The Insistent Garden (33 page)

The newspaper was closed, its headlines obscured by folded arms. I pushed the bottle towards him, leaving damp fingerprints on the glass. His fingers looked long as they circled the neck. I could think only of the fly. But he did not throw the bottle. He did not even pick it up. He leaned forward and, with eyes a quarter closed, smelled the rose.

He smelled the rose! I could not believe it. He smelled the rose.

“Wilf!” said Vivian, from the doorway. A petal fell. “What are you doing?”

He snapped upright then Vivian's hands closed round the neck of the bottle and water splashed onto the table.

“What. . . are you going to do with that?” I said.

“Get rid of it.”

“Why?”

“I get hay fever.” She flashed a set of horsey teeth.

I didn't reply. As I lowered my gaze, a rectangle of sunlight fell onto my feet, then a shadow flicked across my toes. I looked up just in time to see my aunt step out into the garden and throw the bottle into the air. Airborne, floating in flying water, the rose sailed over the high wall like a red bird. A crash seared the air.

I looked back at my father. He had a strange look on his face. One that I had never seen before.

My bedroom produced a unique range of sounds. I was used to it: the abrupt crack that came from deep inside the wall or the tap of the radiator as it cooled down late in the evening. But this night was different. As I stared into the dark, the sheet taut between my fingers I became aware of a new noise coming from somewhere outside: not the sniff of hedgehogs rooting around outside the back door, nor the creak of the oak tree rubbing against the high wall, but the sound of a broom, sweeping, sweeping, sweeping, that mixture of petals and glass.

57

I thought my father would enjoy an apple pie. He'd looked pale lately and he wasn't eating much, poking around the edge of his plate, his thoughts elsewhere. Even beef dripping spread on toast — with the lion's share of the jelly scraped out from the bottom of the bowl — failed to bring any enthusiasm back into his fork.

I got up early so I could pick the fruit off the tree in our front garden before they dropped and I made the pastry from scratch, trying not to let the heat from my hands spoil the texture of the dough. I gouged out bruises with the point of a potato peeler, scraped zest from a lemon and felt content as I brushed milk over the crust. I was doing the washing up when my father appeared in the doorway.

“What's that smell? he said.

“I've made a pie.” I peeled off a rubber glove.

“What sort of pie?”

“Apple. From the tree. The first ones are ripe.”

His eyes jerked towards my mouth. “What tree?”

“The. . . one in the front garden.”

He didn't say anything. He just picked up the oven gloves, slowly, as if they might bite, and he didn't seem to feel the pillow of heat that came out of the oven as he opened the door. But I felt it. A hot apple breeze warmed my face as he carried the pie across the room and opened the back door. His eyes caught the light as he turned back towards me. “Don't touch those apples again,” he said.

I waited on that spot in the kitchen for a long time. Yet when I dared to look out of the window, there was no sign of my father, and no sign of the pie I imagined burning his hands.

It was dark when he returned home. He went straight to his room, his jacket still on. I didn't like the way the hanger hung empty in the cupboard for so long so I put my hand in there and slipped a scarf round its neck. Thinking about it, I realized the apple tree in our front garden had always had a strange effect on my father. Whenever April blossom rushed in the front door, he'd take the broom from my hands and sweep the hall floor, muttering words under his breath that I could never quite catch. Then, as fruit dropped onto the front path, he'd be out there, collecting every last one of them before disappearing into a part of the garden that I never could see. This slender tree, which occasionally dipped its branches over the hedge, sampling our neighbour's air, was the only living thing in the whole garden that felt the care of his hands.

“Why did he do it, Archie?”

Archie and I sat at his kitchen table, sorting seeds into piles.

“The apple tree in the front garden was your mother's,” he said.

“Her tree?”

“Your father planted it the year they moved into the house. Spindly little thing, I never thought it would grow — told him as much — but I was wrong.”

“What do you mean, ‘he planted it for her'?”

Archie blinked. “I don't think I follow your question.”

“He planted a tree in the garden because. . .”

“Edie, because he loved her.”

58

Six bags of frozen peas and five bunches of carrots. It was the colours that caught my eye when I looked into the shopping trolley that was holding up the front of the supermarket queue. Green beside orange. I rubbed my eyes then noticed a packet of oatcakes peeping out from beneath the carrots. I liked oatcakes, so did my father. I looked down at
my
shopping basket, full of cheap cheese, and oatcakes and eggs checked for cracks. Then I looked back towards the front of the queue but this time a wide, grey back obscured my view. I gazed vaguely down at the floor. Why was I so tired? My head felt heavy and although the walk to the shop was short, my feet ached. I edged my cart forward but paused when a chipper voice sounded in my ear.

