The Cactus

by Sarah Haywood

  “Oh, I like that place. Can I tag along?” she asked.

  “Perhaps not, on this occasion. Arrangements have already been made.”

  She raised her eyebrows and said “Ooh” in quite a silly way.

  The café was busy and we had to hover by the counter, waiting for a table. Rob ordered a Bloody Mary, and I had the virgin version. The place had a morning-after-the-night-before feeling to it: warm and fuggy; smelling of fried food and fresh coffee; muted Miles Davis playing in the background. By lunchtime, we were finally seated and our breakfasts had arrived (mine a full English to satisfy what had recently become an almost limitless appetite, Rob’s a “textured vegetable protein” facsimile).

  “You don’t remember me from the old days, do you?” said Rob, leaning his elbows on the small table. I said I didn’t. “I was in my first year at college with Ed when we met, so that means you were in your third year. You came along with Phil to a couple of parties that Ed and me were at. I was struck by how grown-up and sophisticated you were compared to the rest of us, a bit above it all. I wanted to talk to you but, to be honest, I was intimidated. You wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with me anyway, seeing as I was two years younger and you were engaged. I suppose Phil must’ve dragged you along ’cos he and Ed had become friends while you were away.”

  * * *

  Yes, it’s hard to believe. My quiet, studious, socially awkward fiancé, Phil, who was reading Classics at Birmingham University, had become friends with my rebellious, anarchic, party-going brother, who was dabbling in painting at the city’s School of Art. Edward, who had hounded and hassled Phil when we walked home together from school, had now decided he was friend material. It was beyond coincidence that the timing corresponded with our engagement.

  Throughout my studies in Nottingham, Phil and I had written to each other once a week. In his first letter after I went back to university for my final year he mentioned that Edward had called round and had persuaded him to accompany him to the pub. I had an uneasy feeling about it. In my reply, I asked what reason Edward had given for inviting him. I warned him to be careful. Phil said Edward just wanted to be friends with his future brother-in-law, which he thought was admirable. He said not to worry. His subsequent letters that term described further invitations from Edward, to the pub and to student parties. Phil had even decided to join Edward and his friends on a trip to the Lake District. They were going to camp in a valley, next to an inn, walk in the mountains during the day and quench their thirst in the evening. Edward and his arty gang fancied themselves as nature-communers and poetic wanderers, following in the noble footsteps of Ruskin. The trip was, apparently, great fun.

  During the Christmas holidays I went with Phil to a party thrown by one of Edward’s friends. It was in a three-story Georgian house owned by a local benefactor and rented out cheaply to art students. From observing Phil, it was clear that he was in awe of Edward and his self-consciously unconventional friends. It was also clear that they, in turn, regarded him as an exotic pet (in their world it was the quiet, studious Phil who was the novelty). I didn’t enjoy the party. The alcohol-and-cannabis-induced idiocy was incomprehensible to me. In addition, I found their ribbing of Phil to be demeaning. I couldn’t understand why he tolerated it. On the way home, we argued. A few days later, Phil suggested we go to a New Year’s Eve party thrown by another of Edward’s friends. I refused. We spent the evening watching television with my mother.

  The following term Phil’s letters—although just as friendly and affectionate—became less regular. There was even a week when he didn’t write at all. There were no longer any references to nights out with Edward, but I believe that that was because he knew I didn’t approve, rather than that they had ceased. In the subsequent university holidays Phil said there was another party at the student house we’d been to at Christmas. He said it was Easter-themed fancy dress, that it would be a big event. I allowed myself to be persuaded, very much against my better judgment. Phil decided to go as an Easter chick, in a costume Edward had sourced for him. I refused to dress up. Wisely, as it turned out, because Phil was the only person in fancy dress. It had been a joke on the part of my brother and his friends. At the party, Phil played along, intermittently flapping his wings and chirping; I felt humiliated on his behalf.

