‘I think that’s a great idea, Eileen,’ he said. ‘It would be nice to add some memories from her friends. Why don’t you have a word with Daisy? She’s making a list.’
Eileen was thrilled. ‘Oh, I will!’ she exclaimed happily. Then she put a finger to her lips. ‘I won’t breathe a word!’
Dennis realized he would have to tell Suze and Nan quickly before the whole village was talking about it.
Now that Marigold had no reason to go into the shop, she began to feel redundant. No one needed her anymore. Daisy cooked, Dennis helped wash up and somehow things got done without her. She began to feel low and the silver linings to the black clouds seemed harder to find these days. She knew they were there, she just couldn’t see them. Everything began to look dark and hopeless and Marigold felt more alienated from herself than ever.
Then Dennis asked her to do some work in the garden. ‘I wish I had the time, but I’m so busy,’ he claimed, looking desperate. ‘It’s getting so overgrown and if we don’t do something now it will become a real mess. It’s full of ground elder and bindweed. More weed than flower.’ Marigold was pleased she was able to help. She was also pleased to be needed. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of spending more time in the garden herself. With the little robin as her constant companion, she got onto her knees and began to pull out the ground elder, leaving it in little piles on the lawn for Dennis to collect later with the wheelbarrow. Whenever she felt tired she went inside to make herself some tea. Then she brought it outside and sat on one of the garden chairs and looked out over the fields. Sometimes she spent so long there, mesmerized by the oscillating leaves and the combine churning through the wheat, sending glittering clouds of gold dust into the air, that the hours went by and she forgot about her weeding. She forgot what she was meant to be doing and just sat there, gazing, as content as a cat in sunshine.
After Eileen, there came more knocks on Dennis’s shed door. Nan let the visitors into the house with a scowl and rolled her eyes. Dennis had told her about the puzzle, but she thought it unnecessary. In her opinion he was making a mountain out of a molehill. The fact that, one by one, the locals were traipsing in with their memories, wanting to be part of this gift, irritated her. No one had rallied around Arthur when he had done his back in with a shovel or got cancer and no one had rallied around her when she had had a hysterectomy. Why was everyone rallying around Marigold? The whole thing was absurd. She was getting older – granted, she was more forgetful than most, but she was in fine health notwithstanding. And this game they all played of agreeing with her was just silly. When Marigold claimed to have had a chat with her father, Dennis didn’t raise an eyebrow. He simply said, ‘How nice, and how is he?’ But Nan was having none of it. How was Marigold ever going to improve if everyone told her she was right all the time? If she didn’t realize she was getting muddled? Arthur died fifteen years ago and Nan was the only one prepared to say it. It wasn’t like Marigold to get cross, but she did with her, especially about her father. ‘Dad isn’t dead!’ Marigold exclaimed and her eyes shone with frustration. Dennis tried talking to his mother-in-law and Daisy appealed to her good nature, but she didn’t budge. She hadn’t brought Marigold up to go doolally on her now. If anyone was going to go doolally it was her as she was the oldest by a long way! It was only a matter of time before she lost her marbles. Would Dennis make a puzzle for her?
After Eileen, the first to knock on the door had been the Commodore. He wanted to be represented by a mole. Then came Dolly, who asked whether Daisy might like to paint her with Precious. Cedric thought a Christmas pudding surrounded by his feline ladies would work exceedingly well. Mary suggested painting her on the path with Bernie, in her favourite red coat, which Marigold always admired, and Beryl came with a black-and-white photograph of herself with Marigold as schoolgirls. When the vicar heard what Dennis was doing he was full of admiration and strode into Dennis’s shed, armed with quotes from the Bible about selflessness and love and told Dennis that he was sure to have a very special place reserved for him in Heaven, when his time came. Dennis wondered what Daisy could paint to represent the vicar and came up with a soapbox. He and Mac had a good laugh about that once the vicar had gone. The vicar’s wife, Julia, suggested her china tea set, which was made in Hungary by Herend. Marigold loved her tea, as they all knew, and Julia’s set was very expensive. Phyllida, the Commodore’s wife, had had a disagreement with her husband about the mole and thought it more appropriate, not to mention more dignified, to be represented by a battleship. They had come to a compromise and agreed that the two of them on the deck of a ship with a mole perched on the Commodore’s shoulder (like Mac on Dennis’s) would represent them well enough. When Sylvia took Dennis aside at church to ask to be included, Dennis struggled to hold his patience. Was this project getting too big? Could he and Daisy cope with all the requests?
