by Judy Astley
‘You didn’t know those people any more than I did, did you?’ she asked Daniel as the car sped away. ‘So, you know, kind of what were you doing there? Were you there to hear Abigail singing too? That’s my excuse – Charlotte dragged me along because Abi is a friend of hers. Bloody Charlotte.’
Daniel didn’t reply for a moment, negotiating a tricky roundabout. ‘Well … OK, I’ll come clean. This might sound odd but it was just something I read about in a magazine. Weddings can be rather a good way to meet people.’ He looked at her quickly, grey eyes sparkling. ‘Women. Ladies. You know …’
‘What, like, to pick someone up? Is that what you mean? Really?’ How bizarre. She’d heard it all now.
‘Er … in a way. And why not? I’m single right now and I don’t particularly want to stay that way. I don’t much fancy Internet dating, and everyone in those newspaper ads lies. All that “slim, attractive, GSOH, likes country walks and theatre” and so on. They all turn out to have been to a musical as part of a coach party in 1976, drag a smelly Labrador round the local rec every day and have the figure of a steamed pudding. I don’t want to hang around in bars and I’m not going to meet anyone new and interesting at the golf club, so …’
They were at the traffic lights now. He turned to look at her, his expression rather unhappy. ‘You think I’m a sad old git, don’t you?’
She did, slightly, though not so much sad as a bit desperate. She couldn’t help it.
‘No, of course not.’
‘It’s the celebratory atmosphere, obviously. At the do after, people can get very lively, if you know what I mean.’
‘Well, yes. Everyone expects a good time at a wedding. Don’t you find it tricky, with seating plans and so on?’
‘Not really – you just check out the lie of the land, plump for those that are more a casual effort than a formal do. And please don’t think I just do it to get … well, get … er, sex,’ he said. ‘No, it’s not that. Well, not entirely, I mean that would be a welcome bonus. No, people really open up and talk at these things, so if I meet someone interesting who I can take out for dinner, or see a few times, maybe see how it goes, so much the better. It’s a huge improvement on something like going for the evening in a bar where everything’s a bit contrived. And of course I do like cake.’ He laughed. She felt flustered now as they approached Naomi’s house. Was he going to want to see her again? How did you deal with that asking-out thing? She could barely remember. Daniel was, she reckoned, far too old for her. He went such a long way back that he would know all about early Stones music and Bob Dylan in the years before he went electric. He was ideal for someone bang in the middle between her mother and her sister. If she were actually to be with someone ever again, she’d prefer a man whose formative years included the Lemonheads and the Cure.
‘I’d love to invite you out for supper sometime, but I think two things.’ Was he reading her thoughts? ‘The first is that you’d be sure to say no, and the second is that, sadly, you’re a bit young for me, to be honest.’ Daniel turned and smiled at her as he pulled up outside the house. Unreasonably, she couldn’t help feeling slightly deflated at this. ‘Though I do so admire a woman who takes her underwear off even before the first date,’ he added, laughing.
Viola laughed too. ‘Well, it was that or have them fall off.’
‘Which could be open to misplaced misinterpretation of a certain eagerness,’ he said. He was looking at her in a slightly questioning way. Was he having second thoughts about not inviting her out? She half hoped he was. He had turned a potentially miserable day into a completely fun adventure, and you didn’t get many who could do that.
‘Thanks so much for the lift,’ she said, surprised that he sprang out of the car, whizzed round and opened her door for her.
‘My pleasure.’ He smiled. ‘I do hope the bride and groom will forgive us. I’m sure they will – I got the impression they quite enjoyed it.’ For one tricky moment she thought he was going to kiss her but instead he simply patted her arm like an awkward uncle, got back in the Mercedes and drove away. She felt quite sad about this, as if she were waving goodbye to a good friend she’d never see again, rather than the casual acquaintance of an afternoon. Mad, she thought, opening the gate and catching sight of something she hadn’t noticed before: a huge clump of dark-leaved nasturtiums nestling by the gatepost and spilling out across the gravel.
