Everything in the Garden

by Jo Verity

  Anna gave her a brief rundown on Dorothy Holton. ‘I rather liked her but it’s early days.’ It surprised her to realise that she meant what she said.

  ‘And when’s Maddy coming home? I told Sophie about the baby. She’s very excited.’ Jenny’s expression was one of sympathy, if not outright pity.

  ‘Next week.’ Why did she lie? She had no idea when they would be seeing Madeleine. She hadn’t intended to play cover-up games with Jenny or anyone else, but over the years they’d all indulged in face-saving exercises. Bill’s disclosure of his personal problems might make him feel better but it put her in an embarrassing position. Sharing practical problems, or even money worries, was one thing but the internal workings of the family were a private matter. Wrens were allowed to criticise Wrens but she was damned if Jenny could.

  When she knocked at the Webbers’ back door, Mark opened it wearing an open-necked, brushed cotton shirt with yellow cravat, lemon lambswool cardigan and baggy cavalry twills. It all went wrong around his feet. He was standing on two dead animals. In fact they were slippers, in the form of furry rabbits with lop-ears and pink noses at the toe. He grimaced. ‘Celia gave them to me for my birthday. They’re very warm. Come on in.’ He turned to lead the way, white tails bobbing at his heels. ‘There’s a knack to them. I have to keep my feet apart or the fur locks up and I fall over.’

  Celia was setting the table. In pink angora sweater and grey pleated skirt, it appeared as if she had just popped home from the office for a bite to eat.

  ‘Don’t let me hold you up,’ said Anna, quickly explaining her reason for calling. ‘Nothing special. Just something to eat and a chat. Bring a bottle, if you like.’

  Mark escorted her to the door and glanced back into the kitchen before confiding, ‘Celia’s a bit down at the moment. An evening out would do her good.’

  There were two messages on the machine. Madeleine had phoned about an hour earlier. ‘Hi, you two. Out gallivanting again? Just saying hello and letting you know that I’m – we’re – fine. I expect Mum’s worrying as usual. I’ll phone again soon. Byeeee.’

  The second caller left no message, just the sound of distant voices. Anna one-four-seven-one-d. It was a local payphone, probably Tom calling from the village, but it had eliminated the chance of getting Maddy’s number. It irritated her that his pointless, message-less call had done this but she was cross, too, that she’d been lingering in Jenny’s kitchen when Maddy telephoned.

  As she made herself a sandwich, the frustration of the missed phone call welled up and she started to cry. Crying felt good. While the tears were streaming, she took a wet mug from the draining board, and as she carried it over to the kettle it slipped from her fingers and smashed on the flagstone floor. That felt good, too. She took another and held this one high above her head before letting it drop. It bounced three times before breaking, the noise ringing out like a bell. Two plates next, then another mug. She looked about her, through a blur of tears. Broken crockery covered the floor. It appeared that mugs were more robust than plates. Whilst their handles sheared off, the rest remained intact, just cracking or chipping at the rim. ‘Because they are three-dimensional’, Tom’s voice explained inside her head. Sobbing amongst the debris, she watched a red stain spreading out from the underside of her foot. She felt no pain but knew that she must have stepped on a piece of plate. Damn. All she wanted was to have a good cry and smash a few things. Was that too much to ask? Now, bleeding profusely, she grabbed a tea towel from the back of the chair, using it to blow her nose and wipe her eyes. If she hopped to the sink, it was more than likely she would step on another piece of pottery and injure her other foot. It was all Tom’s fault. Why was he always off doing something stupid when she needed him?

  She ran her hand under the instep of her bleeding, throbbing foot. The sock was sticky with blood and, through the knitted cotton, she could feel the place where the splintered china protruded from the flesh. It was possible to walk, as long as she put only the toes of her injured foot to the ground, so, flicking the pieces of crockery out of the way with the tea towel, she cleared a route to the sink.

  Anna pulled off her sock and immersed her foot in a washing-up bowl of cold water. This eased the throbbing but failed to slow the blood, seeping out in tiny swirls, turning the water crimson. The image of a slashed-wristed suicide, lying in a bath, flashed up and she pulled her foot from the bowl.

