The Memory Garden (19 page)

‘At first we stayed in London. My lawyer couldn’t get Greg to send us any money and I was terrified anyway that he would find out where we were. For a month we lived in a hostel in Wandsworth and then the council found us a flat. It was a horrible place, horrible. People had to put bars on their front doors because of the break-ins. I was so lonely. I could not work much because Lana was still so young and I was frightened to leave her with neighbours. She was all I had. I went to a class to learn better English when Lana was at school. I cleaned people’s houses – anyone who didn’t mind Lana coming sometimes. Then, after about a year, a very nice lady I worked for, who wanted to help me, showed me a magazine with jobs. I saw Mr Winterton’s advertisement.’

‘But it was so far away. That was brave of you.’

‘I didn’t realise how far Cornwall was. Though it’s not that far, really, after Croatia. But it said the house was near the sea, and when I spoke to Mr Winterton on the phone he sounded so kind and paid our train fares to go to see him.’

‘And he gave you the job and you moved down here. That must have been a relief.’

‘It was, I can’t tell you. To live in a beautiful place like Lamorna and to feel safe.’ She stopped, then said quietly as though someone else might be listening, ‘Greg doesn’t know we are here.’

‘Does he pay anything for Lana’s upkeep?’

‘No.’ Irina smiled, but it was a tired smile. ‘I get anxious sometimes,’ she said vaguely. ‘The past. It is never easy to escape – it leaves a mark.’

Mel’s eyes were drawn to the hand now toying with the lighter. Across the palm, reaching along the underside of her wrist and up her forearm, where it disappeared under her sleeve, Mel saw stretched a long white scar.

‘How . . .?’ started Mel but, suddenly self-conscious, Irina pulled the sleeve right down.

‘I did it to myself,’ she whispered. ‘It was when I was bad, very bad. ‘Not any more.’

Mel was lost for words. Despite all the bad times in her own life she had never felt self-destructive, suicidal. Somehow she had coped and she felt humble at the realisation. She accepted more coffee and the two women sat in silence for a while, each lost in thought.

Then Mel remembered where the conversation had started.

‘So how did you discover Lana’s musical talent?’ she asked.

‘Her class teacher, Miss Thorson, noticed she was quick at learning the recorder, very quick, and let her try the school piano. She discovered Lana has perfect pitch and when she played easy pieces to her, Lana could play them again, straight off. Mr Winterton paid for some piano lessons for her, but then Lana asked to learn the violin instead, and so he bought her one for her birthday. He was a saint, that man. Patrick’s been so kind, too.’

‘Is musical talent in your family?’ Mel asked, trying to ignore as unworthy the stab of possessiveness she felt at the mention of Patrick’s name. He hadn’t alluded to helping Irina, but then why should he have talked about it?

‘My brother played the violin very well. And my grandfather, he was a professional in an orchestra.’ Then Irina stubbed out her cigarette and said, ‘But I have been stupid.’ And she began to cry.

‘Irina, what on earth is the matter?’

‘Two weeks ago, I wrote to Lana’s father asking him for money. I have explained about her music, that she will need money for music college, a bigger instrument. Well, we had had no contact since the divorce. Nobody has ever managed to make him pay us much money – he is clever like that. He wanted to have Lana stay with him at weekends, you see, and I wouldn’t let him and so the money stopped.’

‘Did you ever have to go to court about all this? Wasn’t there an arrangement when you divorced?’ Mel was beginning to feel lost in the twists and turns of Irina’s explanations.

‘Yes.’ Irina hung her head. ‘He was supposed to see her. Because he never hurt her, you see, I had no argument. Maybe I was wrong to take her from her father, I don’t know. He never harmed a hair of her head. It was me, he blamed me for everything. And perhaps I was selfish. Well, I thought I should stop being selfish, that he could visit Lana here, help her – pay for her lessons, maybe for her to go to the right school.’

She looked up and her eyes met Mel’s.

‘How does he make his money?’ Mel asked casually. What had Greg been doing, a businessman in a foreign war zone? Selling weapons, it occurred to her. The thought of Lana’s education being funded by other children’s misery was too ghastly to contemplate.

‘Buying and selling things,’ Irina said, then saw Mel’s expression. ‘Oh no, nothing dreadful. Businesses. Finance stuff.’ She waved a hand, dismissive.