The masses of flowers were a rich deep bronze shade, the kind of colour you want to stroke in case it really is warm, like soft fabric. Self-seeded from up the road, she told herself firmly. Not newly appeared from nowhere at all. And of course she hadn’t noticed them before – you didn’t spot every road-level plant in the neighbourhood and, after all, they weren’t exactly inside the garden. But all the same … her heart did a few extra skippity beats. Equally mad, she concluded. Plants just do turn up. It didn’t have to mean that someone you are rather liking, someone who is almost certainly very unavailable and must not even be thought of, had nipped along and planted them. After all, why would they?
SEVENTEEN
NAOMI CARRIED THE basket of courgettes and baby leeks up from the vegetable patch at the far end of the garden. Old Joe from next door wouldn’t be thrilled that she liked to harvest the crops he’d planted for her when they were still quite small and at their maximum tastiness, but if he wanted to carry on having shared use of that big patch at the end, that was the deal. In return, she didn’t go near his planet-sized cabbages or the marrow he was cultivating for the local produce show. She remembered her old father, all those years ago, growing giant vegetables for competitions, and how nothing he’d bring home for the family to eat ever tasted anything but woody and a bit stale. Joe probably preferred the taste of over-mature veg, going by the expression on his face when he caught her snapping young, tender pea pods off and eating them raw. Maybe it was a man thing; something Viola and Kate would dismiss as willy-waving. She sympathized with both viewpoints, but when it came down to it, you couldn’t beat flavour over size. In leeks, anyway.
As she walked back up the path she had a good look at the roses. The ones Oliver had planted against the fence for her when she’d first come to the house were at their best just now. He’d smile about that, she thought, the fact that his gift was at maximum splendour just at the anniversary of his passing. She would take some to the cemetery on the day, as she did every year. Not that she believed anyone’s spirit would choose to hang about in a place of ultimate loss and sadness, but because, in a macabre, literal sense, it was the closest she could get to the physical presence of him. She didn’t think too much about the reality of what was down in the ground, but she knew full well that there would be splintered wood, a worm-chewed corpse, a gape-grinning skull. All the same, a few times a year, it cheered her own soul to sit on the cold granite grave, weed out the stubborn dandelions that grew between the cracks and remember the many past good times.
Thank goodness for mobile phones. Would she dare call Greg if she had to phone the nursery office? All the same, Viola’s heart was beating much faster than usual as she clicked on his number in her phone. From just that one brief meeting at the nursery, she knew that Mickey – who was not his wife, so that was something – was one scary woman. She’d be willing to bet that if Greg had left his phone on a desk in his chaotic office, Mickey might be the one who picked up this call. She could just imagine her barking ‘And who IS this?’ at her in a cross-at-being-interrupted sort of way. Viola knew that although her call was all innocence, she’d fluff and bluster and manage to make herself look like the worst kind of desperately pursuing woman. Luckily she got Greg.
‘Nasturtiums?’ Viola decided a blunt one-word accusation should do it. She had to know.
‘Bless you!’
‘No, you eejit – the great mass of nasturtiums by the gate. When did those go in?’ Oh Lordy, suppose it wasn’t him after all. Suppose Old Joe next door had left them, maybe as a love token for Naomi. She almost switched the phone off.<
br />
‘Last night, just after 1 a.m. And honestly, Viola, how come it’s taken you more than half the day to see them? Don’t you take any notice of the abundance of nature around you? Another time I’ll dig in a row of great tall runner beans right across your gateway so you can’t miss them.’
‘Sorry – I’ve been, er … out. Just got back.’
‘Out having fun?’
‘Out, yes, but not that much fun really, since you ask. I went to a wedding.’
‘Oh, right. Well, I can see weddings might not be everyone’s idea of fun.’
‘Not this one. But, hey, I love the flowers. You do realize you’re completely barking mad, don’t you?’
‘Am I? Yes, probably. But it’s peaceful, harmless mad. I’m glad you like them. I was going to say, if you’re not keen on nasturtiums – and not everyone is, they’re martyrs to blackfly – just rip up the flowers and scatter them in a salad. Delicious and peppery. I’d wash the blackfly off first, though.’
