by Jenny Harper
Kate thought of Ibsen’s dahlias, lying flattened and dying. He had spent most of his spare time in his garden last autumn, he’d told her, preparing the soil, digging in compost, peat moss, sand and rotted manure. In the spring, he’d dug it all over again. Only now, watching the digger, did she appreciate how much work it must have been – and everything he had worked for had been destroyed in a moment of mad jealousy.
‘There’s Ibsen now.’ Nicola nudged her and pointed.
Kate spotted him at the far side of the waste ground, talking to a man who must surely have been his father. The hair was white and thick, the face was tanned and crisscrossed with lines that read like the book of a life, but the eyes were unmistakeably Ibsen’s, that unforgettable shade of bluebells in the woods.
‘See you in a bit.’
The crowd was thick and for a few minutes Kate lost the two of them. She saw their hands first, placed comfortably side by side on the back wall as they watched the digger working. She was used to Andrew’s hands, which were slim and elegant, with long, tapering fingers that could pick out the keys on a computer with speed and surprising accuracy. These hands might find such actions difficult. They were all squarish, with short, slightly spatulate fingers. Ibsen’s father’s were weather-beaten and tanned, gnarled with age and long exposure to the elements. Ibsen’s would go the same way. She remembered how he had caressed the dying dahlias with such extraordinary tenderness and something tugged inside her.
‘Hello, Kate.’ He lifted one hand off the wall and gestured her in beside him. ‘Have you met my father, Tam?’
‘Delighted to meet you.’ She took Tam’s proffered hand. It felt warm and worn, as though it had been burnished with decades of hard work, and his smile was as welcoming as a warm bath on a cold winter’s night. She turned to Ibsen. ‘Dare I ask how your mother managed without two scrumptious cakes?’
‘Ah. There was a little trouble,’ Ibsen said gravely.
‘You mean, when she saw two plates full of crumbs she went ballistic,’ Tam said.
‘I did offer to nip down to the supermarket for a couple more, but my offer wasn’t well received.’
‘Aye. Well. The crumbs were bad enough but winding her up like that was not nice.’ Tam was laughing. His eyes were more like Ibsen’s than should have been possible – brimming with mischief, but with undertones of surprising wisdom.
Ibsen grinned. ‘But it is fun, she rises to the bait every time.’
‘Tch.’ Kate tutted severely. ‘Ibsen, you’re a bad boy.’
‘I can be.’
She wished she hadn’t said it because the look he gave her was impossible. She changed the subject hastily. ‘What do you think?’ She waved at the digger, which was now finishing its job.
‘It’s a start. There’ll be a mass to do, though. Can you come down tomorrow?’
‘I’ll be at work.’
‘Seven o’clock. You can eat first, give yourself some strength. You’ll need it.’
‘I’m not sure—’
‘It’s a non-negotiable condition, remember?’
Kate wrinkled her nose at him. She had a feeling Ibsen Brown was going to take some delight in testing her fitness and resolve. For her part, she was going to enjoy showing him that she was not the weak little woman he perhaps imagined her to be.
‘Okay,’ she agreed, ‘tomorrow.’
She was humming to herself as she unlocked the front door at Willow Corner. Andrew had committed to their marriage and she was confident that they could mend things between them, the garden had been started, and she was rather looking forward to showing Ibsen what she was made of.
‘Hello?’
There was no reply. She was a little puzzled, because she’d expected both Andrew and Ninian to be at home.
‘Anyone in?’ she called again, picking up the mail from the doormat and tossing it onto the hall table.
When there was still no answer and she had established that Ninian was neither plugged into earphones in his room nor asleep, she went into the study as a last resort. Sometimes Andrew became so deeply immersed in his work that he was able to block out the twenty-first century absolutely and completely.
He wasn’t there. No-one was there. But on the floor, in a crumpled heap, was what appeared to be pages from his manuscript. She crouched down and picked up a few sheets of paper, then smoothed them out.
‘ Martyne could not stop looking at the woman,’ she read. ‘She was more like a girl, with skin as soft and smooth as a newborn babe’s and eyes that stared at him, unwinking, as though they knew everything, and nothing. ’
It was clearly a draft, and as she didn’t recognise the lines, she guessed that they must be from Andrew’s new novel. Usually, she didn’t read his work until it was nearly ready to send to his editor, though she knew that Andrew sometimes shared his drafts with Ninian. Why was this on the floor? Whatever faults Andrew had, untidiness was not one of them. She had never seen him toss papers down like this, especially pages from his manuscript, which he protected carefully so that his new novels bounced onto the market with enough anticipation to make them fly off the shelves.
‘He reached out one hand, tentatively, as if afraid of what she might do to him. But she was compelling. She was like a spider, drawing flies into her web for her pleasure. Martyne knew this, but he was unable to hold back. He thought of Ellyn – sensible Ellyn with her no-nonsense remedies and her way of speaking her mind so that you knew what she thought. With Ethelinda – the word meant “noble snake” – you could never know what she was thinking. That, of course, was part of her attraction.’
Kate frowned. Martyne Noreis having an affair? It seemed so unlikely, so completely out of character, that the words jarred. She smoothed out another piece of paper and read on.
