The Wildflowers

by Harriet Evans

  ‘Oh, Aunt Dinah.’ He rang the bell, trying it for sound, fingers gripping the handlebars. ‘Thank you. It’s terrific, it’s whizzo. But how—’

  ‘Some things are worth outlaying a little cash on,’ was all she’d ever say on the matter.

  The bike was second-hand but in good condition – the daughter of the ironmonger in Wareham had joined the Women’s Land Army and had left it behind with instructions for it to be sold, and it was virtually new. For the rest of his time in the Bosky during the war, and to Sweep’s disgust, it was Anthony’s most trusted companion.

  Aunt Dinah had done him proud on the picnic. Cold ham, mustard, bread and home-grown tomatoes are all one needs for a really good feast and she’d managed to make some strange drink with mint from the garden boiled up with the tiniest amount of sugar. It was delicious, even though they were picking pieces of soggy mint leaves out of their teeth for the rest of the afternoon. The tomatoes were entirely edible, if still a little green around the edges, and adding to her horticultural triumph there were also five or so tiny strawberries, and – the great surprise – wrapped in her large men’s silk handkerchief were two gobstoppers and a square of chocolate for each of them. Sweets were very dear and used up many sugar coupons; Anthony was touched.

  As they lay on their backs on the sheep-nibbled turf watching the gulls soar over the edge of the clifftops and the roaring, crashing turquoise waves hundreds of feet below them, Anthony felt totally at peace. He could feel the warmth of the sun beating through the wind, feel it working its way through his shirt and tank top, feel it on his bare knees and forehead, looking up to the sun. He knew that across the Channel lay war and dreadful conflict but perhaps it was not to be worried about on a day like this, and the cramping coiled creature of fear which lay curled up inside him, jabbing him painfully and making him feel sick, was quiet today.

  The sky was endless, a clear blue. Ant wondered about Mummy and Dad. Whether they could see from where they were, whether they were watching him. He hated the thought that they might be in heaven and worrying about him, as he would worry were he to have died instead that day, leaving Mummy alone. He wanted to stand up and shout out to the sea and the sky, I’m all right. I’m safe, I’m all right. He stared up into the blue. I miss you both. I do wish you were here.

  And he felt something, a breeze ruffling his hair, a touch of something on his forehead: sea spray, he would tell himself later, but at the time it felt as though he were being kissed by something invisible. He touched his head gently. Next to him, Aunt Dinah sighed in contentment.

  ‘I like it here,’ he said, turning towards her.

  ‘It’s a glorious spot, isn’t it?’ she said, misunderstanding him.

  Harebells nodded in the breeze; brilliant blue butterflies fluttered nearby. He smiled. He wanted to say, Thank you for looking after me. But he didn’t. After a minute or two, he rolled on to his front. ‘Aunt Dinah, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you love Alastair Fletcher?’

  ‘Alastair?’ She laughed, and rolled over too, so she was looking at him, tendrils of her soft brown hair around her face and her eyes shining. ‘Goodness, no. What made you think of that?’

  He scratched at the back of his head. ‘Don’t know. He’s always offering to help. Mummy used to say beware of men offering to help.’

  Her expression grew sober. ‘Lavinia was right, as ever.’

  ‘But he’s always coming round, lately. And you two laugh together.’

  ‘Well, he makes me laugh.’ She sat up. She never got cross, there was nothing you couldn’t talk to her about. ‘He’s so sensible and serious but he’s such a funny chap too. I wish he—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was going to say I wish he wasn’t quite so lonely, but of course he has the children and I imagine one is never lonely when one has children, even if they’re away at school.’

  ‘Do you think that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I always believe it to be true.’

  ‘Were you lonely in Baghdad?’

  ‘Not really. One’s never lonely when one can escape into another world. I’m myself there, you see. Here I’m an eccentric old lady and the daughter of a gambler who’s no use for anything.’

  His throat tightened. He said, ‘Will you go back there, then?’

  ‘Yes, darling. I’ve always said I will, haven’t I? But that’s years off.’

