Spring on the Little Cornish Isles: The Flower Farm

Chapter 2

‘Wow.’

Jess hid a smile as Gaby gazed at the five-bar gate set in a high hedgerow. A wooden sign was fixed on the front of the bars.

St Saviour’s Flower Farm

A, J & W Godrevy

The sign had been replaced once already since Jess’s father, Roger, had left the family home to live with a younger woman, fifteen years previously. Their mother, Anna, had insisted on having his initials erased and a fresh plaque put up showing her children as joint owners. However, the ‘new’ one needed repainting again, as the names were fading under the onslaught of wind, rain and salt. Olive lichen had started to crawl slowly over the ragged edges of the wood, but it was so familiar that Jess didn’t even see it these days. It was only because Gaby paused to examine it that Jess noticed it at all. One more job to add to the maintenance list, though being non-urgent, it probably wouldn’t get done at all until it dropped off.

‘Come on,’ said Jess, smiling inwardly at the impact her home and business was having on Gaby.

She pushed open the gate, letting Gaby go ahead of her. Adam closed it behind them and followed them both in while Gaby scanned the house, outbuildings and fields with sharp-eyed wonder.

The rambling farmhouse where Jess and Will lived with Anna was set back from the road behind a large concrete yard. Jess and Will had no choice but to take over the running of the place while they were still barely out of their teens. Their father had left the farm’s finances in a perilous state, but gradually Jess and Will had pulled it back from the brink and developed it into the thriving business that Gaby was now taking in.

‘The high hedges are there to protect the flowers, aren’t they?’ she asked Jess.

‘Yes, they spare the crops from the worst of the winds we get in the winter. The office is over here. You never know, Will might even be in there.’

‘While you introduce Gaby to Will, do you mind if I check out the Athene?’ said Adam. ‘I want to see how the renovation’s coming along. I reckon it’ll be ready for some trials after Christmas if we all pull our fingers out.’

Jess rolled her eyes. ‘That’s optimistic. It still needs a lot of work.’

He smiled. ‘We’ll get there. I won’t be long.’

‘OK,’ said Jess, amused at his enthusiasm for a half-built boat.

After Adam had left, she led the way to the office, chatting to Gaby along the way. ‘The Athene’s a vintage rowing boat – though we actually call them gigs. Will and Adam are hoping to restore it to its full glory,’ she explained.

‘Sounds exciting. Do you row?’

‘I’ve no choice,’ Jess laughed. ‘Most of us do. I’m in the St Saviour’s Women’s crew, but we don’t take it as seriously as some. What about you?’ She eyed the diminutive figure of Gaby.

‘No way. I did try out for cox once and crashed the Third Eight into the bank. Did a lot of damage. They haven’t asked me back again.’ She grinned. ‘Worked a treat.’

Jess laughed.

As she guided Gaby towards the office, Jess’s thoughts were on her new employee but also partly on the sign at the gate. Even fifteen years on, Jess had mixed feelings about their father: she still loved him, as did Will, even though they hadn’t seen him for several years and their brief phone conversations with him were usually tense.

She and Will were twins, and having grown up so closely, they had a strong bond even if they didn’t always see eye to eye about the farm. Jess was the steady hand on the tiller: calm, practical and ready to pour oil on troubled waters. She oversaw the business side of things, dealing with suppliers and the bigger customer accounts that required tact and diplomacy.

Will worked every bit as hard as her but his forte lay with the horticultural side of the business. He knew everything about coaxing the different varieties into bloom at exactly the right moment. Storms, fog and even the occasional frost didn’t faze him, but he could be impatient and prone to gloomy moods.

One thing they both agreed on, and would have sealed in blood, was their loyalty to their mother and the farm. They’d sided firmly with Anna as the innocent party, but that hadn’t stopped them missing their dad in private. They’d felt hurt at being abandoned and angry at having to set aside any of their other hopes and dreams to stay and run the farm. Jess had settled down more quickly to her life as boss, but Will had wanted to go to university and for a long time resented being thrown in at the deep end.

However, this was all now in the past and everyone had moved on: they’d had no choice or the farm would have gone under faster than the Titanic.

One sign of the twins’ success after fifteen years of hard work was that the business had long outgrown the original small office attached to the farmhouse. Jess opened the door of the new admin block, a large timber-clad building off the centre of the yard. The room was filled with workstations, each with phones and computer screens. The silence hit Jess as she showed Gaby inside.

