The photograph is framed with the delicate petals of sweet peas. I still have the purple-fringed scarf I tied around the brim of my black felt boater. That was the day a boy first told me he loved me.
“If you’re going to laugh then let’s keep going, shall we? Look, is that any better?”
“Why is your fringe sticking up like that? Is that on purpose?”
“Yes, it is, you cheeky mare. That must be the last one, that was the summer before I went to university.” I shut the album, but Marianne opens it again.
“There’s still some more. Look, it’s all pictures of old people. Who are they? Oh! Is that… is that… Why is he here?”
We stare at the photograph in perplexed silence. From a border of sage leaves, James Moon looks back at us. Beneath it, Lily has written:
Why should a man die who has sage in his garden?
“Well, there you go,” I say, and shut the album. “I suppose that shows you’re never too old for it. Why don’t you go outside for a bit? I’ll come and get you when lunch is ready.”
With Marianne safely distracted from the album, I sit down at the desk, but I can’t settle. Yesterday has drained me of all my efficiency. With our one immovable deadline out of the way, I feel limp and lost. On the edge of my notes, I see Marianne’s scribbled sum, a tiny reminder of a mystery, and shake my head before the thought can take hold again. I decided yesterday that it didn’t matter, and I’m sticking to that. It’s the photograph album, its dreamy images and necromantic words, getting into my head and convincing me there’s something here I need to do or to discover. Lily and Margaret. One of them my grandmother, one my great-aunt. But which way round was it? Whose grandchild am I really?
I don’t have time for this. My real life is waiting for me. I pick up my pen, lay it down again, pick it up again, lay it down again. Maybe I need a break. Maybe a few minutes will clear my head and restore me to my normal efficient self. Maybe I should read, escape into another world for a while. I scan the bookshelf, but nothing appeals.
Tucked in among the untidy bundle of papers at the end of the shelf is a slim hard-backed notebook. When I take it out, the cover’s stained dark with spilled vanilla and the pages inside are yellow. But the handwriting is as clear and neat as it ever was, counting out quantities and times and temperatures, the luscious alchemical secrets her friends used to enquire after, but were never allowed to share. Lily’s recipe book.
Baking is a kind of magic, Lily tells me. A very gentle kind. It’s good for your soul. Like meditation.
I think about Daniel, pining for me like a neglected dog. Every hour I spend away from the jobs I’m supposed to be doing is another hour before I can be back where I belong. I don’t have time for this.
Baking helps you get your mind in order when you have something hard to think about.
But I don’t want to think about it, I argue weakly. That’s the whole point.
Then why not do it just because you enjoy it?
I leaf reverently through the pages. Which would I choose if I could? Quarter cake, Madeira cake, devil’s food cake, angel cake, the same basic ingredients of flour, eggs, butter, sugar, mingled with flavours and fillings and endlessly combined into a million bewitching confections. Lily was renowned for her cakes. They took pride of place at church bazaars, each slice commanding a premium over its less-well-regarded companions.
You work so hard, my darling. Take some time for yourself.
A cake implies sociability, steadiness, permanence. It’s a ridiculous thing to make in a house that’s not your own and that you hope to leave in a couple of days.
It’s never ridiculous to do something that makes you happy. Only an hour or so for yourself, that’s all. What harm can it do?
I pause on Lily’s recipe for Victoria sponge, rich with butter and golden with eggs. I never have the time to bake at home. When will I get the chance again? I can picture Lily nodding approvingly.
With every moment I spend in the kitchen, I sink deeper into memory. I remember the glint of the sugar as it poured into the scale pan, the luxurious weight of the butter, the gradual transformation from rich gold to richer cream. (Always keep your butter in the pantry, Lily reminds me as I work the mix with a wooden spoon, my arm aching with the effort. It helps keep the sponge light.) I remember the decadence of seeing Lily crack six eggs – a whole box! – into a basin, and the anxious thrill the first time she let me try this for myself. The slow peaceful steadiness of baking, each step in its own order, impossible to hurry, fills me with contentment. All the tension slides from my shoulders. I feel as if I’m walking in my sleep.