At the beginning of September Dennis put up the shutters on the main windows of their house. He spent three days at the top of a ladder, while Marigold worked in the garden beneath him. When he was finished, he stood back to admire his work. Marigold came to stand beside him. ‘They look nice,’ she said, taking off her gardening gloves.
‘They’re for you,’ he told her proudly.
‘For me?’
‘Yes, you said you wanted shutters, so you could imagine you’re in Provence.’
‘Have I been to Provence?’ she asked.
‘Yes, we went once, when we were young.’
She looked at them sadly now. ‘Is that another memory I’ve lost?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Goldie,’ he said, pulling her close. ‘It’s not an important one.’
‘They’re very pretty.’
‘I’m glad you like them.’
‘I do. I’ll admire them while I’m weeding.’
‘That’s the spirit. It’s not the past that’s important, but the present.’
‘You sound like Dad. That’s what he says.’ Marigold laughed.
‘I probably got it from him,’ said Dennis.
‘He’s very wise. Really, if it wasn’t for you and Dad, I don’t think I’d have got through the last six months.’ She put her gloves on again. ‘Better get back to work. Thank you for the shutters, Dennis. They’re lovely.’
Daisy struggled to work with Taran hijacking her attention. Every time she managed to get behind her easel, he came to drag her away. And she went willingly, leaving her halffinished dog on the paper. Weary of the missed calls and texts from Luca, she changed her phone number.
Taran only planned to be in the UK for two weeks and he wanted to spend all of it with Daisy. They went for long walks with the dogs. They kissed on the bench. They made love in the woods and they picnicked on Sir Owen’s bench, looking out over the harvested fields that shimmered like gold in the early autumn light. On bright nights they lay side by side on the lawn outside Taran’s house and gazed up at the stars. They held hands, they talked about nothing and they laughed, a lot. Whenever Daisy felt the creeping insinuation of fear she asked herself: What’s wrong with now? And there was nothing wrong with now because she was with Taran and love made her feel careless and filled her with optimism; love made her feel invincible.
‘Come to Toronto,’ he said on their last evening together.
They lay entwined in the barn, in the bed that was intended for Taran’s holidays and weekends, but which had never been slept in, until now. Taran was tracing his fingers down Daisy’s naked spine.
‘I can’t,’ she replied. ‘Mum needs me here and I’ve got the puzzle to paint with Dad.’
‘Those things can wait. Come and spend some time with me. You might find that you like it.’
‘I know I’d like it. But I don’t want to like it. I’m needed here.’
He sighed and thought for a moment. Then he curled a tendril of hair behind her ear and looked at her seriously. ‘I’m falling in love with you, Daisy,’ he said candidly. ‘I haven’t said that to anyone, ever. This is a big deal f
or me. I just want to be with you. I don’t want to be on another continent. One of us will have to give.’
‘I’ve just given the last six years of my life and it’s taught me a valuable lesson.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I don’t want to be the one to give any more.’
He pulled a face, intended to appeal to her heart. ‘What about me? Don’t you want to give to me?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to compromise, Taran. I know what I want and I won’t accept anything less. Not for anybody.’
‘You want to be near your mother. I understand that.’
‘And I want to be here.’
‘Here?’
‘Home.’
He nodded. ‘Okay. So come for a week. Let me show you my city. Even if you like it, which you will, I won’t ask you to stay.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she replied. ‘Maybe.’
He smiled, then took her wrists in his hands and rolled her onto her back. He lay on top of her and kissed her. ‘Maybe is nearly a yes.’
‘Maybe is maybe,’ she laughed.
‘It’s a yes,’ he said, kissing her again.
‘Perhaps.’
‘That’s a yes, too.’
