The Memory Garden Page 19

  Shoving open the scullery door, she caught sight of Milly, the skinny young cousin of Jenna’s brought in to help wash up, cramming the scrapings from a meat-pie dish into her mouth. Milly started and there was a crash and a muffled wail as pieces of pottery flew across the flagstones.

  ‘Here, quick,’ Pearl said, shaking the snivelling girl to her senses and shoving a broom in her hands. ‘I won’t tell. Just get it cleared up before Cook sees or she’ll skin you.’

  She tiptoed her way through the mess into the kitchen and picked up a tray of tarts and clout cream. ‘Dump the bits behind the stable and I’ll bury them later,’ she called through the doorway. The girl nodded through her grimy tearstained face. Pearl made a moue of sympathy and rather than risk slipping on the slimy fragments with her tray, decided to go back through the house.

  The hall was empty, but the door to the morning room was half-open. She heard a man’s voice – a young man – husky with passion. ‘I know it’s him you want, your cousin, but you will have me, you will.’ A scuffling and a scream. ‘No, Julian!’

  Pearl froze. Elizabeth. She nudged at the door with her tray and it swung open with a creak. Two heads turned, revealing a tableau of living statues. The young man had pinned Elizabeth against the opposit"; font-weight: bold; that er of e wall; one of his hands was pushed down the bodice of her dress. The spell broke. He let her go and she staggered, crying. Pearl swung the tray aside as Julian hurtled past her towards the drawing room. Pearl called into the morning room, ‘Are you all right, miss?’

  ‘Yes. Leave me alone. Go away!’ Elizabeth hissed, picking herself up and, holding the torn straps of her dress, she too hurried past Pearl, but in the direction of the stairs.

  Pearl watched her stumble, wondering whether to go after her, then swung round as another figure scurried out of a hiding-place in the shadows of a corridor and went off upstairs in pursuit. It was Cecily.

  Her heart banging in her chest, her mind whirling, Pearl stood a second to recover herself. Then she shrugged and continued through the drawing room, arms aching with her heavy burden, and stepped into the garden.

  In a single moment of surprise she forgot all that had just passed, for during her short time in the house, all daylight had gone from the sky; now great milky stars shone down and Jago had lit all the Chinese lanterns around the garden. A tiny row of flickering lights picked out the path up past the laurel maze, making her long to follow where it led.

  I like an invis

  Chapter 18

  The eight-thirty news bulletin started and Mel, who had already heard the headlines at seven-thirty and eight, snapped off the radio.

  Where on earth was Patrick?

  She had started cooking soon after seven, frying the onion and the mince for spaghetti bolognaise, adding tomatoes and mushrooms, herbs and stock, stirring as it simmered. Now she moved the pan off the hob and contemplated the pan of water for the pasta. No point in doing anything about that until he was here. She looked around the kitchen. The table was laid, the salad mixed, Parmesan grated, a bottle of red wine waited open on the side. But there was no Patrick.

  She had said her place, hadn’t she? She looked out of the window up at the house. Faint light glowed through the lower-floor windows. Impossible to tell whether he was in. Perhaps she ought to go and see?

  No, she must leave him to come in his own time. It was an artificial situation, this, living so close to one another but knowing each other so little, needing to preserve the boundaries.

  She sat down at the table, wondering whether to start on the wine, just one glass, but that might lead to a second – and what if he arrived stone cold sober? What if he didn’t arrive at all, had regretted what happened earlier? Her resolve ran out. She poured herself half a glass, turned out the kitchen light and moved into the living room, where she was struck with immediate satisfaction at how cosy she had made it – the curtains drawn and a fire crackling in the grate.

  Some wine splashed on the mantelpiece as she put down the glass and she hurried back to the dark kitchen to grab a cloth from the draining board. A point of light outside caught her eye, moving far across the garden. It shone steadily, disappearing now and again, then the point becoming a shaft of light, bobbing up and down. What was Patrick doing out there in the wildest part of the garden at this hour? Assuming it was Patrick.

