“That is not relevant.” She looked down at her feet, avoiding his eyes. “You will die.” There was a note of tremulous sorrow in her voice.
“Yes. Most likely.” He tried for a lighter tone, “In the words of Lana Del Rey ‘We were born to die’ …but hopefully that won’t happen until well off in the future.” He strove to be understanding of her fears. “The thing is, I will, but you will too. And I don’t get to choose who goes first and more than you do.” How could she forego any chance of happiness for fear of what might happen? “It’s what we do before we die that matters.”
“You forget how many times I’ve been through this.” Her voice rose, “I won’t do it again! I will not give my heart to some man of flesh and bone who will one day die and leave me.”
“Ahh, sounds like your needles’ stuck in a groove there.” He’d been listening to this theme song since not long after the day they’d met and was running out of patience for it. “That was then. This is now.” It was high time, he thought, that she started to recover from husbands dead a minimum of sixty years or more. “Stop wallowing in self-pity,” he said tersely, wishing almost immediately that he could take the words back.
“I don’t care if you think it’s self-pity, or not. I’m not ready. I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready.”
None of this was going as he’d hoped. He could feel the conversation turning to custard but still he made a last stand. “Why on God’s green earth not?” Hamish was astounded that she could be so obstinate when it came to allowing herself to be happy. He remembered Linda’s emboldening words when he had balked at signing up for White Briars persuading him to grab the opportunity and ‘Carpe diem’; Seize the day …and he went with clear-cut and total honesty, “I love you. It’s the simple truth, and I’ve been waiting to tell you for months now ...and I do want to marry you. God willing, I want to have children with you and grow old with you. I’d propose right now if I thought you’d say yes.” He ploughed on, wanting to say all that he felt now that he had started, “You forget. Everything’s changed. You’re as mortal as me now ...and I’d be taking the same risk as you. In this world there are no promises, no assurances of an endless life ...for anyone ...not in this realm, anyway. That’s the burden we’re all born with and must share ...that one day, sooner or later, we’ll die. It’s what we do with our lives that matters ...and for you to deny love because you can’t have a written contract that I won’t kick the bucket before my time is not a good enough reason.”
She wasn’t listening to any of what he said. She, like Hamish had a moment of clarity when everything she had been thinking through the spring and summer crystallised for her, coming to a completely different conclusion. All those conversations with Green Jack about how she would never be free of her memories, her grief and her pain until she was physically freed from White Briars.
For good…She knew it now.
He was right all along. She had to leave.
And here was as good a place as any to start.
The first hint Hamish had of her intentions was seeing her begin to fade and turn to mist.
“Liana, what are you doing?” There was concern in his voice. “We’re in the middle of a public park in Paris. Someone might see. Don’t do this.” She was fast disappearing from sight.
“Liana!” Now concern had been supplanted with a note of panic. He made a futile grab for her, hoping to catch her before she was lost to his gaze but he was too late.
“Don’t look for me, you won’t find me,” it was whispered on the air. “I told you, better than you have tried and failed.” Even in her anguish, she did not wish him more harm than she had already inflicted.
And then she was gone. Irretrievably. Irrevocably. Gone.
His gut twisted in despair. He knew in that moment that she had no intention of returning.
Still, he sat there in the park for hours longer, hoping against hope that she might change her mind. He waited in the city another three days, extending his stay at the hotel compliments of the kindness of the owner, who could plainly see his anguish at the loss of his companion. She was French. She understood what she saw as a simple lover’s tiff and hoped he would be reunited with his inamourata.
Hamish had never felt so helpless in his life. He couldn’t go to the police, the gendarmes would be useless. He couldn’t call Interpol. What would he say to them? I’ve lost my flower fairy? Good way to find himself in a small padded cell, poste-haste.
***
The three days passed and she did not reappear.
Resigned, Hamish packed, made the train journey to collect his car and started on the return journey home. Half way to the ferry port of Calais he flicked some music on in the hope of banishing the looping replay in his mind of recent events. Listening to the Lana Del Rey CD that had been the last thing they’d played together while in the car, he suddenly recalled the tune Liana had been humming in the hours before she’d disappeared. It was another of Del Rey’s numbers, ‘Summertime Sadness’. Thinking of the lyrics, he berated himself for having not been more aware …perhaps if he’d picked up on its significance earlier he might have headed off this madness that had led her to disappear from his life, literally and figuratively speaking. It was several hours more before he acknowledged there was little he could have done to alter the outcome.
Sitting in his car on the cross-channel ferry, waiting while it was docking at Dover all he could think was: Ironic,...I taught her that she could safely leave the garden and bolstered her confidence so that she could handle the world beyond; thinking that it would add something to her life and help her to find happiness again ...and now that she’s used that knowledge to abandon the garden and me all I feel is, ... absolutely gutted.
***
Seeing the car arrive back at White Briars with one less occupant, Green Jack was exultant that his clever campaign had come to fruition. He spent three full days wildly celebrating Liana’s disappearance, after thoroughly checking the small car to make absolutely certain that she hadn’t hitched a ride home unbeknown to the human.
