The Insistent Garden (7 page)

“Are you alright, darling?” she said, “You look lost.”

Darling.
The term of endearment coming from out of a stranger's mouth hit me like a brick. Tears crowded my eyes and an animal-like sound forced its way up from my throat, followed by another, and another.

“Why are you crying?” She laid her hand on my arm, wafting the scent of lavender beneath my nose.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Nothing to be sorry about. Let me find a hanky.”

She folded back the collar of her blouse and pulled a crumpled handkerchief out from beneath her bra strap. It felt warm on my eyelids. “You look like you could do with a little help.” She extended her hand. “I'm Dotty. Dotty Hands.”

I blinked. I smiled. I tried to keep my shoulders still but before

I could stop it I began to laugh. “Edith Stoker.” I said, struggling to hold it in. The woman just looked, her expression unformed then she smiled. And then she too tipped back her head and laughed, her curls bobbing up and down like springs.

“I really am sorry,” I steadied my breath, “I didn't mean to be rude.” “Oh, don't you worry,” she said, gaily, “It always happens. The name Dotty Hands is universally appreciated.”

A fresh howl perforated the air.

“Seriously, darling, are you alright?” she asked.

I looked at the woman's face, long and slung with a square chin. Then I noticed a hearing aid; there was something reassuring about the way it nestled inside her ear. “Can you give me a lift?” I asked.

She raised her eyebrows. “Where are you going?”

Where
was
I going? My house was out of sight. Not a single person knew where I was. Freckled lilies came into my mind. “Snowshill,” I said. The certainty of my answer scared, yet thrilled me. “If it's not too much trouble?”

“Snowshill Manor you mean?”

“Yes.”

“That's a wonderful place.”

“I'd like to go to a wonderful place.”

Dotty settled her hanky back inside her bra. “Let's get this old banger on the road then.”

I wasn't used to being inside a car. Several moments were spent trying to get the door shut properly until Dotty leaned over and demonstrated how to close it without getting my skirt caught in the seam. She plunged the handbrake downwards and we set off.

“Do you often take lifts from strangers?” Dotty asked, her eyes fixed on the road.

I studied the side of her face. “Never.”

“And do you often go to Snowshill?”

“No.” I examined Dotty's profile again; the hearing aid seemed more prominent seen inside the tiny car. “This is the first time.”

“No need to shout, darling.”

“Sorry.”

“So,” she settled her thighs deeper into her seat. “It's about fifteen miles to the manor, so there's time to tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Why you look so sad.”

The beginning was easy. My first and second names came out in the right order, my street name was marred only by a slight pause when the ‘t' in Forster caught on the roof of my mouth, but as I reached the word ‘
father
' I paused.

“You don't have to go on if you don't want to,” said Dotty.

I studied the hearing aid one more time. “I want to, I haven't told anyone, well. . . not anyone like you, about this before.”

“Why not?”

“I had no one to tell.”

“Don't you have any friends?”

I hesitated. “I have Una, but I'm not sure when I will see her next. I have Archie too, but he knows everything already.” I hesitated again.
Archie knows everything already.

“Who's Archie?”

“He's my neighbour, . . .
one
of my neighbours. My friend.”

“Does Archie get on with your father?”

I tried to remember the last time he and my father had last stood in the garden together. “No, I don't know. . . I left school this summer and I look after the house and my father, and my aunt. She comes to stay. She likes things neat and clean and —”

“I thought your fingers looked sore.”

“It's the soap.”

“Go on.”

I drew in a breath. “We're building a wall.”

“What
sort
of wall?” asked Dotty, perking up.

I felt tired, the sort of tiredness where it becomes an effort to breathe. “It's made of brick, and bits and pieces, anything we can get hold of, and it's quite high.” I glanced at her profile again. “We're not actually building it. The wall's already built. We just work on it.”

Dotty's smile vanished. “There's probably a perfectly simple answer to this I know, but. . . why do you work on a wall that's already built?

I stared at the road ahead; old puddles lay there. “My father can't seem to finish it. It runs down one side of the garden —”

“Why only one side?” asked Dotty.

“It stops my neighbour coming in.”

“What! Not Archie?”

“No, the other. . . person.”

“Who?”

“Him.”

Dotty's eyes abandoned the road. “Edith, what magnificent mysteries you have!”

“I don't want mysteries,” I replied, aware of the dullness of my voice.

Dotty braked, pulled into the side of the road and turned towards me. “What about your mother?”

“My mother is dead.”

“Darling, I'm sorry.”

“It's alright, I never knew her. She died when I was a baby.”

“Edith, shut me up if I'm being too nosy, but how did your mother die?”

“She was ill. She went into hospital, but I'm not sure what the illness was.”

Dotty frowned. “Didn't anyone ever tell you?”

“No.”

“Did you ask?”

“I asked my father, but he doesn't like to talk about her and —”

“What, never?”

“No, never.”

“But, you visit her don't you, at her grave?”

“No, I. . . don't. She. . .”

“It helps you know, having a place you can go and remember her.”

“I already have a place to remember her.”

“Where is that, darling?”