‘No, I’ll leave them. I love them. So where had you been out gardening at one in the morning?’
‘Council offices – they’ve given up on the window boxes. Something to do with the cuts, I suppose, and no one’s so far been Big Society enough to take them over, apart from me. People are such lazy bastards. I had a few plants left over, which you’ve now got.’
‘You’ll get arrested one day, going around doing illicit digging.’
‘I’ve already been arrested, remember? And more than once now, too.’ He was teasing her again. Why did he always seem to be laughing at her?
‘Yes, but …’
‘Yes, but … wait till you come out and try it with me. It’s fun. Gardening is so much more fun when it’s the secret variety, and not just lawn-mowing duty and boring old weeding at home. This way, you get a sense of adventure about it. It’s a bit more Famous Five than SAS, though without the big dog and the lashings of ginger beer, obviously. You did say you were up for it, so when shall we go?’
The mention of boring old weeding made Viola think of the plant-strangled tangle and the out-of-control lawn that was the Bell Cottage garden. It was going to be quite an under taking to sort out. Perhaps Greg could advise her whether she should deal with it in small manageable doses or take the equivalent of a flame-thrower to it.
‘Well – I know I said yes but, you know, I’m not really sure … What about your wife?’
‘What wife? I already told you, I don’t have one.’
‘I meant … Mickey. You’ve got the same name.’ It sounded feeble. ‘Is she your sister, then?’
‘Sister? No, she’s my aunt.’ He was laughing at her. Mickey had looked younger than Greg. ‘Auntie Mickey and I have totally separate lives. End of story, nothing to add. So come on, you know by now I’m not really a crazed axeman. You can even bring your mother if you’d feel safer.’
‘Er … no, I think not! And what do you mean, “Auntie” Mickey?’
‘Exactly what I said. But don’t ever tell her I call her that. So are we on? I mean, just say no and I’ll leave you alone. But I’m only inviting you to bung in a few bulbs; if you’re worried about your saintly virtue, I promise the only filth will be the earth under your fingernails.’ He was sounding sarcastic now, running out of patience, and she didn’t blame him.
Well, she had promised herself she’d accept every single invitation … and he did come firmly under the heading of Just a Friend, so it wouldn’t be like a date. Also, grovelling about in the dirt under cover of darkness wasn’t exactly the fast route to becoming an adulterous woman.
‘OK. I’ll come. Let me think … I’m moving back to my own house at the weekend,’ she told him. ‘So … maybe after Tuesday or later in the week, once I’m actually in and organized?’
‘Fine,’ Greg said. ‘Give me your new address and I’ll pick you up, say, on Thursday night? Wear something dark, bring your own dibber.’
Something dark. What-to-wear instructions … again. That was where the day had started. But she felt pretty sure that this promised to be a lot more fun than a wedding that involved Afghanistan and something catastrophic about a leg.
EIGHTEEN
‘YOUR MAIL’S HERE on the table,’ Naomi said to Viola as the two of them crossed in the hallway. Naomi was dusting – very gently, as if tending a delicate baby – the tops of the three Oliver Stonebridge paintings that hung there. ‘You’ll want to hurry up and get it redirected or it’ll be coming here till next year. You know what they’re like. Red tape and bureaucrats.’ She spat the last words with the kind of much-relished disgust that she also kept for the local council’s ever-changing rules on recycling, adults who ride bikes on pavements and the ineptitude of every farmer in The Archers.
‘You’re right. I’ll sort that in the morning,’ Viola promised. ‘And, Mum? Are you really sure you’ll be all right here on your own again? Maybe Miles has got a point. Perhaps …’
‘No!’ Naomi almost roared at her and raised her lime-green feather duster as if she intended to shove it down Viola’s throat. ‘You and Rachel, GO! Shoo! I’m more than happy with my own company and when I decide I’m not then I’ll get someone into the flat; maybe one of Kate’s boys would like it if they get a job that needs an easy commute into town. It would suit me, that. And then if I ever get properly doddery I’ll be able to get someone a bit medical in – some care in exchange for free accommodation. Bills excluded, obviously. I’ve thought it through, don’t you worry.’
