Coco du Ciel

CHAPTER 1 RHYS EVANS GROANED out loud as he tried to get comfortable in the old armchair. No matter which way he shifted, he ended up sitting on a lump, and what was more, the TV kept changing channels all by itself. Kind of creepy when you were stuck in the middle of nowhere. Rhys gave a nervous laugh as repeats of Come Dine with Me, The Great British Bake Off, and EastEnders cycled through in rapid succession. When Uncle Albert had asked him to house-sit while he went on a two-week botany expedition to the Himalayas, it had seemed like a good idea. Now? Not so much. “My usual girl’s gone on a sponsored bike ride from Stuttgart to Paris,” Albert had said on the phone last month. “I’m in a bit of a bind.” Woodside Lodge, with its backdrop of rolling hills and evergreen forests, was only four hours away in North Wales, but it might as well have been in another world. Rhys had never even visited before. On the rare occasions he’d crossed paths with his uncle, Albert had come to England to catch up with his late sister—Rhys’s mother—and the last time had been years ago. Albert had turned up wearing a tweed jacket and Wellington boots, if memory served correctly, and then troughed down all the food in the house. He seemed harmless enough, though, and family was family, so Rhys’s mum had always said. “I’m not sure. I’ve never looked after a house before.” “I’ll pay you thirty pounds a day,” Albert offered. “All you have to do is fetch the post in and keep the plants watered.” In the end, it wasn’t the money that had swayed Rhys, more the opportunity to escape his shared house for a couple of weeks. There were too many bad memories in that place, not to mention the fact that he could do with some peace and quiet to work. It was only once he’d spent fifty quid on petrol, forked out another tenner on a dried-out jacket potato at Telford Services, and unpacked his holdall into the cavernous wardrobe in one of his uncle’s spare bedrooms that he realised he’d made a grave mistake. “I’ll just explain about the plants,” Albert said, passing him a lever arch file full of papers. “I’ve written a few notes in case you forget anything.” A few notes? Rhys goggled at the novel he was holding. Exactly how many plants did his uncle have? The answer? Most of them. “This is the hothouse,” the old man explained as he led Rhys through the first of six giant greenhouses. “It’s kept at thirty degrees in the daytime and cools to twenty overnight.” The place was a bloody jungle. Trees and vines and exotic blooms filled every inch of available space, and the humidity left sweat running down Rhys’s back. He half feared wild animals would start popping out of the undergrowth when the sun dropped. “What was that sound?” “Oh, just a fox. They like to wander around at dusk.” “In here?” Albert chuckled. “No, outside. You’re not much of a country lad, are you?” No. No, he wasn’t. Who wanted to live all the way out in the sticks? It was two miles to the nearest shop, and Rhys’s only experience with gardening was watering a mate’s houseplants while the lucky bastard went to Marbella for a fortnight. It was only after he’d caught a “Say No to Drugs” ad on the TV that he realised precisely what type of plant they were, but luckily, the police hadn’t arrested him for possession. At least Uncle Albert wasn’t a stoner. And he’d carefully stuck colour-coded labels on everything and provided Rhys with a handy index in the back of the file. “You’ll find the watering and feeding instructions on pages one through a hundred and thirty. And see here, I’ve left the number of my plumber in case of any hiccups with the water supply. The temperature shouldn’t be a problem since it’s June, but just in case it chills off and there’s a problem with the heating, the local electrician’s on call.” How on earth had the sss rainforest survived for thousands of years without human intervention? It was a mystery. “Yeah, I’ll memorise the numbers and study the book in the evenings.” “Good, good.” His uncle missed the sarcasm. And Albert’s last words before he walked out the door? “Look after my babies.” Babies? Did he think they were…human? Since Albert’s departure, Rhys had received thirty-nine text messages, each asking whether things were okay and reminding him to dim the lights at seven thirty sharp, and there were still eight days to go. Was it any wonder his uncle had never married? Mind you, Rhys was hardly one to pass judgement. While he was sitting in a draughty living room, watching snippets of some depressing reality show about one man’s search for true love, Stacey—his ex-girlfriend and the woman he’d once thought was his future—was back in Uxbridge shagging his housemate. Rhys’s mind drifted to the last day of the semester, to that nightmare of a Friday when his life had fallen apart. First came the horror of realising his web architecture exam was in the morning and not the afternoon as he’d initially thought. He’d kept his head and winged it, only to arrive home and find the love of his life naked on the sofa with Gary, a wannabe DJ with too many earrings and a tattoo of a mermaid on his pasty arse. He’d never forget the look of shock on Stacey’s face. The way she’d tried to cover herself up. Her stammered words. “We… I… I wasn’t expecting you home yet.” Maybe she wasn’t, but Gary definitely had been. Rhys had bumped into him outside the exam hall first thing that morning and mentioned he’d be back for lunch. Which meant the needle-dicked asshole had not only stolen Stacey, but also planned the big reveal with careful precision. Why had he done it? Because he was still bitter about the drums? Rhys had accidentally backed his car over Gary’s drum kit on the day they both moved into the house on Cardon Street, and although he’d paid for the damage, Gary had been decidedly cool towards him ever since. And petty. But missing shower gel and loud music late at night were one thing; with Stacey, he’d