The Insistent Garden (25 page)

Nancy Pit was striding towards us with an air of unmitigated purpose hanging about her shoulders. Vivian registered her presence with an almost imperceptible hiss that whistled through gritted teeth. She walked faster but Nancy sped up too and I grew anxious, seeing pictures in my head, nails breaking, handbags in mud.

The two women came to a halt at the same moment, a total of four feet settling into the same piece of pavement.

“Nancy,” said Vivian, cold as a slab.

Nancy Pit attempted a smile. “Vivian. I was coming to see you.”

“I'm in a hurry,” retorted my aunt, her nostrils suddenly conspicuous.

“It won't take long.”

“I'm in a hurry.” Same words, but the ‘h' was heavier, weighed down with spite.

“Do you really want us to have this conversation in front of your niece?” Nancy Pit glanced in my direction.

“Are you threatening me?” said Vivian. Her collar tightened, pushing out a fold of neck that hovered like a blob of custard on the edge of a saucepan. Then something seemed to radiate from my aunt's body, something invisible yet so vile it was palpable. Even as a silent onlooker my heart raced. Nancy Pit stepped aside, into the adjacent paving slab.

“No, Vivian, I'm not threatening you.” She tightened her hold on the strap of her handbag. “I just want to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

Nancy Pit looked at me: I couldn't read her expression, then she turned around and walked back down the road, not slow, not fast.

Normal circumstances might have prompted an explanation. A passing reference to the incident perhaps, a small acknowledgement sent via shrugged shoulders, but Vivian just strode on, pushing a stray hair behind her ear and maintaining her six-foot lead as if nothing had happened.

“Archie?”

“Mmm?”

“Do you know a woman called Nancy Pit?”

He sat back on his heels. We were crouched in his garden pulling toadflax out from his carrot seedlings. “I most certainly do. She's worked at McIntyres' for donkeys' years. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I just wondered.” I swallowed. “Archie?”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever seen
him?
”

The trowel paused. “You mean Edward?”

Edward
. Standing alone, the name verged on friendliness.

“Yes. . . Edward Black.”

He hesitated, firmed his lips then let them go. “Not for a very long time. It must be years since I last saw him. He keeps himself to himself. Probably doesn't care for people anymore.”

“Anymore?”

He laid the trowel on the ground. “Bad things happen, Edith. Your father has hated Edward Black for a long time. If you want to know why, you must ask him.”

I stared at the pile of pulled weeds, already dry on the edges. “Why am I part of this, Archie?”

“You must ask your father,” he repeated, arching his back as he bent to dig the soil.

Ask your father
. Didn't Archie know me at all?

Edward.
Capital
E,
six letters, two syllables. Stripped of his surname, my neighbour seemed younger. Edward without Black seemed less frightening. I even managed to speak his name when I was alone in my room. And speaking his name pulled my lips upwards at the corners. The same muscles that created a smile.

42

Two days after the encounter with Nancy Pit, I heard an unfamiliar sound in the garden. I threw a shirt over the clothesline, leaving it pegless and helpless, and then I followed the sound of laughter that was coming over the low wall. Archie and Dotty were just visible, crouched in the vegetable patch examining a withered lettuce. They looked up together and smiled. I heaved myself up onto the wall and jumped down onto Archie's side. They grinned like a pair of proud parents as I walked towards them. Dotty patted the patch of grass close to her knee and I sat down beside her. “I was hoping to see you,” she said, one eye on the back of my house.

“They're out,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Remember the day we went to the plant fair?” she began. “After you had gone home Archie offered me another cup of tea. I have something for you, but I wasn't sure how to give it to you.”

“What is it?”

“Not it. Them. They're in the shed. Come, I'll show you.”

A group of bags were lined up beneath the window of the garden shed. They had a dejected look, damp where they touched the floor and crumpled at the point where they leaned against the wall.

“What's inside those bags?” I said.

“I'll show you.”

“More perennials,” she said. “But I have a confession to make, the flowers aren't all blue.”

“What colour are they?”

“Orange.”

“Oh. . .”

“And yellow.”

“That'll look nice next to the. . .”

“And red.”

I looked into her face. “Dotty.”

“Yes, darling?”

“Archie says blue is the colour of dreams.”

