Phillipa Ashley - Spring on the Little Cornish Isles - The Flower Farm

‘I do hope you don’t think I’m interfering, but could it possibly be an airlock in the pipework?’

They all turned at the small voice from behind them. Gaby gazed at them both with innocent eyes.

‘We used to have a similar problem at the nursery where I worked out in the Fens. It’s a long shot, but you never know.’

Will scratched his head and pushed out his bottom lip. ‘It’s making a lot of noise, but there’s no actual water coming through.’

‘As Gaby said, it could be an airlock,’ said Jess.

‘It’s never had one before,’ Will muttered.

‘But it could be,’ said Jess.

Gaby stepped forward and opened the hinged wooden cover concealing the blue pipework. ‘It looks very similar to the pump we had at the nursery. Is it worth letting the air out of this vent on the back of the pipework?’

Jess stood by as Will peered at the pipework. ‘Yeah. S’pose it could be that. Like I say, we’ve never had an issue with it before …’

He turned the vent and after a few rattles and clangs, the pump tone speeded up to its normal smooth hum.

‘Certainly sounds healthier,’ said Jess.

Gaby pointed to the control panel. ‘The current’s running through it again. I think that’s a good sign.’

Len poked his head round the door. ‘Hey! The water’s on again. I don’t know what you did, but it’s worked.’

Len vanished as fast as he’d appeared and Will closed the cover on the pipework.

‘Thanks,’ he muttered.

‘A pleasure. Now if you’ll show me to my accommodation, I can settle in and leave you to get on with your work.’ She threw a smile at Will. ‘I can see you’re obviously terribly busy …’

*

Half an hour later, Jess had completed the tour of the farm and showed Gaby into the staff accommodation. The farm was very fortunate to have a staff house, the glorified name for the converted farm building used by the seasonal workers. The house was divided into individual bedrooms served by communal bathroom and kitchen facilities. While most of the workers were local, some came from mainland Cornwall to work the winter narcissi season, and a handful hailed from Europe.

Jess had introduced Gaby to Anna, who had looked her up and down as if she was a pest that had landed on the narcissi, before grudgingly shaking hands and saying, ‘Welcome to St Saviour’s.’

Jess and Will loved their mother, but even they had to admit that she wasn’t the easiest woman to live with. When their dad had finally left after all attempts to patch up their marriage had failed, she’d been landed with the responsibility of an ailing business and two young adults who’d had to step up and help her run it at an age when they might have been going out with friends or travelling further afield before settling down. The farm had been a poisoned chalice to start with. The shock of her husband’s affair combined with the long hours and financial worries had aged her not only physically but given her a hard shell that could look like callousness to strangers.

Jess knew that Gaby should get a warmer reception from the rest of the team. Even crusty old Len had a sense of humour sometimes and the rest of the field, packing and office workers were a friendly bunch who worked hard and played harder.

She took Gaby through to the rear of the staff house where a handful of workers were sitting in a small garden area, enjoying a beer and sunbathing. Normally at this time of year there were around a dozen field and packing shed staff around, while a separate small team worked in the office who Gaby would get to meet soon enough. The sunbathers greeted Gaby with smiles and set about the banter straight away, telling her horror stories about the weather and Len cracking the whip.

Jess watched Gaby carefully, but was pretty sure she was taking everything with a large pinch of salt. Anyway, judging by the way she’d handled Will, she could give at least as good as she got.

Jess heaved a sigh of relief as she walked past the pump house and heard it chugging away. They had running water, a new staff member, and she could finally enjoy the rest of the day with Adam and find out in detail the surprise he had in store for her. She had a feeling it was going to be a memorable one.

With a sigh, Gaby dumped her bag on the floor of her new quarters. OK … so it wasn’t the Ritz. Not even the BudgetLodge, actually. After eight years of student life, she didn’t expect comfort, let alone luxury, but the staff house still came as something of a shock.

Her bedroom was spotlessly clean but tiny compared to the relatively spacious rooms she’d had in her college at university. It had a single bed, a chair, the kind of cupboard her granny liked to call a ‘tallboy’ and a curtained-off alcove that Gaby assumed was the wardrobe. Not that she’d brought much to hang in it. A small table with spindly legs, one of which was propped up with a pile of beer mats, served as a desk, complete with a candlestick lamp with the kind of tasselled shade that even her granny would have rejected as old-fashioned these days. Still, she knew she was incredibly lucky to have a place to stay at all. Jess had explained that staff houses were as rare as hen’s teeth and not everyone who worked at the farm got to live there. Some of the temporary workers had to rent out-of-season holiday lets or get rooms in guesthouses, while the younger permanent staff still lived with their families.

Like most people her age, she couldn’t envisage ever being able to afford a place of her own and definitely not on a poetry expert and flower picker’s wage. But she wasn’t here for the money: she was here to enjoy the view, smell the sea and the scents – and have some solitude.

Not that there would be much of that. The sound of people arguing about a football match was clear and the thick partition walls shook when a door slammed. Jess had shown her the shared shower rooms and the communal staffroom/kitchen area with a large TV where most people congregated after work.

The communal room had been furnished with cast-offs too, probably from the Godrevy farmhouse. The stuffing was escaping from a mismatched sofa. The dining table was surrounded by an eclectic mix of chairs ranging from an oak carver to a deckchair. It was a far cry from the MCR at her college, but actually, Gaby thought with a smile, it wasn’t that different to home: her parents’ place, a ramshackle thatched cottage in a village on the unfashionable side of the city. Hardly anything got thrown out there either.

She unpacked the one small case that she’d been allowed to take on the tiny plane here. If she wanted any more of her stuff, it would have to be shipped over on the ferry. For now, her clothes took all of five minutes to put away and she’d miraculously managed to compress a whole cupboard’s worth of make-up and toiletries into one bag. Judging by the state of Len’s fingernails, she thought the varnish was going to be superfluous, but even if there were no clubs, there had to be some opportunity for glamming up, even if it was only to watch an episode of Countryfile .

At the bottom of the case, wrapped inside a jumper, she found her two most precious treasures. She set one on the table: it was a photo of her with her parents, her older sister Carly and Steven – Stevie – her younger brother. The three siblings had all squeezed onto an old garden swing behind the cottage, with their parents piled in behind. A friend of Gaby’s had taken the photo on Stevie’s twenty-first birthday not long after he’d taken delivery of his motorbike. He’d always been a daredevil, spending all his spare time climbing, or mountain biking, surfing and trying out extreme sports. He was working as a courier while he saved enough to travel the world, and unlike Gaby had no desire to go to uni or to join the rat race like Carly. He lived for the moment …