taken the animosity to a whole new level. And although Gary spent most of his time at her place now, when he did set foot back in the shared house, the atmosphere made an igloo seem cosy. And even when he was at Stacey’s, he still managed to stick in the knife. She lived right opposite, and one night when they “forgot” to switch the light off, Rhys had been treated to another faceful of Gary’s arse, this time as he pounded Stacey against the wall. The way her expression had changed from ecstasy to horror when she opened her eyes and realised he was watching from the living room window… How had he misjudged her so badly? She’d said she was sorry, even cried, but that didn’t stop her from flaunting her new relationship all over campus. And why couldn’t he forget her? He tried his damnedest to block her from his mind, from his dreams, but she was always there, and at night it was worse. Close his eyes, and he’d see her baby blues. Turn over in bed, and he’d feel her hair tickling against his chest. Despite everything, a part of him still missed her company. Why didn’t he simply move out, you ask? Because he was tied into the lease until the end of August, and a tight budget meant he couldn’t afford to throw away two months’ worth of rent. Not when he could just lock himself in his bedroom and work. A sudden blast of sound sent Rhys shooting from the armchair, his heart pounding until his brain caught up and reminded him it was only the stereo. Four o’clock sharp, and the intro to “Feed Me” from Little Shop of Horrors began playing—Uncle Albert’s idea of a joke. The old man’s sense of humour took some getting used to. Rhys stretched, trying to relieve the chair-induced backache. At this rate, he’d be spending half of his thirty-pound-a-day stipend on chiropractor fees when he got back to Uxbridge. Once he’d put his shoes on, he snagged the manual off the coffee table and trudged out to the greenhouses. Time to feed the plants. His record so far was two hours and twenty-five minutes from start to finish, but today, he managed it in two hours and ten. Not bad. Ah, dammit. He’d forgotten about the two fancy trees. “The coco du ciel palm,” Albert had told him, eyes sparkling. “Lodoicea oriella. They’re the jewels in my collection, so make sure you look after them.” “Really?” Tesco sold prettier plants in the veg section. “What about all the orchids?” The coco du ciels were just plain old palm trees—big, yes, but there was nothing remotely ornate about them. Lumpy trunks branched in odd directions, and some sort of chunky fruit lurked among spiky green fronds. Or was it a nut? Rhys leaned to the side to get a better look. The thing was curved like Stacey’s arse. Dammit, he had to stop thinking about her. “The orchids aren’t a patch on that pair.” Albert followed his gaze. “What you’re looking at up there is something special. The fruit’s almost ripe, and it’s priceless.” Priceless? Really? To Rhys, it looked like an oversized coconut. “What makes it so special? I mean, I can see it’s big, but size isn’t everything, right?” At least, that’s what Stacey had always assured him. “Lodoicea oriella is the rarest tree on earth. There are only twenty-seven mature specimens outside Brazil, and this is the only pair.” “How did you get them?” Albert tapped his nose. “That’s a long story, lad.” Rhys flipped to the page his uncle had marked with a pink tab, a yellow stripe, and three black dots. Yep, that matched the label on the coco du ciel trees. Even though he’d followed the same instructions for days, he still liked to check. Each Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday, mix one scoop of powder from the red pot on the bottom shelf with one large can of water and sprinkle it over the roots. No more, no less. Where was the red pot? He rummaged around in the gloom. The lid looked more pink than red, but since he couldn’t see anything else close, he’d been using it the whole time and the trees were still alive. Yeuch, the stuff stank, a weird metallic smell that turned his stomach. Rhys held his breath as he scooped out the right amount, mixed it in a watering can, and slopped it over the ground at the bottom of the trees. One more day done, thirty quid in his pocket, and he could finally crawl into a cold, lonely, lumpy bed. *** What was that noise? After two hours of sleep and six hours of tossing and turning, Rhys’s brain still wasn’t functioning properly, and it took a moment to recognise Mariah Carey warbling the lyrics to “Thirsty.” Okay, okay, he got the hint. Since he was alone, he gave his T-shirt and jogging bottoms the sniff test, deemed them good for another day, and traipsed out to the Welsh rainforest. With a week to go, he swore he’d never buy a houseplant, not even a cactus. If only there were some way he could foist a future plant-sitting mission onto Gary as payback… Nothing would ever compensate for him stealing Stacey, but exiling the prick to the wilds of Gwynedd for a month in winter would certainly make Rhys feel better. Did Uncle Albert have any other trips planned? Rhys hummed to himself as he unwound the hosepipe, a tuneless rendition of Dev’s “In the Dark,” which played every evening as a reminder to flip the master light switch before he turned in for the night. He’d quite liked the song at first, but now it was stuck in his head as an earworm and he never wanted to hear it again. The watering should take an hour or two, and what was the next task? He drew the line at weeding, not that he’d be able to tell the difference between a weed and a plant anyway. A chirp overhead made him look up. Was that a sparrow? Should he open the doors? Hmm, not the best idea—that would let Albert’s precious heat out. The feathered fiend alighted in one of the coco du ciel trees and started squawking. “Sorry, mate. I haven’t got any birdseed.” But maybe there was a spare slice of bread in the kitchen, or… Wait. Hadn’t there been a giant nut up there yesterday?