Dancing in the Dark (18 page)

He picks up Theo's book again. Behind the words, at the back of his mind, Griselda – Charlotte? – begins to take shape and form as he turns the pages. An account of sixteenth-century gardens carved out of the forest of Tetzcotzinco. Medicinal gardens full of aromatic herbs. Blossoms raining fragrance from high, dark trees. Yes, Charlotte (or Griselda) Fargo (Victoria too hard, Jemima too dimity-sweet) travelling on her own account as well as her husband's, finds him eventually at the very heart of the jungle, and the work he's done without her, fierce and beautiful, a far cry from the stuff he produced in, where? Hampshire, Cornwall, Middlesbrough? Middlesbrough's good, got a rough-hewn sound to it. He's living in a tumbledown adobe studio, painting as though there is no time to say what he has to, canvas after canvas, meticulous facades starting up out of the undergrowth, temple ruins overgrown with creeper, antique faces inscrutable in sunlight, the luxuriant overwhelming undergrowth. She begins to see why he went, how marriage had brought him down, confined him, and yet he needs her. Has her own vision, a new garden springing, sprouting here in these rich forests.

It's emerging, it's coming, Aphrodite arising from the foam, Mrs Fargo spinning out of the brain-seethe, the mind-churn. Using Charlotte/Griselda as the mediator would remove some of the Gauguinerie of the thing.
Nafea Faa ipoipo,
Mexico not the same as Tahiti, but still a platitude-magnet, if care isn't taken. It'll have to be looked into, have to be sought out, digested, in order to do it all justice. Him and Theo, following in Griselda's footsteps, great white hunters, questing beasts, searching for the beating heart torn dripping from the body, searching for the crock of gold.

Or of shit.

Griselda is a good name, but not good enough. Especially given the way she is pushing so breathlessly through the pages, stepping from obscurity, discarding her minor-character status, shouldering her way forward to the very centre stage of his mind. Charlotte wasn't right, either, not any more. What's in a name? A lot, since you ask. Just about everything. Fred Austerlitz and Ginger Rogers? Frances Gumm singing
Somewhere over the Rainbow
? I don't think so.

Joanna? Not bad. Julia? Always a problem, his phonaesthetic preference for names beginning with J, six or seven of them in the first draft of his third novel. Barbara? Not bad. Soft but determined. Go with that for the moment, see where it leads.

Cheep, cheep of the telephone again. And it's her! It's Theodora!

‘Are you still going?' No introduction, no explanation.

He not sure what she means, needing it spelled out. ‘Where to?'

‘Corfu.'

‘Ah, yes.'

‘Or have you changed your mind?'

There's something wild and unsustained about her voice, a woman with something on her mind that has nothing to do with holidays. ‘No, it's all set, I'm planning to fly over any moment now.'

‘I see . . .' Pause. Expectancy clotting the lines, both of them holding their eggshell breaths.

‘Are you . . .' Croak in his throat, a clearing of the passageways. ‘Are you coming with me?' He remembers his strictures about distraction, then thinks of her loosened by sunshine, running out of the sea, standing under a shower, lying on linen sheets beneath him. Would she, would he? Get thee behind me, he must not rush this, mustn't even consider the possibility, different beds, expect nothing.

‘Yes. I'd like to. If you don't mind.'

‘I don't mind. And let me tell you it's a palace. Swimming pool, little beach below, a boat, enough bathrooms for a harem.' Careless now, as though it doesn't matter. ‘Bedrooms galore.'

Expulsion of the breath. She's been waiting for the bedroom quotient. ‘It sounds great.'

‘Belongs to a friend from my university days,' he says. ‘He's lending it to us for auld lang syne.'

‘Us?'

‘Me.' Sweating, he adds, ‘I'm so glad you've changed your mind.'

‘About what?' Sharply spoken, conceding nothing.

‘About coming with me.' Mistake, mistake, he's overdone the warmth, she's taken fright. In a rush, she's saying, ‘Only for ten days, a couple of weeks. We go halves on everything. We have separate bedrooms. Do our own thing. No feeling that we have to do everything together, we're not a couple, OK?'