Relieved, Mel whispered encouragingly, ‘I’m sure you believed you were doing your best for Lana, always.’

Irina smiled slightly, then the smile vanished. ‘On Monday a letter came. I gave a Post Box address so he does not know where I am. He says he will give money for her but only if he can see her regularly. Have her to stay with him sometimes. I don’t know what to do, what is best!’ This last was almost a howl.

‘What does Lana think?’ said Mel, not knowing what, if anything, to advise.

‘That’s just it. I haven’t dared tell her yet. I am frightened of what she will say.’

There was silence in the kitchen. Floating down the stairs came the sounds of chattering and giggles. Amber and Lana were clearly not settling down to sleep, but they sounded relaxed, happy. Two little girls enjoying a sleepover, unaware of the black clouds of adult care. And so it should be, sighed Mel.

‘Irina,’ she said softly, ‘if it’s meant to be, there will be help for Lana, I’m sure there will be – without involving her father. Can you contact your family in Croatia?’

Irina shook her head violently. ‘I can’t. My father is not well and my brother, we quarrelled and he won’t want to hear from me,’ she half-sobbed.

‘Then there will be scholarships. Grants and so on,’ Mel said hopefully. Music wasn’t an area of education she knew much about. ‘And it’s still early days. She needs to be doing well at school, at all the other subjects.’

‘Yes,’ said Irina. ‘I know, of course. But I’ve messed up so much else in my life. She’s all I’ve got. I want the best for her.’

‘You are doing the best for her, I’m sure,’ Mel said. ‘Making a stable home for her, giving her a happy childhood. That’s more than many children ever have.’

Irina’s eyes were bright with tears now. She reached out and clasped Mel’s hands in both of hers. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Thank you for saying that.’

Mel glanced at the kitchen clock and was surprised to find it was after eleven. Upstairs , the children were silent now. She yawned suddenly.

‘I really must go in a moment . There is something I wanted to ask, though. It’s something Patrick’s gardener – Jim who cuts the grass around the cottage – said. I don’t know, he might just be a confused old man. But did Val ever say anything about someone being, well – buried somewhere in the garden?’

‘Oh, no! No, I never heard anything about that. Though I told you, there is an atmosphere about that place. Who knows what might have happened there.’

‘I expect he was just rambling. Never mind.’

When she walked back up the road to Merryn it was pitch dark , apart from the lights from houses, and Mel was glad she had remembered her torch.

But after this afternoon’s experiences, it couldn’t save her from feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise and her body shake as she slipped through the velvet darkness down the path to the Gardener’s Cottage. Only the welcoming light in her kitchen was on, as she had left it. Merryn Hall, on the other hand , she could sense was empty , rising up in the darkness. Patrick must indeed have gone to his parents. As she let herself into the cottage, she felt terribly alone.

Two days later, Saturday morning, the end of the first fortnight of her stay, Mel was sitting at the kitchen table sorting through a batch of post. It included the photocopies from the Records Office and a big packet of letters which her London neighbour Cara had sent on. This contained mostly brown envelopes and circulars but there was a postcard from her father from the South of France.
Magnificent rolling fields of budding sunflowers
, ran his spindly italics,
and some marvellous restaurants. Stella finding the heat difficult so she plays the mermaid in Derek and Viv’s pool. Trusting this finds you well. Love, Dad
. Mel was just musing how typical a communication this was from her father – no phone call for two months and then an uninformative postcard; who on earth were Derek and Viv? – when a knock came at the back door and she looked up to see Patrick through the glass. She let him in.

‘Sorry if you’re busy,’ he said. He seemed a little nervous. ‘Perhaps I should have rung from the house. What are your plans for today? I wondered if you’d like to come to the beach with me. I’ve got the makings of a picnic.’

‘What a great idea,’ said Mel, instantly dismissing her intention to write. ‘Give me twenty minutes?’

Later, they walked across the forecourt to his sports car. ‘Oh, lovely!’ she cried, seeing that he’d lowered the roof.

‘Will you be warm enough?’

‘Yes, I expect so.’ Just then, there was a flash of white in the trees. ‘Did you see that?’ she asked.

‘What?’ Patrick said, closing the boot on their picnic.

‘A bird of some sort. Pure white. What would that be?’

‘No idea. A dove?’ He held her door open for her then went to get in his side.