  There was a broom leaning in the corner and she swept a path to the sofa. She flopped down, pulling her foot up and twisting it towards her. There was a tiny puncture on the sole but no sign of what had caused it. The offending sliver must have come out when she removed her sock. She twisted the tea-towel around her foot and, lying back on the sofa, hoisted it up onto the padded arm. After a few minutes the bleeding slowed to a trickle but she gave it a few more, to be on the safe side, before hopping to the dresser where they kept the Savlon and sticking plasters.

  Her foot twinged when she put it to the ground and she limped upstairs to get clean socks and comfortable shoes. While she was there she took a couple of Paracetamol tablets to combat the throbbing and the headache which had developed. Exhausted from crying and physical exertion, it took all her willpower to resist the lure of their unmade bed. There were too many things to be done.

  She was gathering up pieces of broken crockery when the phone rang. She let the machine take the call, standing next to it, ready to pick up if it was Maddy. But it was Tom again. ‘Anna? Hi. It’s me. You OK? Bill’s treating me to lunch in The Lion. So you carry on. OK? Oh, we’ve got the shopping. I assume you wanted button mushrooms.’

  This message might have re-activated the crying and plate smashing, but she lacked the necessary energy. With supper scheduled for seven o’clock, she had less than five hours to prepare the meal and clean the areas of the house (kitchen, dining room, sitting room, bathroom and stairs) where guests (or more precisely, Jenny) might stray. She also had to bathe and wash her hair. Really speaking she should have a tetanus booster but there wasn’t enough time for a trip to the surgery.

  By six o’clock, she had abandoned several of the things on her list. They would eat in the kitchen now that the floor was sparkling clean. No one would spot the dust or grimy windows in the sitting room, if they kept the lighting low and lit a welcoming fire. The stairs weren’t too bad. And if she plaited her hair, she could get away without washing it.

  Tom, eager to please after his extended and obviously liquid lunch, was detailed to clean the bathroom while she concentrated on the food. The kitchen was already fragrant with the smell of simmering casserole and a golden skin was forming on the rice pudding. Detritus from sills and surfaces was hidden in drawers and cupboards. The yellow tulips which Tom had brought back from the village stood in one of her pots on the scrubbed table. There were fresh candles in the holders and two bottles of red wine ‘breathing’ on the mantelpiece.

  Her foot was swollen and sore but she didn’t mind. It had been worth it for that exquisite moment when the mugs bounced across the stone slabs. Was it pure luck that she’d only smashed items that she didn’t care for?

  7

  ‘Mmmm. Smells wonderful.’ Bill wrinkled his nose and advanced across the kitchen towards her, arms outstretched. It was on the dot of seven.

  She pressed a bundle of cutlery into each of his hands. ‘Could you put these on the table, Bill? I’m a bit behind.’ Escaping to the hall, she called up the stairs to Tom, who was lighting the fire in the sitting room. ‘Bill’s here, love.’

  Celia and Mark were next. Despite the understanding that it was to be an informal supper, Celia was dressed for The Palace. Her hair, rigid with hairspray, sat on her head like a yellow hard-hat. Bright pink lipstick and nail varnish accentuated the paleness of her skin. The kitchen was hot but she shivered, pulling her jacket around her. Anna shut the window and resigned herself to sweating for the sake of her guest. Tom poured everyone a drink. ‘We might as well stay down here. We’ll eat as soon as Je
nny arrives.’

  ‘Shall I go and jolly her up a bit?’ Bill appeared to have had a drink or two already and brimmed with enthusiasm. ‘We don’t want Anna’s delicious meal to spoil, do we?’ Anna dissuaded him and found a few unnecessary tasks for him to perform.

  They were on their second glass of wine when Jenny knocked at the front door. Anna went to let her in, pressing the backs of her hands to her cheeks, knowing they were flushed from cooking. Her white shirt, clean at six-thirty, was already splashed with gravy from the casserole and Jenny, every shining hair in place, made her feel like the hired hand.

  ‘Am I last? Sorry.’ As Jenny bent forward to kiss her, the subtlest hint of exotic scent reached Anna and she wished that her own hands didn’t smell of onions. ‘Family crisis.’

  The Redwoods were perpetually in crisis. Jenny lost more credit cards, car keys and passports than anyone in the whole wide world. The children cost them more money than anyone else’s did. Peter was more stressed than anyone in the medical profession. In short, the Redwoods had cornered the market in crises.

