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Praise for Alan Titchmarsh

‘Splendid…I laughed out loud’

Rosamunde Pilcher

‘Absolutely charming…made me understand a lot more about men’

Jilly Cooper

‘A steamy novel of love among the gro-bags’

Observer

‘A fine debut…great fun, but also sensitive and sensible with a tuneful storyline. Titchmarsh fans will lap up Mr MacGregor’

Independent

‘I admit it, I like Mr MacGregor. It’s as satisfying as a freshly-mown lawn’

Daily Mirror

‘Humorous, light-hearted and unpretentious. Titchmarsh’s book is strengthened by authenticity. Ideal for romantic gardeners’

Mail on Sunday

‘Titchmarsh is good company and it’s a pleasure to walk the path with him. The story is cheerful, frothy and it’s a change to see love’s dilemmas from the male point of view…Mr Titchmarsh has matured as a writer…and he’s great to take to the beach’

Daily Express

Dedication

For
Caroline and Neil

Acknowledgements

I’m enormously grateful to Dr Mike Hayward who advised on matters medical, often at inconvenient times of the day and night, though being a GP he is probably used to this. Any misinterpretations of his advice are my own fault. Thanks also to Wing Commander Neil Mitchell MBE and the staff at RAF Benson who showed me how to fly a helicopter and survive. To my editors Suzanne Baboneau and Rochelle Venables I am, as ever, hugely indebted, and a large helping of gratitude goes to my long-suffering family, my PA Caroline Mitchell and my literary agent Luigi Bonomi. They are, to a man–and woman–unfailingly patient and encouraging in equal measure; two commodities without which any writer is lost.

Epigraph

The best doctors are Dr Diet,
Dr Quiet, and Dr Merryman.

16th-century proverb

Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 1

Years ago we discovered the exact point, the dead centre of middle age. It comes when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net.

Nods and Becks, Franklin P. Adams, 1881–1960

There were just the three of them to start with–Tiger Wilson, Dr Christopher Devon and Gary Flynn–and they met on Friday nights in the Hare and Hounds. Well, not every Friday night, because sometimes Tiger’s wife wanted to be taken out to dinner, and sometimes Christopher Devon was on call, and sometimes Gary Flynn had a better offer. But not very often. Which is why, at least three weeks out of four, they played dominoes in the Hare and Hounds on a Friday night.

They would like to have played squash. It would have been better for their self-esteem. But Tiger’s right knee had gone, Christopher’s balance was sometimes a bit suspect and Gary maintained he was averse to anything physical unless it involved being horizontal.

They never really meant to play dominoes. Dominoes was a game for old men. And they were not old. They were in their fifties. The prime of life. At their peak. Established in their professions. Until recently at any rate.

They met…well, they dispute this. Tiger thinks it was at a drinks party, Christopher says they were his patients long before that and Gary claims to have no recollection at all, which most likely pins it down to the drinks party.

The fact that these disparate souls get on with one another at all is pretty remarkable, but they do have one thing in common. Their age. And like most men in their fifties they are at a crossroads. It’s not that they have underachieved. Far from it. They have accomplished what they set out to do. Reached the top of the tree. Well, the higher branches anyway.

Sorted eh? At fifty. In their prime. With just one niggling little question. Is that it?

Not that in the early days of the domino club this had ever been alluded to in so many words. It was more of an undercurrent. A frustration that occasionally erupted thanks to a newspaper article that highlighted the folly of government, or some local injustice that should have been sorted out. The kind of thing that causes most of the population to say, ‘They should do something about it.’

Then one day Dr Christopher Devon said, ‘We should do something about it.’

‘What sort of something?’ asked Gary.

And Tiger said, ‘We should form a sort of secret society.’

Chapter 2

And moreover my mother taught me as a boy (repeatingly), ‘Ever to confess you’re bored means you have no Inner Resources.’

77 Dream Songs, John Berryman, 1914–72

He had been called ‘Tiger’ from the very beginning. ‘Andrew’, bestowed at the font, had never been used by anyone except his mother in moments of impatience. She had died when he was fifteen and from then on to his father he was always ‘Tiger’. He had gone off the rails a bit after her death. Nothing disastrous, but one or two run-ins with the law for drinking more than he should on a Saturday night, and the occasional AWOL to which his father had turned a blind eye.

