The Memory Garden

by Rachel Hore

  ‘Do you feel all right now, Mel?’ asked Chrissie, standing, bowl of fruit salad in hand, turning anxious eyes on her. ‘Not too sad or anything?’

  ‘No, especially not since the flowers arrived. Did you know they were coming?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, honestly,’ said Chrissie, smiling. ‘Well, he rang to check the address, I hoped he’d send you something. Have you spoken to him? Why don’t you give him a ring?’

  ‘I might later,’ Mel said, offhand.

  Chrissie took the hint. ‘Oh well, it’s up to you.’

  After the dessert was cleared away, Mel slipped upstairs to Rob and Chrissie’s bedroom and rang the number for Merryn Hall. She listened to his voice on the ansaphone. It didn’t sound like him – formal, polite, lifeless – and this put her off leaving a message. She considered ringing his mobile but network coverage was patchy and, if she did get through, she imagined him answering from the midst of a group of friends, or at lunch with his mother sitting there, a cold observer, and lost courage. Anyway, Rob was calling her down for coffee.

  ‘We thought we’d try the crib service at the church,’ said Chrissie as they sat in the living room. ‘It’s at five and I’ll be sorted out by then. Some friends of ours go and they say the new woman vicar’s very good.’

  ‘We’ll come, won’t we, darling?’ said Stella, patting her husband’s hand.

  ‘Of course._ber of Maureen and I used to take you three when you were little,’ he said to Chrissie and Mel, ‘but perhaps you don’t remember. Mel tried to take one of the crib lambs home one year.’ He winked at her.

  ‘I do remember,’ they said simultaneously, Mel surprised by the sudden flash of recovered memory.

  ‘My granny died,’ Rory told Stella solemnly, coming to place his hand on her lap. ‘She was very sick and then she died.’

  ‘I know, darling. It’s so sad, isn’t it?’ said Stella, brushing back Rory’s hair.

  ‘Are you a granny, too?’ he asked.

  ‘I can be your granny if you like, darling. And Freddy’s.’ She waved at Freddy, who sat squarely on the floor, legs splayed out in front, rolling toy cars onto a transporter. ‘You can call me Granny Stella or just Stella.’

  Rory nodded and looked satisfied. ‘I’ll call you Stella,’ he said. ‘But you’ll be like my granny.’

  Stella gazed into his eyes as though she’d fallen in love.

  Mel and Rob and her father took the boys down to the swings and slides at the local park, whilst Stella helped Chrissie with the beds.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Mel asked them.

  ‘Oh goodness yes, you go and have a chat with your father,’ said Stella. A suspicion grew on Mel that this ‘chat’ was not unplanned.

  ‘It’s all dads out here, isn’t it?’ Mel said laughing as they reached the fenced play area, which was heaving with small children. ‘We can guess what the mums are all doing on Christmas Eve.’

  Men slouched smoking on benches, talked into mobiles or tiredly pushed tinies on the swings.

  They don’t talk to each other like the women do, she thought.

  Whilst Rob patiently stood beneath Rory who was scaling the heights of the climbing frame, Mel grabbed a free baby swing and slotted Freddy into it. Her father started to push him gently, as though frightened the child might fall out.

  ‘More,’ bellowed Freddy and Grandad tried a little harder.

  ‘Didn’t do much of this when you were young,’ he said to Mel. ‘I like being a grandad.’

  ‘Do you see much of Will’s kids?’ Mel asked. Will only lived twenty miles away from him and Stella, in Birmingham.

  ‘We try to. Now that I’m retired it’s a bit easier. And with your mother gone . . .’ He gave Freddy’s swing a harder shove than he intended.

  ‘Wheee,’ shouted Freddy, shooting up into the air. ‘More, more.’

  ‘Well, it just seems more important somehow. They’re nice kids, all of them, and Stella’s chuffed that they like her. I think she should have had some of her own, you know.’

  ‘She’ll be an excellent grandmother,’ said Mel.

  ‘Down, down,’ commanded Freddy. ‘S’ide.’ Her father grabbed the swing before Freddy could clamber out into mid-air, then helped him to the ground and safely over to one of the little slides. There Mel stood behind Freddy as he climbed the half-dozen steps on hands and feet, monkey fashion.