‘If that's how you want it.' Grace, he thinks suddenly. That's the name I'm looking for. Amazing Grace Fargo.

‘I do.'

Times, dates, basic travel arrangements sorted out. He'll get the tickets, she'll pay him back. He puts down the phone. An irrevocable step taken, he is sure of it, though he can't imagine why.

‘I
'm taking a holiday next week, for ten days or so,' I tell Marnie. This is the first vacation I've taken in the more than three years that she's worked for me.

Her shapely eyebrows rise. ‘Oh?'

‘A chance came up,' I gabble. ‘A friend's house, stupid to miss the opportunity, always wanted to . . .'

She holds up a hand to stop the flow. ‘You don't have to explain,' she says. ‘You're allowed. Do you good, I should think. You've been looking like death warmed up for weeks now. I don't know what's eating you, but something is and it's been worrying me.' She gives me a sideways glance. ‘Where are you going?'

‘Corfu.'

‘With someone?'

‘Yes.'

‘Anyone I know?'

‘I doubt it,' I say coolly.

‘I see.' She adopts the kind of maddening I-Can-Put-Two-and-Two-Together smirk which gets right up my nose. ‘You can rely on me and Trina to keep things going.'

‘Well, no, I can't. Unfortunately I . . . uh . . . Trina and I had a bit of a falling out.'

Up go the eyebrows again. ‘Oh?' She's already blaming me. And she's right.

I swallow. Accept Responsibility for Your Actions. ‘It was entirely my fault. Long and the short is, I told her not to come back.'

‘You flipping idiot.'

‘I know.'

‘What did you quarrel about?'

‘It sort of started with her hair.'

‘What's wrong with her hair?'

‘It's blue, Marnie, in case you hadn't noticed. I can't have her looking like that when customers come.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because it's not suitable.'

‘Don't be such an old stick-in-the-mud, Theo. That woman on the gardening programme's always flashing her tits about, and nobody seems to object. Especially not my husband.'

‘What do you think of her?'

‘The tit-flasher?'

‘Trina, Marnie.'

‘Very bright. Very efficient.' Marnie purses her lips. ‘Remember I was talking about finding a like-minded person to help you expand the business?'

‘Yes . . .'

‘You could do worse.'

‘A seventeen-year-old?' The idea is comic.

‘Why not? Being young's an advantage, if you think about it. You could train her up. And she's really keen, really imaginative, works hard.'

‘That's crazy,' I say.

She spreads her pretty hands, an action which makes me realize how unkempt my own are. ‘I don't mean you should hand over the business to her, nothing like that. But you could think about taking her on full time, with a view to giving her a much bigger role. Share some of the work.'

‘Thanks for the advice,' I say dryly.

‘Just as a matter of interest, apart from the hair, what else did you and Trina quarrel about?'

‘Oh, Lord . . . well, if you really want to know, it was over that broken mug.'

‘The one I dropped? Which I forgot to tell you about?' The look she gives me makes me feel two inches high. ‘You
didn't
, Theo! You didn't accuse her of breaking it, did you? Tell me you didn't.'

‘What can I say . . .'

‘You could say you're a prize idiot. You could ask yourself whether a mug is worth making a fuss over. You could join a relaxation class or take up yoga – or you could spend this holiday in Corfu, with someone I don't know, sorting yourself out. And before you go, you could try to get Trina back. She loves it here and she does a terrific job.'

‘Right on all counts.'

‘And though it's got nothing to do with anything, she gets on really well with Harry.'

‘Well, in
that
case . . .' I say.

We spend an hour sorting out my diary, stuff which can be put on the back burner, clients who need to be warned that I shall be away. Marnie and I run a tight ship, so the process is not too onerous, and in any case, I have a week to cope with the absolutely must-do things. As I work, the thought of being back on Corfu with Fergus floats like a calm sea at the back of my head. If I can hang on for seven more days without a major catastrophe, I'll be there, walking between olive trees, enchanted by wild lavender and sage, and maybe I'll recover some of my lost equilibrium. He'll be there, too. I shall have to think how to handle that. Not that I think that a holiday is a remedy for anything, far from it. Time off is like Valium: it may hide the symptoms, but it doesn't effect a cure.