  ‘But it’s in ruins, they said. When we retook the city. There was that photograph in Reverend Goudge’s Times, you remember? I don’t think you should go back. You probably don’t have a home any more.’

  But Dinah looked out, over the cliffs to the sea where two vast ships in the distance broke the still calm of the horizon. ‘Have I told you yet the story of Gilgamesh?’ He shook his head. ‘It’s the greatest story of Nineveh. I’ll take you there, one day. The palaces are rubble now, or they’re hidden under modern cities, but what you can see . . . it’s miraculous. Gates, higher than three men. Stone lions they had guarding them, with vast wings, absolutely terrifying. And the kings, the tablets they produced, the stories of their deeds . . . Miraculous. Gilgamesh was a ruler of a city like that. He was proud, and fierce to his people, and they suffered under him, though he was a strong king. But he had a friend.’ She paused. ‘A friend called Enkidu, a wise, kind man. And he was created by the gods to show Gilgamesh how to behave. He was better than most men. And Gilgamesh came to love him, and they were great friends. Enkidu made him a good man. Do you understand?’

  Ant stared down at the tough, cropped grass. ‘Um . . . maybe. His friend made him better.’ He wanted to ask if this applied to her but somehow knew he shouldn’t.

  ‘That’s it. You must hope for that, one day. A person who makes you better in all things. Who helps you to become a better man.’

  ‘A wife?’

  ‘Yes, or a friend. Or a child, like you. I’ve never – there’s never been – What am I trying to say? You’ve made me into a better person, of that I’m jolly sure.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ant felt uncomfortable – there was no emotion with him and Aunt Dinah, just practical conversations about food and ancient Egyptian tombs and the like. She never got into a bate about things. He never saw her upset. Since he’d known her she had been constant, always cheerful. For the first time he wondered if she, too, liked their life together and the companionship it provided.

  ‘Were you very good at finding things in the desert, Aunt Dinah?’ he asked, as they cleared up the picnic.

  ‘I was,’ she answered. ‘It was what I was good at. I wasn’t any good at school, hopeless with maths or the meaning behind some poem. But I can remember things, and I’ve got a sixth sense, I suppose it is, for where things might be hidden.’ Her eyes shone under her floppy straw hat. ‘The moment when your hands clutch hold of something. Something that’s been buried for thousands of years, that might have been in the Bible. The temple’s survived under the sand for centuries, it’ll still be there in centuries. I like that. Everything else in one’s life is rather unpredictable.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Ant, gravely.

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ she said, smiling at him, and they cleared up, wrapping everything carefully in the tea towels and putting it into Aunt Dinah’s wicker basket at the front of her bike. She caught his hand. ‘Happy birthday, dear Ant. What a lovely day this is.’

  Ant scratched at his knee and nodded, unable to look at her.

  On the way home they sang ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ on a loop, sticking their legs out and freewheeling down the narrow, verdant lanes, and even though the wind on Anthony’s cheeks was cold, he felt warm, and quite full, inside.

  Dinah had gathered wild flowers up on the downs and in the hedgerows on the way there and back, and she tied them now to her handlebars and the rear seat of the old bike, and as she cycled leaves and petals and buds flew off, creating a gentle floral whirlwind behind her, like the last leaves leaving a
tree in autumn.

  He never compared her to his mother, but in later life he came to see how particular Mummy had always been, crying when a linen tablecloth was torn, furious at a slight mark on the dresser, how she was always wanting him nearby, making a pet of him, and how he had begun to chafe against it. With Dinah he was allowed to grow how he wanted to, to choose his own path. In later life when he thought of her, it was in this moment on his thirteenth birthday, bedecked with dog roses and daisies and lavender, the peacock kimono flying behind her like a cloak, legs thrust out, mouth pulled wide in a beatific grin.

  He watched her approach him and had a moment of clarity, a definite sense then of how everything was familiar, safe, once again. He knew this lane, these wild flowers, the corner of the Bosky jutting out to his right, the sound of wood pigeons in the trees. He felt safe.