  ‘Have you taken my advice yet?’ her father said, his blue eyes fierce upon her.

  ‘What advice?’ said Mel to buy time.

  ‘That young man Chrissie told me about.’

  ‘Patrick, you mean.’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Dad, it’s all right, you know. I’m not a little girl any more, I can make my own decisions. There’s plenty of time.’

  ‘Time is what there’s not, Mel. Remember what I said. If you love him, don’t look for faults. None of us is perfect and he might slip away.’

  ‘I won’t let him, Dad, I promise,’ she said, squeezing his shoulder. ‘Not this time.’

  And they both rushed forward to rescue Freddy, who had fallen off the bottom of the slide with a bump. ‘ ’Gain,’ he said stolidly, looking up at them with satisfaction.

  They’re all conspiring, Mel concluded, as they sat in a pew halfway down the Victorian church, which was filling up rapidly with children, parents and old people. For some reason they have all decided, my family, that Patrick is the right person for me. Yet my father has never even met him.

  ‘He must have caught the vibes from you,’ said Chrissie, with a smug expression when Mel recounted the conversation she had had with their father. ‘Yes, of course he’s asked me about Patrick, but nothing I could say would make him seem the right person for you. It’s just what we see, how happy the thought of him seems to make you, that’s all.’

  ‘Different from how I was about Jake?’ sighed Mel.

  ‘Very,’ said Chrissie. ‘You never seemed truly yourself around Jake. You were always watching him, you know, never relaxed.’

  ‘I don’t remember that.’

  ‘Well, I do.’

  The organ started up, playing softly ‘Away in a Manger’, as parents removed toddlers from buggies, peeled off children’s coats, craned to see whether anything was starting to happen. It wasn’t. Mel glanced to her left. Rob was shushing Freddy on the seat next to him and on Freddy’s left Rory was slouched kicking the kneeler hanging on the hook in front of him. Next to Rory Chrissie chatted to her father and at the far end of the pew Stella was kneeling, her face in her hands, praying.

  Chapter 40

  ‘Hello? Patrick?’

  ‘Yes, hello?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Mel!’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Mel, this is fantastic. How are you? How was Christmas?’

  ‘Fine, I’m just fine. Christmas was wonderful.’

  ‘I found your message. Only got back this morning. I’ve been in Austria, skiing, with my friend Tom and his wife.’

  ‘Matt told me. How was it?’

  ‘Terrific. Masses of snow.’

  ‘Thank you again for the flowers. They were simply beautiful.’

  ‘I’d been thinking of something to send you, especially after I got your card. I couldn’t believe it when I saw them coming up so early. Must be global warming or something. There are dozens of them.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I’ve been looking at them.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m here in Lamorna, Patrick. Just a bit up the hill, in fact. I couldn’t get a signal down where you are.’

  ‘Mel! Where? Wait! I’m coming.’ The sound of a dropped phone.

  Mel laughed and started to walk back down the lane to Merryn.

  She had driven down to Lamorna the day before, setting off in chill darkness at five to avoid the traffic, taking it easy with several stops, reaching Carrie’s hotel just as twilight was starting to fall. They had rushed o
ut into the reception area to greet her, Matt taking her case with one hand, pulling her into a hug with the other, Irina grabbing her next by the lapels of her coat with a shriek and kissing her on both cheeks, Lana hovering in the doorway to the bar, chewing a strand of hair and shyly waving hello.

  The lounge was empty except for an elderly gentleman sitting in a corner reading a book and Carrie on a leather armchair, feet up, by a crackling wood fire. She tried to get up, but Mel stopped her, bending to kiss her instead.

  ‘Come and put yourself here,’ Carrie said, patting the arm of the fireside chair _fQ in frontnext to her, and Irina set about fetching them all tea.

  ‘Look at you all,’ said Mel, beaming at them. She noticed instantly that Matt stood close to Irina, the unconscious little looks and gestures that could mean only one thing.

