The Gardens of the Dead

by William Brodrick

  Riley didn’t know what was happening. He touched his cheeks … they were wet, like a rock on the beach. Nancy rose as if someone had banged at the door. She came towards him, curious and frightened, while Riley backed away His tears kept spilling out. The muscles all over his face ached terribly and yet part of him felt nothing, because he was distant, like a balloon, bobbing against the kitchen ceiling. Then, as if punctured by exhaustion and a will to resist no more, he felt himself sinking: coming down to a distraught man with a wet, contorted face.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ urged Nancy appalled. ‘You only left the cage open.

  Sobbing with a sound just like his laughter, Riley yanked open the back door. Cold air bit his face. He was still falling, but more quickly.

  ‘I’m here,’ said Nancy softly at his shoulder. ‘I’m always here, Riley.’

  At those words, he caught himself up. He felt weakened —dreadfully — by the realisation that he wanted to live like other men; that he’d had enough of the twisting, the breaching and the wrecking of everything that passed before him. He’d gone out of his way to smash whatever might break. Nancy was in the yard, at his side, and Riley saw her as he’d first seen her at Lawton’s long ago, at their bleak beginning. She was still the same old Nancy still dumpy still hungry.

  A frost had fallen with a faint mist. The yard was crisp with tiny crystals. It was dark and Nancy’s pile of bricks glittered with rime. Closing his eyes, and through a growing headache, Riley thought of snow … fields and fields of fresh fallen snow, as it’s seen at night, practically glowing from the inside — not a leaf, not a flower, just snow That was his wife. He knew it. And with a savage certainty, he knew that he didn’t want to spoil what he’d seen, not with a single careless footprint. Stunned, Riley recognised that he … loved her.

  He looked up to the misty night sky. There were no stars, just this ghostly breath off the Thames.

  They were sitting at the kitchen table. Nancy had fished out Uncle Bertie’s poison and filled identical tumblers.

  ‘To Arnold,’ she said.

  They clinked glasses and downed their drinks in one.

  Nancy coughed, and Riley’s lips ignited. To the blotches of purple light, he said, ‘I’ve had enough.’

  Nancy nodded and put the bottle back in the cupboard.

  Because the poison was illegal, she always hid it, even though no one would ever come looking. That was Nancy all over. He said, ‘I’ve got a Christmas Fair coming up.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Wanstead.’ Riley conjured up those fields of snow spreading out before him as far as the eye could see — beyond the Weald and on to the South Downs. ‘I’ll do this last one.’ He could do it; he could take a first step, as long as Nancy knew nothing of what lay behind.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Nancy stood with hands on her hips. Her face still blotched from the tears.

  ‘I’m going to pack it in.’

  ‘What, the business?’

  ‘Yes.’ He could walk away and keep going. Every step would be new He need never turn around. Riley’s eyes glazed before a sort of darkness. He didn’t understand his own thoughts. This was the Major’s country.

  ‘You’ve had too much of Uncle Bertie’s poison,’ said Nancy She smiled, and was, to Riley very pretty. ‘Your sort never give up.

  7

  Anselm slept fitfully waking at intervals to be tormented by George’s calm, and his own folly The old man’s repetition word for word of their earlier conversation had been a device of mercy but in the giving George had revealed the activity of his memory: he’d known that Anselm had been to Mitcham; and he’d understood that Emily wouldn’t take him back.

  When morning came Anselm acted without hesitation: whatever Doctor Johnson thought of London, Anselm was tired of it. His life lay elsewhere, as now would George’s. He rang Larkwood to say he was coming home, and he asked Wilf — the guestmaster — to prepare a room for a weary pilgrim. At the hospital, George warmed to the proposal immediately volunteering that he’d never been to a monastery, and that The Sound of Music was his wife’s favourite film. On the train he kept breaking into ‘Doe, a deer’ while Anselm studied the badge on his blazer: Legis Plenitudo Caritas. It was a warning and a promise: the law would be fulfilled, but only by love. What would Elizabeth have made of that?

