Her first reaction was to hide. Why hide? Oh just that she was relishing her solitude. She turned her back to the tree and there he was, striding towards her up the path, pyjama trousers tucked into boots, shirt open, beard halfway down his chest.
‘Happy birthday,’ he said. There was a dewdrop on the end of his nose.
‘How did you know where I was?’
‘Got up early. Glorious …’ He gestured around him. ‘Door open … looked out … what do I see but a trail of little footprints? What could I do but follow?’ She felt uneasy at the brightness of his eyes. ‘Follow a maiden into a wood at dawn on her sixteenth birthday and who knows what might happen. The 1st of May at that!’
‘Nothing will happen,’ she said.
‘Sit down a minute.’ He hunkered down beside her, his back against the tree. She looked down at the top of his head where the hair was thinning a bit, then lowered herself down beside him. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said.
‘I’m not.’ They sat for a while, listening to the sounds of the woods, watching the sun strengthen enough to begin to penetrate between the leaves. Patrick moved himself far enough away from the tree to sprawl full-length. Connie drew her knees up to her chest, her nightdress pulled tightly over her knees. If she looked at his chest she could see the throb of his heart in the tender place below his breast-bone where the ribs splayed apart. Milk-pale skin, a scatter of freckles, the copper edge of a nipple fringed with black hairs. She wished she had not come out alone, wished she was in the kitchen with Sacha getting breakfast ready.
His eyes were closed. She was beginning to think he had fallen asleep but then he said, ‘When I was a child, I had a revelation.’
‘Oh?’
‘A chestnut tree struck by lightning, split … outside my bedroom window.’ Connie waited for more, used by now to Patrick’s ponderous way with a story. A breeze stirred the leaves above them. I am sixteen, she thought, lifting her chin. I am a woman. If anything the skin of Patrick’s chest was blue and the leaf shadows rippled so lightly he could be underwater. Imagine that in paint. ‘I felt its distress,’ he said, ‘as plainly, as obviously, as if it spoke to me in words. As if it cried.’
‘How did you?’ Connie asked. Thinking, If I am a woman why do I feel just like a little girl?
‘Just felt it,’ Patrick continued, ‘and knew that plants are sentient beings. Sentient beings. I have become convinced, of a higher order than the animal kingdom – in which I include Homo sapiens.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, Con, do I hear disbelief in your voice?’
‘No.’ Connie was glad his eyes were closed, she could let herself grin up at the dancing leaves. ‘Go on then.’
‘Our senses, for instance, take our five senses … discounting the others for now …’ Connie settled herself more comfortably and stifled a yawn.
‘Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell … crude, crude mechanisms, Con.’
‘But,’ she could not help herself, ‘they are the only way we … we know the world. Know it. How else can we know? And plants … Patrick! Plants don’t have eyes, ears … they can’t feel.’ She saw that he was smiling, his eyes still closed, a small spider struggling in his beard.
‘I would submit,’ he said, ‘that the five senses by which we … how did you put it? Know the world are precisely what stop us knowing it.’
Connie sighed and recognised in her own sigh the long-suffering note her mother had sometimes … when? … oh it is so sad the way the memory slips. Maybe when she was getting Alfie to explain how he had ripped the knees out of yet another pair of trousers. Her heart contracted and she lay down, let gravity draw her close to the earth.
‘These senses are but crude interpretations,’ Patrick said. ‘They catch the most obvious blunt manifestations of existence, light … within a certain spectrum: colour … within a certain spectrum: sound … again within a certain spectrum. So we exist only within a certain spectrum. Doesn’t mean that’s all there is.’ He waited but Connie said nothing, felt the hardness of the forest floor against her back, a twig digging into her hip. ‘Our senses are a primary method of perception only and limiting because most human beings are content with that much, that small amount of what there is. Most feel no need to search deeper for the whole being on a cellular level.’
‘I don’t understand what that’s got to do with plants,’ Connie murmured, ‘but don’t say more.’
‘The human brain is pathetically primitive in comparison with even the simplest of single-celled plants,’ Patrick continued. ‘How much can your brain know at once? How much can it see, think, experience at once? Two things, three, fifteen? No matter. A single plant cell can know far more in one instant than you can ever hope to know in your entire life. That is why I am endeavouring to utilise the wisdom of plants in my elixirs … what I am doing, Connie, will revolutionise the way mankind experiences its world.’
‘Oh Patrick, how can you know what a plant knows?’ Connie jumped up, impatient, brushed bits of leaf and twig off her sweater. ‘I’m going back for my breakfast. Coming?’ She looked down at Patrick. He was wonderful, of course, in his original way – but he did go on a bit.
He opened his eyes. ‘I’ve bored you,’ he said, getting up. ‘Bored you before breakfast and on your birthday, too! How can I repair the damage?’ He put his hands together as if in prayer.
Connie laughed. ‘Not bored exactly.’
‘You little witch.’
‘I’m starving. Let’s go.’
Patrick held her arm. ‘Hush, wait,’ and as he spoke, the air rushed with silent wings, and there like a ghost looming through the trees towards them was a huge white bird. ‘Owl,’ Patrick whispered, ‘snowy owl.’ Connie waited with her mouth open as it flew, almost floated, by. They stood in silence for a moment, looking at the place where it had disappeared. ‘There’s a birthday present for you,’ Patrick said, his voice soft with awe. ‘I’ve heard that fellow many times but never seen him.’
‘Beautiful,’ Connie said.
