The Rose Garden Read online

  Mark brought the box with him, and asked where I wanted it.

  ‘Anywhere’s fine.’ It was only a box now, with nothing inside.

  Claire, who’d followed behind us, asked, ‘How did it go?’ in a tone that, to anyone else, might have sounded as though she were asking an everyday question.

  I said, ‘It was perfect, thanks.’

  Mark put in, ‘Eva got drunk.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Get over it, you said yourself you were.’ His grin was, like his stepmother’s tone of voice, designed to even out the day’s emotions. ‘You still are. You ought to see your eyes.’

  ‘Well, if they’re anything like yours,’ I said, ‘I guess I’ll need some coffee.’

  ‘Guess you will. I’ll make some, shall I?’ And he headed for the kettle with an amiable purpose.

  I was moving much more slowly, and Claire came to take my elbow. ‘What on earth were you two drinking?’

  ‘Scrumpy.’

  ‘Ah. Then you’ll be needing to sit down, darling.’

  She took me through into the big front room that we had always called the library, because of all the bookshelves, and she saw me seated next to the piano, and then Mark came, with coffee for us all, and slouched into the sofa at my side. His hair was curling as it dried, and he looked so much like the boy he’d been once that it seemed incredible to me so many years had passed since I’d last sat in here, like this. With them.

  Claire’s mind had been travelling on the same line. ‘I feel I ought to send you straight upstairs to have a bath,’ she told me.

  ‘I don’t think I’d manage the stairs at the moment.’ I leant my head back on the cushions, then brought it back upright to stop it from spinning as Claire asked where we’d taken the ashes.

  Mark answered. ‘The Beacon.’

  If Claire understood the full meaning of that, she gave no indication. She only said, ‘Oh yes, it’s lovely up there.’

  ‘It was, today,’ he said. ‘Where’s Sue?’

  ‘I’m here,’ said Susan, coming in. She stopped inside the doorway, looked from Mark to me. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Mark said, ‘but Eva’s had too much to drink.’

  I sighed. ‘I have not. Anyway, you can talk. Look at the state of you.’

  ‘I’m not the one seeing double, now am I?’

  Claire’s voice was calm. ‘Children.’

  Susan came all the way into the room and sat down on my other side, curious. ‘Who’s seeing double?’

  Mark rolled his head sideways. ‘Eva tried to convince me there were two paths in the Wild Wood.’

  I couldn’t argue that, but I could lay the blame where it belonged. ‘It’s his fault.’

  Susan looked at me in sympathy. ‘What was it, whisky?’

  ‘Scrumpy.’

  ‘God. How could you?’ she asked Mark.

  His shrug seemed a great effort. ‘Before you rush to judgement, you should know that after drinking Scrumpy with me, Eva started thinking that your tea room was a wonderful idea.’

  I elbowed him. He clutched his ribs and half-laughed, ‘Ow.’

  ‘I thought it was a wonderful idea before the Scrumpy.’

  Susan, looking pleased, asked, ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes. I was just telling Mark I’d like to help you set it up. Be your PR consultant, if that would be any use to you.’

  Mark said, to Claire and Susan, ‘In exchange for room and board. She’ll be staying with us for the summer.’

  He didn’t mention anything about my plans to rent a cottage nearby when the tourist season ended in the autumn, presumably because, like me, Mark knew that Claire was generous to a fault, and had she known that I was looking for a cottage she’d have instantly insisted I take hers.

  As it was, she smiled approval at me warmly from her corner while beside me Susan said, delighted, ‘Are you? Eva, that’s wonderful. Really, it’s going to be just like old times.’

  Mark shot her a sideways look over my head that I took as a silent reminder that things weren’t exactly the same, with Katrina not here, and because I felt Susan’s self-conscious reaction I covered the moment of awkwardness with, ‘So you see, I’ll have plenty of time to help out with your plans for the tea room.’

  Susan gratefully said, ‘I can show you the greenhouse tomorrow. Felicity’s coming to help me start clearing it out. There are things stored in there that I don’t think have moved since I went off to uni.’

  Claire smiled. ‘Very likely before that.’

  I asked, ‘Who’s Felicity?’

