Two

Ihadn’t been aware I’d been waiting to see him again until I watched him return his horse to the stable.

The second day, he came out to tell us that his uncle had said we could sit in the kitchen to eat our lunches if we wanted.

On the third day, he sat under a tree on the far side of the garden and read a book. I wanted to know the book title so badly that it was ridiculous. Why did I care what he was reading? He was a stuck-up prick who said I looked like a gypsy.

Since I was only working three days with Luke, I stayed home the next two, reading Pratchett and trying not to think about the weird-nosed boy – Caspien – at Deveraux House.

The following Tuesday, he rode the horse again, past where Luke, Harry, Ged and I hacked and cut at what felt like a hundred years’ worth of weeds. I hated gardening. I hated it more in the painfully hot sunshine. I tried to think of my laptop, the reason I was doing all of this. But that, for some reason, made me wonder what kind of laptop he had. A MacBook Pro, probably. I hated him.

I watched him from the corner of my eye as he trotted past us and down the incline, head held up and a snooty expression on his face – as though everything were beneath him, including me. When he reached the flat, he kicked his heel into the horse’s side and lowered his body just as the horse took off at a sprint. I watched them until they became a small blob in the distance.

“He’s training for the Olympics, apparently,” Luke said, huffing from exertion.

“Who?” I said, whacking a particularly stubborn bracket of weeds.

“Caspien.”

I made a snorting sound. His name really was ridiculous. Caspien. Who on earth called their kid Caspien? I didn’t like how Luke said it, either. Like he knew him. When he’d first told me his name on the way home that first Tuesday, I’d felt a weird sensation in my gut. A fluttering. Like nerves or fear. Which I didn’t understand because I wasn’t afraid of him. I could take him easily.

I learned a little more about Caspien each day I went there. And sometimes, even when I hadn’t gone there, Luke would come home and offer some new and incredibly predictable fact about him: he went to school in Switzerland, because of course, he did. He spoke three languages. Not only was he good enough to ride his horse at the Olympics, but he could also play tennis like a professional and was excellent at fencing. Fencing. Fencing was for James Bond films.

On the fifth day, Luke sent me to the large conservatory on the east side of the house and asked me to take some photos and clear out anything ‘that hadn’t ever been alive’. Now, there was a distinction, which I’d been taught early on. Some plants died off in the winter months and looked dead, but would grow back in the spring. I needed to leave these be for now, and Luke would decide what should go when we were replanting.

The position of the conservatory meant that it was in the sun for the first portion of the day. It was almost brutal until I flung open the French doors at the far end. Then, the place became almost pleasant to work in.

I was going to use the small toilet beneath the kitchen stairs when Caspien appeared in front of me. He had his nose stuck in a book and a half-eaten apple in his other hand as he walked out from a room to my left and almost into me.

I managed to see The Count of Monte Cristo. It was an aged hardback with a navy cloth-bound cover. I hadn’t read it, and I hated that I hadn’t.

Before we collided, I stepped out of his way.

He stopped, lifted his pale gaze from his book, and fixed it on me instead.

I was covered in dirt, sweat, and grass stains while he stood looking immaculate in another big shirt, shorts, and those brown house slippers—also too big.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said before taking a bite of his apple. He sounded almost bored, but his gaze was sharp and terrible. I felt like an insect under a microscope.

“Hey,” I replied. It was the weirdest sound I’d ever made. “I’m in the conservatory today,” I said as though to prove to him I knew actual words.

“Arboretum,” he said.

“What?”

He smiled with one side of his mouth and bit into his apple again. It felt like he’d caught me doing something I should be embarrassed about, but I’d no clue what.

“It’s called an arboretum, gypsy.”

He skirted past me and headed toward the stairs. When I turned to look at him his head was lowered, reading again. Christ, I loathed this boy. Hated him. Hated the way my voice shook when I spoke to him. The way my body trembled nervously at his closeness. Hated the way his eyes made me feel small and insignificant. I hated everything about him.

“Don’t forget to wash your hands after,” he said without looking back.

I had an image of charging after him, grabbing him by the hair and forcefully slamming him against something until he cried. Instead, I watched as he turned a corner and disappeared upstairs.

When I turned, I almost pissed myself. A man stood in the entryway of the room the twat had just come out of.

Then, I’d taken him to be in his fifties, perhaps even older. It was a child’s way of guessing the age of adults, because Gideon was forty-one when I met him. His hair was dark with some grey at the temples, and he stood tall with angular, sharp cheekbones and a long-pointed chin. Navy eyes glittered like sapphires, and his red slash of a mouth smiled strangely at me.