A couple of days later, I drive over to where Trina lives. Her home is a terraced two-up, two-down place in a quiet backstreet. Motorbikes are parked halfway up the pavement. There's an Indian takeaway on one corner, a newsagent on the other, a Catholic church halfway up the street. The image returns of that silent watching figure standing against railings. Why did I find him so menacing, why has his image stayed with me?

I knock at the red front door and wait.

‘Mr Hawkins?' I ask, when the door is opened.

The man in front of me is short, with a glint of bristle on his chin that implies he is normally clean shaven. ‘That's right.'

‘Trina's father?'

‘Yes.' I can see a look of her about him, especially in the bright eyes and small face.

‘Is she home?'

‘Got herself a proper job, hasn't she? Junior down the hairdressers.' He frowns at me. ‘Don't I know you?'

I can see along the passageway behind him to a sunlit rectangle, the doorway leading out into the backyard. There's an impression of roses, pink and crimson, of dahlias, of green leaves in the sun. ‘Trina was doing work experience with me.'

His frown vanishes. ‘That's right. She enjoyed that. You're the lady off the telly. Trina's always talking about you. Come in.'

I gesture at the open back door behind him. ‘Are you a gardener?'

‘Not me, luv. Leave all that to Treen.'

‘Might I have a look?'

‘'Course you can.'

I follow him down the passage to the garden at the back. The house smells comfortably of fried bacon and old cigarette smoke. ‘It's not much,' he says over his shoulder. ‘Not to the likes of you.'

What kind of like am I? I wish he'd tell me because over the past few weeks, I have completely lost touch with myself.

We pass through a kitchen with the remains of breakfast on it, plus a cigarette lying half in and half out of an ashtray, a line of blue smoke climbing upwards to the ceiling. As we pass, he picks it up, draws deeply on it, lays it down again.

We walk into what had once been a typical backyard. But instead of dustbins, concrete, old bikes, an outside WC, it's a bower of green, a riot of colour. It's flagged and bricked, turned into a secret garden among these little back-to-back terraces. Shrubs all round hide two brick walls and a fence, rose trees are trained against trellises, there are seats here and there, fitted into the tiny space, made of old brick with weathered planks set on them. Behind a beech hedge with a clematis trained over it is a small shed, smothered in roses. Water trickles into a stone basin. A big fig tree casts wayward shadows over all. Shallow brick steps lead to a second level of flower-crammed flowerbeds.

‘She can't have done all this by herself.' I turn, to absorb it all.

‘Gave her a bit of a hand with shifting stuff about,' he says diffidently. ‘But yeah, most of it's down to her.'

‘It's breathtaking.' I can see another book in the offing:
Backyards and Other Fantasies
, something like that, with Trina's name prominent on the cover. ‘Anyone would think we were in the Mediterranean.' From here, the street noise is almost inaudible.

‘Too small to do much with, see, that's what she said.' He gestures round his domain. ‘She said no point trying to grass it, so we bricked it over, built the beds all round.'

He offers me a cup of tea and I accept. We sit companionably on the slatted seats. Sparrows chirp in the hedges. The fountain splashes. A cloud of midges is dancing madly among the fig leaves.

‘Trina says her mother wants her to go into hairdressing permanently,' I say.

He shrugs. ‘A steady job, money coming in. Might end up with her own place, salon they call it, one of these days, she's certainly got the drive.'

‘Nothing wrong with that at all. But it wouldn't be using even half of her capabilities. She's extremely intelligent, and very efficient. She should be going to college.' I gesture at the leafy space around us. ‘And she's obviously got a talent.'

‘That's what I think, too, always had a green thumb. But it's her mother . . . you know women . . .' He shrugs, sighs. ‘Can't tell them anything.'

‘Trina should be going to a horticultural school,' I say firmly. ‘She'd have no trouble at all getting taken on afterwards by one of the big growers or designers.'

‘Anybody ends up with my Trina working for them is dead lucky.'

‘You sound very proud of her.'

‘'Course I am. We both are. The apple of her mum's eye, is Trina. And mine. She's always been a good girl. And she's a real hard little worker. Clever, too . . . ten GCSEs? You don't get that every day of the week, do you?'