  The beam of light was coming nearer now. She could see his boots, then his legs. She fled back to the living room with the cloth, not wanting him to see her watching him, and caught a glimpse of her face, eyes glittery, in the mirror above the mantelpiece as she scrubbed at the wine stain. After a moment, there came his special knock, three short light taps and one loud one.

  Her relief as she wrenched open the "; font-weight: bold; Merrynowndoor turned to anxiety again, for he wasn’t standing by the doorstep waiting to come in but hanging back, as if to deliver some excuse that he wasn’t coming to supper after all. The large torch lantern and the Barbour jacket suggested a night exercise rather than a cosy night in.

  His words only mildly reassured her. ‘Is the food at a crucial stage? I’ve something to show you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll have to come and see.’

  ‘Hold on a moment.’ She shrugged on her jacket, pulled on her boots and stepped out into the cold garden. There was a faint moon glowing through veils of cloud.

  Patrick had already vanished, she thought at first, then she saw his dark shape separate itself from the shadow of a tree and the torch came back on. ‘Over here,’ he said, and started towards the rhododendrons.

  ‘Patrick, where are we going?’

  ‘Have patience, woman.’

  ‘But it’s pitch black. Shine the light over here. Ouch.’

  ‘Here, take my hand.’

  They tripped and stumbled through the undergrowth, branches grabbing their throats like the hands of assassins, leaves slapping against their faces like knives.

  ‘This is crazy,’ Mel moaned. ‘Ow, that was my toe.’

  ‘Sorry. Just keep going. Through here – look, there’s the bench.’ He swung the lantern. ‘Duck down now. This way . . . and we’re almost there.’

  They had finally reached the trampled undergrowth by the rockery; the rock itself, an invisible presence, dulling sound in the darkness. Patrick flicked off his torch.

  ‘Patrick . . .?’

  ‘Ssh. This way.’ Her hand was warm in his.

  As they edged round the rock, she became aware of its silhouette – but its golden aura wasn’t the moon. It was a warmer, yellower glow than that. And then Mel saw why. The cave was full of tiny dots of light from candles burning on every ledge.

  Like votives, she thought, immediately seeing the church where her mother’s funeral had taken place, how the children had been drawn to the flames, their high voices clamouring to light candles for Granny, the air pungent with incense.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered, her hand still in Patrick’s.

  ‘I found a bag of nightlights in a cupboard and waited until it was properly dark. It felt like a ritual, laying them out and lighting them.’

  ‘What did you pray for?’ she asked.

  ‘Funny you should say that. I thought about the people who had lived here, who had created this garden. And Val. And now . . . me, you.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘It was a strange, elemental feeling out here. As if there is only some thin crust separating us from the layers of the past.’

  Patrick moved behind her, snaking his arms around her waist, and they stood together in silence, Mel absorbing the fact of his warmth, his cheek on her hair, watching the lights leap and flicker.

  After a moment, he removed one arm to delve into his coat pocket. ‘I kept a couple back,’ he said, showing her two tablets of wax. ‘Shall we light them?’

  They crouched down by the grotto, Mel touching a flame to her candle first and standing it on the lowest ledge, then Patrick placing his next to it. He looked dreamily into her face. T
he words ‘for us’ passed through Mel’s mind, but he didn’t actually speak them"; font-weight: bold; ther of . She stared at the flame of her light, yet not seeing it.

  After a moment he stood up and stepped back. ‘There’s something else,’ he said, and took her hand again. ‘Come and see what I found when you were out.’

  He shone the torch into the tangle of bushes opposite the grotto, further down the garden and along a rough pathway, recently trampled. Then he guided her down the carpet of undergrowth, the moon obligingly emerging from cloud to illuminate their way.

  A minute later, a blanket of ivy rose up on their left. Patrick shone his torch upon it and through the leaves Mel glimpsed solid stone. The wall of a small building.

  ‘Round here,’ said Patrick, and they turned the corner to squeeze through a gap where he’d hacked through creeper and bramble. ‘There’s a door here somewhere.’ He felt across the building until she heard a handle rattle, then a click. Soft amber light fell across Patrick’s arm, then across his face as the door opened inward and they almost stumbled into a little room.

