The Child Garden (10 page)

Even Miss Drumm would get misty-eyed then, smelling the spruce resin and wood smoke. Then she'd sniff harder and turn her blank, accusing eyes on the nearest nurse.

“Cherry!” she'd said. “Cherry wood. Did you buy that in or has another venerable old tree been left to die of neglect in the orchard? My great-grandmother planted those trees and generations of Drumms were taught their table manners with stones from those fruit.”

“The orchard is fine, Miss Drumm,” said Donna. She winked at me, which I always wish people wouldn't do. “The birds get as many as anyone these days, for there's few wants to be climbing ladders for fruit now we've got Tesco.”

Miss Drumm sighed and slumped down in her wheelchair. “Lot of ninnies,” she said. “If the Germans decided to make it a hat trick, we'd be done for.”

“Miss Drumm, what has your cherry orchard got to do with a World War?” I asked. “With either of them!”

She sat up again. “Half of Corsock never tasted a bit of fresh fruit from '39 to '45 unless it came from our walled garden,” she said stoutly. “Cherries, pears, plums, apples. Peaches from the glasshouse. And we made War Jam. I don't mean Victory Jam, Gloria. I mean
War
Jam. Left all the stones in, didn't use any sugar, and sent it to Hitler.” She had tired herself out by this time and shook her head, laughing at herself. “I don't suppose the cook actually sent it to Hitler, but it was the best use of diseased fruit I can think of—letting two little girls believe they were going to choke the man who was shooting at their daddy.”

Stig was staring at me.

“Have you ever been tested for narcolepsy, Glo?” he said. “Because you don't half drift off a lot.”

“I wasn't asleep,” I said. But his words had stung me. Too many people had said similar things.
Earth to Gloria!
Anybody home
? And my mother chipping in with
Maybe you need some iron pills, Gloria. Or a plate of liver
.

“I do … zone out,” I said to Stig. “I think it comes from spending so much time with Nicky. You know? I don't really want to dwell on what's actually happening so I just”—I twirled my hands in the air, higher and higher—“go somewhere nicer.”

“So you usually spend more time with Nicky? You're short-changing him because of me?”

I knew that my face was blank and my eyes wide. I pride myself on honesty, but he had caught me out in a bare-faced lie.

“Glo?” he said. “I didn't mean to upset you.”

“It used to be true,” I said. “I used to spend hours there every day. After tea till bedtime every work day and all day every day that I was free. I'd take sandwiches and just … But lately … So I suppose it wasn't fair of me to use him as an excuse. The truth is I spend too much time on my own.” I plumped down into one of the chairs. They were still drawn up beside the Rayburn, and Stig had added a little side table between them.

“You're awful hard on yourself,” he said, joining me.

“What were you saying? Something about the morning after Moped died?”

“We were milling about,” he began again. “Frozen and damp. Hungry. And then my mum and dad turned up and Angie had brought Rise & Shine. Remember that stuff ? Powdered orange juice? And Pop-Tarts. Twelve frightened kids looking for comfort and my mother brings foil packets. That's her all over. I left with Nod and Ned because my parents wanted me out of the way while they dealt with the shitstorm, I suppose, and we stopped off at Littlewoods in Dumfries for their Five-Star breakfast—eggs, sausage, bacon, beans, hash browns, fried bread, mushrooms, grilled toms, and tea with three sugars. I decided to be a chef that day.”

“That wasn't the Five-Star,” I said. “That was the Big-8.”

“Get out of town!” he said. “Another fan of the Littlewoods breakfast buffet?” Stig shouted with laughter. The happiest noise he had made in the two days he had been there.

It was a shame to take it away again.

“I can't believe you ate more sausages after the night on the toilet,” I said. And it really did give me a twinge to see his face fall and his eyes grow dull again.

“Twelve-year-old boys, Glo,” he said. And then my face must have fallen too.