“I suppose it is.”

“So, what is red the colour of?”

“Passion!” she cried, turning a circle and planting a kiss on my cheek. “You knew I'd say that.”

“Dotty, they're lovely, but how am I going to explain these to my father?”

“Say I gave them to you,” said Archie, appearing in the doorway. “I'll keep them for you until you're ready — Edie, you look tired.”

“Oh, Vivian wants the house to be perfect, all of the time.”

Dotty took my hand. “Edith, would you like to come to my house?”

“To live?”

“Oh, darling, no. I meant for a visit.”

“I'd love that, but I'm not sure it's possible. . . the way things are. . .”

“What about this evening, late?”

I pictured this evening, every evening. “It would have to be very late.”

“Any time. Just come if you can. Twenty-seven Beaverbrook.”

It was eleven o'clock before I heard the snoring: a distinct sound, more exhausted dog than human. Normally it was the sign to get my plant encyclopedia out. That night it was the signal to get dressed and leave the house. It had been a few hours since Dotty had invited me to her house and I was stiff from waiting.

I switched on my bedside lamp. Its paltry twenty-five watts struggled to throw light beyond the end of my bed and it took a while to find my skirt at the back of the wardrobe. Shivering, I pulled a shirt over my head, stifling the urge to stamp my feet as a draught circled my ankles.

The street lamp outside my house had blown its bulb and a swath of extra-velvety darkness hung over the street. I eased open the garden gate, willing it not to squeak, and concentrated on the kerb as I started walking up the hill. I'd only advanced a few steps when I noticed a light in the house next door. I couldn't help but stare at the yellow square that punctured the dark but as I gazed up, another light came on and I stepped back, briefly mesmerized by the curtains that were glowing with borrowed light. Then the silhouette of a person appeared at the window. I stood there, paralyzed by a single thought. The high wall — built with bricks and stones and mortar and aching backs — had been replaced by a veil of cotton. Mere threads stood between us.

I turned up the street and ran.

“Darling! What happened?”

Dotty wore a suit. Half past eleven at night and she still wore a pale green two-piece, buttoned up to her throat. The sight of it relaxed me as she ushered me into her living room and led me to the sofa where she pressed a cushion into the small of my back and sat down beside me.

“I saw him.” I said.

“Who?”

“Edward Black.”

“Where?”

“At the window.”

“What window?”

“His bedroom window.”

Dotty leaned towards me, “Did he see you?”

“I don't think so.”

She flicked a crumb off the front of her jacket. “What did he look like?”

“I don't know. He was behind the curtain.”

“How do you know it was him?”

“I don't.” I paused. “Dotty. . . he didn't stand in the way I thought he would.”

“What do you mean stand?”

“His posture, it wasn't how I'd imagined it.”

She nodded, but said nothing.

“Dotty, why do I never see him in the street?”

“Do you want to see him?”

“No — but I have to be on my guard, my father says.”

“It is odd that you never see him, though.” Dotty had found another crumb, on the corner of her lip. “How old is he?”

I was getting an odd taste in my mouth, metallic. “I think he's my father's age but I don't know how I know that.”

“Does he live alone?”

“I. . . yes.”

“And you've never seen anyone leave the house?”

“Never.”

“Edith, what's the matter?”

“I don't know.”

“We need a drink. I'll be back in a second.”

Left alone on the sofa, I noticed my surroundings for the first time. A lone plate sat on the coffee table and a single pair of tights draped the radiator, yet the room had a comforting, lived-in look to it. Not threadbare and worn like my own home but comfortable in a freshly ironed sheet sort of way. I lay my hand on the imprint Dotty had left on the sofa. Still warm.

“Whiskey alright?” Dotty was back in the room, holding a tray in her hands.

“Alcoholic whiskey?”

She smiled. “I made you a small one.”

I sniffed my glass.

“Would you prefer juice?”

I sniffed again. “No, this is fine.”

Velvet fumes drifted round us as we sipped our drinks. I let my head rest on the back of the sofa; I gazed at the blank television. Two people were reflected in the grey screen, arms, legs and heads symmetrical.

“Do you watch much
TV
?” Dotty asked.

“We don't have a television.”

“What do you do in the evenings?” she asked, looking appalled.