  In the summer term of that year, Phil’s erratic letters became erratic notes—just an odd paragraph or two hoping I was getting on well with my revision and finding time to enjoy the sunshine. I put the terseness of his correspondence down to the fact that he was studying hard for his finals; after all, we were still engaged and were planning to move to London together as soon as we’d found jobs there. In July of that year, I invited Phil to accompany my mother to my graduation ceremony in Nottingham. I didn’t invite my brother. Phil said he was very sorry, but he’d already arranged to go to the Lake District once again with Edward and his friends. They were staying in the same campsite next to the inn, and planning a ridge walk up Striding Edge to Helvellyn. He said it was a swan song to the academic year just gone and to the group of friends; once we moved to London he doubted he’d see them again. I was furious with him, but he was determined. I suspected that Edward was behind the scenes directing his responses. In the end, I had no choice but to go along with it. Anyway, he was right; once we’d moved away from Birmingham he’d be having no further contact with those people.

  Phil’s mother didn’t have a contact number for me in Nottingham, so I didn’t get the news until I returned home the day after my graduation ceremony. Nobody could explain quite how it happened; it was a dry, sunny, windless day and visibility was good. “Accidental death” was the coroner’s verdict. I pieced together my own picture of the sequence of events from evidence given at the inquest and from snippets of information gleaned from Edward’s friends. The group—six young men in total, including my brother and fiancé—had set off from their campsite at nine o’clock in the morning with thumping hangovers. They had taken numerous breaks on the ascent of the ridge: to take photographs, to sketch views and to recover their breath after steep sections. With the exception of Phil, they all found the going tough. They weren’t exactly the most healthy-living bunch of students.

  As the sun rose higher in the sky they shed their jackets and put on their sunglasses. None of them had proper walking gear; it was jeans, trainers and canvas satchels rather than walking trousers, boots and backpacks. They were fortunate it was such a fine day. Phil went on ahead a few times, calling back from minor peaks that they were nearly at the summit. As they reached him they would see another higher peak looming before them. The heat of the day built, and his incessant joking started to irritate them. Around midday, Helvellyn not yet conquered, they decided to stop and eat the packed lunch they had had the good sense to order from the inn the night before (breakfast had consisted of Mars bars and stale cheese-and-onion crisps washed down with flat Coca-Cola).

  At some point after lunch Phil wandered off, his camera and binoculars around his neck. The remaining five men made pillows from their jackets and bags, and lay back in the baking sun. By around one o’clock they were fully rested, and decided to set off again. Phil hadn’t returned. It was assumed that he was absorbed in taking photographs or studying the view. They waited a few minutes. When he’d still not reappeared, they started calling his name. One of their party—Ian—scrambled down to a protruding granite platform to get a better view of what was below. Tentatively peering over the edge, he saw Phil, inert, on a scree slope, hundreds of feet beneath. It was before the days of mobile phones, so help couldn’t be summoned immediately. With a rising sense of panic, the group split up. Edward and Ian would make their way down to Phil, the other three would return the way they had come and alert the mountain rescue service. My incompetent brother and his friend never managed to reach Phil, instead ending up utterly lost and disoriented. The helicopter crew, once they had recovered the body, had to return to the mountain t
o locate and rescue the wretched pair.

  * * *

  On hearing the news, my mother’s response—after wiping her eyes with a handkerchief and saying what a tragedy it was for Phil and his mum—was to fret about how the traumatic experience would affect Edward. My natural reserves of self-discipline and willpower enabled me to deal with the situation, although I found I had no desire to leave my bedroom during the subsequent days. I expect I needed a good rest after the hard work I’d put into my finals.

  The funeral was tiny, just Phil’s wheelchair-bound mother; his estranged father, who he hadn’t seen for over ten years; a couple of people from university; and the group that had been on the mountain. Edward turned up at the church just after the service started and left as soon as it finished. The wake was held in Phil’s mother’s cramped sitting room. In a slurred whisper, Ian admitted to me that, after lunch on Striding Edge, Edward had rolled a couple of joints that the group had passed around. Phil wouldn’t have been used to it. Poor innocent, naive Phil. I’m not saying Edward deliberately killed him. But he lured him into his group to get at me; introduced him to a lifestyle to which he was unaccustomed and unsuited; and supplied the drugs that affected his judgment. See what sort of person I have for a brother?