‘She caught his hand just as the fingers touched her cheek, and held it there. He could feel the warmth of her touch and it burned like a fire that spread all the way up his arm and down into his belly. He must have her – this girl, with her unreadable eyes and hair like the mantle of the night and lips made for love. Slowly, he trailed his hand down her face to her neck. He caressed the long smoothness of it, felt the bones of her back against the palm of his hand to where they disappeared under her robe. Her eyes, all the while, never left his face, but her hands went to the cord the secured her gown above her breasts, and slowly, deliberately, she pulled at one end so that her bodice fell loose.’
Kate dropped the papers onto the floor, where they lay shivering in a faint draught from under the door.
These pages were not here because Mrs Gillies had inadvertently dropped them out of the wastebasket while she was cleaning. The housekeeper had many faults but sloppiness was not in her make-up. Andrew would never have been so careless with his work. There was only one reason for these crumpled balls of paper. Ninian had read this – and he must have read into it exactly the same as she had.
No character, for Andrew, was ever wasted.
If Martyne Noreis was having an affair with Ethelinda, while the fabulous Ellyn was at home, waiting for him, trusting him, it was because Andrew was drawing on experience in his own life.
She was in unknown territory, without a compass.
Ninian texted her.
That was all right, except how was she going to ask him about whether he had read the manuscript? If she and Andrew were to separate, what would happen to him? Kate couldn’t bear to think about it.
She took the smoothed-out sheets of paper and dropped them onto the kitchen table. Mrs Gillies had placed a vase of flowers from the garden in the centre. It was a riot of colour – coral pink gladioli, purple ball-headed allium, orange cosmos, deep burgundy and pink stargazer lilies and white lisianthus – and any other day it would have brought a smile to her lips. She lifted it an inch and slipped the sheets under it. When Andrew came in, she would ask him about his strange storyline.
She called him.
On the far side of
the kitchen, his mobile startled her by ringing. Wherever he’d gone, he’d forgotten to take it. She crossed the room and picked it up. A ‘New Message’ sign was flashing and she clicked it in case it gave her a clue as to his whereabouts.
She almost dropped the phone. She didn’t hear the door open, but right behind her Andrew said, ‘Hi darling, you’re back!’ and bent to kiss her neck.
She’d heard the expression ‘I almost jumped out of my skin’, but had never understood its exactness as a description until now. She whirled round. ‘Jesus Christ!’
‘What?’ He was looking at her, amused, and so damned normal that she found it hard to believe anything had changed between them. ‘Sorry, love, I didn’t mean to give you a fright.’
She was shaking from head to toe. She thrust the phone at him, barely able to speak. ‘What’s this?’
He looked at it incuriously. ‘My phone? Did I leave it here?’
‘If you hadn’t noticed, I guess you managed to meet up with her despite being late.’
‘Kate, what are you talking about?’
‘She sent you a text.’ She located it. ‘Hi Squishy. Squishy? She really calls you Squishy? Are you still coming? I’m waiting.’
A hand came out and he took the phone gently out of her trembling grasp. ‘Let’s see. Yes,’ he went on calmly, ‘that looks like Sophie.’ He dropped the phone into his pocket. ‘I had to see her, Kate, but it’s not what you think. She was devastated because I’d told her we had to stop meeting—’
‘So Squishy went to see her? Makes sense,’ she said sarcastically.
‘Just to explain again, Kate. She can’t seem to understand what I’m telling her.’
‘Her expectations seem quite explicit.’
‘Her expectations are quite wrong.’ He pulled her to him. ‘You’re in a real state, love, aren’t you? There’s no need.’
It would be so easy to accept what he was telling her. It would be wonderful to think that the whole Sophie episode was over – but it clearly wasn’t. Whatever the reason he was seeing her, the fact remained that he was still seeing her. She pulled away.
‘I think Ninian’s been reading your manuscript.’
‘Oh?’
‘I found some pages crumpled up on the floor in your study.’ She marched across to the table and jerked the papers out from under the vase. It gave a little judder and a few fragile petals drifted down onto the scrubbed pine. ‘Martyne Noreis in love with some enchantress? Your story reflecting fact?’
He took the printout. ‘It’s a novel, Kate. That’s all.’
‘A novel.’
‘A work of fiction.’ He enunciated the words slowly and with heavy emphasis, as if explaining to a child with learning difficulties.
‘All fiction draws from experience.’
‘No. All fiction draws from imagination.’
‘Ninian read this and he’s fled to Stephen’s house.’
‘What do you mean, fled?’
‘He wasn’t here when I got in. There was just this crumpled paper and then I got a text saying he’s having supper at Stephen’s. He knows, Andrew, and it’s killing him.’
‘Heavens above, Kate – your son reads some of my made-up story and goes to have tea with his friend and you’re making it into a major crisis? What’s got into you? Calm down.’
Put like that, her interpretation of everything did seem exaggerated. Andrew’s whole attitude was relaxed, almost offhand. Sophie couldn’t matter much to him, surely, or he’d be more keyed up. She said in a small voice, ‘It really is over with Sophie?’
‘It really is over.’
