The Memory Garden (41 page)

‘Mmm, you smell gorgeous.’ Jake’s kiss hello lingered and she felt the shock of an invasion as his hand brushed lightly over her hip. She thrust the bottle she had brought firmly into his hands and stepped away, busying herself removing her jacket. He got the hint, standing back for her to enter the living room.

Jake’s flat, a two-bedroomed, first-floor apartment in a gated development in Kennington, looked exactly how Mel remembered it, but tidier. As he went to check the progress of his lasagne, she sipped white wine so cold the glass misted over, and surveyed the books and ornaments on the white shelves that covered two of the walls of the living area. The large black and white studio poster of Anna and Freya leaping in the air, now hanging over the fireplace, was new, so was the pile of hardback thrillers under the window.

She was touched to see the two photographs of herself still on display, albeit in new places – had he left them there since February, or had he whipped them out of the store cupboard for her visit? She was horrified at her cynicism, but soothed herself that it was natural to feel wary.

These last few weeks it had been as though he was courting her all over again. They had revisited the wine bar where, this time, they had eaten. Then she had accompanied him to a book launch at Kensington Roof Garden, where he had tactfully introduced her to people as his ‘friend’.

If nothing else, the party had proved useful because she had been introduced to a literary agent who had been most interested to hear about her book and had given her his card. ‘In case I can be of use with future projects,’ he said.

On this, as at all their meetings, Jake had been charming, attentive, but not overly so, his kisses of greeting tender rather than passionate. Until tonight. Friday-night dinner at his flat. Already the atmosphere felt charged with seduction.

The latest Kate Bush album, which he could only have bought because he knew she liked it, was playing in the background. The magazines and mounds of paper usually piled up around the room had mysteriously vanished as had, she noticed when she used the unusually pristine bathroom, any evidence of dirty washing or shaving scum round the basin, both matters that had caused bickering in the past. A brand new cake of soap lay in the dish and the hand towel – a hand towel? When had he acquired a hand towel? – hung lopsidedly in the metal loop by the shower.

A peep through Jake’s bedroom door on the way back from the bathroom revealed a newly-made bed instead of the usual jumble of duvet and pillows . . .

‘It’s ready to eat now!’ he called through from the kitchen.

She took her wine and walked through. And stopped to stare. The small table was set with a cloth, napkins, candles, a small jam jar of freesias. She smiled, eyebrows raised, and met his eyes, where he stood holding a chair back for her. For a moment he glanced away, sheepish, but then he stepped over to her and took her into his arms.

His kiss was like the unleashing of a floodgate of passion in her. She was startled by the intensity of her response. His hands were everywhere, stroking, rubbing, squeezing, until her whole body was on fire and tears leaked from her eyes.

‘Oh God, Mel,’ he growled in her ear, and his lips were on her hair, her face, her neck, and his body pressed against her.

It was all as she remembered – the way he raked his fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp, and she waited for the butterfly kisses on her eyelids that she loved, but he didn’t do that and then she realised with a little shock that that was Patrick, not Jake.
Patrick
. She thrust the thought from her and kissed him back intensely.

‘C’mon,’ he said, pulling her none too gently through the doorway.

‘But the food . . .’ she protested.

‘Can wait. I can’t.’ And he pushed her onto the sofa and moved on top of her, so his hardness dug painfully against her pelvis. His fingers were on her, then he was fumbling with his clothes and then suddenly alarm bells went off in her head and she panicked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No.’ And went rigid.

He froze. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’

She pushed at him until he rolled off her and fell onto the floor.

‘Christ,’ he said heavily, shifting around. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you wanted to. What on earth’s the matter?’

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered, her forearm over her eyes, not wishing even to look at him. ‘I just don’t know.’