‘This is our admin area and sales office,’ she said to Gaby. ‘It seems funny to see it empty like this. Normally it’s mayhem in here.’

Gaby walked into the middle of the room and took in the blank screens.

‘We process the bulk orders from supermarkets and the wholesale market here and take orders from individual customers,’ Jess explained. ‘I keep an eye on the admin and sales, though Lawrence, our general manager, is in charge of operations. Will’s more likely to be found out in the fields or the packing shed. Or the gig sheds,’ she added after a pause. ‘He’s also a stalwart of the St Saviour’s rowing club, but he won’t be there today. He’ll be around here somewhere. He knows you were coming and he’s looking forward to meeting you,’ she added, hoping that Will would turn out to be more enthusiastic about their new recruit than she feared.

Jess moved on from the office to the packing sheds, which would also normally have been buzzing with workers.

‘This is where we grade and arrange the flowers into bunches or ship them out in bulk to wholesalers. You’ll be alternating between here and the fields, depending on demand. We all muck in together wherever we’re needed.’

Gaby’s gaze swept the building, which was open to the rafters. Jess saw her eyes flick from the carpet-topped arranging tables to the floor, where rejected narcissi lay scattered on the concrete. Jess knew that if it wasn’t a bank holiday, the place would have Radio Scilly blaring out and be full of people hurrying into the chiller with huge plastic boxes of flowers from the fields or to the quay, or carrying cardboard boxes and tissue paper to and from the arranging tables. It was eerily quiet – and there was still no sign of her brother.

‘Will’s probably outside,’ she said with a tight smile that hid her growing disquiet over Will’s absence. They walked back out into the sunlight. Jess wondered whether to try his phone, not that he’d always answer. ‘Let’s try the bottom field. This way, across the yard.’

The goats spared them a fleeting glance as she and Gaby walked past their pen, before going back to their dinner. Jess also pointed out the beef cattle who were grazing on the heathland next to the farm. She saw Gaby taking in the small rectangular fields where the flowers were grown. Each one was protected from the wind by thick hedges and the green shoots of the first narcissi were just showing, even though it wasn’t quite September.

‘How long have the Godrevys been farming here?’ Gaby asked as Jess pulled her phone from her pocket.

Adam had sent her a text: ‘Any sign of the Man yet? Any chance of getting away If You Know What I Mean? Got a surprise for you …’

Jess felt her cheeks heat up and pushed her phone back into her jeans.

‘Three generations now,’ she replied, trying to refocus and not think too much about the shivery feeling that Adam’s text had given her. ‘Apparently when my grandparents started the farm in the 1950s, there were ninety flower farms on St Mary’s alone. Now that people buy so many imported flowers from abroad, there are only a handful.’

‘St Saviour’s survived though,’ said Gaby. ‘And this set-up is very impressive.’

‘Thanks. We try to have as many varieties and markets as we can. We also sometimes work with other farms at busy periods. They supply us with flowers to supplement what we can’t grow, or sell ours when we have a glut. It’s a fine art, trying not to have too few or too many flowers – that’s the tricky part. Too much warmth or too much cold can spell disaster or not being able to get the flowers to market. It’s taken years to get the balance right and we’re still experimenting and keeping our fingers crossed.’

Jess looked around her at the green shoots starting to appear in the brown earth of the outdoor fields, ready for the new season’s harvest. Hard to believe that the first tight buds of the earliest types would be ready to pick in a few weeks’ time. These days, sixteen types of narcissi were produced through autumn and winter, far more than in her father’s time. It had been Jess’s idea to expand their range shortly after he’d left.

Gaby crouched low to touch one of the emerging shoots. She had a dreamy look on her face. ‘Do you think the legend is true?’ she asked.

‘Which legend would that be? Scilly has quite a few,’ said Jess, amused.

‘The one about how the narcissi first came to Scilly on a Dutch ship.’

‘Ah. The onion story.’ Jess had heard the tale many times. Supposedly, the first bulbs were given to the Governor of Scilly’s wife by the captain of a Dutch merchant ship. She mistook them for onions but threw them out of the window of her castle because they tasted so horrible. The bulbs bloomed in the moat and that’s how the islands’ flower industry began. ‘It’s a great story and there may be some truth in it, but we’re not so concerned with the past,’ said Jess wryly. ‘It’s the present and the future we want to secure, which is why you’ll find plenty to keep you occupied,’ she added with a smile.