“Hello, Edith.”

Johnny Worth was suitless and capless, almost unrecognizable in crumpled civvies. And he had hair. I saw it for the first time, ginger clumps lined with the imprint of absent spectacles just above his ears.

“Hello,” I replied.

He maneuvered his trolley behind mine. Rims touched.

“I haven't seen you for a while,” he said.

“No.” I re-arranged a bag of sugar.

“Is this where you do your shopping?”

His lips looked redder in supermarket light. “Sometimes.”

He glanced over my head into the middle distance. “Checking on Mr. Black, were you?”

“Pardon?”

“Mr. Black, he was just here, at the till.”

Someone turned the ignition and started an engine, right inside my chest. I whipped my head round and scanned the leisurely queue: a woman studied her shopping list, a man picked his nose. “Where?”

“At the front by the till,” he said. A hint of smugness glanced his lips. “Didn't you see him?”

“Is he still here?” I whispered.

“No, he left.”

I could not identify the feeling in my stomach as I struggled to recall the last few seconds of my life. “I see you bought the pineapples on special offer,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You like orange squash, don't you?”

“Oh yes.”

“Does he often wear that grey shirt, when you see him. . . at his house?”

“Oh, no, not the grey shirt. Not him. He was the bloke at the front of the queue, the skinny shrimp.”

Oatcakes, I thought. A skinny shrimp with oatcakes.

“You still haven't met him, have you?” said Johnny.

“No.” I looked down at my cart. The frozen beans were suddenly fascinating, the way they sagged as they started to melt.

“Probably wouldn't want to,” said the postman.

“No, I probably wouldn't.”

59

Flower dust had settled; the sun had inched further along its arc, and the back quarter of my garden lay in shade. I surveyed this furthermost border proudly. The plant cuttings had embraced the soil like native species and, now swollen with health, they pushed upwards on fat stems. As I scanned the patch for weeds, my eyes came to rest on a swath of deep blue. I moved closer, remembering what I had briefly forgotten. Monkshood grew here. How I adored that name. Such a perfect title for the crowds of inky blue caps suspended on invisible stems. I leaned forward, picked a single flower and held it up to the sky. Blue veins crowded the blue hoods and untidy bristles lined the edges of the petals like hairs stuck to the back of a collar. Then, just as I was testing the flower's transparency against the low light, I heard a throat being cleared. I turned to see my father's face framed against the high wall. My mind raced, vacuum the stairs, done, clean the back windows, done, wash the sheets, all done. I dropped my hand behind my back and stared at the tips of his shoes. Just one word. Just one word of praise for the flowers I had grown in a dark corner would be enough. Surely no living breathing human could be immune to the intricate petals steeped in ink? But as he turned towards the monkshood I saw, not admiration, not pride, but fear. Wild eyes swiveled towards me. “Why are
they
here?” he said.

They?
I scanned the border in a silent panic looking for a sign of wrongdoing; some stray bricks perhaps, a missing bag of mortar. But all I saw were the flowers nodding their little hoods beneath a slip of wind. “Don't. . . you like them?”

My father turned round. Then he began to run. He ran up the garden, crushing the head of a lily that had dared to rest its neck on the path, then disappeared round the side of the house. No time seemed to have passed before he was back in view, striding now, rushing towards me. Something was in his hand. A spade. Colour flapped by his side, yellow work gloves slapping a thigh. I stood stupefied. Not a single explanation came into my head, just a canvas of images, gritted teeth, striding thighs, yellow gloves. Then I focused. Spade.

I stood very still as he dug into the soil and wrenched out the first plant. Separated from the ground, the plants wilted visibly, their blue hoods sagging mournfully like wet socks lifted from a bowl.

“Stop!”

I wasn't sure who spoke at first. The tone was unrecognisable, the pitch new to my ear.

“What did you say?” roared my father.

I remained still. A bottleneck of fresh protest formed in my throat, vying for release, but release never came. I stood in silence as my father picked up the spade, glanced back at the mangled soil and then walked back up the garden.

In spite of summer warmth pressing against the edge of the house the air inside the cellar was cold. I felt icy fingers down inside my dress as I walked up to my mother's boxes and pulled out a book at random. Red with gold lettering. The heavy tome fell upon open by itself when I laid it on my lap. My fingers trembled as they traced the words of the poem that had revealed itself.

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you.
Here I opened wide the door;
—
Darkness there, and nothing more.

I pulled a flower, limp yet still holding its colour, from my pocket and laid it on the page. Then I tweaked the petals into shape until they bore a rough resemblance to their former selves. Finally I closed the book, wiping away the tear that had fallen onto the cover, placed it inside the box and, devoid of all breath, slipped back upstairs.

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