Jake ate his portion of cold lasagne, but Mel hardly touched hers; the painful lump of emotion in her throat prevented her swallowing anything.
‘I suppose I’m not ready,’ she said in a quivering voice.
‘No, clearly not. I’m sorry,’ he said gruffly.
Anger shot through her. ‘I can’t just take up where we left off, Jake,’ she said, glaring at him. ‘I don’t want to go through the same thing again, to get hurt like last time. It’s not the same now. There are things to talk about . . .’
‘I know, I know,’ he said, putting down his fork. ‘But it’s different now, for me. It’s all clearer. Now the future’s sorted out I feel we could make things work. Get that house together. Maybe even . . .’ his voice failed for a moment then he muttered ‘. . . think about a family. One kid might not be too bad.’ He laughed nervously.
Mel studied him, astonished, trying to make sense of what he was saying. A year ago, she would have thrown her arms around him or danced a jig on the table. But now, now , she just felt tired, broken inside.
Jake was still talking. ‘Seeing Helen,’ he went on, ‘with her new man – you were right, it’s made me think. It’s time I moved on, got settled. And I’ve missed you so, Mel. I never thought I’d miss you so much, but I do.’
Mel was watching him. Had his eyes always been so red-rimmed after a couple of glasses of wine? He was starting to look older. His face was sculpted, hollow, his hair was definitely retreating slightly at the temples. Not that this mattered, she told herself hastily. After all, she had earlier that evening plucked several silver hairs out from amongst the red of her own hair, and stared at herself in the mirror, wondering whether the colour was quite as vibrant as it used to be.
‘Jake,’ she said steadily, ‘you let me down. You didn’t want me enough to stay with me. And you slept with someone else to hurt me. It was cruel. You can’t expect me to . . . pick things up where we left off.’
‘So why did you come tonight? You must have guessed the way we were going.’
Why
had
she come? To discover the truth of her feelings. She said carefully, ‘Because I thought that, despite everything, you and I might have been possible. I needed to find out what I thought about you, really thought about you.’
‘And what do you really think about me?’ He looked half-crazed now; his nose was white and pinched with emotion.

‘I . . . I’m fond of you, I really am. And I find you amazingly attractive.’ Was there anything else there? Her father’s words came into her mind, to grab love where she could find it, not to look for perfection. Was Jake, with all his imperfections, worth it? She was confused.
He flashed her a smile. ‘That’s something then. Something we can build on.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Let’s see.’
‘Will you stay?’ he asked. ‘I’m due to have the girls tomorrow. I told them there might be a surprise.’

‘Me, you mean? I was the surprise?’
‘Yes. I thought—’
‘Jake,’ she said softly, shaking her head. And now she knew the truth of her feelings. ‘It’s not fair on them, it really isn’t. I would love to see them, but . . . I couldn’t make them think, hope, that we were together again.’
‘I see,’ he said. He rolled his head back, eyes closed, a gesture of defeat.
‘I’m sorry ,’ she said, putting out her hand to touch his on the table. He pulled it away.
‘I’d better go.’ She waited for him to move, to beg her to stay, anything.
He lowered his head. ‘Okay,’ he said in a dull voice. He got up and shuffled into the hallway. ‘I suppose I’d better drive you home?’
‘No, Jake. I’ll get a cab!’
The twenty -minute wait before the minicab arrived was one of the longest of Mel’s life . She sat on the sofa in her jacket, trying not to listen to Jake, who was clearing up , deliberately noisily in the kitchen. She was furious, absolutely furious. He was like a spoiled child who couldn’t get his way, withdrawing his attention from her.
The intercom buzzed and he came to stand in the doorway of the kitchen, watching her listlessly. She stood up and took a long, cold look around the flat she knew she would never see again. Her eyes fell upon the photographs of herself. She couldn’t bear to think of them there, a piece of herself still in his possession . She marched across the room, snatched them both up and, clutching them to her chest, nodded at him, said a curt goodbye and let herself out of the flat.
Walking down to the gate where the taxi waited she looked back up at the window . He was watching her, but when their eyes met he turned away without even waving goodbye.
As she rode back in the scruffy minicab, clinging to the seat as the driver raced down dark residential streets, cars parked on both sides, she waited for the familiar deadweight of despair to descend once more.

The weeks passed. October ended, November began. Mel spent the darkening evenings writing the final chapter of her
Radiant Light
, arranging the footnotes and appendices, then considered the illustrations she would recommend that her publisher include. She was reluctant to call the book finished, though, before she saw Ann Boase, whom she still needed to track down.