Don’t let it curdle, Lily warns as I add the egg a tablespoonful at a time, stirring as fast as I can. Fold in some flour if you need to. Add the vanilla after the flour. Then straight in the oven. Perfect. Now, while the cake cooks we can clean and tidy…
The flour jar goes back into its spot on the pantry shelf. The sugar jar is nearly empty – I must remember to buy more. The little brown bottle of vanilla goes back into its home in the spice rack. I crunch the eggshells before I throw them away. It stops a witch from using them to cast a spell, Lily told me once, laughing at her own superstition. The water is so scalding hot that everything dries almost instantly. A quick wipe of the surfaces and the kitchen is clean again, scented with the treat growing golden behind the oven door.
Then I glance at the clock and see to my horror that it’s nearly noon. I’ve wasted the whole morning.
Jen’s exceptional ability to focus on the detail is an asset to the team. My boss Ken wrote that in my Performance Review a few months ago. What’s happening to me? Maybe I need fresh air; fresh air while the cake cooks, and then lunch. The blank screen of my laptop stares at me accusingly. I slam it shut so I won’t have to look at it, and go to look for Marianne.
The trees have grown taller and the shrubs woodier, but the lawn is still soft and velvety, mowed in stripes by the gardener. The datura, poisonous and beautiful, still shades the bench where Lily’s neighbours sometimes sat to enjoy the sunshine, and the tough little holly tree tucked away between two rhododendron bushes still drops thick brown leaves like caltrops. I stepped on one with bare feet once. I still remember how my whole body convulsed with the shock, a great rush of air pouring out between my lips, and when I looked around, Lily and her two friends were hurrying, white-faced, across the lawn. As I tried to explain, I accidentally stood on another holly leaf and did the same thing again, and the woman closest to me covered her ears and cowered. Lily said afterwards that she saw three birds fly off in a panic. I apologised, but she didn’t seem angry. In fact, she looked rather proud. Today I have shoes on, but nonetheless I tread carefully. Marianne isn’t here, but I hadn’t expected her to be. She’ll be in the quieter, more secret part of the garden, down by the wall where Lily grew herbs even though the gardener wanted carnations, a sunny spot where you can lose yourself for hours. I push between two tall camellia bushes, picking petals from my clothes as I go.
Marianne is kneeling by the wall, her nose close to the earth. The air smells sweet and minty, as if something has been freshly crushed. She’s petting a little tabby cat with a white bib and socks that rolls and rolls in the sunshine, green eyes half-closed, belly fur stroked smooth by Marianne’s gentle hand. The cat is lying in a patch of what looks like miniature green nettles but is, of course, catnip – which explains the tranced delight that surrounds it like a cloud.
“I found a cat,” Marianne tells me, dazed and blissful. “I found a little cat and she’s such a darling. She even lets me stroke her underneath.”
“I wouldn’t, she might bite—”
Marianne’s fingers trail through the cat’s soft underbelly. The cat wraps velvet paws around her arm and purrs. Her teeth gleam as she rests them against Marianne’s skin, so gently there’s not even an indentation. Marianne looks as if she might be purring herself, a low repetitive vibration of sensual pleasure as the cat twines more firmly around her a
rm and writhes among the green leaves. I wonder if catnip has any proven effect on humans.
“Hello then, cat.” I stretch out a finger and the cat sniffs briefly at it before relaxing back into her patch of catnip. I run my hand over her glossy coat. She’s compact and muscly, a lean little moggy whose translucent claws glow pinkish-white as she kneads at the air.
“She likes me,” Marianne says. “She likes you too.” The half-crushed patch of catnip, sweetened by sunshine, is a little patch of feline heaven. I’m tempted to lie down in it myself.
“Is it a girl?”
“She looks like a girl,” Marianne says. Her hands smooth longingly over the cat’s side. “Do you think she has a home? She’s not lost?”
“She’s not lost. Look how friendly she is.”
“She might just be pleased because she’s found some people who like her.”