Gaby nodded enthusiastically. ‘Oh. Absolutely. I came here to help you do just that.’

‘Glad to hear it. I’m sure my brother will be too. Hold on. There’s Len,’ said Jess, spotting a middle-aged man striding over the yard through the open door. ‘He might have seen Will. Do you want to wait here?’

Leaving Gaby looking at the farm set-up, Jess caught up with Len as he headed into the packing sheds.

‘Hi Len. Have you seen Will? I want him to meet Gaby, our new worker.’

Len Scarrock’s forehead, already as lined as a contour map of the Himalayas, wrinkled even further. ‘That kid over there?’

‘She’s not a kid. She’s twenty-seven and she’s had plenty of experience.’

Len snorted. ‘As what? A pixie in fairyland?’

Jess clung onto her patience. Len had worked as field supervisor with the Godrevys for years and what he didn’t know about flower farming on the isles wasn’t worth knowing. But he was as spiky as a whole field of thistles. ‘Have you seen Will?’ she repeated.

He sucked on his teeth and shrugged. ‘Might be in the fields. It’s been a good hour since I saw him.’

Jess’s heart sank; she was beginning to think Will really had forgotten Gaby was coming and gone to visit his rowing mates. ‘OK. Thanks.’

Just then, Adam walked across the yard and joined Jess on the edge of the top field. ‘The gig’s coming along. Where’s Will?’

Jess rolled her eyes. ‘This is turning into a game. I should produce a book: Where’s Will?’

‘Hold on, that sounds like him,’ said Adam, pointing towards a figure marching from the rear of the equipment storage shed. A familiar voice carried on the air to them.

‘No, bloody hell. Next week? That’s all I need. You have to come sooner than that?’

Adam grinned. ‘I think we’ve found him.’

Will’s voice grew louder, clearly giving some unfortunate supplier the hairdryer treatment down the phone. He’d stopped outside the door of an outbuilding used by the flower picking staff for breaks. ‘I can’t wait for an engineer until then. It’ll be disastrous for my crop. You have to come out. Charter a plane if you have to …’

‘Yes, but where’s Gaby got to?’ Jess crossed back into the yard but Gaby had vanished. ‘Oh God, I hope she hasn’t decided to go home already.’

Adam joined her. ‘She won’t. She’s tougher than she looks. Look, there she is.’

Gaby emerged from behind a hedge just as Will strode across the yard, his phone clamped to one ear, the other hand gesticulating wildly.

‘Len!’ he bellowed, holding the phone down by his side. ‘We need to get that damn pump fixed. That’s the whole water supply to the farm!’

‘The bloody water pump? When did that happen?’ said Len.

‘About half an hour ago. Haven’t you noticed?’

‘I’ve only just come up here from my place. Have you tried fixing it?’

Will threw up his hands. ‘What do you think I’ve been doing for the past half an hour? Bloody hell, why does this always happen on a sodding bank holiday?’

Ouch. Jess cringed.

And oh no … At the same time as ranting to the supplier and Len, Gaby had clearly come onto Will’s radar. He suddenly veered from being on course for Len to making a beeline for her. Jess quickened her pace to try and intercept them.

‘Hey! You!’ Will bellowed.

Gaby stopped, frozen like a hedgehog about to be run over by a juggernaut. Will shoved the phone in his jeans pocket and homed in on Gaby.

‘Oh no. I’d better make the introductions or she really will leg it.’ Leaving Adam behind, Jess jogged over but it was too late. Her twin was giving Gaby the full benefit of his customer-facing charm and skills.

She reached him to find him talking to Gaby, with his hands on his hips. ‘Can I help you? Are you a customer?’ he asked impatiently. ‘If you are, I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t be wandering around like this.’

‘I was just admiring your Innisidgens,’ said Gaby.

‘My what?’

‘The Innisidgens. They’re just coming into bud, aren’t they?’

‘Yeah, they are but …’ Will peered at her. ‘Look, this is a staff-only area and you should call in at the office if you want to buy some flowers.’

Jess darted between them. ‘Will. This is Dr Gabriella Carter. She’s one of our new field workers.’

Will stared at Gaby and his jaw dropped, anyone would think the queen of the fairies had landed on his farm and zapped him with her wand.

‘She’s a field worker?’