“And you must be Jude,” he said and came toward me. “Finally we meet.”

Neither his expression or tone was unkind, but there was something in his eyes that made me feel slightly uneasy.

“I’m Gideon.” He stretched out his left hand. “Gideon Deveraux.”

This was the mad queen of Deveraux? I knew that he was a lord, though he never took his seat in the house, and that he was rich, though he’d let the house fall into some disrepair. I knew he lived alone in a mansion that had his name with only his nephew. This last was something people liked to talk about in town though I’d rarely paid it any attention, imagining the nephew to be a young child. My own mind being that of a child, I didn’t really understand the implication of the rumour at the time.

Lord Gideon Deveraux was dressed impeccably in a three-piece morning suit with a brocade waistcoat – the kind a groom might wear to a wedding. I’d rarely see him in anything else in all my time at Deveraux. Knowing what I came to know, I wonder if it was indeed the suit he’d imagined himself being married in.

I stared, a little open-mouthed. I’d never seen a picture of him and had imagined him to be some old, grey, stooped man. But he wasn’t. He was young and handsome; dark hair cut neatly, and blue eyes that always seemed to be smiling.

“Hi, sir, Lord, Deveraux,” I tried, stammering like an idiot. I was so glad Caspien wasn’t here to witness it. I tried again. “I’m Jude, sir. Luke’s nephew.”

He smiled wider. “Nice to meet you, Jude, Luke’s nephew.” He shook my hand firmly. His own was ice cold. “And I see you’ve met mine.” He gestured in the direction the twat had just gone in.

I tried to keep my face impassive as I gave a nod. I suspected I’d failed when Gideon laughed.

“He can be very sharp-tongued,” Gideon said, before lowering his head so that he could whisper. “Would you believe that he really is a sweet boy underneath?”

“No.” It was out before I could stop it. My cheeks burned. My bladder ached.

Gideon laughed louder and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“I like honesty, young Jude. It’s so rare these days. Caspien is rather dreadfully insincere.” This was said as though it was an admirable quality. “Tell me, how are my gardens coming along? Your uncle promised he could restore them to their former glory. Did he overpromise?” He looked out in the direction of the gardens.

“Luke is the best gardener in The Channel Islands, Sir Lord Deveraux.”

“Oh, Gideon is fine,” he said, waving me off. “Is he now? Well then if anyone can bring this dead old thing back to life then it is the best gardener in Channel Islands.” He looked at me. “And his nephew.”

I gave him my most enthusiastic smile. “We’ll try our best, sir – Gideon.”

I left him staring out at the garden as I skirted past him quickly to the bathroom emptying my overfull bladder into the rose-pink toilet bowl.

We were driving home when I asked Luke: “Do you think it’s weird that they live there together, just the two of them?”

Luke was the nicest person I knew. I could count on one finger how many times I’d heard him say anything bad about anyone. And that was because some guy refused to pay him for a month’s work on a holiday cottage down in Brown Bay. He took him to court and got the money but it took almost a year. Even then he hadn’t called the guy a wanker with the same fervour that Caspien Deveraux had called me a gypsy.

“Well, do you think if something happened to Beth – god forbid.” He patted his head. “That it would be weird for you to live with me?”

“No.”

“Exactly. So I don’t think it’s weird, no. People like to talk about all sorts of things that don’t concern them. Most of the horrible stuff people say is just in their own twisted heads.”

I thought about that. “Is that what happened then? Did something happen to his mum?” I couldn’t bring myself to say his name.

“Yeah. I’m not sure of the full story, mind you. Again, lots of nonsense people have likely made up. But after she passed away, Caspien lived with his uncle. She was Gideon’s sister. So it makes sense from where I stand.” He shot me a warm smile.

“What about his dad?”

“No one knows,” said Luke. “Well, someone knows. But not me. I’m not one for gossip. We’re just there to fix his garden.”

I nodded, thinking about Gideon Deveraux and how desperate he sounded when he asked if we could bring his garden back to life. I really hoped we could. I tried not to think about how similar Caspien and I were; of how we’d both lost our parents and how we went to live with our uncles, and how if he wasn’t such a horrible snooty twat, we might have had something in common we could talk about.

We might even have been friends.

“I met him today,” I told Luke as I stared out the window. “Lord Deveraux.”

“Yeah? He’s nice enough, isn’t he?”

“Yeah…nice enough.”

That night at dinner, Beth told Luke she was pregnant. They both cried while I smiled and ate my spaghetti.