“And she’s nice and healthy.”
“Maybe she’s good at looking after herself.”
A shadow falls across the patch of catnip. All three of us squint up through too-bright sunshine at the upright figure and frowning face of James Moon. I gather myself together, ready for battle. Marianne stops stroking the cat and moves closer to me. The cat herself carries on with her blissful rolling, purring so hard her little ribcage vibrates with it. James Moon bends into our space and his hands reach towards us and I flinch back, unsure what’s going to happen. He scoops up the cat and tucks it under his chin, where it wriggles for a minute and then nestles against his chest, absurdly tiny in his large hands.
“Might have known you’d be poking around down here,” James says to me. “Can’t you leave anything alone for one bloody minute?”
“We were only petting her,” Marianne says, speaking and signing at the same time so I can follow what she’s saying despite the sun that’s right behind her head. “We’re not trying to keep her. What’s her name?” James Moon looks mutinous. “Please tell me. I promise I won’t laugh.”
“Doesn’t have one. She’s just called Cat.”
Marianne’s hand reaches up to the cat as it sits, quiet and resigned, under James’s chin. “Hello, Cat. I like your name.”
“It’s a bloody stupid name,” says James. “I didn’t choose it. Like calling your child Daughter.”
“So why didn’t you change it?” Marianne asks, still hovering and dabbing at the cat. Long rabbity back feet dangle between James’s fingers. Marianne touches the white toes in fascination.
“It’s not your cat.” I suddenly know this for a certainty. “It’s—”
“Lily’s. Course it bloody is. Been looking after it since she went into hospital. If you’d bothered to stay in touch with her you’d have known about it and made arrangements. As it was, you’ve got me to thank for not walking into a flat full of dead cat stink. Don’t think you’re getting it back either.”
“If I wanted a cat I’d buy my own. I don’t have to steal off my neighbours. Have it if you want. A present from me.”
“Don’t want the damn thing. Bloody nuisance it is, always wandering off, I don’t know why she bothered.” He strokes the top of the cat’s head and she turns into his caress, arching her neck and closing her eyes. “Got it from a shelter. Previous owner up and died. Lame duck. Lily always liked lame ducks. Like you.”
The unbelievable hurt this causes me strikes me momentarily dumb. Through the red haze, I see James Moon look – am I imagining it? – briefly ashamed.
“She’s so cute,” says Marianne, continuing her investigation of the cat’s paws.
“Catnip,” says James. “Sends her off her rocker. Can’t pick her up like this normally, she won’t have it. Let Lily do it, of course. Thing was crazy about Lily. Sometimes I’d hear it meowing for her—” He stops talking so abruptly it’s like having a door slammed in our faces, and turns away so we can’t see his expression.
“The funeral notice said no flowers,” I say very loudly to his retreating back, hoping the sob in my chest isn’t leaking out. “And she never liked red roses either. She’d have laughed and thrown them in the bin. You didn’t know her as well as you thought.” His shoulders quiver as he slows his pace. “If the cat’s such a nuisance I’ll send it to the shelter. Then you’ll have more time to spend breaking into people’s houses and being rude to strangers, you miserable old man.”
James Moon stops, hesitates, then turns around and looks me in the eye. I brace myself for the next verbal onslaught, but he simply stands there, swallowing hard, one hand still holding the cat that now appears to have gone to sleep against his chest. His mouth works and his face is crumpled. Despite my best efforts, a tear crawls down my cheek and I realise with a jab of shame that we’ve each reduced the other to tears.
Then Marianne, my gentle frightened Marianne, beckons James towards her, then reaches out and takes first my hand, and then his, so we stand on the grass in an awkward, reluctant trinity, or perhaps a quartet if we’re counting the cat.
“I think you both loved her and that’s why you’re both sad,” she says. “Maybe you should stop shouting and each say one thing you loved best about Lily.”
If anyone else suggested this I’d laugh in their face. I keep my eye fixed on James, daring him to hurt Marianne’s feelings so I can tear another strip of flesh from his poor hurt bones. The pause stretches and stretches.