Viola was having serious second thoughts. This seemed all wrong, leaving Naomi alone in this increasingly ramshackle house. But she also understood the attachment to the much-loved and familiar.
‘And before you start on about that place of Monica’s again,’ Naomi went on, ‘yes, those flats are very nice. But I can’t sell this and I don’t intend to. And, like I said before, I don’t want a bunch of workmen poking about in here looking for things to mend, so don’t send any in, whatever Miles and Kate say. Everything works fine just now. Once you start mucking about with it, every last thing’ll pack up. Houses do that. They get cross with you for prodding.’
‘But it must cost a fortune to run this house. However do you …’
‘Never you mind.’ Naomi cut off her question and waved her away, dust wafting from the green feathers. ‘Do I ask you about your finances? No, I don’t. Family money, is all I’ll say.’ And she tapped the side of her nose like an actor playing the kind of dodgy car salesman who’s being wily about mileage.
‘Ah well, Kate’s doing the family tree, so maybe she’ll find out where it all came from,’ Viola teased her, flicking through the little heap of post. Dentist reminder, a gas bill for Bell Cottage and what looked like a birthday card, except it wouldn’t be hers for several months. She’d seen the handwriting before, on the card at the cottage. Had the sender signed this one? Maybe now she’d find out who to thank.
‘Kate shouldn’t go meddling,’ Naomi said, dusting briskly between the banisters. ‘What does she want to go rooting about in the past for? It’s no more than making a useless list of the dead. She’d do better to look to her future, that one. She could do a lot worse than go to Shape Sorters and yoga and trim herself down a bit. Everything you eat at her age tends to stick. And there’s plenty sticking on her at the moment. Comfort food, that’s her trouble. And I’ll tell her if I’m asked, which I hope I’m not. We don’t want any more disasters.’
Only half listening, Viola opened the white envelope and pulled out a greetings card – a cutesy black and white photo of two tabby kittens curled up cosily together in a bathroom sink. She really must make a list, she thought, and getting her mail redirected back to Bell Cottage would have to be near the top of it – she was starting the moving process in the morning.
‘He’ll always be there’ was written inside the card. No signature. Viola looked at the sweet kittens on the front as if half expecting them to spit and snarl at her. But their innocent little faces remained the same and they just
stared back prettily. Rereading the message, she felt rather sick and clammy and went and sat on the stairs, her legs trembling. A little detached part of her wondered why the sender hadn’t gone the whole anonymous-drama hog and cut out individual letters from a magazine and glued them on, like something from the kind of crime novel her mother loved. So what was this – was it all going to start again, like before? Who would do such a cruel, spiteful thing?
Whoever it was must have been watching her going back and forth from Bell Cottage and put two and two together about her moving back in. Hellish. What would be next? More ugly plastic-wrapped carnations tied to the magnolia with florist’s raffia? Prayer flags that would quickly turn to muddy shreds? Curled-edged photos of Rhys smouldering at the camera for all he was worth in his Doctors and Nurses costume scrubs?
‘Anything nice in the post?’ Naomi had stopped dusting and was eyeing the assorted papers in Viola’s hands.
‘No, just the usual junk, nothing special,’ Viola managed to say, getting up and moving towards the door of the flat. ‘I’ll just do a bit more packing,’ she mumbled, needing to escape, but Naomi was now adjusting the Staffordshire dogs on the hall table, giving each of them a pat after she’d dusted, her interest moved on. Good – because she didn’t want to talk about this. Naomi would only worry, and she might say something to Kate and Miles and accidentally load them with a chunk of ammunition to keep Viola from moving on with an independent life.
Viola went into the flat holding the card between the very tips of her thumb and finger, reluctant to have closer contact with it. She should, she knew, keep it somewhere safe, in case there was worse to come and it would add to evidence of … what? Stalking? Harassment? And yet – the urge simply to rip it up and bin it was overwhelming. She folded the kitten picture to the inside, for who but the hardest sort could tear those tiny furry faces to shreds without a qualm? She was just about to make the first rip when the flat door opened.