But when he left school and refused any form of higher education the paternal foot had been put down. Old man Wilson knew that if he didn’t enforce discipline now then heaven knows what would befall his son.

He pushed Tiger in the direction of the only career he had ever known himself–the RAF. At first Tiger had rebelled. The services with their structured lifestyle were the last thing he wanted. He sought freedom; an escape from the routine of most men’s daily lives. But then he discovered flying. The feeling of liberation, at that moment when he penetrated the cloud layer for the first time in an aircraft under his own control, would never leave him. It was the ultimate independence.

He came home with a light in his eyes and told his father of the moment when he knew that a life in the air was for him.

His father smiled knowingly and reached down a book from the shelf beside his chair. Purposefully he thumbed through the pages until he found what he wanted, then handed the book to his son, pointing at the verse on the left-hand page.

Tiger read it slowly:

‘Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds–and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of; wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air;

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,

Where never lark nor even eagle flew;

And while, with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.’

Tiger closed the book, looked up and met his father’s eye. ‘Thank you.’

His father shrugged. ‘I’m glad you found it. Found yourself.’

Tiger never received the acclaim his father enjoyed–high ranking and decorated for his wartime exploits–but he was a respected helicopter pilot and left the service with the rank of Squadron Leader.

Not that he wanted to leave. But the RAF ground their pilots at fifty, and rather than take up a desk job, Tiger had settled for a pension and the chance of staying in the pilot’s seat. He now flew for a civilian helicopter company–executives to and from Battersea Heliport, well-to-do passengers to Ascot and Goodwood, bits of filming for TV companies, that sort of thing. It wasn’t combat flying, but then the combat part of the job had not been the attraction. He was up in the air, in his own craft; he ‘danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings’, and that was what mattered.

Wing-Commander Wilson died the year after his son married, so he never saw his grandchildren. While Tiger’s nickname had been bestowed as a mark of his father’s fondness for the Tiger Moth, Tiger’s own children’s names–Aisling and Kirsty–were the product of his wife Erica’s Scottish and Irish parentage.

So here he was. Sitting pretty with two pretty daughters away at uni. Still married, still flying helicopters and quite comfortably off. And yet he knew that his best days were behind him. The days of high achievement. The days of excitement and hunger. A time when everything seemed to be in front of him; his children young, his wife laughing and carefree. Now that they were all older a different mood prevailed. Not unhappiness, not even discontent. Just some general all-enveloping cloud of acceptance.

Maybe this was how it was supposed to be. Maybe you just had to get used to a gradual winding down. It was a thought that left him sometimes frightened and more often dispirited.

And that’s why he had mentioned the secret society. Though, if he were honest, the moment he had done so he felt a bit of a fool.

‘So what exactly do you mean by a secret society?’ Christopher Devon laid down a three and a two against Tiger’s double three.

‘Sounds like the Masons to me,’ Gary Flynn muttered into his pint.

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Tiger, opening a packet of peanuts.

‘Well what then?’

‘I don’t really know. It’s just that it might be a bit of fun to try and make a difference, have a bit of excitement, instead of just whinging about things the whole time and feeling powerless to do anything about them.’

Christopher looked at him sideways. ‘You sound like Robin Hood.’

Gary leaned back in his chair and shrugged. ‘Why don’t you join the Rotary Club?’

‘Because I’m happy to play doms with you two but I’m buggered if I want to be surrounded by any more old men.’ He picked up a handful of peanuts and tipped them into his mouth.

‘Well thank you very much,’ said Christopher. ‘Are you knocking?’

Gary said, ‘Not just yet, thank you,’ and put down the five and two.

‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ said Tiger, through a mouthful of peanuts.

‘I thought you’d get enough excitement flying helicopters,’ Christopher said.

‘But that’s just what I do. I mean…I want…something more out of life.’

Gary folded his arms. ‘All right then. We form a secret society. To do what exactly?’

Tiger frowned. ‘I haven’t quite worked that out yet.’

‘I see,’ said Christopher. ‘We meet in secret and do secret things that we haven’t quite worked out yet.’

‘At least the Masons know what they’re doing,’ added Gary. ‘Are you going or what?’

‘Look,’ said Tiger impatiently, ‘is it just me or is this a funny time of life?’

