by Lulu Taylor
Imagine the gusts of freezing air that will fly through the cracked old doors, whirling in to nip at necks and fingers. Really, this place is completely unsuitable for us. But . . . Dan wasn’t terribly keen and raised all the practical objections, but she let her reason be overruled by the romance of the house and the opportunity it offered. And the truth was that, whatever Dan said, they didn’t have a great deal of choice.
A wood pigeon begins to coo overhead, the sweet, soothing sound filling her with calm just as Dan comes out of the house with that particular air of drained fatigue that comes of persuading someone else to go to sleep when one is dog-tired.
‘Success?’ she asks, though she’s sure that the answer is yes or he wouldn’t be here.
Dan nods. ‘Yup. Bea was as good as gold. I put her down in the cot and she just shut her eyes and went straight off to sleep. Stan was the tricky one today.’
‘He’s usually so easy. I think he’s still adapting.’ She nods at his cup of tea, cooling on the wrought-iron table next to the bench. ‘That’s yours. Bit cold now, I think. I’ll do a fresh one.’
‘No, don’t worry, it’s fine. I quite like it cold. Stan was a real live wire. Finished off all the milk, even after that lunch. It took me ages to get him to stop chatting and nod off.’
‘Perhaps it’s a growth spurt,’ Olivia says pensively. ‘I think he’s due one.’
Dan settles down on the bench next to her, stretches out his long legs and sighs. ‘Bloody hell. I’m bloody knackered. I never knew it was going to be this hard.’
Olivia laughs. ‘Well, we could have guessed!’
‘How?’ Dan says with a touch of petulance in his voice. ‘No one tells you what a relentless slog it is.’
‘Yes they do. We just don’t understand what it means till it happens. Besides . . .’ Olivia finishes off her own tea, now completely cold and metallic, leaving a film over her tongue. ‘It all gets better from here on in. Look at Sam and Robbie.’
Her nephews are ten and twelve, and during the stay in Argentina they were hardly seen. When they weren’t at school, they were outside playing or in the sitting room on their PlayStations, necks crooked at the TV screen, eyes wide, fingers and thumbs frantically moving on the consoles. They were called to meals, ate without persuasion, went to the loo without being accompanied, cleaned their own teeth, washed themselves, read their own stories. Olivia can hardly believe that one day her own needy little children will be as independent, but the day will surely come. Already she can’t really remember the hell of those early months: the blending of day into night, the desperate desire for sleep; the milk-scented, nappy-filled, feeding-obsessed hours when she and Dan just seemed to pass the babies back and forth between them as they slept in what seemed like carefully planned relays designed to prevent their parents from resting for more than twenty minutes. The best decision Dan and Olivia made was to go to stay with her sister and mother on the estancia. It was like flying from darkness and stress into light and rest. Sunlight, welcoming smiles and comforting arms greeted them, and suddenly life became a little easier. The mad carousel driven by panic and sleeplessness slowed. She could nap in the afternoons, leaving the babies with her mother. Someone else cooked and cleaned and returned the babies’ discarded clothes washed, ironed and folded. Voices of experience calmed and soothed her, and surrounded her and the twins with affection. Slowly, she was able to return to something more like herself, and to enjoy the babies the way she had wanted to. And she had others who loved them to coo and cuddle and find them as infinitely fascinating as she did.
The time slipped easily by. Their London flat was rented out, they had no jobs to get back to. There was room for them in the villa on the estancia, and life was pleasant and easy. Dan could take all the time he needed to write, and Olivia felt she could breathe for the first time in a long while. She hadn’t realised how tired she was of London and city life. To see sunshine and be surrounded by greenery every day soothed her deep inside, and she felt happy. Now she was able to see how hard the last few years had been, with the stress and strain of fertility treatment, the long anxious wait of pregnancy and the trauma of parenthood. The sense of restoration was seductive. Suddenly a year had gone by, and then another. Then Dan began to be restless. They had been away too long. He wanted to come home and at last she agreed. It seemed only fair, after she’d had two years with her family.