Fifteen

My work computer was
singing to me from across the valley. In it I would find the addresses of any of the Eden kids who'd married, had children, or (God forbid) died in Scotland. There would be far too many John Jamesons and even more Alan Bests, but the Scarlets—McFarlane and McInnes—with a rough year of birth too? That was a possibility. And those Irving girls—Cloud, Rain, and Sunshine—
must
be waiting in there to be found. Unless they had changed their names when they reached eighteen, like Zowie Bowie, poor lamb.

I remembered Duggie and me poring over the baby books when Nicky was born. I liked Robert and Thomas; Duggie liked Gareth and Ben.

“Oh not Ben,” I had said. “Every Tom, Dick, and Harry's called Ben.” He hadn't laughed. He didn't even realise I was joking. But
Nicholas Morrison
rolled off the tongue and we agreed.

“Nicholas Morrison breaking away for Scotland!” Duggie shouted, in his commentator's voice, holding the swaddled baby like a rugby ball, ducking and feinting along the length of the living room as if the furniture was defenders. I tried not to wince, just bit my lip down on all my cries (“Be careful!”), laughed, and clapped at Funny Daddy having a joke with his boy. But my heart didn't slow down until Nicky had decided he didn't like being a rugby ball, started crying, and was handed back to me.

But I couldn't go into work and fire up the computer on a day when our little office was closed. There was probably a way for someone at Central to tell that the machine had been on and besides the electronic record there was the whole of Main Street, Dalry, behind their curtains, watching. So, frustrating as it might be, I would have to wait until tomorrow. Do it the old-fashioned way today.

Alan Best came from Castle Douglas, and his parents probably still lived there. They were the generation to keep their landline and never take their names out of the book.

“But give me something to do before you go,” Stig said. “How can you live with that Internet connection? It's like the fifteenth century.”

“Have a bath,” I told him. “And try
About a Boy
.” How could anyone be bored in this house of books? “I'm going to bring some clothes back with me, so you could put those in the wash if you like.”

“Bring some food,” said Stig. “Get me something fiddly to cook. I'll make you a raised game pie if you've got time for a stop at the butchers.”

“I don't.”

“Eggs, butter, flour, and sugar then and I'll get baking,” he said. “Icing sugar too. Have you got a piping bag?”

“Last thing you need if you're taking no exercise,” I said. It was just a throwaway line, but I saw him suck his stomach in and could have kicked myself.

“Gloria,” he said, “you read. Some people walk their dogs or grow leeks the size of telegraph poles. I cook. Please, bring me something to bloody cook!”

So I promised. And on the way to town again I made a mental list: chocolate, lemon, coconut, vanilla. Because if he really was going to bake, he might as well bake my favourite things. Then I put it out of my head, refused to think of him stuck there going crazy, with his scalp flaking, and thought instead about the four of them. Mitchell Best. Edmund and Nathan McAllister. April Cowan.

Because April's body had been moved, the police were suspicious. But if April's death was murder, where did that leave the other three? An accident, two suicides, and a murder made no sense at all.

Three suicides? But what would make a twelve-year-old boy take his own life? And anyway, three suicides and then a murder didn't make much more sense, really.

If
April
had been deliberately killed … I stopped, began to bring myself back to plain old reality. Not that Fiscals don't make mistakes, or pathologists, or even police, but not three times. No way.

Castle Douglas isn't a big town, and I found Alan Best's family home without any trouble. It was small, ex-council, mid-terrace and scruffy with it. They hadn't changed the windows when they bought it and now that the council houses all around had had theirs updated, not to mention that the other bought ones had hardwood and conservatories, the Bests' place looked like the only wilted flower in a bunch.

The woman who answered the door was in better shape than the house, but just barely. She looked seventy, with faded fair hair, cut short and let dry without styling, and she wore a crew-necked jersey with ribbed cuffs in that flat blue shade that only flatters if you're peaches and cream. She hadn't chosen it to flatter. If I'd had to guess, I'd say she chose it to punish herself. The ribbing clutched at the wrinkles on her neck and the cuffs clutched at the wrinkles on her wrists. Below it she wore a pair of brown nylon trousers bagged at the knees and down at the hem on one leg. The sort of trousers you'd have to go looking for these days, when it's harder to dress badly than it is to go to Primark and dress like everyone.