  ‘One of my friends from the village. You’ll like her, I think. Won’t she, Claire?’

  ‘Yes, we all like Felicity.’ Claire looked with affection at her stepson, who was sinking ever lower on the sofa. ‘You’ll be fast asleep, Mark, if you sit there much longer.’

  ‘Mm.’ He closed his eyes, and proved her point by drifting off immediately, breathing in a slow and even rhythm.

  ‘Men,’ said Susan, rather fondly. Then to me, ‘You ought to have a nap as well, I’m sure it’s been a trying day.’

  It had, and she was right, except my cup of coffee had kicked in now and I wasn’t feeling sleepy any more. Instead I sat with Claire and Susan, talking of small things while Mark snored on. And when we’d finished all the coffee in the pot and Claire had started thinking about what to make for supper, I felt more awake than ever.

  ‘I can help,’ I offered.

  Susan shook her head. ‘No, we can do it. You just stay here and relax.’

  ‘You’ve only just arrived,’ said Claire, and rubbed my shoulder as she passed. ‘Let us take care of you.’

  The sitting room was filled with things to do, except I couldn’t play piano and I didn’t want to turn the television on while Mark was still asleep. Instead I stood and stretched and went to make a study of the bookshelves, where I recognised the old and battered bindings of the local history books my mother had so loved to give to Uncle George and Claire as gifts. It had been something of a passion for her, hunting down forgotten volumes in her favourite musty shops in London, antiquarian establishments with creaking floors and crowded shelves.

  I chose one book and opened it: A History of Polgelly, written in the 1800s by a gentleman who, from his tone, had been an ardent Methodist. He disapproved quite heartily of all that had gone on here and had nothing good to say about Trelowarth, which he said had been ‘a den of godless blackguards though its current owner, Mr Hallett, has done what he can to drive the devil from that place.’

  Unfortunately, being such a devout man, the author of A History of Polgelly never did get round to mentioning exactly what it was those godless blackguards had been up to. Losing interest, I re-shelved his cheerless book and tried another one: Polgelly Through the Ages.

  This was better. Not as preachy, and its author was a more romantic soul who started off with ancient legends and the story of the old well at St Non’s, and wove his facts with bits of poetry that made the book a pleasant read.

  I was halfway through by supper, and I took it upstairs afterwards to read in bed, in hopes that it would lull me off to sleep. But once again, I found myself too restless, whether from an overdose of coffee or residual emotion from our scattering the ashes, and when midnight came and went and left me staring at the walls I took another of my sleeping pills and waited for the drowsiness to claim me.

  I was in that strange, floating place, well aware I was nearly asleep and past caring, when I thought I heard the same voices I’d heard before breakfast, the barest of whispers that seemed to come straight from the wall by my head.

  ‘Oh, knock it off,’ I mumbled with my face against the pillow. ‘Let me sleep.’

  They didn’t stop. But in the end, I didn’t mind, because the one voice had a very pleasant rhythm to it, and I let it soothe me into letting go my final hold on consciousness.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Susan had been right. I really liked her friend
Felicity.

  She was, like Susan, lively and intelligent and quick to laugh, a pretty young woman with dark hair that would have come down in a cascade of curls if she hadn’t kept it bound back with elastics and a clip and tied a scarf around it, gypsy style, presumably to guard against the dust that we were raising.

  ‘I mean, honestly,’ she asked us as she lifted yet another broken snooker cue, ‘why would somebody keep all these?’

  ‘You didn’t know my Dad.’ Susan smiled. ‘He probably had plans to make them into something useful.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’ve got plans for them and all.’ She chucked the cue with all the others on the growing rubbish heap outside the door. The greenhouse was a fairly modern structure. According to Susan it had been built a decade ago, when Uncle George had suddenly decided he wanted to breed roses, to create new varieties instead of only cultivating existing ones, but as with so many things that Uncle George had started with enthusiasm, it had failed to hold his interest long. His passion for hybridising had waned when it proved to be trickier work than he’d thought it would be, and at some point he must have abandoned his efforts because it appeared that the greenhouse had been given over to storage for several years now.