‘Smaller than that.’

‘I don’t know. Didn’t see it, I’m afraid.’ He reversed the car in one sudden sickening turn. Mel clutched involuntarily at her seat. ‘Sorry,’ he said, his face mischievous. ‘I’ll go carefully.’

‘Thanks,’ she breathed. ‘I’m more used to cars you have to coax gently into life.’ He laughed.

‘Did you get back last night?’ she asked innocently. She had in fact lain awake for what seemed like hours, listening out for his return.

‘No, only an hour ago. I meant to come back yesterday, but Dad needed help putting in a new bathroom and we didn’t finish until late.’

‘Bye bye, avocado?’ she said.

‘Oh, they left that house years ago. No, Mum needs a bath that’s easier to get in and out of. With her arthritis, you see. So they took the opportunity to change the whole suite.’

‘Ah,’ said Mel.

He drove too fast, but skilfully, west along the winding narrow road to Porthcurno, where they walked around the Minack Theatre built into the cliff and ate their picnic. Later they rested by rocks in the secluded cove, Mel running the pale gold sand, made of crushed seashells, through her fingers, as she laughed at Patrick’s stories of what he, Chrissie’s old boyfriend Nick and their other friends got up to at university, trading a few tales of her own.

Out of the wind it was really very warm and soon they fell silent, lulled by the rhythm of the waves, idly watching a small group of surfers in the distance.

Patrick amused himself by trickling sand over her bare feet. ‘Get off,’ she giggled, slapping him. He laughed and rolled onto his back, feigning sleep, so she dumped sand on his stomach until he mock-growled and twisted onto his knees, pushing her down onto the sand, crouching astride her, imprisoning her arms, Mel protesting, both of them laughing, then falling quiet. Looking at one another for what felt like a long time but was probably only several seconds. Something deep inside her turned molten.

The klaxon squawk of a seagull made them both look up to see it strutting on the rock behind them, and it was then that Mel became aware of a tiny boy with gold curls and a spade in one hand, standing inches away, staring at the bird. The enchantment was broken. They both laughed and Mel said hello to the toddler, but he was more interested in the gull.

‘Come along, Archie, sweetie,’ said a woman’s cut-glass voice, and the child was led away.

Patrick released her, pulling her up to sitting and clumsily helping her dust the sand from her hair.

The tide had by now receded, leaving a passage to the next cove.

‘Come,’ said Patrick, taking her by the hand. They walked round the rock dividing the coves, the water painfully cold around Mel’s bare ankles. Surfers there were trying to ride the giant waves and they stood and watched their efforts, not even trying to talk against the crash of sea on shore.

I could be happy here for ever, thought Mel. The warmth of the sun made her feel she was unfolding like the petals of a flower. The unceasing pounding of the waves banished the sense of time passing. She felt washed clean of any care.

The direction of the current swept the surfers nearer and nearer to where they waited. One, it began to dawn on Mel, looked familiar. She wasn’t certain until, after a few minutes, Matt waved to his companion and waded towards the shore, pushing his board ahead of him, passing near to where they were.

‘Oh, hello,’ he called in surprise.

‘Hi,’ returned Mel, thinking how beautiful, slim and sleek he looked in his wetsuit. ‘We’ve been watching. You’re good. Isn’t it absolutely freezing?’

‘It’s great!’ said Matt. ‘If you keep moving, that is.’

‘Matt, do you know Patrick?’ Mel asked.

Patrick had wandered off to lean against a rock. Now he came forward and the men looked one another up and down warily.

‘Hello. Patrick Winterton.’

Matt shook the outstretched hand, apologising for his wet one. ‘Matt Price. My mother runs the Valley Hotel. You’re from Merryn, aren’t you? Good to meet you.’ He shouldered his board and said, ‘I’m off to change now. Do you guys fancy hot chocolate at the café in a few minutes?’

Mel glanced at Patrick, who shrugged in a non-committal fashion. She couldn’t gauge what he thought and it irritated her. There was no need to be unfriendly. She said, ‘Good idea, why not?’

They watched Matt stride off across the sand to the car park.

‘How is it you know him?’ asked Patrick, a little frostily, as they set off up the beach towards the café.

‘Just keep bumping into him about the place,’ said Mel. ‘And I’ve been to the hotel to meet his mother.’