‘Yes, Gaby is a field worker. I told you she was coming. I’ve just been to pick her up from the airport. You can’t have forgotten,’ she added as if Will was a toddler to whom she had to explain everything, which was partly true. She turned to Gaby. ‘I’m sorry, I think you took Will by surprise, didn’t she, Will?’

‘You could say that.’ Will glared at Gaby.

She smiled back sweetly. ‘I’m sorry for wandering off, but I was fascinated by the Innisidgens. They’re the very first variety to come out, aren’t they? I know some people loathe the scent and say it’s like cat’s pee, but to me, they always give me that “back to school” feeling. So lovely to think of them popping up while people are still basking on the beaches.’

Will shoved his fingers through messy brown hair, lightened at the tips by a summer spent outdoors. His eyes narrowed in puzzlement and he peered at Gaby again. ‘Actually, I don’t mind the scent … Mum hates it, but I’ve always thought the Innisidgens mark the start of the season too. A fresh start and all that stuff.’

‘Oh, absolutely and my apologies, Mr Godrevy, I hadn’t meant to cross any boundaries.’ Gaby extended her slender fingers. ‘I look forward to working with you.’

Will stared at her dainty hand in surprise.

He must think she’s waiting for him to kiss it, thought Jess with a mix of delight and dismay.

‘Um, hi,’ he said before turning to Jess and snapping out of his temporary trance. ‘All hell’s broken loose. The water pump’s packed in and you know what that means. We’ve no water for irrigation for the farmhouse or the staff house …’ He glanced back at Gaby. ‘So, you have my apologies if I haven’t put up the bunting and made some iced buns today, Miss Carter, I’ve been a tad busy.’

‘Oh, no apology needed. Bunting and buns won’t be necessary, however appealing they sound. A nice cup of Earl Grey and a slice of sponge cake would be a perfectly acceptable alternative. Gluten-free of course.’

Will’s jaw dropped again and he stared at Gaby.

Adam had joined them. He’d obviously heard most of the recent exchanges, judging by the gleeful squeeze Jess felt on her hand. She distinctly felt his body shake as he tried not to laugh. Jess stifled a snigger too.

‘Would you like me to make some cucumber sandwiches as well?’ Will said smoothly.

Gaby licked her lips. ‘Yum. That sounds delicious. Where’s the staff tea room?’

Will couldn’t take his eyes off Gaby. She smiled innocently back, but Jess could tell Gaby was teasing and could actually feel the crackle of tension between the two of them. It was like pitting a bear and a viper against each other. How would they ever survive the next six months together?

Jess let out a strained laugh. ‘Gaby is joking. She knows we all muck in here.’

‘Of course I do. So, shall we start again?’ She held out her hand once more and this time, to Jess’s amazement, Will took it, shaking it firmly but carefully with his grimy paw.

‘Welcome to the flower farm, Gaby,’ he said, still unable to tear his eyes from her face.

‘Thank you, Mr Godrevy. You seem to have a very professional operation here.’

‘Thanks. And er … please call me Will. We don’t stand on ceremony here.’

‘Thank you, Will. I look forward to working with you and possibly tasting your buns.’

Will opened his mouth but seemed to choke on his reply.

‘Have you tried the trip switch on the pump?’ Jess cut in, trying to divert Will. ‘That was the problem last time.’

His attention snapped back to Jess. ‘Of course I’ve tried the trip switch, but you can have a look if you like. Anything’s better than leaving the farm without water until the technician can come out.’

‘Where is the pump?’ Gaby asked.

‘In the shed over there above the well.’ Will flipped a thumb in the direction of the other side of the yard. ‘It supplies all the water for the farm and business.’

‘You’re getting a tour of the farm anyway, so you may as well see everything now, not that you’ll ever need to go in the pump house,’ said Jess. She could feel Adam beside her, saying nothing but obviously enjoying every word of the exchange. He’d be bound to take the piss out of Will about ‘his buns’ as soon as he got the chance but Jess was only concerned with keeping the peace.

With Will forging ahead, Adam, Jess and Gaby followed him over to a small wooden shed on the far side of the yard. The goats stopped chewing long enough to watch them trudge past, as if to wonder what the fuss was all about.

The door was open and Jess joined Will, who was staring at the control panel above the blue pump, while Adam and Gaby waited outside the cramped shed. Jess flicked the trip switch up and down, and the pump stopped, then shuddered and rattled in an alarming way.

‘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.