  The source of the light was immediately apparent – a hurricane lamp stood on an upturned metal pail at the further side of the stone-walled hut where a double door seemed firmly sealed.

  ‘It’s the summerhouse, isn’t it?’ she said, her voice unnaturally loud in the small space. It smelled fusty – a collection of rotting deckchairs in a corner might be the cause of this – but the air was surprisingly dry and the wooden floor mostly intact. The shuttered shapes of windows were apparent on each side wall and to either side of the double door.

  ‘There must be a remarkably good damp course,’ Patrick said, banging one heel on the wooden floor. He shone the torch up at the tiled roof. ‘The whole building is in good nick, isn’t it? Perhaps Val had something done to it, I can’t remember now.’

  The only pieces of furniture, apart from the useless deckchairs, were two director chairs from the house and a small picnic table laid with a cloth, a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  ‘Don’t tell me these have remarkably survived the years here, too,’ joked Mel.

  ‘I thought it might be fun to have a drink in a secret den,’ Patrick smiled, a flash of white teeth in the half-darkness. He looked as dark as a Mexican bandit in the light from the oil lamp, the planes and shadows of his strong face somehow thrilling and dangerous.

  ‘It is like a children’s gang hut, isn’t it?’ she laughed. ‘Perhaps we need a password and nicknames.’

  ‘Sounds fun,’ he whispered. They were facing one another now, close, quite close, their figures throwing up great shadows on the back wall. He smiled down at her, studying her upturned face in the glow of the lamp. ‘So,’ he said, his voice turning low, sinister, his eyes narrowing, leering at her. ‘If you want to be in the gang, you need to prove you’re worthy.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ she riposted. ‘What are you going to make me do then?’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said, looking around as though for inspiration. ‘How about this?’ And very slowly, he bent down and touched his lips upon hers. ‘Will that do for a start?’ he said softly.

  ‘You’d better try again to make sure,’ she said, her voice shaky. This time the kiss was deeper. Their mouths slid over one another, licking, nibbling, devouring. She tasted the smoky flavour of tea mixed with spearmint and an indefinable tang that was Patrick himself. His kiss felt different from Jake’s, rougher yet"; font-weight: bold; underGo softer, and part of her felt inestimably sad. Then as the kiss went on she relaxed into it, squeezing her eyes tight shut against dark thoughts.

  The world seemed to spin and she staggered slightly, almost pulling him over, tipping up one of the chairs.

  ‘Oops,’ he said, dropping her suddenly and catching at the wobbling oil lamp. ‘And this is before we’ve had the wine.’ He settled the lamp and, stepping back, righted the chair.

  They stood looking at one another almost shyly, and to break the moment, Mel said, ‘Why don’t we have a drink?’ So he picked up the bottle and sloshed an inch of wine into a glass. He swilled it round, and took a mouthful, his swallow audible in the stillness. ‘St Emilion,’ he said. ‘Definitely one of Val’s finest.’ He half-filled both glasses.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘We need a gang toast.’ And they linked arms and drank around the crooks of each other’s elbow, giggling.

  ‘You know, it doesn’t feel like my idea of a summerhouse,’ said Mel, sitting down. Patrick took the other chair, one leg crossed horizontally upon the other, ankle to knee.

  &lsqy, who had mad

  Chapter 19

  Four more weeks passed at Merryn, the days and nights with Patrick slipping past like gleaming pearls on a string, Mel’s life in London but a hazy dream.

  One rainy June morning she sat at her kitchen table in the cottage, absorbed in her writing. The book was growing steadily now, more than half of it done.

  It was during this period, she had just typed, that Laura Knight began work on Daughters of the Sun, shocking local people by using professional models from London who posed nude, sunbathing on the rocks below Carn Barges or swimming in the sea. Laura, fascinated by the effects of the light, made study after study . . .

  Mel looked up from her laptop to riffle through her notes, before copying down Laura’s own words: ‘How holy is the human body when bare of the sun (Oil Paint and Grease Paint, 1936).’

  Had she got the quotation right? She looked for her pencil to scribble a reminder to check it, but it had gone. When she spotted it under the table she fumbled for it with her stockinged foot, accidentally prodding the sleeping cat, which shot across the kitchen to the door.