After Taran left, Daisy was grateful to have something with which to occupy her time. Otherwise, she knew she’d just spend it mooning over him. It was hard working in the barn, because everything in it reminded her of him, and she missed him. But she managed to finish the portrait of Basil, then turned her mind to the puzzle. And in the late evening, just before she went to bed, Taran FaceTimed her and they spoke long into the night.
The jigsaw puzzle had got the whole village talking. Even those who didn’t really want to talk, like John Porter and Pete Dickens who were feuding over the overgrown magnolia tree in Pete’s garden. Much to their wives’ surprise, after they had met with Daisy and discussed Marigold’s puzzle, the two men agreed to meet over a beer in the pub and talk about the tree like the sensible adults they were. They left the pub two hours later, after a game of darts, the best of friends, and Pete wondered why he hadn’t agreed to trim the tree in the first place. ‘Life is short,’ he explained to his wife. ‘And uncertain. I don’t want to waste the time I have left on this planet fighting over a bloody tree.’ Daisy knew that her mother would be thrilled that her condition had prompted a reconciliation between the two neighbours, but she couldn’t tell her because, on the one hand, the puzzle was meant to be a surprise and, on the other, Daisy wasn’t sure her mother would remember who John Porter and Pete Dickens were. People were slowly falling out of the top of her memory and John and Pete were most likely to have been among the first to go.
Eileen took it upon herself to help Daisy collect people’s stories, even though Daisy had assured her that she was perfectly capable of doing it herself. The truth was that Eileen missed her mornings with Marigold, chatting in the shop, watching the locals wandering in and out and gossiping about them. It wasn’t the same now that Marigold wasn’t there. Eileen visited Marigold at home instead and shared the local news, but Marigold was growing increasingly vague and seemed less interested now in what everyone was up to. Sometimes Eileen wondered whether she even knew who the people were that she talked about. Bored with little to do and lonely on her own, Eileen needed a project. Marigold’s puzzle was just the thing.
Dennis set about making the board for the puzzle. He cut the sheet of plywood down to size. It was six millimetres thick and a better choice than wood because, unlike wood, it didn’t warp or crack. He stuck some backing on the reverse side to prevent it from curling and paper to the top side, which Daisy was going to paint. This posed more of a challenge than any other, because Daisy was going to write who each picture represented on the back, so that Marigold would remember who her friends were. So that she didn’t forget the people she had known for years; so that she didn’t forget she was loved.
Eileen went about the village collecting everyone’s stories. She went from house to house with a skip in her step, drinking cups of tea in every kitchen and sharing the village gossip. Marigold and Dennis’s neighbours, John and Susan Glenn, had an amusing tale about Marigold and a lost key; Mary’s husband, Brian, remembered her teaching their daughter how to bake cupcakes that looked like bumble bees. At the end of the day Eileen popped in to see Jean Miller, who was recently widowed and lived on her own in a small white cottage with a view of the bay. Jean was a good decade younger than Eileen, but looked older on account of her grief and her loneliness. Eileen always greeted her in church and if they happened to be in the shop together, but she didn’t seek her out. Jean was quiet and a little shy and was always quick to hurry on her way like a timid mouse anxious to get back to her hole. Eileen took her notebook, ready to write down Jean’s story, and followed her onto the patio where they sat at a table with cups of tea and looked out over the water. ‘I’m very sorry about Marigold,’ said Jean in her small voice. ‘It’s a very sad thing, dementia. So many people have it.’
‘Marigold is doing very well, though,’ said Eileen, knowing that her friend would not like her to be pessimistic. ‘She enjoys her garden, her family and friends. The trick is to live in the moment. Philosophers have told us to live in the moment for thousands of years. Marigold doesn’t even have to try.’
‘Marigold is a good person,’ said Jean gravely. ‘She’s kind and thoughtful and has always looked out for other people. It’s nice that we’re all doing something for her for a change.’
‘She’s becoming a catalyst for good,’ Eileen told her. ‘You know, Pete has agreed to trim his magnolia.’
Jean’s eyes widened. ‘No, really?’