  By early afternoon George had been installed in a room overlooking the valley of the Lark. The stream sliced through ribbed fields, drawing down the winter sun. On the far side, oaks and chestnuts crowded on the slopes. Anselm leaned on the sill, beside George, longing to get among the blue shadows, to kick the acorns and conkers.

  ‘I knew a strange man called Nino,’ said George, searching the treetops. ‘He told me that at the bottom of every box is hope. No matter what terrible things jump out, he said, we have to wait.’

  The old man hung his hands on the lapels of his blazer and talked to the valley about this Nino, a guide who told stories that George had rarely understood first time around. It was a patchy reminiscence, of sayings uttered near Marble Arch or King’s Cross, on a bench or by a bin. His memory hadn’t held on to the parts that would have made the whole easy to understand. But as he spoke, Anselm thought of Clem, his old novice master, long dead, who’d taught through mysterious tales of the Desert Fathers. And slowly like warming up, Anselm felt close to George, as he’d been close to Clem, and yet — as with Clem — he remained so very far away For with every word, it became clear:

  George understood Nino’s stories without being able to explain them. George had come to that point of stillness and detachment that Anselm was hoping to reach through monastic routine. This mendicant beside him was already home: he’d reached the same strange uplands stalked by two strange masters.

  ‘Here’s a small present with many pages,’ said Anselm, taking his leave. It was a notebook with Larkwood’s address and phone number inside.

  He moved briskly down the corridor, intent on grabbing the Prior just before compline, when authority was both tired and indulgent, to beg that George might live out the remainder of his days at Larkwood. For the moment, another task required his attention.

  Anselm went to the calefactory, a side room off the cloister with a huge fireplace, some armchairs and a telephone. In the Middle Ages, it had warmed up rude and ready monks; now it was one of the monastery’s many hideaways, a place in which to thaw and think. It was empty. Anselm sat by the inglenook and made what amounted to a preliminary call. .

  The Provincial of the Daughters of Charity remembered him from his earlier enquiry about Sister Dorothy and the account of a hidden key Anselm wanted access to any records that touched on the background of Elizabeth. They were held in the congregation’s archives, he assumed, at Carlisle. Fearing a refusal if he approached the school directly he wondered if the Provincial might sanction his appeal for help.

  ‘Why exactly do you want to know?’ she said. ‘I don’t see how your question is linked to your objective.’

  ‘Because I think it’s only a matter of time before her son wonders why his mother cut a. hole into that particular book, which will bring him to Dorothy’ replied Anselm. ‘And as this business reaches its end, I fear everything will unravel. I want to get back to the first dropped stitch — if there is one — so that I might help him.’

  The Provincial told Anselm to wait one hour and them he was to ring the school and ask for Sister Pauline.

  When Anselm duly dialled the Carlisle number the phone was picked up instantly. And just as promptly they set to work. There was only one sheet of paper in the file, said Sister Pauline. ‘I’d rather not release a copy Father, but I can read it out. Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Laboriously she described the format of the page and the brief details recorded on it. Anselm listened, eyes closed, picturing the document in his head. When she’d finished, Anselm decided to repeat back the particulars that mattered for confirmation.

  ‘So, am I right, Elizabe
th Steadman was born in London, not Manchester?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘No parental details are recorded?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Her home address is given simply as Camberwell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Anselm wondered why such an important matter had been left so vague.

  ‘Because we know exactly what it means,’ said Sister Pauline. ‘Camberwell refers to our hostel. It means she was based there before being given a place at the school.’

  ‘Hostel?’ asked Anselm, thinking of the convent where he’d met Sister Dorothy.

  Sister Pauline explained that the Camberwell hostel had been their biggest London project, offering accommodation and help to anyone and everyone, so long as they were female. The building had been converted years ago to provide affordable housing, a part of the ground floor being retained for the community. Anselm had already been there.

  He could imagine Elizabeth’s journey north, far from the big city; but something was missing ‘If she came to Carlisle through the hostel, without parental involvement, then there should be a court order … a legal document that defines her status and yours. Are you sure there’s nothing else in the file?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  And that, he inferred, means it’s either been destroyed, or it never existed.

