, and the other two were the original ones.
The upstairs landing was still gloomy and dingy though.
And the hall and stairs had seen better days – like in the 1920’s and 30’s – but as Sapphire said, there was no point in starting on them until everything else was done. But now it was – and Sapphire and I were looking at wallpaper samples, paint, panelling and so on.
Jake got the garden cleared with amazing speed – partly by getting in touch with the other people who’d been working with him in Wales, and who were all glad of something to do. It was beginning to look as though we might make our Easter opening goal. Sapphire began polishing up the website in earnest, with the help of one of my 6th form friends, who was only too glad to earn a little money.
Jake would often stay at the end of the day to help me with my vegetable garden. We’d talk about anything and everything under the sun. He was the easiest company, and unlike the boys at school, he didn’t feel too young.
“You need an automatic watering system for this garden, Tallie. There’s going to be too much here for you to cope with as your exams get nearer. I’m planning a trickle irrigation system, and we’ll harvest as much rainwater as possible. You’ve got lots of roof here.”Was I silly to be so pleased that he was thinking about my workload?
We were going to open on time! We’d made our Easter goal! And we had bookings!!! Jake had transformed the garden, and the house looked serene and lovely. The mature trees had been hugely expensive, but totally worth it, as even Sapphire agreed.
The lake area was a serene area of calm. Jake had planted it with white and blue only – white for evening effect, if anyone wanted to sit out in the evening.
The old tennis court was a lovely children’s play area (and we had a teenage play area down in the cellars too. Along with a television room, a laundry, storage space – the house hadn’t been so well-used for years).
The old stables had been converted into a self-catering annexe – we’d had no problems with planning permission. In fact, the inspector had said that half the modern houses he looked at weren’t so well built.
The landing and the hall looked clean and elegant. A bit bare still, but Sapphire said that we’d find out what we needed as we had guests, and it was as well to have extra space to put things in.
Jake came round to have a last check-round the gardens before the first visitors arrived the next day.“Tallie, doing this garden has been fantastic. I’ve never felt so creative. And I’ve already got three more jobs lined up on the strength of it – only small ones, but I have to start somewhere. Oh, and that reminds me, mum’s coming over later – she got really excited about something she just found out. Is it really true that there’s been a Talisman Mallerby here since mediaeval times?”
“Yes.”“Wow, that is so cool!”
“But I’m the last – and I’ve got no brothers.”
“Well, if you get married, you’ll have to get your husband to take your name. I mean, I would, if I had a wife with a history like yours.”
“Do you really think someone would?”“No questions asked. And Tallie – if he doesn’t love you enough to do that, then don’t marry him.”
Alice didn’t even wait until she got inside before she broke the news.“Tallie – we’re related – well, you and I aren’t really, except by marriage, but you and Jake are! One of my husband’s ancestors married a Talisman de Malherbe! He was a de Malherbe too, but then he took his mother’s name when he inherited her manor.”
“Really!” I couldn’t believe it! Talisman de Malherbe – and her happy marriage.
Alice looked down at me, smiling as though she knew something I didn’t.
“And when you’re old enough, Talisman Mallerby, I hope that same happiness that they shared comes to you.”
I looked at her and then looked away. I no longer found Alys Mallerby’s feelings totally weird. The more I’d seen of Jake, the more I’d liked him, and the truth was that I knew I was now deeply in love with him.Alice read my face all too well, but her own expression was soft.
“Tallie, you’re nearly seventeen. But you are so mature for your age. Jake won’t ask you to be his girlfriend while you’re still at the school where his father works, but if you know how to wait for a while…”
I knew how to wait. I had learnt a lot about waiting – and I’d learnt that snatching often spoiled things. Waiting was worthwhile.
I looked up at Alice Longwood, straight into her eyes.“I can do waiting. If you’re on my side.”
She hugged me tightly.
“There’s nothing I’d like more, Tallie. There’s nothing I’d like more.”
And it seemed to me, as I stood there in the garden of Ship House, that I couldn’t ask anything better out of life.
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