“Mrs. Best?” I said. To my surprise, she gave me a faint smile.

“And who are you from?” she said. For a minute it puzzled me, but before I could let the chance be lost by starting to explain, a light came on. It's not the first time it's happened. Something about me, either my face or my hair or my clothes, makes people hold out their hand for a pamphlet, or tell me they're Catholics and slam the door.

“The Church of God,” I said, thinking it was bland enough to be likely. “How are you today?”

“I'm … ”

“You're troubled in your spirits,” I said. It was something Donna at the home had said to me in the early days when I was still expecting Duggie to come round and I hadn't accepted the road that Nicky was on.

“I am,” said Mrs. Best. “I am that.”

“Can I offer you comfort?” I asked her. “I'm just as happy listening as I am talking, if that would help you.”

“I don't suppose you're a mother,” she said.

I beamed at her. “I certainly am,” I told her. “Mother to this little chap.” And I got my wallet out and showed her Nicky's picture.

She gave a very soft cry, more of wonder than pity, and stepped back from the door.

“Come in,” she said. “And let me put the kettle on. Tell me—What will I call you?”

“Nicola,” I said.

“Tell me, Nicola, how do you keep your faith after a thing like that has happened to you?”

Thankfully, she went to the kitchen then and left me behind her. A thing like that! If she had said
after a thing like that has happened to him,
she might have meant the PKAN happening to Nicky. But the only thing that had happened to me was my son. By the time she came back through, I had composed myself and was smiling again.

“Are you warm enough?” she asked.

It was a cheerless little room, no fireplace, which always makes a living room feel like the relatives' lounge in a hospital to me, chairs and coffee tables and those curtains that reach halfway down the wall under the window and just hang there. This place even had the bland factory pictures of a relatives' waiting room too.

“I'm fine,” I said. “Have you had a test of your own faith, Mrs. Best?”

“I've no faith to be tested,” she said. “But you do?”

“I do,” I told her, still smiling. “He's not in any pain, you know. And he is loved. His father and I love him more than we could love any other son or daughter God had sent us.”

“He's your only one?”

“He is. It's genetic, what happened to—” I broke off. If I said
Nicky
I'd look like an egomaniac. “Stephen.” It was the first name that came to my mind. “My husband and I together made him what he is. So yes, he's an only one.”

“There's testing,” said Mrs. Best. “But I suppose if you're … you wouldn't … ”

I had said it once to Duggie, when he was sitting numb with the shock, nursing a vodka so big I'd thought it was lemonade, sitting hunched on the footstool bit of his leather lounger, just staring. “There's testing,” I'd said. “I'm not saying I'm not glad to have Nicky, but it's different going ahead with another one now that we know. But we can have tests. We wouldn't have to carry on.”

He had shuddered. I'll never forget it. He had actually shuddered. Then he'd taken a slug of the vodka and focussed his bleary eyes on me. “Glad to have Nicky,” he repeated, in a flat voice.

“Of course,” I'd answered. “He's our son.”

“The Church of God teaches that life is sacred,” I said now to Mrs. Best. “All lives. Your life. You are as precious to God as his own son.”

The kettle through in the kitchen clicked off.

“He's got a bloody funny way of showing it,” said Mrs. Best, ignoring the click. “I had two boys.” She nodded towards the mantelpiece where there was a school portrait of both of them. Alan Best, just as I remembered him, in a lurid shirt like they used to wear on school picture day, his hair slicked down at the front but still wild over his ears from running around the playground with Stig and the others. In front of him, as if his big brother was protecting him, there was Mitchell. The same fair fluffy hair as his brother and mum, a shirt just as snazzy in a different shade of pink, and a missing front tooth not taking an ounce of brilliance out of his smile.