But, sitting on the veranda of the villa, under the soft blue sky, with the pampas grass stretching away into the distance, she felt a sense of horror when she imagined being back in their tiny London flat, with the small patch of green at the back and the endless traffic roaring past, the grey skies and the crowds of people. She could hardly bear the thought of going back. But, as it turned out, there was no way they could return to the flat, even if they’d wanted to.
The children sleep for the usual two hours, and while the place is quiet, Olivia goes on exploring the garden. The grounds of the house stretch out for acres, but not all of it is cultivated. Even so, there’s plenty of garden to get to know. She likes the bit outside their quarters best: it’s well looked after and mature, a garden that has been carefully nurtured for years and is at its peak. Beyond that, there are maintained lawns mown into contrasting stripes, carefully tended beds without a weed in sight, a rose garden and a pretty formal garden with box hedges grown in exactly symmetrical patterns, containing lavender and foxgloves and verbena within their borders.
Olivia walks the length of the garden wall nearest their door, examining the beds that run along beside it. The earth is still rather barren-looking after the long winter. Aside from the sheaves of finished daffodil leaves and the fresh crop of hyacinth and bluebell poking through, there’s not a lot happening. She thinks it’s already past the time to mulch here, and to turn the soil to make it a rich dark brown. Her hands itch for garden tools. Hers are back at the flat in the tiny shed. She hasn’t thought much of gardening for months – at least, not like this. She hasn’t been ready to get her hands dirty.
They’ve been too full of babies.
In Argentina, she studied the gardens around the villa but her Spanish was too bad to talk to the gardeners who tended it. She did some research online, visited the botanical gardens in Buenos Aires, and was welcomed to some of the other great estates around the city, to look at their magnificent grounds. When the babies were asleep or being looked after, she started to draw up plans for a book on the native plants and cultivated foreign species that were now thriving in the south east of Argentina, and imagined a beautifully illustrated guide to some of the finest gardens to be seen in that part of the country. In the drier areas to the west, there were dusty stretches, with cacti and dry grasses, but she would concentrate on the lush, green areas around the famous city with its strong European influence. There were gardens based on renowned French pleasure grounds and the landscaping of Italian palazzos, each blended with its own touch of native colour and character. She took dozens of photographs – none good enough for a book but useful for her reference – and now she was beginning to write, though she wasn’t quite sure of the structure yet. A year in an Argentinian garden? Or one garden studied with reference to others? It would come as she went along and discovered what it was she wanted to say.
She stops by a laburnum tree that’s been espaliered against the wall. Bright green leaf buds are bursting from its dark branches. Soon they’ll be out, and then the buds will come. In another month or so, the tree will be bright with golden flowers. But then . . . She puts her hand out to touch the branch closest to her. When the flowers are finished and the bees have done their work, this tree will produce pods containing rows of seeds, like small black peas. The pods will burst open and drop to the ground, and the seeds will be dispersed, ready to grow new laburnum trees, and—
‘You want to be careful with that.’
Olivia jumps violently at the voice and turns around. A man is standing across from her in the garden, a mulish expression on
his face. He’s wearing baggy jeans covered with mud and old black gumboots, and a thick sailor’s jumper that was once cream with a loose tweed jacket over the top. His hair is grey and black, greased back with a small quiff at the front, and his face is weathered and creased. It’s hard to tell exactly how old he is, but he’s not young.
‘What?’ she says faintly, still startled by his appearance.
‘You want to be careful with that.’ He nods towards the tree. There’s a kind of lilt in his voice that she can’t identify. It’s not like any accent she’s heard before. ‘It’s poisonous.’
‘I know.’ She looks back at the blameless-looking trunk and the spreading branches. She is already aware of the toxicity of every part of this plant. Leaves, flowers, and seeds. They can induce sickness, diarrhoea, convulsions and, in small children and animals, prove fatal. She has considered cutting it down, before the pods with their inviting row of small black seeds fall to the ground where Stan and Bea can pick them, and where little fat fingers can pluck and transfer the poison from pod to mouth, and then . . . It’s too horrible to think about. Dizziness rushes through her.