  ‘Peter forgot his laptop. I had to get it couriered to Reading. He’s presenting a paper tomorrow.’

  Anna would never have admitted to being so disorganised. ‘The Redwood Phenomenon’, first noted when Jenny and Peter moved Alex and Sophie away from the local primary school, had become legend and they wore it like a badge of honour. It defined them and provided an unending stream of anecdotes. Tardiness, loss or mishap had become more interesting than the event it affected. After all, only important people could get in such tangles.

  She was relieved that she’d chosen a meal that couldn’t spoil with overcooking. No collapsing soufflés or leathery steaks to worry about, thank goodness. But she wasn’t so sure about eating in the kitchen. It put her centre-stage, transforming things she did every day, without thinking, into a performance. She had never been comfortable with an audience.

  That wasn’t quite true. When she was nine or ten, she’d been first to volunteer to sing or dance in school concerts, never suffering from the slightest flutter of nerves. This had come to an abrupt end when, after a few months of violin lessons, she’d offered to play ‘Brahms’ Lullaby’ in a school concert. Within the first few bars it started to go dreadfully wrong. Her sweaty fingers slid about and sometimes her bow scraped the wrong string. Things deteriorated, and before the first repeat she was conscious of a titter running along the cross-legged rows. It spread like a forest fire, flaring into snorts and guffaws, until one of the teachers helped her off the stage in tears, the piece unfinished.

  Celia and Jenny offered to help but remained at a safe distance, leaving her to wrestle with the dishes of hot food. Once she had manoeuvred everything to the table and Tom had topped up the glasses, she sank onto her seat and gave up. From here on, the evening would have to run itself.

  ‘I do love this kitchen.’ Bill waved a laden fork in the air. ‘It’s just like a kitchen should be. The nerve centre, the heart, of the house. Jeels would make a fortune if he could reproduce this.’ Jenny smiled but ignored the bait.

  ‘It’s not intentional,’ said Anna. ‘It just happens.’

  ‘I think it’s amazing how all our homes here are the same, yet so different,’ said Celia. ‘And so lovely, of course.’

  It was customary at gatherings like this to toast Tom in appreciation of his role in planning the refurbishment. ‘Well done, mate,’ Mark raised a glass towards his host. They all drank to Tom.

  Through mouthfuls of food, they exchanged news about the children. Anna wondered whether the time would ever come when they didn’t. The children weren’t sitting around talking about them, that was for sure. They would only be topics for discussion when, like Frank Hill, they became a problem for the younger generation. Anyway, if everything went to plan, the move to Pen Craig would spare them the loneliness and indignity that, all too often, accompanied growing old.

  ‘It’ll be lovely to see Maddy, next week,’ said Jenny. ‘How far on is she? Five months? She should be through the sickness by now but you never know. I remember how ill I felt the whole time I was carrying Alex. You’d think Peter would have been able to give me something but doctors are like plumbers, so busy sorting out everyone else’s leaks that they don’t get round to fixing their own.’

  ‘Were you leaking, then?’ Bill was having difficulty in keeping up with the conversation.

  Anna avoided Tom’s questioning glance when Jenny mentioned Maddy’s visit.

  ‘Does she want a boy or a girl?’ asked Celia.

  Tom concentrated on his food, as though cutting it up and getting it to his mouth demanded his undivided attention. Anna muttered the usual things about it not mattering, as long as the child was healthy. She’d hoped that the discussion about the baby wouldn’t crop up this early in the evening. Unless she diverted the conversation it could run on and on, raising a lot of questions which she wasn’t in a position to answer. She sent a telepathic SOS to Tom. Help. Help. Talk about something else.

  It was Bill who came to her rescue. ‘Is it me, or is that man in the Post Office some sort of psychopath? Tom and I called in for a few things today and there he was, brooding about like a ruddy Russian tragedy.’

  ‘The Welsh are a very soulful nation,’ said Mark.

  ‘I don’t know about soulful. But I do know that he’s got it in for me. Whatever I ask for, he either doesn’t have or doesn’t want to sell it to me.’

  ‘That makes no sense, Bill. The man’s a shopkeeper. Of course he wants to sell you things.’ Mark paused. ‘What sort of “things” are you talking about, anyway?’