  You can be free here, Aunt D, he thought to himself as she grew closer. You don’t need to leave. Here’s free, here’s fine. We’re fine. You mustn’t leave me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  That evening, Ant sat on the edge of his bed and slowly slid the drawer of his bedside table out. He took the watch his parents had given him from its black box, and fastened the strap. He wound it up and set the correct time, then covered his wrist with his other hand, remembering the day they gave it to him, feeling the soft ticking through his fingers, up his arm, seconds of time passing that took him further away from them and his old life.

  Upstairs, the large radio rumbled with news. The Home Service had a report of bombers attacking southern coastal towns. They didn’t say where; they never did. But he and Dinah had both heard the planes as she was preparing tea.

  He could hear Dinah welcoming a guest; he thought it might be the vicar. Ant’s arms were warm and crisp with summer sun and he was tired from the long cycle ride and wished he could stay downstairs. But he climbed the steps anyway, touching the walls, for he loved the warmth of the wooden panels after the sun had been on them all day.

  Suddenly he heard scattered noises like gunshots and he froze, heart thudding painfully before he realised the sound was clapping, not gunfire. He went out on to the porch and there was the tailor’s dummy, dragged up from his room and dressed with a paper hat, Alulim the ancient stone bird paperweight balanced on a side table, and Livingstone the stuffed monkey, Eunice the doll, the birds of paradise in their case.

  ‘They’re all out here too. They wanted to wish you a happy birthday,’ said Dinah, pushing her hair out of her eyes, and smiling at him. Ant stared at her, bewildered, then saw a knot of people beyond them too.

  There was Reverend and Mrs Goudge, and Mrs Proudfoot holding a cake, and her daughter Eliza with the squint and her young man Joe Gage, and Alastair Fletcher and his children, Julia swinging from the porch balustrade, waving at the setting sun, and Ian, hands in pockets. And Phoebe and Roy, two other children from the village of his age with whom he used to hang around and the curate Bob and – oh, he couldn’t see who else was there. They all clapped as he appeared and he felt his cheeks smarting with embarrassment as though he’d been slapped, and then Mrs Proudfoot handed the cake to Dinah, who held it up, with the thirteen candles ablaze, and led them all in ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’.

  There were crystallised rose petals, yellow and pink, to decorate the thin buttercream layer on top of the cake. They spelled out ‘A’. The cake rested on the old willow-pattern cake stand that had belonged to his grandmother, Dinah’s sister Rosemary.

  Julia Fletcher sang louder than everyone else, adding annoying trills and low rumbling harmonies to the song. Ant ignored her.

  When they’d stopped singing and Ant had blown out the candles Dinah said, breathlessly, ‘Everyone chipped in. Jane made the beautiful sugar petals,’ she gestured at the vicar’s wife. ‘The eggs are from Mrs Proudfoot, and Joe and Alastair shared their sugar ration, and I got the cream and butter from old Roger Hardy’s farm up past the village. His son, Derek, brought it over.’ She smiled at a thin, sour-faced boy who sat, arms crossed, on the edge of the porch as though he wished he were anywhere but here. ‘Everyone chipped in, like I say, Ant. It’s all for you. Happy birthday.’ Her eyes shone and her beads clinked as she hugged him. ‘Happy, happy birthday, dear boy.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Ant, happiest of lovely delicious birthdays,’ said Julia, flinging her arms around him.

  Ian muttered, ‘Shut up and stop being so jolly embarrassing, Jules.’

  He pulled her away and she fell back, with a giggle.

  Ant ignored her. She was annoying. But she couldn’t spoil this lovely afternoon.

  There had never been such a cake and he could remember the taste of the fresh eggs, the cream and butter, for as long as he lived, years after eating such things became an unremarkable event. And there were sandwiches, on thin Victory loaf bread, with either local crab Julia had caught at Chapman’s Pool – which was decent of her – or tiny scrapings of meat paste and dripping provided by the vicar, and there were strawberries, and an extremely undercooked vegetable pie that Alastair had made and handed round, and was chaffed about and took in relatively good humour. The atmosphere was genial, magical even – there was something about that evening, when the light refused to fade and they might suddenly all have been bombed or gunned down, something glorious about it. Some of the guests dragged the old wicker chairs down the porch steps and on to the sand, others remaining on the porch or on the stairs. Derek, the farmer’s son, excused himself, Ian hung around looking miserable, and Julia chatted to Dinah about their shared belief in fairies.