  Anselm thanked Sister Pauline and put the phone down. His thoughts fell neatly into place: if no court order had been made, then Elizabeth’s presence at the school would have been with parental consent — that of Mr and Mrs Steadman. So why had no address been recorded? And why had Elizabeth been linked to the hostel? The only person who knew was Sister Dorothy and she, Anselm decided, would receive another friendly visit —only this time they’d get beyond the figures in a photograph.

  The calefactory door swung open with a bang. Anselm bristled — a common enough experience in monastic life, for sensibilities were always colliding, especially on the little things, like how to open a door — and there, standing like a slot machine, was Brother Cyril.

  At last,’ said the cellarer. ‘I’ve been looking all over.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ That was another aspect of existence in a habit. With some people you had to apologise when you’d done nothing wrong. Guessing Cyril’s mission, Anselm said, ‘I’ve put all unspent money — with receipts — in your pigeon-hole.’

  ‘I know,’ he snapped, ‘That’s not why I’m here.’

  Anselm prepared himself for a harangue on the theology of internal audit. ‘Do continue, he said wearily.

  ‘I’ve worked out what this Riley man is up to.’ Cyril’s one arm swung proudly.

  ‘Already?’ asked Anselm, astonished.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’d better tell Inspector Cartwright.’

  ‘I have done. She’s coming here tomorrow afternoon.’

  Anselm stood up, distracted by all that must now be done. He would have to tell George; and, instinctively he knew that this was the moment to draw Nicholas more closely into his mother’s doings.

  ‘Shall I explain the trick now?’ asked Cyril impatiently.

  ‘No, I’ll wait, thanks.’

  ‘Pah!’

  Anselm almost ran down the trail that led to a narrow bridge over the Lark. The sky was clean and shining like metal — as it was, no doubt, over Marble Arch or King’s Cross. Anselm sensed he’d be going back to those bustling streets, but for now he wanted to be alone, to enter the far wood and pray among the acorns and conkers.

  8

  ‘Nancy is that you?’

  It was Babycham. She hadn’t changed. Well, she had, because of the hair extensions and a fur coat. And her lashes were false. And ten years had made a difference. Those pink cheeks had fallen a bit and the powder looked like bruises; or maybe it was the cold.

  ‘It’s been ages …’ The fur ruffled magically leaving windy paths like those corn circles. It was the real thing. You could tell.

  Nancy had just got off the bus. With worked-up hope, she’d gone east this time, into West Ham, hoping for a glimpse of Mr Johnson. She’d sat by the buzzer, her eyes latching on to every uncertain step among the flow of jackets and prams; she’d checked a bench by a newspaper kiosk and a heap outside Currys. He was blind. He couldn’t have gone that far. She’d stepped out to buy some Polos, when that voice had made her jump.

  Nervously Babycham said, ‘Lovely hat.’

  Riley had found it in a drawer at a clearance. It was yellow polyester with black spots.

  ‘How’s things?’ asked Nancy When they’d last met, she’d told her she was full of wind and bubbles.

  ‘Altogether nice,’ said Babycham. She turned to a newsagent’s, to the paints and pens and toys with stickers on. The glossy mags were on display — happy faces, baring their teeth. Woman’s World had a couple of answers. ‘Take Control:

  Tell Him What You Want in Bed’; and, in bigger letters, ‘How to Stop a Yorkshire Pudding Falling Flat.’

  Nancy admitted, ‘I didn’t mean what I said.’

  ‘Course you didn’t.’

  Nancy waited, but Babycham didn’t reciprocate. It was to be expected. She never dealt in returns or cast-offs. She’d always gone top drawer. Knew her mind. She’d told Nancy to run. They’d had a meeting.

  Babycham looked hard into the window again. The glare from the shop made her cheeks redder. Forty-denier tights. All you had to do was tear a number off the bottom and ring up whomever it was. Only one had been taken.

  Nancy said, ‘So what’s been up, then?’

  Babycham pulled out a hankie. It had a blue ‘B’ on one corner and lace round the edge. ‘Well … I ended up with Harold … You know, the boss.’