Christopher took a deep breath. ‘I can tell you that medically it’s not funny at all. It’s very critical. When a man hits his fifties all kinds of things start to happen. His sperm count goes down…’

‘Oh, shit!’ muttered Gary.

‘His libido slackens…’

‘Double shit!’

‘And all kinds of things start to malfunction or drop off.’

‘Not much to look forward to then?’ said Tiger.

‘Depends how you look at it,’ replied Christopher. ‘Nature can be quite kind really. You see all those chemical processes that happen in the body have side effects. They release other chemicals to the brain that cause us not to mind. We no longer feel a need to bonk ourselves senseless every night…’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Gary.

‘Most of us, at any rate.’

Tiger asked, ‘But surely we’re in our prime now. All those years of experience; there must be some advantage to that?’ There was a genuine note of concern in his voice. ‘Other bits of us might be falling off but our minds are sharp as a razor, aren’t they?’ He tipped the rest of the peanuts into his hand and popped them into his mouth a few at a time.

‘In some ways, yes. Our reactions are slower and our reflexes not quite what they were but our powers of reasoning are, in many cases, more well developed.’

‘There you are then.’

‘There I am what?’ asked Christopher.

‘Three men at the peak of their mental powers and all sidelined by society in favour of younger models.’

‘Hey, watch who you’re calling sidelined,’ said Gary. ‘You two might consider yourselves past it but as far as I’m concerned I haven’t got there yet.’

‘I hate to disabuse you of that conceit,’ said Christopher, ‘but clinically you are every bit as over the hill as we are.’

Gary raised his voice. ‘Is it something in the beer or are you two on a right downer tonight?’

Christopher shrugged. ‘Just offering you the benefit of my medical advice, that’s all.’

‘Well, if it’s all the same to you I’d like a second opinion,’ said Gary.

‘And I would never stand in your way,’ beamed Christopher before draining his glass.

Tiger laid down the double five and crumpled up the empty packet of nuts.

‘Chips.’

‘Jammy devil,’ said Gary.

‘Another one, gentlemen?’ asked Christopher.

‘Nah,’ said Gary. ‘I think I’ll be off. All this talk about age has worn me out. And I’ve someone to meet tomorrow. Someone younger than I am. Considerably younger, who thinks that I’m pretty hot actually.’

‘Lucky you,’ said Tiger.

‘Yes, I am really, aren’t I?’ Gary grinned. ‘Dinner at that little restaurant down by the river, then, with any luck, back to my place. Or hers. I’m not fussy.’

‘We know that,’ said Christopher under his breath.

‘Beats being married,’ said Gary.

‘How would you know?’ asked Tiger.

‘Yes, how would you know?’ repeated Christopher, getting up from his seat and avoiding Gary’s eye.

‘Oh, sorry. You know what I mean. Sorry…’

Tucked away down the end of a lane in a sleepy and not particularly fashionable Hampshire village is a small but pleasantly proportioned Queen Anne manor house. The River Itchen runs past the end of its walled garden which is peppered with ancient fruit trees that have romantic-sounding names like ‘Devonshire Quarrenden’ and ‘Beauty of Bath’, and in early summer the air is filled with the fragrance of old-fashioned roses, clove pinks and lavender. Idyllic. Blissful almost.

Christopher Devon was left the house by a wealthy aunt twenty years ago. She knew he was the only one in her family who would appreciate the garden and the fact that it needed new life breathed into it, rather than being allowed to stagnate. He was a doctor. He understood about life. About renewal. And he was a gardener. He enjoyed the respite that tending plants gave him in between tending patients.

Daunted at first, Christopher had soon begun to relish the challenge that the garden presented. At weekends he would battle with brambles and briars and barrow in loads of manure from a nearby farm.

For twenty-six years Kate, his wife, was happy to do her bit of battling, too–with patients who made excessive demands, and with two children who had their own needs and necessities. They grew up all too fast, slipping through their father’s fingers like dry sand. At almost twenty-four the girl went to Africa to do voluntary work, and the boy, a year younger, to the States where he landed a job in publishing–quite a good one.