“That what they teach at school these days?” James says at last.
“We learned about conflict resolution in PSD,” says Marianne, looking modest. “It might feel weird at first but you should give it a go. It worked for me and Ellie and Grace when we had a big falling-out at the end of Year Six.”
James shakes his head a little, but holds his tongue.
“Come on,” says Marianne. “You just need to be brave.”
James Moon shakes his hand free of Marianne’s and holds it out to me instead.
“Time we called it a truce,” he says. “Be civilised at least, shall we? Don’t have to like each other, of course. God forbid.”
I shake his hand, still a little reluctant. A small mean part of me has enjoyed the freedom to be as rude as possible, on all available occasions. Marianne nods approvingly.
“You look like her today,” James says to Marianne, apparently surprising himself. His gnarled hand tugs gently at her curls. “Your hair’s your own though. What you finding to do with yourself? Must get bored with your mother so busy?”
“She’s fine,” I say. We’ve agreed a truce. Why he is undermining me?
“I’m fine,” Marianne agrees. “It’s awesome here. The garden’s great.” She reaches up again for the cat, who’s begun to come out of her catnip trance and glares warningly at Marianne from one slitty green eye. “And now I can play with the cat.”
“Not supposed to be out here,” says James. “Indoor cat all its life, apparently. That’s why they let it go to someone with a flat. Not that she took any notice. Never took any notice of anyone she disagreed with. You’d have liked her.”
I don’t like the rapport that’s developing here, while I stand around like a spare part and look from one to the other to follow the conversation. I break the moment by coughing loudly and then stepping between James and Marianne, resisting the temptation to sneak a stroke of the cat’s plushy fur as I do so.
“We need to go,” I tell Marianne.
“Are we going out somewhere? To the solicitors?”
“I’ve made a cake,” I say, half proud, half confessional.
“You can make cakes?”
“Of course I can make cakes. I just don’t often get time. We need to take it out the oven before it burns.”
James frowns and watches our hands, as if concentrating hard for five seconds will somehow unlock the key to a whole new language.
“See you later,” I offer, out loud.
“You could come too,” Marianne suggests.
“Come where?” James looks bewildered.
“Come and have some cake with us.” James’s e
xpression of horror must match mine. “You don’t have to, but I thought you might enjoy it. Everyone likes cake.”
“Marianne,” I say warningly. She ignores me, swinging her hair across her face so she can pretend not to see me. “Marianne,” I repeat, out loud this time.
“Don’t worry,” says James, with a look as dry as the Sahara. “Got too much to do to stop for cake. But thanks. That’s a nice thing to say.”
“Maybe I’ll see you later then,” says Marianne. She glances longingly at the cat once more. “Goodbye, Cat.”
“How do you lot say that?” James asks abruptly, looking at me.
“Excuse me? My lot? I’m English, you know, the same as you are.”
“Like this,” says Marianne, showing him.
We walk briskly back across the lawn, Marianne struggling to keep pace with me.
“Why did you ask him in?” I demand as soon as we reach the cool quiet of the hallway.
Her dark eyes are troubled. “Are you mad?”
“No.”
“Yes, you are. I’m sorry.”
It’s very hard to lie with your hands.
“Maybe a little bit mad. But that’s not fair, I know you’re not trying to annoy me.”
“But you are annoyed?”
“I wondered why you asked him in, that’s all.”
“He knew Lily.”
“What?”
“He knew Lily,” Marianne says, as if this is explanation enough.
I stop climbing the stairs so I can make sure I’ve understood this correctly.
“Why are you interested? You never even met her.”
“Yes, I know. I’d like to know more about her. And I know you don’t want to talk about her, and anyway you’ve got loads to do. So I thought if I got to know Mr Moon, he could tell me. And I’ve got to do it now because once we leave I won’t ever see him again probably, and then he’ll die and there’ll be this whole bit of my family I’ll never know about.”
What can I say to this when everything I thought I knew seems doubtful? From behind the half-open door, the scent of Victoria sponge cake coils around us.
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