As a welcome by-product of this search he held aloft a fragmentary tendril of Fallopia japonica, Japanese Knotweed that he had found caught in the car’s undercarriage –possibly picked up on one of Hamish and Liana’s roadside stops as they had travelled the quieter back-roads on their way to Paris. He took the vine fragment with him to a quiet corner of the woods where few ventured and planted it. In the weeks following Liana’s departure, with care and no small amount of his particular brand of encouragement the vine sprouted and started to spread …see, he crowed, cavorting around the growing infestation, she wasn’t the only one who could persuade plants to prosper. Although chances were, he was sure, that she would not approve his choice of species –it being on Europe’s ‘most invasive’ plant species list and all.
He had planted the knotweed as something of an experiment, and he acknowledged, just because he could now that she wasn’t here. His new philosophy was ‘start small …plan big’…and he had big plans.
He’d still had no success when it came to leaving the garden, but was looking for a way around that irritating limitation.
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
John Keats
Chapter Twenty-Two
Autumn segued into winter ... determined that he would not retreat into despondency over Liana’s choice Hamish elected to fill his days with useful toil. After finishing the trimming of all the hedges and the figures on the yew terrace, with Arthur’s assistance; which in reality meant Hamish scaling up and down the ladder while much advice was given from the ground by the old gardener, Hamish put the garden to bed for the winter. This was not the cold, crisp snowy season of the previous year, but damp dreary days of interminable grey skies and seemingly endless rain. Heartsick, tired and frustrated wit
h everything, Hamish decided to take a break away, spending the better part of a month touring French ski resorts in the high Alps. Here, at least, the cold weather produced something enjoyable. As he sped down twisting mountain routes, revelling in speed and a pair of new high-tech skis, and only stopping long enough during the days to refuel at out-of-the-way mountain café-restaurants, he made a conscious effort to keep his mind busy with thoughts other than White Briars and Liana.
He came home, fit, tanned and enthusiastic to begin a new series of paintings. If his thoughts sometimes drifted to her he let them, comfortable now with the hope that she might return but acknowledging that she quite possibly would not. He felt in no hurry to issue himself ultimatums as to how long he would remain hopeful, preferring to take things day by day. He hoped and prayed that she had found solace and healing, wherever she was.
He made good on his promise to himself to get a dog, adopting a retired racing greyhound named Doug. Doug the dog was a big mellow, laid-back black boy who seemed inclined to do as little as possible now that his racing days were over.
With the advent of spring, Hamish opened up the summer house as a retreat, spending hours with Doug doing what he did best, napping at his master’s feet while Hamish occupied himself painting, reading or just sitting on the doorstep, watching the swans feeding among the weeds in the pool, as Liana had done the preceding spring. The dog and swans got along surprisingly well; after one long inquiring look Doug gave the birds a wide berth and they, perhaps seeing theirselves as Swans-a-la-carte never so much as hissed at the big dog. From that point on, they were firm, if not close, friends.
The blossom on the cherry trees that flanked the summerhouse came and went, then lawns needed mowing and Matthew, grown bigger and stronger after a winter growth-spurt; a detail he had been at some pains to point out to Hamish, started to spend more time in the garden, helping Hamish with maintenance and new projects. Among others, they got the rill flowing again and oversaw the mending of the orchard brick wall and gate, after which they installed half a dozen bee hives.
***
Towards the end of a busy summer, Hamish admitted to himself that it looked as if Liana was gone forever. There had been no word, not even the briefest of postcards, from her, and hope was starting to fade into the realisation that he may have lost her for good. Attempts at being philosophical about this state of affairs were, varyingly, successful or a dismal failure, depending on the day and the hour, especially when the leaves in the garden started to turn that exact shade of rich russet-red that reminded him of her beautiful tresses. Occasionally, he would take out the bunch of flowers that represented Liana’s names, which he had pressed under the weight of some of the heavier books in the library, turning the flattened flowers this way and that, and wondering where she might be and what she might be doing. The petals, like all the flowers he associated with her, had retained their bright hues long after ordinary flowers would have become dulled.
Sara had been concerned and then curious as to why Liana had not returned with Hamish from the trip to France. Wanting an address to contact her, she had peppered Hamish with questions about what had happened to cause Liana to leave in such a way. After Arthur let slip one too many of the garden’s secrets to his daughter, it became necessary to let her in on the tale of Liana’s origins and the reasons behind her sudden decision to flee. Sara had taken it all in stride, professing that she had been putting two and two together herself that things were not as Hamish and her father had wanted her to think. She brought over pies and plants in equal quantities and once she knew the full story, was a fast friend to talk to.
***
Steve, Linda and the children came down several weekends over the summer and autumn, even managing to persuade Hamish to venture up to London for a reciprocal visit. Steve still grumbled at his friend’s continual absence from the city but, given Jamie and Alice’s love of visiting White Briars’ expansive outdoor nature play-space had little support from his wife or children. It was taking considerable time, but he was coming around to the notion that the move southwards might have been the best choice for his best friend.