Bonfire Night and a cold, rain-sodden one. Five pairs of Wellingtons set off from Chrissie and Rob’s house down to the local park, one black industrial size, one cream, one green and two Thomas the Tank Engine ones, the owner of one of these pairs, two-year-old Freddy, riding high on his father’s shoulders.

This council firework display was to prove one of those ritual events for which the British stoically turn out to say they’ve marked the occasion, insisting that they are enjoying themselves. Rory squeaked throughout that he couldn’t see anything, and indeed, the fireworks at ground-level were invisible to anyone not at the front of the crowd. Freddy cried, terrified by the bangs. A safety poster on the gate had announced that sparklers were forbidden in the park, so Rob couldn’t light the ones he had brought to delight the boys, and the queues for hot dogs were so long none of the grown-ups in the party could be bothered to join them. Halfway through the show, the rain began to fall again, steadily, in thick heavy drops.

‘Let’s go home,’ grumbled Rob as soon as the last rocket had fallen to earth and the bonfire had finally been coaxed into life.

‘Get something to eat there.’

‘Want hot dog,’ Rory started up, a plea that instantly turned to a high wail, so Chrissie took Freddy and it was Rory’s turn to be carried by his weary dad. ‘Hot dog, hot dog, hot dog,’ he repeated tearfully in time with Rob’s footsteps.

Lost in thought, Aunty Mel plodded along behind carrying Freddy’s Wellingtons after they fell off one by one. Guy Fawkes felt like another marker of time passing. Last year it had been the first without their mother, this year it took her further away from Patrick.

The previous few weeks, since her last disastrous evening with Jake, had been relentlessly dreary, but without the despair she had feared that night, riding the minicab through the grid of narrow London side streets.

She should feel desolate, she told herself. After all, her emotional life had closed down on her yet again. But even when she reached home, she had merely felt dog tired, had stumbled straight into bed and slept dreamlessly until morning. When she had awoken there was no crushing black beast of depression. Instead, she had felt strangely free.

She was lucky that t_roisDJ5he following week was half-term – a full nine days in which she didn’t have to bump into Jake at the staff pigeonholes or, come to think of it, Rowena, who was still prowling around, making trouble. For the first few days she left her mobile switched off and waited every time the flat phone rang for the caller to leave a message, so she could check out who it was. But the days passed and Jake didn’t call. At first she felt relief, then as time drifted on, this darkened into resentment. That’s how little Jake valued her. He had obviously already moved on.

Wednesday night of half-term was supper at her friends Sally and Mike’s, with Aimee and Stuart and another couple she hadn’t met before. When Sally had issued the invitation a couple of weeks ago she had asked if Mel wanted to bring anyone. Mel had thought for precisely one second before saying no.

She hadn’t invited Jake, she realised, because she had known then, deep down, that he wasn’t going to be a part of her life again. And admitting that helped her accept the fact that he hadn’t been in touch again.

Sally, tactfully, hadn’t invited some spare man to make up the numbers, but, more inspiringly, a woman she had met recently who organised new exhibitions at a North London art gallery and reviewed for a website that tracked new work in the capital.

The woman, Judith, asked Mel about her work, and Mel told her about the book and then, somewhat hesitantly, about her discoveries about Pearl in Cornwall. She spoke of Merryn and, suddenly, sitting there in the crush of the small hot London sitting room, memories of Cornwall, the garden, Pearl and Patrick washed over her in one great engulfing tide.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Judith, and Mel realised she was staring into the distance.

‘Yes, yes – I was just thinking about it all,’ she said, ‘and telling myself that I only have a few more weeks to finish the book.’ The end of the year was the publisher’s deadline, but it would be hopeless to expect to do much in December, what with essay-marking and preparations for Christmas.

‘Have you much to do?’

‘Tidying, mostly. But there’s a missing part of the jigsaw – someone I’ve got to see.’ How could she have left it all so long? ‘Do you know – have you ever heard of an artist called Ann Boase? I’m not even sure what medium she works in, but she must be in her early sixties.’