Page 11 of In at the Deep End

He had to smile. “Your place looks like my room. Nothing but boxes.”

“You’ve just got back from uni, your dad said.”

He nodded. “Still working out where to put everything.”

Owen groaned. “Tell me about it. The first thing on my to-do list is to go onto IKEA’s site and order wardrobes, bookcases….” He winced. “Me and screwdrivers—not a good match. Thank God the kitchen doesn’t need more cabinets.” He gave Matt a hopeful glance. “I don’t suppose being a whizz with flat-packed furniture is on the list of your skills?”

Matt chuckled. “Wow. You and my dad really do have a lot in common.” He smiled. “And yeah, I’ve assembled a few bits in my time.”

Owen’s face lit up. “Great. Then I might be offering you more than work in the garden—if you have the time. Jeff said something about a dissertation?”

“As long as you don’t intend working me twelve hours a day, we’re good.” He followed Owen into a large room with floor-to-ceiling windows. “Oh, nice.”

“They’re the slide-and-stack kind,” Owen told him. “Which means when summer really gets going, I can open up the whole window space.” He pointed to the middle window. “I’ll show you the garden.” He opened it and Matt followed him outside.

The patio area had a table and four chairs, all shaded by a large dark green parasol. The lawn appeared lush and thick, but he could see the shrubs needed a prune.

Matt pointed to the tall lilac-coloured spikes. “Those attract lots of bees, but if you don’t cut them back, you’ll soon have a forest of them.”

“Your dad said you knew your stuff. I’m impressed.” Owen climbed the steps onto the lawn, then pointed to a tree nearby, with a canopy of broad leaves. “I don’t suppose you know what this is.”

“It looks like a Clerodendrum.” Matt walked over to it and peered at the lower branches. A small white tag hung from one of them. He leaned in closer and smiled. “Yeah. Clerodendrum trichotomum. My granddad always calls it the glorybower. Oh, this is beautiful. You’ll have white flowers that smell amazing, and then as each one dies, you’re left with a blue berry surrounded by red petals.”

Owen laughed. “Did you swallow a gardening book?”

He chuckled. “My granddad has one in his garden. He planted it when I was about eight. Every August the whole garden smells incredible.”

“You know what? Jeff undersold you.”

Matt snickered. If first impressions counted, Owen was doing just fine. Most adults smiled politely when Matt started talking about plants. Owen seemed genuinely interested.

Then he glanced once more at the tree, and his chest tightened.

Granddad’s glorybower will be someone else’s before long.

It was now only a matter of weeks, maybe months.

Hey. Not now. You’re in the middle of an interview, remember?

“What about the rest of the garden?” Owen’s smile was relaxed and warm. “Am I nurturing anything that’ll take over Hampshire if we leave it alone? Anything in here likely to eat the neighbours?”

Matt snorted. “I doubt it.” He walked along the borders, getting a good look. “How big is this space?”

“Over an acre.” Owen snickered. “I’m reliably informed by my son that my fingers are not green, but black.” Matt frowned, and he chuckled. “I’m apparently the kiss of death to all plant life. He may have a point. At my last house, someone else took care of the garden.” His face tightened a fraction, then relaxed once more. “I’m more the ‘enjoy gardens’ type, rather than the ‘do actual gardening’ type.”

“Now I see why you need someone like me. So let’s have a look at the pool.”

Owen veered off to the left. The pool sat in a paved area with a small pool house at one end. “I know nothing about these things, but Jeff says you do.”

Matt chuckled. “Dad made sure of it. He used to wake me up at stupid o’clock every Saturday to do the weekly maintenance.”

Owen laughed. “Let me guess. It builds character?”

Matt’s mouth fell open. “He’s been using that phrase since you knew him? Oh my God.”

“Did it work?”

Matt thought about it. “Depends who you ask.” He took in the pool. It wasn’t huge, but a decent enough size for laps. The surface was hidden beneath a cover, so he had no idea what issues lurked under there. The paving told a different story. Moss had settled into the joints between the slabs, weeds were beginning to push through the cracks, and the coping stones could do with a good scrub.