‘Oh yes, he and John went off to the pub together, having called a truce. It was a very silly argument, I can’t imagine why they let it go on for so long.’
‘Was that because of Marigold?’
Eileen nodded. ‘When someone’s in trouble it makes everyone else appreciate their own good fortune.’
‘I suppose it does,’ said Jean thoughtfully. ‘You know, I struggled after Robert died, but Marigold popped in every now and then and listened to me. That’s all I wanted really, someone to listen to me. I needed to talk about him. Marigold is a good listener. She has a compassionate face. Anyway, she gave me some wonderful advice.’ Now Jean’s face livened unexpectedly and her grey eyes shone. ‘She told me to find a project. It didn’t matter what it was, but it had to be something I was passionate about.’
‘What is it, your project?’
Jean looked bashful. ‘It’s a bit embarrassing, but I don’t suppose it matters.’
‘You can tell me. I won’t tell a soul, I promise.’
‘I love watching old romantic films. Like Gone with the Wind and An Affair to Remember.’
Eileen’s mouth opened in a gasp. ‘I like those films too. How do you watch them?’
‘On DVDs. I collect them. Shall I show you?’
‘Yes please!’ Eileen followed her into the sitting room. Jean opened a cupboard. Eileen nearly fell over. The entire cupboard was a neat library of films. Row upon row of them. She began to read the spines. ‘Oh, I loved Doctor Zhivago. That’s a classic.’
‘Wasn’t Omar Sharif wonderful!’ gushed Jean excitedly.
‘Roman Holiday! What a smasher!’ Eileen couldn’t contain her pleasure. ‘I’d love to watch some of these.’
‘I’ll lend them to you, if you like. Do you have a DVD player?’
Eileen was bitterly disappointed. ‘No, I don’t. What a shame!’ She gazed longingly at all the films and bit her lip.
‘You can watch them here, with me, if you like. I mean, you don’t have to. It’s just a suggestion.’ Jean smiled tentatively.
‘That would be lovely. If you wouldn’t mind.’
‘Actually, I’d like the company.’
Eileen sighed. ‘I would too,’ she agreed, accepting at last that she was tired of being alone. ‘It’s lonely on your own, isn’t it?’ sh
e said.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Jean.
‘We could start our own club,’ said Eileen enthusiastically. ‘A film club.’
‘What a good idea!’ Jean exclaimed. ‘A film club for two.’
‘Oh yes. Just for two. A very exclusive club. We’d better not tell anyone else or they’ll all want to join.’ The two women laughed. ‘Now, what would you like Daisy to paint so that Marigold remembers you?’
‘The cover of Gone with the Wind. We both agreed that that was our favourite film of all time. I’m sure she won’t ever forget that.’
A couple of weeks later Dennis and Daisy had completed the list and Daisy was making the preliminary sketches. Suze came round to see how the idea was progressing, then she sat with her mother and Nan in the kitchen and told them that she and Batty were moving out of his parents’ house because they had found a small flat in town. ‘It’s very nice,’ she said, looking a little apprehensive. ‘It’s a few yards from Starbucks, so I’ll never have to make my own coffee.’
‘You will when you realize how expensive coffee is,’ said Nan. ‘Much better to buy yourself a coffee machine and make it at home.’
‘There’s no fun in that, Nan. The whole point is to go in and people-watch. How do you think I get my ideas for the articles I write? I need to be with people, to see what they’re wearing and what they’re doing and to eavesdrop on their conversations.’
While Nan and Suze chatted Marigold sat quietly, trying to keep up. She watched them with a serene but vague look on her face. She picked up the name Batty and knew she should know who he was. It sounded so familiar. However, she knew better than to ask. She was certain that if she met him, she’d recognize his face. But the name on its own had no face attached to it at all.
‘Dad says you’re doing wonderful things in the garden,’ said Suze, wanting to include her mother in the conversation.
‘It’s full of weeds,’ Marigold replied slowly. ‘I must take them all out so they don’t . . .’ She searched for the word. ‘You know . . .’ She fumbled around in the fog. To her surprise, she found it. ‘Stifle the plants.’
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