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Before leaving for lunch, Ray had gone up the ladder to inspect the top right corner where the plaster had been reported to have blown internally. Here, he had found a huge knuckle of ivy embedded in and around the brickwork and mortar mix.
If he told David what he was doing, health and safety would have to get involved and it would be another costly farce.
With the possibility of snoops from the council looking in taken into account, Ray had quietly decided to take the strain, hoping that the work would not be questioned after it had been done.
Yes, he’d do away with the ivy altogether.
No one would be wiser once the new trellis was up.
After lunch, they got back to the wall and set out sacks on the lawn away from the flowerbed.
Having pruned the ivy down to reveal the bulk, Ray used one chainsaw while Rob and Terry took turns with the other. The one that wasn’t sawing had to barrow the ivy chunks to the sacks at the edge of the flowerbed.
They would saw from the ground up until they reached the top of the wall.
Ray took breaks of five minutes every ten minutes but still managed to claim more ivy than the lads.
At three o’clock, with the lower section half-finished, the three gardeners slumped onto the lawn and regarded the damage. The sun had returned, showing the wall in a light that confirmed to the lads that Ray had made the right decision by taking the ivy on.
‘What d’ya reckon old Spokesy’d say if he knew what we were doing?’ asked Terry, lighting a roll-up.
‘If he saw it now, he’d probably have a hernia,’ shrieked Rob. Aware that he was being quite happy, the top lip went over the bottom lip after he said this, but it didn’t stay there long.
Ray had been thinking the very same thing.
He was sure that the din of the chainsaws would have been heard all around the estate. Normally, David would have been alerted and on the spot within minutes.
Not today, it seemed.
What was more eluding was Ray’s insistence on cutting down the ivy without informing him.
A job of this size and sensitivity would cost tens of thousands if all the right precautions and legal requirements had been taken into account. Besides, it would drag on forever and a day just to get permission to do the work.
For Ray, the time had finally come to do things his way. He’d thought about the repercussions and put them to one side.
If anyone saw what was going on, they’d have the health and safety people on the Trust like a rash, but Ray had quietly closed off the Garden That Flows to the public by ensuring that they locked the gates up behind them on entering and leaving, closing it off to prying eyes.
There’d be hell to pay if head office got a whiff of it and if anything went wrong as a result of the ivy’s removal, Ray would be held responsible.
But even with all this knowledge, Ray chose to take this action quite consciously, into his own hands, knowing that it was really his subconscious that had made the call.
Ever since Ray caught sight of the taken-back ivy at teatime, knowing full well that that was all it required for the brickwork specialists to inspect for damage, Ray had formed a great dislike for this particular ivy.
What it was doing to the old stables was entirely unacceptable and if David caught sight of the extent of the damage he’d be forced to waste thousands and thousands with contractors on the pointless scaffolding for the wall alone. Perhaps their clumsier workmen would kill flowers in the process, and that wouldn’t do.
Ray couldn’t have that, so he had taken it upon himself to carry out the work without running the risk and expense of a contractor, the architect of which would probably inflate the price immensely for insisting that the rendering of the brickwork was done in the traditional way.
Anything ‘traditional’ came with a hefty premium. Lots of waffle from the contractors about health and safety and insurance would bump up the price, too.
Ray and the lads loved nothing more than knocking up lime and mortar and they could easily have that done in a few days. A contractor would charge five thousand, at least.
It was Ray’s own feeling that the work was necessary for the good of the Trust and that getting it done on the quiet was the only way of getting it done well, immediately and without harm to the flowers. There were no windows on the wall to look out from and the garden was locked up, so there would be no intrusion.
None, of course, apart from David Spokes.