  We three had spent the last two hours since breakfast digging through the clutter and attempting to create a bit of order. It was challenging.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Felicity, ‘your family doesn’t seem to have thrown anything away. What is this, your first shoe?’ She held a tiny trainer up, and Susan looked.

  ‘More likely Mark’s.’ She’d found a treasure of her own. ‘Come look at this,’ she said, and spread the pages of a heavy album open so that we could see the photographs. The colours of the pictures had begun to change a bit with age, more reddish than they should have been, but still they showed some lovely views around Trelowarth gardens.

  ‘This shouldn’t be in here, it’s going to get ruined.’ Susan turned the pages reverently. ‘Oh look, there’s Claire.’

  ‘That’s quite the outfit,’ said Felicity.

  ‘Have a heart, it was the Eighties. Eva, look at this. Just look.’

  I looked, and saw a charming picture of the Lower Garden with the roses all in bloom and beautiful. I said, ‘You ought to have that one enlarged and hang it up in here.’

  Susan turned toward Felicity. ‘Could you do that, Fee?’

  ‘Course I could.’

  ‘Fee’s brilliant with photography. You ought to see her pictures of the harbour,’ Susan told me.

  ‘Well, it’s what the tourists want. I had some made up into notecards for the shop last summer. Couldn’t keep enough of them in stock.’

  I asked her, curious, ‘Where is your shop?’

  ‘Beside Penhaligon’s.’

  ‘Where Mrs Kinneck’s used to be,’ said Susan. ‘You remember Mrs Kinneck, Eva? She had all those jars of sweets behind the counter, and she always gave us liquorice babies.’

  I remembered.

  ‘It’s all changed, now,’ Susan said. ‘The old shops are all gone. Except the fudge shop – that’s still there, thank God – but Mrs Griggs is gone, and Mr Turner’s.’

  I asked, ‘What about the little place that sold the seashells in the baskets, near the harbour?’

  ‘It’s a tea room, now,’ she told me, ‘but the girl that runs it can’t make scones for toffee.’

  ‘Sue will put her out of business,’ said Felicity.

  Susan turned another page of photographs. ‘I don’t want to put anybody out of business, Fee. I’m only interested in keeping us in business.’ She looked down at the photographs, determined. ‘My father would spin in his grave if Trelowarth passed out of the family.’

  Felicity held up a long piece of signboard with the name ‘Trelowarth Roses’ stencilled on it in blue paint. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Oh. Part of the display we used to take around to flower shows, when Dad was still keen on that sort of thing.’

  I vaguely remembered the rhythm of all those shows, spread through the season from springtime to autumn, although as a child I’d been barely aware of the effort that Uncle George put into preparing for them. Looking at the neglected display, I asked, ‘Doesn’t Mark do shows?’

  ‘He hasn’t in years. He’s a true Hallett male,’ Susan said. ‘You can’t blast the man out of his garden unless he sees a need for it, and now he’s got the Internet he rarely sees the need for being sociable. He’s going to die a bachelor,’ she predicted.

  ‘Oh, I doubt it. Mark’s a handsome man,’ I said.

  ‘Well, not with this hairstyle, he isn’t.’ Still flipping through the pages of the photograph album, she turned it so Felicity and I could see the photo of a teenaged Mark with denims and fluorescent lime-green T-shirt, with his hair blow-dried and feathered like a 1980s pop star.

  Felicity laughed out loud. ‘And who on earth is that, behind him?’

  ‘That,’ said Susan, ‘would be Claire, again. We really should take these to show her, she’ll have probably forgotten they were here.’

  Felicity thought it more likely that Claire had been storing the album out here in the greenhouse on purpose, to bury the evidence. ‘Who would want to be reminded of those clothes?’

  But it was getting near to lunchtime and my stomach was aware of it, and Claire had made it clear she was expecting us for sandwiches and tea, which at the moment seemed a very good idea.

  The same thought must have struck the dogs, for all of them fell in behind us as we walked downhill towards the coast path, bouncing playfully on one another until Susan with a whistle sent them racing on ahead. The larger three dogs vanished in the woods, but scruffy Samson circled back and snuffled happily along close by my heels as Susan and Felicity forged on ahead of us.