  ‘He’s talking about the Guardian.’ Tom looked up from his plate. ‘Bill is convinced that Prosser is prejudiced against Guardian readers.’

  ‘He’s always been happy enough to sell Peter the Telegraph,’ said Jenny. Bill let out a strangled yelp. ‘What? What have I said?’ She looked around the table. ‘Well his wife’s very pleasant, anyway. And she’s an excellent cleaner.’

  ‘Didn’t somebody, Len probably, mention that Prosser was connected with Pen Craig in some way? Something to do with his grandfather. What was the name of the farmer who used to own the place? Before it was a hotel.’ Anna shook her head, the details eluding her.

  ‘Richards. Roberts. Something beginning with R.’ For once, Tom was vague.

  ‘I’ve bumped into him a couple of times, when I’ve been walking in the woods,’ said Mark. ‘Didn’t even pass the time of day. He was carrying a shotgun, so I assumed he was hunting vermin.’

  ‘He probably doesn’t like incomers, darling,’ Celia joined in.

  ‘He’d be rather stupid, then. Between us, we buy quite a bit from his shop and Mrs. P. comes to Jenny several mornings a week.’ Anna passed around the dish of carrots.

  ‘Isn’t that the thing about psychopaths, though? They’re not rational.’ Mark pulled the paper napkin from the v-neck of his sweater. ‘I must admit, I haven’t really taken to the man. Anyone carrying a gun gives me the willies.’

  ‘They all have guns out here.’ Anna, with this sweeping generalisation, attempted to reassure Celia that there was no particular cause for concern.

  Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? I can’t say I’ve noticed Len riding shotgun on the post van but maybe I’ve missed something.’

  ‘Perhaps Mr Prosser’s shy.’ Celia did not appreciate irony.

  ‘Let’s forget Prosser and have pudding.’ Anna brought the dish to the table and the conversation switched to the attributes of the perfect rice pudding. The colour, the density and the skin were the critical factors and the men tucked in, reminiscing about rice puddings that their mothers and grandmothers had made. She was already full but took a small portion to allay any suggestion that she was watching her weight. Jenny, who did nothing but watch her weight, opted for the fruit salad, refusing cream. Celia had eaten next to nothing of the main course and declined dessert.

  From rice pudding they moved on to recycling. Cel
ia excused herself to go to the ‘little girls’ room’ and Anna took the opportunity to ask Mark if his wife was feeling unwell. Mark was incapable of telling a lie, an unusual trait in an accountant, and his face told her that something was amiss but, before she could question him, Celia had rejoined them.

  She looked dreadful. Her face was pale and the two patches of blusher across her cheekbones stood out like bruises. Her mascara was smudged and she was shivering. It was impossible to pretend that there was nothing wrong and Mark hurried to put his arm around her. ‘Come on, love, you’re bushed. Let’s get you to bed.’ He led her to the back door and called a quick ‘Goodnight. Thanks for the meal.’

  As soon as they had disappeared, Jenny broke the silence. ‘Should I go after them? See if I can help.’

  ‘Let’s give them a bit of time. Mark will let us know if he needs anything.’ Anna cleared away the pudding plates.

  The foursome sipped coffee and speculated on the cause of Celia’s distress. ‘Perhaps she’s starting a cold,’ suggested Anna, but she hadn’t mentioned feeling out of sorts when she’d called at lunchtime. Neither had Mark dropped any hint of a problem to Tom or Bill.

  They cleared the table. Anna refused Bill’s offer to help wash the dishes and they trooped upstairs with a second pot of coffee. It was a frosty evening after a day of April sunshine and Tom’s fire had caused condensation to form on the windowpanes. Anna lighted the candles and pulled the heavy curtains around the bay, drawing the focus of the room inside. She waited to see where Bill would sit and made sure she was well out of reach, perching on the wide arm of Tom’s chair.

  ‘Poor Celia never seems quite a hundred percent,’ said Bill. ‘Come to think of it, Sally saw them at the hospital the other week. Coming out of Outpatients. She was visiting a friend. Sally was, I mean.’

  ‘Didn’t she ask them why they were there?’ said Jenny.

  ‘Said they didn’t seem to want to chat.’