‘I hope you do.’
There was another pause before Theodore felt in his jacket pocket and pulled out a long, thin envelope from which he took a sheet of fibrous Tibetan paper, folded in three. It was a picture of Mrs Jones he had drawn one afternoon, quite early in their time at Dong Pe, while she was working in her little garden. Because of the steepness of the ground she and Theodore had terraced the patch with rough stone walls, so that it was possible to stand at one level and work, barely stooping, at the next level up. Mrs Jones was in just such a pose, wearing her riding-cloak and travelling hat. Her face was hidden, but of the dozen or so pictures Theodore had made of her this was the only one he liked. He had brought it, but had not decided till this moment whether to show it to Mr German.
Mr German leaned across and took the paper, unfolding it with precise small fingers. He stared at the drawing for some time.
‘Yours?’ he said at last.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I would know her on the dark side of the moon,’ said Mr German quietly.
‘You may keep it if you want, sir.’
Mr German’s glance didn’t falter, but Theodore was aware of the portrait above the fireplace, a presence in the room.
‘No,’ said Mr German. ‘No. But seeing her digging away like that reminds me – we’d better take care of this lily you’ve brought me. I wonder whether it’s still all right. Where is it?’
‘In a box in the cab, sir.’
‘Cab? Of course. We’ll have to see your cabbie’s looked after – we’ll be some time yet.’
* * *
They were standing on the rain-glistening gravel by the front door – Theodore holding the precious box while Mr German explained to the cabdriver how to find refreshment for himself and his horse – when a boy on a bicycle came swirling down the slope and stopped in a scatter of small stones by putting both heels to the ground and letting them slither. It was the first bicycle Theodore had seen close to. The boy was about nine, dressed in a stiff tweed jacket with sharp-stitched pockets, and knickerbockers of the same material.
‘Hello, Dave,’ said Mr German.
‘Hello, Uncle. What’ve you got there? Early Christmas present?’
‘All the way from Tibet. This is Theodore Tewker – my nephew David. Mr Tewker brought me the present.’
‘How do you do?’ said the boy. ‘Is he telling the truth? Miss Tancred says nobody is allowed to go to Tibet.’
‘I went there by accident,’ said Theodore.
The boy looked at him doubtfully, not sure whether he was being teased. He was slight and small-boned like Mr German, but with long-lashed large eyes under heavy black brows. The eyes were much greyer than Mrs Jones’s.
‘Since you are so conveniently mounted,’ said Mr German, ‘you might perhaps be kind enough to ride your machine down to the Heather Garden and find Mr Bancroft. Ask him to meet me in the greenhouses.’
‘Yip-yip-yip-yip,’ shrilled the boy, and sped away, still yipping. Mr German turned and led the way through an arch into a walled garden. Two men in sacking aprons were digging a trench round a small tree in the central lawn, and Mr German strolled across to watch them.
‘She’ll move all right, sir,’ said the man at the bottom of the trench, rubbing his hand along the inner wall and caressing a few brown root-fibres. ‘No more’n a few roots come out this far – she’s a slow starter, ain’t she? Six years she been here.’
‘Don’t be too sure, Tom,’ said Mr German. ‘I’ve never moved one before but I have a fancy she’ll sulk. Sure you can handle a ball that big?’
The three men discussed the problem of lifting the tree out complete with the earth it had grown in while Theodore waited dreamily in the soft and sighing air. At last Mr German turned away.
‘One of my mistakes,’ he said. ‘Putting a eucryphia in a place like that – too tame, too tame.’
‘She said you had chosen the place for your eucryphia.’
‘Ah, that one’s all right,’ said Mr German with a sudden astonishing smile. ‘I wish you’d been here two months ago to see it. Gardeners always say that, don’t they? Best thing in the garden. Daisy and I walked all round here one sopping morning, talking about that sort of thing. I still thought she was going to share it with me then . . . ah, here’s Mr Bancroft.’