I fingered the edge of the seat. “Down in the. . . down in. . . my head.” I looked at her profile. “Dotty, do you think you can love a person you've never met?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied, smiling broadly. “Most definitely.”

The groups of houses thinned and fields filled every view, lining the flat-topped hills with swaths of grass that disappeared beneath groups of trees before emerging again on the other side. The car slid inside a fold in the hills and Dotty started to crunch through the gears as we navigated the slopes, the engine growling on the up, before emitting a wild whistle from somewhere by the spare tyre on the way down. Piles of wild geraniums lined the road like spectators in a bicycle race; they slumped forward ahead of the approaching car then arched backwards in the small wind that slid out from under the wheels. The hills grew higher with each bend in the road, and I felt a sachet of vomit form at the back of my throat. “Dotty, could you slow down a bit?”

“Oh, sorry, yes. It's not far now.”

The road narrowed, more flowers flopped onto the edges of the tarmac and nettles stung the sides of the car. We drove on, only slowing when branches began to tap the windscreen. A groan from the handbrake marked the end of our journey.

“Where are we?”

“You'll see.”

“But, are we
there
?”

My companion rummaged in her handbag. She pulled out a pair of leather gloves and then levered her body out of the car, her skirt zip pulling angrily at its seams. “Come on, darling. This way.”

A vague feeling of unease came over me as I scuttled behind Dotty's green-clad figure. It was hard to keep up and I felt relief when a wide stone wall came into view between the trees.

“Can you climb?” asked Dotty.

“Climb?”

“Up and over.” She flashed a smile and pointed at the wall.

“Is this the way in?”

“
Our
way in,” she replied, conspiratorially.

The zip at the back of Dotty's skirt loomed into view again, straining against its stitches as she bent down to pick up a log. She shook out terrified woodlice then placed it against the base of the wall. Finally, with a hitch of her skirt, she scrambled over — her heels slipping from her shoes — and emerged on the other side, straightened her jacket and brushed lichen off her shoulder.

“Come on, darling. We don't want to be spotted.”

My body had a lightness to it as I climbed up onto the wall. The stone cap was fat like a horse and I straddled it for a second, not caring that one of my shoes had fallen off on the other side. I caught a glimpse of a large grey house through the trees; solid and majestic, it matched the stone horse I sat upon. “Is that the manor?” I said.

“That's her. Quite lovely, isn't it?”

“How do we get to the garden?”

“Come down and I'll show you.”

Dotty walked fast for someone so stout and I was rushing to catch up — concentrating on the back of her speeding ankles — when she came to an abrupt halt. “We're here.”

I clutched her sleeve. “Dotty! The garden!”

My view cut through a wooden doorway, down towards a valley, half hidden by trees. Mown grass dotted with bushes dominated the area closest to us, but further down pieces of garden had broken loose from the hill and fallen into a depression at the base of the slope. I could see fragments of it, an ancient tree hugging a younger sibling, a troupe of dusty pink valerian poking out from beneath a collapsed peony. A path eked away into blue distance.

“See that,” said Dotty, pointing upwards.

I looked up to see an inscription carved into the top of the doorway.

A gardyn walled al with stoon
So fair a gardyn wot I nowhere noon.

“It's. . . oh, let's go in!” I released Dotty's sleeve.

“Wait. Edith, close your eyes.”

“I'd rather not.”

“Just for a second.”

Images projected onto the insides of my eyelids: a drop down onto a stone pavement, brittle steps loose with age.

“Now smell,” said Dotty, wafting something beneath my nose.

I leaned into mid-air and sniffed my friend's hand like an obedient horse. “Lemons!” I cried, opening my eyes.

“Lemon Verbena,” she said, “strengthens the nerves.”

“Dotty, I can't wait a second longer.”

I moved into the doorway; then stopped.

Someone had made an Elysium. Someone had gathered up the loveliest plants in the land, sifted through them, and laid them out as a garden of unimaginable beauty. I suspected I saw an invisible hand arranging the simmering brew of colour that seemed to drift across the ground. From our new vantage point we looked down upon a cluster of little garden rooms, exposed to the weather and connected like the remains of a ruined house. Grass carpeted the floor, rain-bleached benches sat empty at the base of buttresses wallpapered with ivy and columns of yew held up the sky. A mock orange flower nudged my arm, begging to be sniffed. Breathing in a large lungful of garden air, I set off down the slope. Dotty followed; neither of us spoke.

Intimacy arrived fast. Leaves rubbed the undersides of my hands as I hurried down the path, the steps seemed to fit my feet and chickweed seeds clung to my sleeves like sticky crumbs. Walking more slowly, I squeezed down a narrow corridor of delphiniums and admired a distant church that had jumped into view. Finally I stroked my hand across the back of a clipped yew ball, feeling an earthy happiness.

“Like it, darling?” Dotty's voice was close.

“It's perfect.”

“This is my favourite place in the whole world,” she said.

“Mine too.” I smiled. “Dotty, I want to stay longer but I should be getting home soon. My father will be back from work at five.”

“But you must see the house first, I think it will surprise you.”