  Immediately after the funeral I packed my bags and left for London. When I returned for the inquest, I managed to track Edward down to one of his favorite pubs. Not surprisingly, we ended up rowing. He refused to admit responsibility for the circumstances that led to Phil’s death. He called me paranoid and malevolent, and claimed I was trying to divert the spotlight away from myself. I told Edward he might just as well have stood behind Phil and given him a shove. Edward said he probably threw himself off the cliff to avoid having to marry me. Later, my mother appeared bothered.

  “I heard what happened in the pub. I don’t want you saying hurtful things to your brother, Susan. You know he’s got a sensitive nature, just like his father. I don’t want him going off the rails. He’s not tough, like you.”

  It was some months before I returned home.

  * * *

  “No, as I’ve told you, I’ve no recollection of you at all,” I repeated, piercing the yolk of my fried egg with my fork.

  “Well, I haven’t forgotten you. Over the years, Ed’s talked about what you’ve been up to, but I wasn’t sure we’d ever meet again. Funny how things work out.”

  “Indeed. It’s fortuitous that we’ve become reacquainted, otherwise I’d have spent a fortune on storage charges.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.”

  “So, are you managing to carry out the renovations to your house around my mother’s furniture?”

  “Yeah, everything’s going well. I’ve put in a new kitchen and bathroom, and made progress with the decorating. I’m going to be sanding floors when I get back. I’m grateful to Ed for giving me a roof over my head, but you need a place of your own. I’m not seeing so much of him now I’ve moved out—I’m so busy working on the house.”

  “That must be a relief for you.”

  Rob put down his knife and fork and took a swig of his Bloody Mary.

  “He still doesn’t know we’re friends. I mean, he knows I was around when you were clearing out those rooms at your mum’s house, but that’s all. There were one or two people at the party last night who might be in contact with Ed, though, so I probably need to come clean before he finds out from someone else. He’ll go crazy, but he’ll have to accept it. I’m neutral in this thing between the two of you.”

  “He’ll probably think I’m deliberately befriending you to get back at him,” I said, dipping a button mushroom into the runny yolk.

  “And are you?”

  “Of course.”

  He laughed, unsure whether I was telling the truth. As was I.

  “You know, over the years Ed’s talked quite a bit about his childhood,” said Rob, through a mouthful of cold toast. “About your dad’s problems with booze. If you ask me, the bad blood between you and Ed can be traced back to that.”

  This is what happens if you let down your guard; people think they can tread wherever they like. My territory was being invaded.

  “I’m not asking you.”

  “Sounds to me like you dealt with it in totally different ways. Ed by going out all the time and you by locking yourself away. He told me he wanted to feel that you were both on the same side, but that you were always so cool and distant he couldn’t tell what was going on in your head.”

  “I’m sorry, Rob, but this isn’t a subject I wish to discuss with you. You know nothing about our family.”

  “Agreed. I only know what Ed’s told me and what I’ve worked out by reading between the lines. It’s just that it’d be great if you two resolved your differences. Maybe if you could both see where the other one’s coming from it would help. Ed’s really not a bad person.”

  “Hah.”

  “You’re just very different personalities. He’s not great at managing his life. It sounds like your mum was overprotective toward him, maybe because of your dad. I’m not saying he didn’t take full advantage of that, but because he was used to her doing everything for him he expects people to help him out. I think the opposite’s probably true of you. It sounds like you had to cope by yourself.”

  “Rob, that’s enough. I don’t go in for this kind of cod psychoanalysis. I have no interest in what Edward’s told you, or what you’ve surmised. It’s none of your business.”

  I hadn’t quite finished my breakfast, but I was finding it heavy-going and indigestible. It had been an error of judgment. I beckoned the waiter over and asked for the bill.