  I’d always liked the company of dogs. I’d never had one of my own. When I was younger in Vancouver we’d had two cats that my father had said firmly were the only pets we needed, and none of my apartments in LA would have allowed a pet, but walking now with Samson I reflected on how comforting the bond could be between a person and a dog.

  Apparently he liked me, too. He wagged his stumpy tail at the least word from me, and seemed content himself to let the others go ahead while he stayed close beside me on the path, so when he paused to let his nose explore a patch of undergrowth, I stopped as well and waited for him. ‘What’s so interesting?’

  Samson couldn’t tell me what he smelt, of course. He cocked his ears to catch my voice but kept his nose down, focused on the scent around the leaves. A rabbit, likely. Maybe even Susan’s badger. I was going to suggest we move along when something rustled not far off, and Samson’s head shot up. One sniff and he was after it, his little body plunging through the trees, and even as I drew in breath to call him back the trees themselves began to shift and move.

  At least, it looked as though that’s what the trees were doing. Startled by the strangeness of it, I stopped short.

  The path, for some reason, appeared to have narrowed. The wind had grown suddenly warmer and sunlight was filtering down through the leaves at a new angle, dappling everything round me with shadows. And there, just in front of me, where I knew full well it hadn’t been moments before, was a fork in the path.

  The surprise held me motionless. That, and the uneasy knowledge that what I was looking at couldn’t be real. It was only a trick of the mind. Had to be. There was only one path through the woods. Mark had shown me that yesterday – and anyway I’d just been looking right there, at that very spot, not half a minute earlier, and I’d seen nothing. Only trees.

  The second path lay quietly in shadow, unconcerned with my refusal to believe that it was there. It curved away towards the cliffs, towards the sea, and all the ragged growth along its edges showed it hadn’t just been newly made, as did the deeply sliding marks that looked like footprints left by someone walking there just after rain.

  Confused, I looked along the path I knew, the only path that should have been there, but Felici
ty and Susan had gone on so far ahead I couldn’t see them anymore. I called out to them anyway. ‘Susan?’

  But nobody answered.

  The wind shook the branches and leaves overhead and the scenery shifted again, faintly dizzying. I closed my eyes.

  Something crashed through the ferns at my side and my heart jumped straight into my throat, beating hard. Then a snuffling nose nudged my leg. Very slowly, I opened my eyes and looked down, to see Samson returned from his chasing whatever it was, with a bit of twig stuck in the fur of his fast-wagging tail.

  I breathed carefully. Lifted my gaze to the trees. All was just as it should be – one path through the woods, every tree in its place, and Felicity walking with Susan ahead of me.

  And when my own legs stopped trembling, I followed them.

  Lunch was a blur. I remembered to eat, and to follow along with the table talk so I could nod when I needed to. I even joined in a couple of times. But I wasn’t entirely there, and Claire noticed.

  She wasn’t the kind of a person to pry. Still, she took me in hand after lunch, when we’d moved with our biscuits and tea to the patio in the back garden. Claire’s garden had a fairy-tale look to it, bordered as it was by the tall trees of the Wild Wood. Whatever grew here grew in shade. A trailing vine heaped tiny buds of honeysuckle all along the waist-high wall of stone built in the tight-fitted herringbone pattern so common in this part of Cornwall, and the back of the garden was lush with soft ferns and tall spikes of something that looked darkly tropical. Yet in defiance of the shadows, Claire had set a sundial squarely at the centre of her garden in the one place where the sunlight always reached, and with a ring of upturned earth around it, ready to be planted.

  When Felicity and Susan brought out the photo album once again and started flipping through its pages, Claire said, ‘Eva, come and help me plant my flowers, darling.’

  She fetched me a spare pair of gardening gloves and a trowel and took me across to the sundial, beneath which a varied assortment of seedlings were waiting in small plastic pots. ‘Here.’ She tipped out a small spindly flower of some kind, its fragile roots bound in a pressed clump of soil, and I knelt down beside her to take it. At first we said nothing. We planted the flowers together in a rhythm I remembered – scoop, set one down, tamp, tamp, mound up a basin to keep in the rainwater, reach for the next one, then scoop, set one down, tamp, tamp …