Free The Storyteller's Daughter by Maria Goodin Page B

“He’s a lecturer in physics.”
    The gardener stares at me blankly. “Good for you,” he says, watching me curiously as I stumble around in front of him, kicking my feet in a bid to free myself from the netting which seems to have tied my ankles together.
    â€œYes, it is good for me,” I tell him, “he’s very well-respected physicist.” I grab onto a tree trunk as I nearly topple over. “So I really don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be – ”
    â€œDo you want some help with that?” he interrupts, reaching down to untangle me.
    â€œI’m perfectly alright, thank you,” I say confidently, causing him to back away. Realising that all my jigging about has only served to tighten the netting around my feet, I decide to lean casually against the tree trunk with my arms folded, as if I am completely comfortable standing with my feet tied together and do it all the time.
    â€œAnyway, I have a boyfriend,” I continue as if nothing is amiss, “so I really don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be addressing me as ‘sweetheart’ and commenting on my appearance. Plus, just for the record, nothing about you scares me in the slightest, other than the fact that you burst straight into my kitchen yesterday without having the courtesy to knock.”
    The gardener just stares at me, bemused, as if I’m speaking another language. I try to remember if I inadvertently used any complicated words that he might not have understood. And then, slowly, a look of realisation spreads across his face.
    â€œOh, you didn’t think… I mean, I wasn’t talking to you if that’s what you thought.”
    I look around me, confused, as if there is any chance that somebody else might be hiding in the orchard. And then it dawns on me. I see what he’s doing. He’s embarrassed now because he knows I have a boyfriend, so he’s trying to backtrack on his suggestive and rather sexist comments. He might even be afraid that my boyfriend is a six-foot-three part-time body builder who would flatten him in a fit of jealous rage if he knew that words such as ‘stunner’ has been directed towards me. Admittedly, the only time I have ever seen Mark in a jealous rage was when I beat him at Countdown , and even then it was less of a rage and more of a sulk, but the gardener isn’t to know that.
    â€œOh, okay,” I say, nodding disbelievingly, “you weren’t talking to me. So obviously you were talking to – ” I look about, pretending to be searching for someone, “this caterpillar I suppose?”
    Mark always says that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but to be honest I rather enjoy it. There is quite clearly no-one else here he could possibly have been speaking to, so he’s just going to have to admit that he was trying to chat me up and that he has completely and utterly embarrassed himself. I have never liked the phrase ‘out of your league’ because it sounds rather arrogant, but at the end of the day my boyfriend is a physicist, and he’s… well…. what on earth did he think he was trying to do?
    The gardener shuffles awkwardly, and tries to conceal a smile which I assume must be born out of guilt and embarrassment at his own impropriety.
    â€œNo, I wasn’t talking to the caterpillar,” he concedes, studying the revolting yellow fury creature that is crawling along a nearby branch. “I’d hardly refer to him as a ‘beauty’. Or as ‘shy’, for that matter. I was chatting to him earlier and could barely get a word in. No, I was actually talking to this tree.”
    He pats the trunk of the tree he’s standing next to and I almost laugh at his ridiculous lie. Is that all he could come up with? To say he was staring at his own reflection in a mirror and talking to himself would have been more convincing. But as I roll my eyes in a way