  “What shall we do now?” asked Rob, as I put on my coat, looped my scarf around my neck and picked up my handbag.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m going home to work on some draft documents for my court case against Edward. Here’s twenty pounds. That should cover my meal and drinks. I hope you have a good journey back to Birmingham.”

  I placed the note on the table.

  “God, Susan, are you on your high horse again?” he called after me as I maneuvered my way through the packed café. “Just hang on a mo ’til I’ve paid.”

  I didn’t look back.

  * * *

  Five minutes later, as I was puffing along the street in the direction of Clapham and rummaging for my phone so I could order a cab, Rob’s van bumped up onto the curb just ahead of me. By the time I drew level with it, he’d wound down the passenger-side window.

  “Hey, lady, going my way?” he called.

  I ignored him and continued walking. He drove on ahead, then pulled over again. As I drew level with him for a second time, he leaned across the seats.

  “Come on, Susan, be reasonable. Okay, I might’ve been a bit tactless, but there’s no need to go off in a huff.”

  I stopped to face him.

  “I’m not ‘in a huff.’ I’ve never behaved in a way which would merit such a description. I’m just demonstrating to you that your line of conversation was unacceptable.”

  “I get it—no talking about yours and Ed’s childhood. Fine. But that doesn’t mean you have to stomp off.”

  “I’m not ‘stomping off.’ Again, I’ve never behaved...”

  “Yeah, yeah. So why don’t you get in the van, then, and let’s not waste any more of the day. Allow me to show you a good time—I’ll take you to Kew Gardens.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because, as I’m sure you’re aware, they’ve got a very impressive collection of cacti. Go on, you know you want to.”

  He opened the passenger door and swung it open. After a brief hesitation, I climbed in. I couldn’t deny it, Rob’s proposition was more than tempting; there were some uncommon specimens on show, and I hadn’t been to Kew since my earliest days in London.

&
nbsp; * * *

  Rob and I spent the majority of the afternoon in the Princess of Wales Conservatory, which houses the cacti and succulents. The atmosphere was thick with exotic scents, and the climate-controlled heat was welcome after the raw chill outside. I felt myself slowly defrosting as we ambled along the pathways, our coats and scarves in our arms. Rob explained that there were ten sectors within the glasshouse, the main ones being the dry tropics and the wet tropics. The eight remaining microclimates included a seasonally dry zone, which contained desert and savanna plants, and areas for carnivorous plants, ferns and orchids. It was as though he’d swallowed the guidebook whole and was regurgitating it. A not unimpressive feat. When I said as much to him, he told me that Kew was his place of pilgrimage, one to which he returned with regularity; the cultivation of flora was like a religion to him. I admired his passion.

  As the sky outside the glasshouse darkened and the crowds thinned then trickled away, it seemed like the place belonged just to Rob and me. Standing in the dry zone, next to a particularly magnificent and spiny Golden Barrel cactus, inquisitiveness got the better of me; I couldn’t help asking him what this was all about. Why was he choosing to spend time with me, when he could be back in Birmingham in a pub with Edward? Or be taking in the sights and smells of Kew Gardens with one of his other London friends? He shrugged.

  “Well, I suppose it’s because we’re mates. I get bored of hanging around with men all the time. It’s good to have platonic female friends. Plus, I don’t know anyone who knows as much as you do about cacti. I’ve found it’s a bit of a niche interest.” He laughed. He laughs a lot.

  20

  It was a dismal day in the most miserable month of the year, and I wasn’t going to work. Trudy had reminded me I’d hardly taken any of my annual leave entitlement for this financial year, and suggested I use it up by extending my weekends. She said I’d benefit from the rest now that I was so heavily pregnant. I wasn’t convinced; without my routines I feel like a dinghy cut free of its moorings. As it turned out, though, her suggestion proved to be a timely one. My mother’s medical records had finally arrived in a hefty parcel the previous morning, and I suspected it would take quite some time to study and interpret them.