  ‘Mr Lawton?’ Nancy’s surprise made it sound ridiculous.

  ‘Yes.’ She carefully touched the corner of one eye.

  ‘So it’s easy street for you then, Babs.’ Mr Lawton must have made a packet, what with the development of the docklands.

  ‘Well, he held on to his turf, so he could negotiate, sort of thing. That was the idea. And you?’

  ‘Antiques.’ Nancy felt a punch of self-hatred for the lie, for the lack of pride in what she did, for who she was.

  ‘Oh, very nice.’

  ‘Well, you know, second-hand. I’ve a small shop.’ Before Babycham could ask whereabouts, Nancy said, ‘I suppose you’ve got tons of kids?’

  ‘Three. And you?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She dabbed the other eye. ‘It’s arctic.’

  Riley had said, ‘No children. No talk of it. It’s just the two of us.’ He’d spoken like it was a deal before they hit the sand. They’d make it out of this hell together. Confident and romantic, he’d ducked like John Wayne on Iwo Jima. Nancy had agreed, not knowing that Riley never changed, that he’d come out of the packaging ready made and complete, all the screws in place. There was nothing to add on, no expensive extras. Whereas she’d been incomplete, with gaps, so many gaps. She’d always wanted to be a mother, and the nearest she’d got was Arnold. Shame and a kind of hatred — again, of herself —twisted in her stomach, like when she’d been starving after a day on grapefruit, part of a diet that was meant to transform her shape in two weeks. It hadn’t worked.

  Babycham said, ‘Harold didn’t sell up when he wanted, you know.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘He had to. After he got fined.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Health and safety.’ The hankie went up a sleeve. Her eyes were fine now, and her cheeks not so red. ‘Did you not hear? A lad drowned off E Section.’

  ‘No.’ Nancy shuddered as something fell inside her — like one of those metal shutters that could stop a car, never mind a smash and grab. Her voice failed.

  Years back a woman had come to the shop and handled a mirror — checked her lower teeth and a spot on her chin. She’d been sociable and asked how business was going. Then she’d shocked her by using her name: ‘Nancy I’m not a customer. I’m a
copper.

  Feeling sick, she’d said, ‘What have I done?’

  ‘Nothing. Can we have a talk, just us two, going no further?’

  ‘Well, I suppose so.’

  She’d tried to win her round, with talk of the poor mother, and that man Bradshaw, the father, who’d walked out of the court. Cartwright, that was her name. Jennifer. She’d made insinuations. It was like being trapped in Wyecliffe’s office all over again.

  ‘Where was he last Saturday?’

  ‘The car-boot fair at Barking.’

  ‘It rained.’

  ‘He went.’

  ‘What time did he get back?’

  ‘I was asleep.’ That hadn’t been true. But lying awake was her secret.

  ‘What time did you go to bed?’

  ‘Elevenish’

  ‘The fair would have wound up by six or seven?’

  ‘Yes, but his van broke down.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘How would I know?’ These police and their daft questions.

  Babycham said, A lad went through some of the planks. Harold had put up a notice, a fence, bollards, but they’d all been moved. Dumped in the river.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. He’d checked them on the Friday at seven o’clock, but they’d gone by Saturday night.’

  Nancy said nothing. Babycham stepped closer. Fur tickled Nancy’s wrist.

  ‘And that was when the lad drowned, the Saturday They said he was a trespasser.’

  ‘And Mr Lawton got fined?’

  ‘Because of the holes in the fence and the missing bollards.’ Like she had an itch, she repeated. ‘They said he was a trespasser.’

  ‘I suppose he was, then.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think so. And neither does Harold.’

  A slow-moving HGV had snarled up the traffic. It crawled past, heaving a trailer with a huge shed on it, more like a fairy-tale doll’s house, painted red and white. There were two windows and a door in the middle. Someone’s moving home, joked Nancy to herself, her eyes smarting. The idea stung everywhere at once, as if she’d crunched a nest underfoot; wasps, angry and purposeful, swarmed around her.