  ‘You and Matt . . .?’ she whispered when Irina took Mel up to her room. A double bedroom with Edwardian-style furniture, it looked out over the valley, now dark except for points of light that meant other buildings.

  ‘You noticed,’ said Irina, smiling broadly.

  ‘How could I not? That’s simply marvellous.’

  ‘It happened slowly. We had to spend so much time together here and Matt . . . well, after Carrie became ill, he’s grown up, taken charge. He’s a lovely man, Mel. Strong but gentle.’

  Mel nodded. There was a new air about him, that was certainly true. ‘Is he here all the time now? What’s happened to his shop work? And,’ she remembered, hoping he hadn’t abandoned it, ‘the photography?’

  ‘He gave up the shop. He enjoys the hotel now because Carrie lets him make decisions. He’s been taking photographs of Lamorna, though. I showed them to a gallery in Penzance and they’ve ordered some prints to sell.’

  ‘Oh, excellent. And what about Lana?’

  ‘Doing well. She got a distinction in her Grade Five, you know.’

  ‘That’s brilliant. But, I mean, does she mind about . . . you and Matt?’

  ‘Not really, no. She knows I can never be with her father again and she likes Matt. He tries to be her friend, not her daddy.’

  Perhaps in the end this is what would work for Aimee, Mel thought. If she could just be Callum’s friend.

  Something else occurred to her. ‘Does Greg know? About you and Matt, I mean.’

  Irina’s expression darkened slightly. ‘I think Lana must have told him. He hasn’t said anything, though.’

  ‘How’s it going with Greg and Lana?’

  ‘Better than I even hoped, Mel. She went to him before Christmas for some days, but told him she wanted to be here for Christmas Day, so he brought her down again. He is different now, more gentle, like a wild animal tamed.’

  ‘I can imagine!’ Mel walked over to the window to pull the curtains across but stood watching for a moment as the headlights of a car swept over the road below, illuminating walls and trees. Up the valley only a short distance away lay Merryn, waiting, as she was, for Patrick to come home.

  ‘And how has Patrick been?’ she asked Irina, a catch in her voice.

  ‘He’s missed you,’ said Irina, shaking her head sadly. ‘I don’t know what happened between you, why you left like that, but he’s been through a terrible time. There were weeks when we hardly saw him. He was working, he told us. Or busy with the house. The roof’s finished, you know, but the garden is still a mess.’

  ‘It wasn’t the right time for us back then,’ said Mel.

  ‘Perhaps it is now. Just as it was for me and Matt.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Mel whispered. ‘I hope so.’

  The next morning, she woke to the sound of rain pattering on the window. She lifted the curtain to see that the valley was obscured by rolling fog.

  By the time she had had breakfast and helped tidy away – ‘You’ve got to let me earn my "; font-weight: bold; Jaer of keep somehow,’ she told Matt, who had protested at her even lifting a finger in the kitchen – the mist had lifted slightly. She pulled on her coat and walked down the narrow lane to the road and turned up the hill towards Merryn. Patrick wouldn’t be back until the afternoon, but she couldn’t resist going to look.

  The air was chilly, but not icy. It would be a warm wet New Year and the lichen-covered trees dripped all around. By the time she reached the drive that led down to the Gardener’s Cottage, the cloud was lifting from the valley, but she hesitated. It felt wrong, somehow, sneaking in the back of the Hall. She couldn’t imagine that Patrick had re-let the cottage, but what happened if he had and she was intruding on a stranger’s privacy? She climbed further up the hill to the old gateposts where the sign erryn Hal still hung at exactly the same angle as she had first seen it eight months ago.

  She stood looking down the drive and realised with a pang that little else was the same. The front gardens were a desolate wasteland, trees sawn down and cut up where they lay, the stumps ripped from the ground leaving vast rain-filled craters. Everywhere caterpillar tracks scarred the earth as though a battalion of tanks had driven across the land. The shelterbelts around the edge remained, as did a great copper beech to the right of the path, but the self-seeded sycamore and ash, and much of the tangle of vegetation had gone.