The trees in the garden were at the pinnacle of their autumnal beauty when, opening the front door early one morning, with the intention of spending the day clipping hedges before winter set in again, Hamish found something that sent him flying; boots forgotten and stocking soles getting wetter by the second, though totally uncaring; down towards the lower garden and the pool. He bounded headlong down the top terrace steps, dashed between the rows of yews at a speed that would have qualified him for the next Olympic Games, though still easily beaten by Doug, who thought this new game was excellent fun ... until they almost tumbled over one another down the last flight of stairs alongside the cascade, Hamish arriving at the pool glade completely out of breath and standing gasping for air like a landed fish and even Doug panting a little with the unexpected exertion. Doug recovered quickly, bounding about the clearing after the robin, which had happened into the glade at the same time as they. Robin was in no danger of being caught, chittering non-stop while flitting just above the dog’s head in an acrobatic display of precision flying. It was a favourite game they had been practising all summer.
She, on the other hand, was sitting on the doorstep of the summerhouse in the same spot where she had often sat through the spring and the summer of the previous year; looking for all the world as frozen and composed as the statue she so resembled. Only a close inspection would have noted the hands held tightly in her lap, for fear they would betray her with their shaking and the teeth, gnawing worriedly on the flesh of the inside of her bottom lip.
By the time he’d approached her he was in control of his breathing sufficiently to speak, but no words would come. He stood at last in front of her, mute, the silence stretching uncomfortably until she broke it.
“You knew where I’d be? I wasn’t sure.”
“I planted those flowers myself last spring ...this is the only place in the garden that they grow ...besides ...they finished flowering months ago,” he replied, his breathlessness not entirely due to the running, careful eyes watching her for some sign. The silence grew again until, once more, she spoke, clambering to her feet with less grace than was normal for her while the words tumbled over each other in her rush to get them out.
“I wanted to come back ...I wasn’t sure if you’d let me. Hamish, I’m so sorry, I’ve been awful,...but when I left you there in Paris I was in a horrible muddle,...it felt as if I was in some place where everything was coloured shades of grey and I was trapped in a maelstrom of grief that I couldn’t get out of, no matter how hard I tried. In the end, the only thing I could do was leave. Can you forgive me?”
He had imagined this moment so many times, never really thinking that it would happen. “There’s nothing to forgive ...You forget, I know that place. I’ve been there too.” He closed the gap between them and his arms wrapped around her of their own volition. He held her tightly to him as if she were a little child, rocking back and forth. “If only you knew how I’ve longed to see you sitting right there,” he said, so quietly that she barely heard the words. “But, why the flowers? Why didn’t you just come and see me yourself?” he asked
“I wanted to give you time to think of some way to tell me you no longer cared, if that was how you felt. I left you so abruptly and you weren’t too happy with me the last time we spoke ...and I wasn’t sure what the reception would be like.”
“Don’t you remember ...I said I wanted to marry you?”
“Really? I didn’t remember that part of the conversation, what I do recall was you telling me that I was wallowing in self-pity. I didn’t like it one little bit, at the time but now I know it was the truth. Tell me ...Are you always right? Because, if you are, it could get to be rather annoying.”
“Oh no, occasionally, very occasionally, I make a wrong call,” he was smiling now.
“Good, that should make you less insufferable to live wit
h.” she said.
“Does that mean what I hope it means?” the words were more tentative that he would have liked, but he was almost afraid to ask.
“Well, last time we were together you did ask me to marry you, didn’t you?”
“And you just said that you didn’t remember; but, True ...I may have uttered something to that effect,” he replied.
“Well, if the offer still stands ...I do. I will. I’d like to.”
“YES!” his ecstatic bellow could be heard all around the garden, if not as far away as Thornden. Despite her height, he picked her up and swung her around in a circle as if she were a small child, only putting put her down so he could kiss her. The kiss lasted so long that both Doug and Attila decided to interrupt, one pecking not ungently at Hamish’s shins on one side, the other bumping his opposite thigh for attention. Undeterred, Hamish tried to bat the irritating swan away with one hand but Attila persisted, not sure that he liked this large male on his territory, especially as he was consorting with Liana. Eventually Liana herself noticed just what it was that was distracting Hamish. She broke away long enough to remonstrate the swan, who turned back, all obedience and ruffled feathers to the pool.
“I’ve taken care of the swan; the large black dog is your responsibility. But I feel you should introduce us first.”
“Liana, Doug. Doug, Liana.” In response to his name the big greyhound stretched his forelegs outwards into a perfect downward-facing-dog position, his face towards Liana. He appeared to be bowing to her.
“I see that he is an adept yoga devotee.” She laughed as she reached out to pat the dog’s head, which resulted in an enthusiastically animated whip-lashing of his tail.
“Quit it Doug,” Hamish was laughing at the dog’s antics as well, “if you rotate that tail any faster, you’ll take off like a helicopter.” Hamish turned back to Liana, “C’mon, I think we should go up to the house before we upset Attila’s sensibilities any more than we have already. But first, I have something I want to show you.” He tugged at her hand, gently leading her to a gap in hip-height yew hedges that had been recently planted off to one side of the summerhouse, the dog shadowing close behind.
Flowers in the Morning Page 35