  ‘Sorry,’ she sighed, and picked up the pencil to write – what? Her concentration was broken. Anyway, it must be nearly time to go. She looked at her watch. Ten. Another half an hour and Carrie would be here.

  They were finally going to visit Aunt Norah today to talk about her mother, Jenna, who had been a maid at Merryn before the First World War. First Norah’s husband had been ill, then Carrie had been too busy at the hotel. Now, in mid-June, there was a slight, unexpected lull in the trails of visitors, and Carrie had phoned the night before to ask Mel if she was free.

  The cat stretched and meowed to be let out. When Mel opened the door it slipped into the pouring rain, keeping close to the house for cover, and vanished round the corner. Where did it go? It never ate the food Mel put out or, for that matter, the little corpses it continued to drop at her feet. It must be getting fed somewhere else. ‘It’s like you,’ Patrick had breathed in her ear last week. ‘It just arrived and made itself at home.’

  ‘Oh, you.’ She tried to twist away, but he held her too firmly. ‘I seem to remember you begged me to stay. I’ll go if you want.’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ he growled, moving his hands down her back and up her tight jumper. ‘There are things I want to do with you.’

  She stood for a moment, eyes closed, remembering this, a slight smile on her face as she breathed in the fresh air of the garden, listening to the pattering rain, the flapping of wood pigeons in the trees, these sounds overlaid by the vibrations of some distant farm vehicle and the occasional roar of a passing car.

  A gull’s harsh cry startled her and she glimpsed the bird wheel and vanish behind the trees in the distance. How different was the scene before her from even six weeks ago, she thought. Her flowerbed was coming alive with summer colour – the lobelia she had planted, marigolds, white alyssum – and buddleia and sistus were beginning to burgeon. But beyond, she and Patrick had cut vast swathes into the tangled wilderness, uncovering the path to the summerhouse, clearing the ground to prepare for grass, as the landscape architect Patrick consulted had suggested. During the last few days they had set to work to rescue the pond from its covering of brambles and to dig out layers of silt.

  Another picture – Patrick working the little mechanical digger ‘like a boy with a shiny toy’, as she had teased him yesterday when he had work
ed late into the evening, gouging out mud and dead vegetation, dumping it in a skip. ‘Completely obsessed.’ Patrick had laughed, a carefree laugh of pure pleasure.

  This morning, lying asleep, the early-morning light falling through the curtains across his face, he had looked very young, too, she thought now, the worry lines on his forehead and around his mouth ironed out, his skin glowing. She had watched him for a moment, learning the strong planes of his face, the soft lashes, the tender set of his mouth, before she fell back once more into slumber. When she woke again, he was kissing her goodbye. She touched her hand to her cheek, remembering. His fresh-shaved jaw had been cool against her sleep-warmed face.

  ‘Oh, don’t go yet,’ she had murmured, pulling him down to kiss him properly, breathing in the fresh lime smell of his shaving soap, but he had brushed his hand teasingly against her breast, causing desire to shoot through her once more, and pulled away, laughing.

  ‘Nine o’clock meeting, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘And I’ve got to look at the paperwork first.’ And he was gone, stumping down the stairs. A moment later, the front door banged and his footsteps receded across the gravel. A car door slammed, the engine roared away and in a moment there was silence. Only the tick of the alarm clock and the echo of his recent presence. She listened to the furniture settle and mourned.

  Why did she feel this, this fear of losing him?

  Sometimes, after making love, he held her so tightly it was frightening. ‘What is it? What is the matter?’ she would ask.

  ‘Nothing,’ he would say. ‘Nothing’s the matter. Just . . . sometimes I can’t believe that this is happening.’

  ‘Why can’t you?’ she would whisper, hugging him back, but he wouldn’t answer, and sometimes a great tremor would go through him as though he were repressing some feeling building up inside.

  It was amazing, she thought now, shivering as she shut the kitchen door, that they had known one another for – what? less than three months – in this secret place shut away from the world. In some ways it seemed like a lifetime. extraordinary coincidenceenis ces