“Beautiful boys,” I said.

“That was about three years before Mitch died,” she said. I wanted to stop this charade. Wanted to come clean to her, talk honestly. Never mind God and faith and the perfect love of my perfect husband that had only been strengthened by what was sent to us. I wanted to talk to her for real, mother to mother. Then I thought of April Cowan's mother and Mrs. McAllister, who'd lost both her sons in a year.

“Was Mitch your husband?” I asked, and I managed to look properly shocked when she put me straight. “Twelve years old,” I echoed. “I am so very sorry.”

“How could I worship the god that did that to me?”

“No one could fault you for doubting,” I said, hating myself for the sound of it. “His brother must have been deeply hurt too. You can tell from this picture how close they were.”

Mrs. Best just nodded, with her eyes filling and said nothing.

“He must be a comfort to you,” I said.

Her head had sunk onto her chest, but it snapped back up again now. “Get out,” she said.

“I'm sorry,” I stammered. “I didn't mean to be unthinking.”

“Just get out. You know nothing and you understand even less.” She stood up and stalked to the front door, wrenching it open and waiting until I scuttled past her. I half-expected her to take a swipe at me. On the doorstep, I stood, heart walloping, mind racing, and I could hear the first wretched sobs being torn out of her behind the door.

I took a quick look to either side. The house to the left was neat, smart, and empty. The one to the right had Little Tykes bikes on the path and an elderly car with its hatchback open on the driveway.

I hopped over the wire fence and rang the bell.

“Just a minute!” a voice called, and I heard an enormous bunch of keys being applied to the lock before the door swung open to show a young woman—somewhere in her twenties—in the dark blue trousers and tunic of a dental nurse or a physio. She had a toddler on her hip and a phone in her hand.

“What?” she said. “Who—” Then she looked over my shoulder at the car. “Oh God almighty, I thought I was doing well remembering to unload the shopping. Thanks for letting me know.” She walked past me to the car, talking into the phone. “I've left my boot hinging open again, Mel! Some wifie's come and told me. I know! I
know
!”

“Actually,” I said, “that's not—”

“What?” she said again. “Mel, I'll get back to you.” She hung up and waited, still smiling.

“I um—I'm from the Church of God,” I said, and the smile was gone like fan snapped shut at a ball.

“Not. Interested.”

“Fine, fine, but I was just talking to your neighbour and I've upset her. I wonder if you would stop in later and see if she's okay.”

“Aren't you god squad lot meant to help people?” she said. Then she shifted the toddler to her other side and looked more closely at me. “Wait a minute. I
know
you.”

“She was talking about her sons,” I said. “And she's in great distress.”

“
She's
in great distress?” said the girl. Her tone had got so rough that the baby was starting to look troubled, gazing up at her mother with solemn eyes.

“I know one of them died,” I said.

“And the other one should of. Only death's too good for him. Here, he's not back, is he? Because if he is and my Scott catches so much as a glimpse of him, there'll be hell.”

“He's not back,” I said.

“Is he with you lot?” she asked me, taking a step forward. “You're all about forgiveness, aren't you?”

“We are,” I said. “But I have no idea where he is. Do you?”

“I haven't heard a thing about him since he went to Barrwherry,” said the girl. “Years ago. Must be ten years. And I'm happy for it to stay that way.” She had gentled a little. “Look, I'm sorry for Jill Best. But you've got to ask yourself, I mean, she brought them up, didn't she?”

“Maybe you could look in later,” I said again, “and make my apologies. Here.” I scrabbled in my purse and pulled out a ten-pound note. “If you're back in town you could maybe get some flowers or chocolates for her. You don't need to say they're from me.”

Now she was almost smiling gain.

“You lot are usually taking money in, not giving it out,” she said and gave me another hard look. “I
do
know you, don't I? You used to live in CD. Years ago. But your hair's the same. I didn't know you were one of them.”