‘You’ve got little ones,’ he says firmly. ‘You need to be aware, that’s all.’
‘Yes, thank you. I know.’
The old man looks her over keenly. ‘You settled in the house, have you?’
‘Almost—’
‘That woman’s done it up, hasn’t she? I saw them doing it. Weeks of coming and going. Noise and mess.’ He shakes his head. ‘Plenty of money spent on it, too. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, though, isn’t it? Has she said when they’ll start on the main house?’
‘No. I don’t know, I’m afraid.’
‘The place needs it, but I can’t pretend I like it.’ The old man looks around and clicks his tongue. ‘I’ve got used to it just being me here – and the bloke who comes to look it over from time to time. Mr Howard. It’s going to be mighty strange when it’s peopled again.’ He turns back to her, interest sparking in his faded eyes. ‘Your little ones – boy and a girl, is it?’
‘That’s right.’ Olivia is beginning to guess who she’s talking to.
‘How old?’
‘Just over two.’
He nods. ‘Thought so. Well, I like having some children about the place. They’re fine ones, too, aren’t they? Sturdy little chaps.’ Then he fixes her with a beady look. ‘Just you make sure you keep the gates and the doors closed. Don’t let them wander off. The garden is vast and the house is no place for little ones. There’s danger in there, understand?’
‘Yes,’ Olivia begins, torn between pleasure at his praise of the children and indignation that she might be so stupid as to let them get lost, but he has already turned on his heel and is marching away, presumably the way he came in, through the door in the wall that leads towards the back lawn of the house.
She watches him go. He must be the gardener who has tended this place for years. What is his name?
She turns and heads back to where Dan is dozing in the sunshine. On the table next to him, a notebook lies open at a blank page, a pen next to it. He opens his eyes as she approaches and picks up the pen with a faintly guilty air.
‘I just met the gardener, the one Francesca was telling us about. What’s his name?’
‘William,’ replies Dan, and taps the pen nib on the page. He writes it down: William.
‘What did she say about him?’
‘Oh, just that they’ve had a hell of a time with him. He won’t be shifted. He’s been here donkey’s years and claims that as no one but him has bothered with the house since it was left empty he has a lifetime right of tenancy here.’
Olivia looks out at the garden, and at the carefully tended shrubs beyond the walls, where the lawns stretch away. ‘Why don’t they just leave him here? He’s done a brilliant job. He obviously wants to stay and carry on looking after it.’
Dan shrugs. ‘He’s getting on. He won’t be able to work, and then who’ll look after him?’
‘So what are they going to do with him? Chuck him out?’
‘I can’t remember what Cheska said now. They’ve moved him on a bit. He was in our cottage originally. He’s been shunted on to a place further away from the house.’
Olivia is struck with guilt. They’ve displaced him. He’s been turfed out and they’ve taken his home. Maybe he hates them. Does that mean there’s a strange, malevolent and resentful old man wandering about, wishing them harm? But then, he did warn her about the laburnum. So he must be quite safe, surely.
‘I’m not sure what to make of him,’ she says, frowning.
‘Why not ask Cheska when she comes over? She ought to know what’s going on. It’s her house, after all.’
Chapter Twelve
In her study in Geneva, Francesca is on the telephone, her eyes fixed on their garden outside.
‘Of course, Mr Howard. That’s perfectly fine. You’ve seen the plans. You know what we want. You’re at liberty to visit whenever you wish.’ She uses the voice she employs when trying to get things done for her charity work: smooth, controlled, with quiet authority. She suspects she’s going to be using it quite a bit with this man. He is already irritating the life out of her.
Mr Howard says cheerfully, ‘That’s very good to know, Mrs Huxtable. I will take full advantage of that, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.’
‘You do know that you have a very important piece of history in your possession, don’t you? I’m afraid we are obliged to make sure you look after it.’