‘You won’t see her again?’
‘I’m doing my very best to settle the situation down as smoothly as I can.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise. Now, if we can stop this ridiculous conversation, do you think we might manage to find something to eat? I’m really rather hungry.’
She looked at him shamefacedly. ‘Sorry. Panic, I guess.’
‘Okay. How do you fancy an omelette?’
So, with a mundanity, the episode was closed.
Chapter Eighteen
Kate started helping out in the community garden on a regular basis. It was dull, heavy work but she began to like the unthinkingness of it. After a day at AeGen, her head filled with figures and contracts, environmental reports, soil tests, wind measurements, consultant reports and deadlines, nothing seemed so appealing as the idea of picking up a spade and turning over soil. She found the primitive connection with the land thoroughly – and unexpectedly – restorative.
Even more to her surprise, she discovered that her initial reservations about Ibsen Brown were changing into genuine admiration. For a start, he was in the community garden most evenings too – and, unlike her, he must have been labouring hard all day already.
She got to know many of the volunteers. One evening as she struggled to sift stones from the heavy soil she asked a hard-faced woman with nicotine-stained fingers, ‘What started you coming down here, Maisie?’
‘That Ibsen Brown,’ Maisie said, stabbing her fork into the ground and reaching into her pocket for a cigarette. ‘He’s got a mighty persuasive tongue on him.’ Her grin revealed nicotine-stained teeth, but had genuine warmth. ‘It’s good, though, int it? Gets you oot.’
‘Aye,’ said the woman on the other side of her, ‘Tho’ you’d tak ony excuse tae get awa’ frae that man o’ yours.’
Everyone laughed. An atmosphere was developing here that was unlike anything Kate had come across before. This was a warm-hearted, funny, and genuine community, in which she sensed none of the subtle complexities and underhand scheming she knew abounded in Forgie. People here knew who she was, and of her connection with the wind farm, but they accepted her without comment. Most evenings there were anything from three to ten people at the site, digging, chatting, joking and teasing each other with an easy camaraderie.
‘Hard work, though,’ a young woman called Jodie grumbled, examining a blister on her hand.
‘Aye. He has tae crack the whip sometimes.’
‘You wish, Maisie,’ cackled someone else. ‘Dream on.’
‘Fifty Shades of Brown,’ came a shout, and there was more laughter.
Kate grinned as she bent again to her task. The mood was certainly very different to her office, where everyone was driven because deadlines pressed. There, all was reaction rather than action. The stress levels were high and most people dealt with them by plundering their reserves of energy until they were utterly depleted. Small successes buoyed them up enough to carry on, errors and failures dragged them down. She was beginning to discover that gardening was not like that at all. It was impossible to hurry nature and preparation was everything – though that, at least, she understood.
A couple of weeks after the debacle at Forgie House, she found herself alone with Ibsen for the first time. It was a windy evening, and decidedly cold, which might have been the reason no-one else had shown up. When she arrived at the garden, her geometric black and ivory Missoni wool scarf wound round and round her neck to combat the chill, he was already sturdily there, a man who inhabited his environment as naturally as breathing. She stood at the gap in the wall for a moment and watched him, with secret pleasure. Despite the cold, he’d taken off his jacket and was wearing another of his seemingly inexhaustible wardrobe of comic tee shirts. She squinted across the space between them and made out a yellow recycling symbol with the words ‘You can use me again and again’. Another of Melanie’s gifts, perhaps?
Perhaps he sensed her presence, because he lifted his head and smiled.
Ibsen wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of one hand, not caring if he left grimy streaks. He’d been completely lost in the rhythm of digging – in, twist, out, in, twist, out – so that Kate’s arrival threw him.
She looked so small. It was the first thin
g he noticed about her. It was always the first thing he noticed. It made him feel protective. How could she do that job she did? A small woman building very big things. It was sexy, in its own way.
And she had guts. It needed courage to put yourself in the middle of a situation that drew out such bile.
‘Evening, Kate.’
She looked forlorn, standing there all alone. Christ, he wasn’t exactly making her life easy, was he? But he had to be honest. He hated wind farms, and he always would.
‘Hi.’
She did sound low.
He threw his fork into the soil, hard, so that it stood erect, and crossed the few yards to where she was standing and swivelled round. ‘Put your hand in my back pocket. My hands are filthy already, I don’t want to mess up the paper.’
‘Or you just fancy someone feeling you up.’
‘Want to see what’s in there or not? Your choice.’
‘What will Melanie say if she sees me with my hand down your back pocket?’
It was the first time either of them had uttered Melanie’s name since Dahlia Destruction Day.
‘Oh come on, Kate,’ he said, keeping his voice light, ‘you know the answer to that.’
‘Do I?’
‘You don’t imagine I’d still be seeing her, do you?’ He was still holding his hands aloft. ‘Are you going to get that paper out of my pocket or what?’
She plunged her hand into the denim and he heard the crinkle of crisp paper. She said, ‘I’m guessing dahlia-kicking might be a relationship-breaker. What’s this?’
‘Unfold it and see.’
‘Wow.’
‘What do you think?’ He felt suddenly shy, and realised that her opinion mattered to him.