They had come out on the far side of the walled garden into an area of sheds and glass-houses. A stout little man was waiting there. He was dressed in black trousers and a black waistcoat, a blue striped shirt and white collar, with a black tie. He wore a curious black bowler hat, which he doffed to Mr German. His hand when Theodore shook it was as rough as sandstone.
‘Mr Tewker’s brought us a lily, Mr Bancroft,’ said Mr German.
Mr Bancroft grunted unexcitedly, as though he had heard better news in his time.
‘I think it’s the first one to be collected,’ said Mr German. There was an odd note in his voice, both anxious and humorous, as though he thought it desperately important to please this sombre gnome, and at the same time was amused by his own need to do so. He succeeded, to the extent that a gleam came into the gnome’s bloodshot eye.
‘Ah,’ said Mr Bancroft. ‘Let’s have a squint at ‘un, then. Travelled a good bit, I’ll be bound.’
He took the box from Theodore and led the way into the nearest glass-house. Moving very deliberately he opened the lid, drew out the inner package and with a thin-bladed ancient pen-knife slit the sacking away. Theodore began to feel nervous, remembering all his care on the journey, his reading and re-reading Mrs Jones’s instructions, his dreams while he lay in the near-delirium of fever in Calcutta, waiting for the boat to sail, and kept imagining monstrous rats attacking the frail bulb.
‘I’d have brought you seed,’ he said. ‘Only it wasn’t ripe when the bandits attacked us.’
Mr Bancroft answered with his normal dull grunt; bandits were no excuse for failing to bring ripe seed. The glass-house was warm and still, smelling of rich earth and the remains of grapes. Along the ranked shelving azaleas were coming into flower, and lower down innumerable small pots each bore a white label and a wisp of green growth.
‘This is Mr Bancroft’s workshop,’ said Mr German in a stagey whisper. ‘I’ll show you the ones with all the flowers in later.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Bancroft, probing at last into the packing of moss around the bulb. The backs of his hands were covered with coarse black hair. His fingers moved like creatures of the soil, tender and firm, nudging their way through the loose stuff to ease the bulb free. He brought it out and held it up, pressing with short, broad thumbs against its unfolded scales.
‘Dried out a morsel, her has,’ he said. ‘More’n a morsel. Ah. But there’s life there still. Yes, Mr Monty, we’ll get a bloom out of her yet. Yes, there’s life there still.’
Dazed with the mild warmth and the sense of ending, Theodore watched Mr Bancroft’s fingers fondle the crabbed root. The universe seemed to hum around this centre. The panes of the walls and roof were the facets of an inward-watching eye, focused not on any of the three humans but on the lily-bulb. Yes, perhaps there was life there, a soul there, a soul being watched at the very start of its almost endless journey up the river, its struggle through life after life, against the rushing current of created things, until it reached the source of its being, which would also be its ending.
Now Mr Bancroft was bending to scoop dark fine earth out of a bin into a red clay pot. Carefully he settled the bulb into the earth, spreading its frail remaining roots around it, and then began to dribble more earth down the gap between the bulb and the wall of the pot. While he worked he murmured.
‘Ah, yes, my beauty,’ said Mr Bancroft. ‘Yes, yes. There’s life there, aren’t there?’
THE END
About the Author
Peter Dickinson was born in Africa, but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of Punch, and since then has earned his living writing fiction of variou
s kinds for adults and children.
Amongst many other awards, Peter Dickinson has been nine times short-listed for the prestigious Carnegie medal for children’s literature and was the first author to win it twice. His books for children have also been published in many languages throughout the world. His latest collection of short stories, Earth and Air, was published by Small Beer Press.
Peter Dickinson was the first author to win the Crime-Writers Golden Dagger for two books running: Skin Deep (1968), and A Pride of Heroes (1969). He has written twenty-one crime and mystery novels, which have been published in several languages.
He has been chairman of the Society of Authors and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was awarded an OBE for services to literature in 2009.
Also by Peter Dickinson
Eva
A Bone From A Dry Sea
Shadow Of A Hero
Chuck and Danielle
TULKU
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 17263 4
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