Ellie was her dad’s girl. The one with the social conscience. Money meant nothing to her; as long as she had something to eat and something clean to wear she was happy. Not for her designer labels and cupboards full of shoes and handbags. A simple soul with a skinny body and long blonde hair, she turned heads in a baggy T-shirt and combats, much to her father’s amusement. Walking down the street with her on his arm he felt a million dollars. Always.

She would argue with him about the rights and wrongs of private health care and worry about the state of the rain-forest. She would ask why people needed so many cars. She could have been a real pain, but her saving grace was a sense of humour that allowed her to take a joke against herself, and also to take the mickey out of her dad when he got too ‘doctory’ or when he made pronouncements that she thought were unjust, or plain pompous. She pricked his bubble like nobody else.

Matt was a different kettle of fish. Shy and diffident as a child, he had grown into a confident youth; confident, that is, in everything except his sexuality. Discovering your son is gay is never an easy thing for a father. Christopher suspected before Matt did himself. He could see the outer signs of inner turmoil and did his best to handle them. He tried to hide his disappointment and asked himself why he should be disappointed. Matt was creative, energetic, thoughtful and sensitive. Would being heterosexual have made him a better person?

Kate had been good about it and seemed to find it easier to cope. Christopher had fought to keep the dialogue going, but there was always a slight unease between father and son and he felt it was his fault. Perhaps he should have offered more help–not that Matt ever asked for it. But they rubbed along and kept talking. Eventually it became an accepted part of their lives–Christopher was Christopher and Matt was Matt, and their respect for one another survived.

He missed both his children when they left. He missed the teasing he endured at their hands, and he missed their nearness. Always the first to rise in the mornings, he would walk into their rooms and open the curtains, then turn and see the empty beds, always with a stab of wistfulness.

The marriage to Kate had outlasted those of most of his friends–except Tiger. It had its quiet moments after twenty-odd years, and there were days when it seemed routine, but the fact that underneath it all they actually liked one another made up for the dissipation of that first flush of magical attraction. Didn’t it?

With her children off her hands and a husband who seemed to be married in turns to his surgery and his garden, Kate walked out.

It came like a bolt from the blue. Christopher had no inkling at all of her unhappiness, and for that he blamed himself. She was sorry, she said. She was still fond of him, still cared, but wanted more out of life than he seemed able or willing to give. And she wanted it while there was still time.

He did his best to persuade her to stay. Offered to change. To spend more time with her. Asked what he could do to make amends. But to no avail. He even suggested she stay for the sake of the children. But he was too late on that count. They had flown and now so had Kate. It never occurred to him that she might have found someone else.

There was no denying that her leaving affected his work. It was not that he became unreliable, just more irritable. Less tolerant of those underneath him when they mislaid a prescription or muddled up an appointment. From being courteous and unflappable he had become irascible and tetchy; quick to snap and dismissive of patients he considered were wasting his time.

Those around him tried to make allowances, convinced themselves that it was a temporary blip and that soon he would be back to normal. But Randall Cummings, the senior partner in the practice, felt obliged to have a word with him. Things seemed to be improving, until one day, out of nowhere, Cummings said that it would probably be best for everybody if Christopher left the practice. Made a new start. Turned over a new leaf.

Others in the practice were surprised not only at the senior partner’s precipitate action, but also at Christopher’s tacit acceptance of the decision. The irritability had gone now, to be replaced with a distancing, almost a withdrawal. There was no farewell party. He just slipped quietly away. Preoccupied. Troubled.

Having devoted himself to medicine for the better part of his life he began to wonder if it had all been worthwhile. What difference had he made? Where was that missionary zeal now? That raw energy that drove him on in his early days as a GP; the days when he felt on top of the job despite the tiredness, the travelling and the endless ministering to the sick. Now he just seemed to be drowning in a sea of forms and regulations. That and loneliness. Not the sort of thing you want to admit to anybody. Loneliness–the unmentionable disease. He tried not to wallow in it. But it had grown ever more enveloping since Kate’s departure.

He could feel no bitterness towards her. Just profound sadness at his own myopic self-absorption which had forced her to leave–the long hours, the putting of patients’ interests first, the weekends on call, the Christmas dinners interrupted. It had been all his fault. It must have been. What other reason could she have had? Kate seemed apologetic when she left. Apologetic but determined. And she had not kept in touch; that surprised him, and then he began to wonder if she had someone else to care about. Someone of whom her children would not approve.

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