  When sunset came they set the candles and the paraffin lamps along the porch balustrade and they all ‘did’ a bit. Mrs Proudfoot sang, ‘When Father Painted the Parlour’ with great gusto which earned her an enthusiastic round of applause. Alastair recited, very seriously, ‘There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu’, to awed silence. Julia, rather shyly, sang a short verse of ‘O for the Wings of a Dove’ in a low, surprisingly sweet voice.

  ‘That was good,’ Ant told her as she hopped off the porch.

  ‘Oh, darling boy, you’re too kind,’ she told him, flinging her arms round him and he recoiled, regretting that he’d found her momentarily not annoying.

  Then, at much urging, the birthday boy himself was pushed up on to the stage, made to do a speech. Though he was learning more Shakespeare every day with Dinah, the only piece he was confident he knew by heart was Prospero’s speech from The Tempest which his father had always done at auditions.

  Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

  As I foretold you, were all spirits and

  Are melted into air, into thin air.

  And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

  The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

  The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

  Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

  And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

  Leave not a rack behind.

  He was nervous, and unused to it, though he used to love acting at school, before Daddy died. He had to clear his throat twice to be able to get through the bit about ‘the great globe itself / Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve’, for Daddy had always done a little action with his hands, miming the disintegration of everything, but then he forced himself to stop thinking about that, just pretend he was Prospero, standing on the steps of his own magical mysterious cabin looking out to sea, looking out at the horizon, and with his strange, otherworldly subjects about him, half real, half imaginary. And suddenly it was true. He was not a newly teenage boy standing knock-kneed on a porch on a summer’s evening. He was a sorcerer, an exiled duke, a master of magic, able to control tides, conjure up storms. In the distance, Venus shone steadily in the violet-peach sky. He fixed his gaze on her, and when he finished, there was respectful applause, but Dinah was staring at him, with a curious expression on her face.

  ‘You’re very good,’ Jane Goudge said, kissing his cheek
as he came down the steps and stood amongst them rather awkwardly. The others stood up, murmuring. Dinah handed round more elderflower wine.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ant. ‘It’s just remembering words, really—’

  ‘It’s a bit more than that, dear boy,’ said Mrs Goudge, hugging a cushion to herself and looking at him appraisingly. ‘He’s got a lovely speaking voice, hasn’t he, Ambrose?’

  ‘I should say so,’ said the vicar.

  ‘Yes, old bean, you really have,’ came a voice from the shadows of the setting sun.

  Ant jumped. A woman was standing to the side of the Bosky, a little pigskin case in her hand.

  ‘Good – evening,’ he said, and the vicar and his wife stared at her. ‘How – may I help you?’

  ‘I should say so. I’m looking for Dinah Wilde, is she about?’

  The Goudges went into the kitchen together to fetch her, leaving Anthony alone with the strange woman, who stepped forward, raising her face to him, and Ant had to stop himself from giving a low cry.

  She had an elegant, swirling crop of blonde hair, which curled at her neck. Her eyes were blue, her white skin stretched over slanting cheekbones which might have given her the air of an ice princess or a sprite, Ariel come to life, but the hard squareness of her jaw offset it. There was something mannish about her, something ugly, though the eyes were almost turquoise and glittered. In the fading light he could only see she was dressed all in grey.

  But none of that was what shocked him. There was a scar, running down her right cheek, a fine line like a seam, but for the end by the mouth where the red stitching was obvious. He blinked heavily, the excitement and emotion of the day catching up with him, and nodded at her.

  ‘You must be the famous Anthony,’ she said, in a strangely rich, clipped voice. ‘Well, this is awfully nice. Party, is it? I’m Daphne. Daphne Hamilton,’ she said, and she held out a slim white hand, each digit dotted with dark red nail polish. ‘I’m a very old friend of your aunt’s. You are Anthony, aren’t you?’