  The house itself appeared like a wounded soldier, bandaged and plastered and left in a bathchair to dream away his remaining days. The new slate-tiled roof looked too pristine, one side of the house was still splinted with scaffolding, and the granite walls had been stripped of creeper and showed unseemly blotches of white where damage had been made good.

  It wasn’t her Merryn any more. Suddenly she couldn’t stand it, couldn’t bear the thought of investigating further – what might she find? She turned and fled back to the hotel.

  Only as the gloomy day started to sink into darkness did she return to see his sparkling blue car parked on the courtyard. He was home. And so, she hoped, was she. Would Cornwall be where she would find herself again?

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  He was running, zig-zagging down the puddled drive towards her.

  ‘Patrick. I’m sorry, perhaps I should have warned you. Do you mind?’ she called, suddenly nervous.

  Then he reached her and his arms were around her, crushing her; his lips pressed against her face, covering her in kisses, made her sure.

  ‘Mind? You amazing, crazy woman. How could I possibly mind?’

  They stumbled together up the drive to the haid="1CQAHK">r

  ouse.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re here. I simply can’t believe it.’ She had never heard such joy in his voice. ‘What finally made you come?’

  She forced him to stop so she could look at him again. He was tanned from skiing, but beneath the happiness that illuminated his whole face she could see strain etched. She traced the lines around his eyes, smoothed the worry from his forehead.

  ‘It was the flowers,’ she murmured. ‘It was as though yoere calling me. They whispered a thousand words.’

  ‘All of them true,’ he said, pulling her to him again and kissing her very thoroughly. ‘Mel, I love you, I’m sorry I never told you that properly before. I have missed you so much. I’d almost given up hope . . .’

  ‘You knew I’d come when the moment was right,’ extraordinary coincidence‘is ces she said. ‘Surely you didn’t doubt me?’

  ‘Not really, not underneath. Every time I lost faith I’d pull your letter out of my wallet – look, here it is, it’s practically fallen apart! And then your lovely card came and I knew everything would be all right. So I sent the flowers.’

  They were both speaking openly at last, Mel realised joyfully, as neither of them had really done before. They reached the courtyard and stopped to cling together again. When they finally separated, Mel stared back the way they had come.

  ‘The front garden is, well . . . different.’ They contemplated the morass of mud and fallen trees.

  ‘It looks awful, I agree,’ he said, ‘Like No Man’s Land. But don’t worry – I’ve got plans, you see. I’ll show
you the rest of the place if you like. There’s less changed there.’

  Indeed, the other parts of the garden were little altered from the previous August but lay brown, dripping wet and uninviting. Only, here and there, under the trees, behind the Gardener’s Cottage, snowdrops and daffodils were starting to show.

  ‘Let’s hope there isn’t a frost,’ Mel commented. ‘You talked about plans – what are they?’

  ‘I’m hoping for a start that they include you,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Oh, Patrick.’

  They had to stop again while they settled that point in another passionate kiss.

  ‘There’s an awful lot to sort out, of course,’ she said later, as they lay wrapped in blankets on the drawing-room sofa before a blazing fire.

  ‘There’s plenty of time for all that,’ murmured Patrick into her neck.

  ‘What were you saying about plans?’

  ‘Mmm? Oh, for the garden.’

  ‘The garden? I thought you meant about us.’

  ‘The garden and us. Mel, darling, despite your general perfection, you have one teeny weeny little fault that I’m going to have to correct.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You talk too much at the wrong moment.’

  ‘Mmmmmm.’

  That evening they talked together over a frugal supper Patrick had cobbled together.

  ‘There’s so much here to connect us to the past, isn’t there?’ Mel said dreamily. ‘We’ve found so many clues – to Pearl and her story not least of all.’

  ‘It is a garden of memories, isn’t it?’ said Patrick.

  ‘But not a sad one. Not like a garden of remembrance for the dead.’

  ‘Which leads me on to another aspect of my plan. Maybe we could open an art gallery here. Tourists would come to see the garden and the paintings.’

  ‘What a fantu and Merryn w

  Chapter 41

  July 1919

  Pearl was sitting on a kitchen chair in the garden shelling peas. It was the late afternoon of a perfect July day and she felt well, for the first time since last year’s illness.