‘Thank you,’ she says, a touch of ice in her voice. ‘I quite understand the value of our house. And I realise that all this interference is something I cannot change. Unfortunately. I’m afraid I must go now. Goodbye, Mr Howard.’ She clicks the call off and sighs with annoyance. As if the renovation of a huge house isn’t enough to have on her plate, she has to put up with all these complications as well. She is unaccustomed to people standing in her way; usually, they do all they can to ensure she is completely satisfied. Take the architect, for example – he couldn’t do enough to make her happy. His enormous bill sits on her desk, proof of the care and attention he has lavished on her.
‘Mum . . .’ Olympia has slipped into the study, wheedling as usual. Now that her daughter is almost fourteen, she is constantly asking for things. Her requests seem to breed like the Hydra: fulfil one, and three more grow in its place. Her boarding school has widened her social circle to include the children of the rich jet set, and now she wants to keep up with them: their clothes, their gadgets, their holidays.
Francesca turns to smile at her. ‘What is it, darling?’
‘Can you ask Daddy for an extension on my credit card?’
‘Ask him yourself.’ She sighs with annoyance. ‘You haven’t maxed it out again, have you? It’s barely halfway through the month.’
Olympia looks sulky. ‘I can’t help it. Things cost money. What am I supposed to do about it?’
Francesca looks over at her daughter. Adolescence has been kind so far: Olympia has clear skin and bright eyes; her hair is long and fashionably tousled. Her clothes are the most expensive money can buy and she is more attached to her phone than ever, now a crystal-studded model. She barely acknowledges her mother except when she wants something, which, at least, is often.
What was I like at her age?
She remembers her waitressing job in the local cafe to earn enough money to buy the few clothes she could afford. She remembers long hours in charity shops looking for second-hand bargains and loading up with used books to read in her tiny bedroom away from the noise and chaos of her family. She hated the way she looked, and went around hiding behind dyed-black hair grown long, and shrinking inside baggy clothes and heavy lace-up boots. She never had one tenth of the comfort and money that Olympia takes for granted. And yet . . . she was driven where her daughter is languid and bored. She was interested in the world, where Olymp
ia is only excited by the doings of her tiny, privileged circle and its constant acquisition. Olympia’s school reported that her results were not as good as they’d hoped: the only lesson she really applies herself to is skiing. Thousands of dollars in fees, and she can ski.
Did I do something wrong? I thought if I gave them everything I never had, they’d be happy. But it only seems to make them discontented.
‘So?’ demands Olympia.
‘I told you. Ask your father.’
‘When will I get to see him? He’s never here!’ shouts Olympia, cross. ‘Why can’t you do it? It’s typical. You don’t care how much I suffer.’ Bursting into noisy tears, she runs out.
This is normal, Francesca tells herself. But it stabs her nonetheless. The sheer ingratitude of it. The silly selfishness. But she’s still a child.
A fear has begun to haunt her, that she’s made a vital mistake along the way with her children that means they will grow up to be like this permanently: ungrateful and selfish. They will never understand her, nor she them. She loves them but more and more she longs for them as they used to be, as very young children, before they became so grasping. She is struck by a strong desire to go back and undo her mistakes, to be firmer and less indulgent. It’s too late now.
She sighs and turns back to the file of correspondence on the desk in front of her. It’s thick with documents. Walt’s declaration that he had bought Renniston Hall turned out to be a little premature. It was only the beginning of months of long and tortuous negotiations, but once they were out of the way, the real trouble started. Architects were commissioned to redesign the house to provide the layout necessary for modern living: bathrooms for every bedroom, dressing rooms, state-of-the-art kitchen, home cinema and all the rest of it. Elizabethan houses were not created with such things in mind, and the struggle with the conservation officers began. It wasn’t just them – the two men from the council she’d grown to loathe – but also the officer from Preserving England, who seems to have just as much say as anyone else, despite the fact that the house no longer belongs to the society.
