'Possibly, but first of all we need to look at the prospectus to see if it's right for you. They have a selection procedure you would have to go through. We may need to consider other colleges as well. WLTC do run a course approved by the Royal Horticultural Society, that was partly why I mentioned them. You would have to finish your school exams and get good grades to get a place on it though. You're interested in gardening, Mark tells me?'
'Yes. At the hotel I planted out the gardens and some containers for the porch. Andrew, who runs the local garden centre, has taught me loads. He lends me his books, he's got hundreds of them.'
'Have you had practical experience apart from the gardens and containers at the hotel?'
He said he had learned at home from his father, where they had grown vegetables as well as ornamental plants. Our waitress interrupted with three large bowls of mussels in their shells and golden chips on side plates, leaving hardly any space for glasses of water or wine on our compact table. As we began to eat, to impress us he told us the two palm trees in tubs on either side of the restaurant entrance had the botanical name Trachycarpus fortunei, that they were hardy outdoors in sheltered places in England, and that the palm tree whose name he liked even more was Phoenix dactylifera, the date palm, but it could not withstand frost and needed to be grown in a greenhouse. He spoke of work being done at the Buckinghamshire nursery on crossbreeding plants to produce new hybrids with a bigger range of flower colours and to improve disease resistance.
When he and Andrew lapsed into discussions about plants my mind tended to switch to other things, but listening to him in the restaurant articulating multi-syllabic botanical terms he seemed to be really knowledgeable. Lizetta asked him about house plants, which ones would be best in bright positions and which in shade. He thought for a few moments before answering, recommended half a dozen for each situation, and offered to photocopy a list from one of Andrew's books for her. 'Thank you, that would be really useful. Would you like to go into the same line of work as Andrew?'
'Andrew might give me a start, but there are botanical gardens with full-time employees doing scientific work. They may not pay all that well, but if something interests you, that's more important, isn't it?'
All the while the ill-constructed pile of empty mussel shells on his plate was growing and beginning to look as though it might collapse over the table. Lizetta, who had been neatly sliding one empty shell into another as she ate, rescued him by scooping the top of his stack onto her own plate. He looked towards me for reassurance, and as he was a slow eater and might start to worry about falling behind I said, 'You seem to be getting on well with those, Darren. Take your time, we're not in any hurry.'