‘It is, isn’t it? Actually it’s perfect, as I’ve been desperate to show you the Butterfly Garden. Can you believe it’s finally finished?’
Lara didn’t know Olivia had been creating a Butterfly Garden, but it didn’t surprise her at all. Over the past few years, her aunt had reinvented herself as a horticulturist. Tatler had called her ‘the new Bunny Mellon’, the famed American garden designer and socialite, which Lara was sure would have thrilled her.
‘I don’t know what keeps you in London in the summer,’ said Olivia, leading Lara through the walled garden, ‘Especially now you’re not working.’
Lara had to admit there was something in what Olivia was saying. There were numerous properties in the grounds of Foxhills and Lara had use of a small cottage, willed to her by her grandmother. It was beautiful, chocolate-box pretty, but it had never really felt like home. She looked out across the lawns and the trees beyond. All of it was so familiar, but all so loaded with baggage. Even now, Lara could remember the smell of fruit trees and tomatoes ripening in the sun and she still had fond memories of the original gardeners, Joan and Graham, an elderly married couple who always seemed to have Sherbet Lemons in their pockets. There had been happy times here too.
‘Are you feeling well my dear? You look tired.’
Lara couldn’t help blushing, thinking of her night with Stefan.
‘Busy night?’
Olivia said it as if she were reading her mind. Her aunt had always had an unsettling ability to pick up on Lara’s mood. She followed Olivia through a doorway in the garden’s flint wall and out into an open area. In her childhood, it had always been called ‘The Meadow’, but rather than a wide field, it had elements of an English country garden with stone-flagged paths criss-crossed by long beds of iris, pansies, tulips and foxgloves. She had learnt the names of these plants trailing after her grandmother on perfect summer days exactly like this. Rose Avery had also been a keen gardener, but Lara could definitely see how Olivia had curated the space and put her own unique mark on it. The brick walls were scrubbed and pointed so they looked like they were laid quite recently rather than 200 years ago, everything just so, every last petal and leaf swept away.
‘This is lovely,’ said Lara honestly.
Olivia gave a brief smile.
‘They say gardening is the pursuit for A-type personalities,’ she said. ‘It suits the perfectionist in me.’ Olivia reached over and dead-headed a purple iris, tucking the bud into her apron. ‘But the work is never done; try as you like, nature simply can’t be tamed.’
Lara looked curiously at her aunt. You had to know Olivia Avery to know how incongruous that statement was. Aunt Olivia was the epitome of the socialite tastemaker, impeccably turned out, tirelessly controlling every aspect of her environment, forging alliances and ousting enemies. Admitting weakness, even a small one, just wasn’t in her vocabulary.
Olivia gestured to the far corner of the garden where a round green table had been set up.
‘Let’s go and sit under the pergola, I’ll have some lemonade brought down.’
Olivia pulled out a phone and gave a few clipped instructions to an unseen lackey, then sat down opposite Lara, giving her the benefit of her cool smile. Olivia’s long neck and pale blue eyes gave her an elegance, but rarely warmth. As they waited for the refreshments, Olivia pointed out the various improvements she had made to the garden – the butterfly friendly-flowers and larval food plants she had nurtured: sweet Williams, forget-me-nots and sorrel. A housekeeper bustled over with a jug and poured the drinks into two hi-ball glasses before discreetly withdrawing.
‘So,’ said Olivia, carefully folding her hands in her lap. ‘Charlie told me what happened.’
She was straight to the point as always, but this time Lara refused to be brow-beaten.
‘And what did Charlie tell you exactly?’
Lara was pushing back, but she was also curious. Had Charlie really called up Olivia and said, ‘Mother, I’ve been caught shagging the Deputy Editor’s girlfriend’?
Olivia pursed her lips.
‘He told me that you have been spying on him, Lara. That you had taken photographs of him.’
She almost laughed at that: as if the invasion of Charlie’s privacy was the biggest issue here.
‘Not spying actually. I simply happened to see him when I went to his house to discuss a work issue.’
‘Really? It was my understanding you don’t actually work at the Chronicle at the moment.’
‘Does that really matter, Olivia? What matters is what I saw.’
Olivia raised her eyebrows a fraction.
‘What you thought you saw. You didn’t have the courtesy to actually ask Charlie what was going on, did you?’
‘No but…’
‘So instead you decided to start causing trouble.’
‘Excuse me?’ I’m the one making trouble here?’