‘Yes.’ Patrick turned and put a finger under her chin. ‘Sixteen,’ he said. ‘How does it feel?’ He had sleep in the corners of his eyes. She wondered if she did too, blinked. How oddly fascinating to be so close to another person, close enough to smell him, to see every pore in his skin, every separate hair in his long soft beard, the hairs all black or white, none of them grey. And suddenly she felt very naked underneath her nightdress.
‘Don’t know yet. No different.’
He let her go. Her gaze fell to his belly, the soft hairs that grew there and a stiff slant under the striped material of his pyjama trousers. She could not pull her eyes away.
‘Yes?’ The thing twitched. Her face flooded with dark blood. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t touch you for the world, not without your say so. But you can see what it thinks of you.’
The blood was throbbing in her face, her ears. She should turn away, she should walk quickly to the house. Nothing wrong had happened and nothing wrong would happen. She should turn and walk away.
‘You know our – Sacha’s as well – views on physical love. We each have other lovers.’ Connie wondered about this. Patrick disappeared for a few days now and then but Sacha? Where were her other lovers?
Connie half laughed, her voice coming out strangely.
‘And we must find you a lover, eh? Now that you’re sixteen.’
‘But … I don’t know.’ How shocked, how mortified her parents would have been. But her parents are no more. And that is why she is here, why this is happening to her. This is it, this is her life. Here, this Patrick standing before her looking so funny and lovable, the baggy flop of pyjama material at the top of each boot. If only he hadn’t followed her. Why did she leave the door open, leave her footprints clear as arrows pointing her direction? She lifted her face and their eyes met. A kind of fizz in the air like sherbet or electricity. She looked down at his trousers again.
‘Patrick, can I …?’ She could
hardly bear to make the words.
‘Can you …?’ His interest was entirely caught.
‘Can I touch?’ How could she be saying this? Asking this? Even thinking it? Curiosity maybe, and some sort of madness just because it was her birthday and it was dawn, past dawn now. Because fingers of light were opening the spaces between the leaves. And she felt safe with him. He would never harm her. He loved her and she, she realised, she did love him. What kind of love? Who knows? He would like it that she asked to touch, he would approve of her daring. Stupid how she had flown from his kiss last year – he had never tried it again. She just wanted to know … needed to know … she just could not imagine what it must feel like … his … penis … the strange thing that grows and moves and twitches. She saw Alfred’s when he was a baby but this …
‘Yes!’ He sounded delighted. ‘How sweet you are! And I understand. When we find you a lover you don’t want to be too surprised.’
Connie nodded, true or not she didn’t know. But her fingers itched to touch the thing that was pushing up now, almost straight. She took it in her hand under the cotton. It felt hot and solid. A little patch of dark wet blossomed through the cotton at its tip.
‘Take it out and look,’ Patrick said.
It seemed almost to leap out of the opening of his pyjamas by itself, purple and swollen like something bruised, something that must surely hurt. It was too big and raw. She snatched her hand away.
‘I’d better go.’ She walked fast, wiping her hand on her nightdress, not liking the hot smooth sensation the thing had left on her palm, wanting to get away from it, from him, to be with Sacha. Poor Sacha, whatever she thought about sex, whatever she did, surely she would not want Patrick to be showing his thing to Connie. Although I asked, she reminded herself, it was me.
The thought of the owl came back to her, the great soft whiteness of it, suddenly there and suddenly gone. Like a ghost, yes, and her knees weakened for a moment: the ghost of whom? As if maybe it was her father, warning her, warning her, no? No, no, no, of course not. She ran as fast as she could, as if she was being chased, pelted between the trees and across the lawn and into the house where Sacha, like a barrel in her old brown dressing gown, was just putting the kettle on.
PART 2
NORFOLK
ONE
The sound of an engine, the scrunch of wheels on shingle. Tony’s belly lurches. This is it then, this is Benson back. Not ready, no meal cooked, this is not how he meant it to be. He doesn’t know what to do. Hide? He drops to the floor on his knees, ridiculously behind the table, as if she won’t be able to see him there. Get yourself together, man. Footsteps. He waits for the door’s opening, hands flat on the floor, filthy with sand and hairs and God knows what, heart crawling along his throat. But then a hammering on the door. Who the … what the …? What to do? Hammering again, a voice, ‘Miss Benson, yoo-hoo … Anyone there?’ Tony stands, heart sliding back into place. Goes to the door and opens it.
‘I’m looking for a Miss Benson.’ There’s a delivery van parked outside and the bloke’s got a big flat brown-paper package, waist-high leaning against him, and he’s holding a receipt book.
‘She’s not here, right now. Can I help?’ Tony’s voice comes out smooth as butter. ‘I’m a friend … well, relation.’
The man hesitates. ‘Well, I ought rightly to deliver this to her,’ he says.
‘I’m expecting her any time,’ Tony says. ‘Just about to get the dinner on.’
‘I ought rightly to come back.’
‘Up to you, mate.’ Tony holds his breath.
The bloke pulls on the lobe of one ear, then removes a pen from behind it. ‘You’ll sign for it?’
‘Sure. Unless you’d rather wait for her. As I say …’
‘No.’ He hands the pen, which is warm, to Tony. ‘Reckon that’ll be OK. You’ll make sure she gets it, like?’
‘Sure.’
He looks around. ‘Live here, do you?’
‘Just visiting.’
‘Bit isolated for my taste.’
‘Yes, well. Horses for courses.’ Tony signs his name and gets his hands on the package. Knows already what it is. Here is Patrick delivered unto him. It’s all coming together, it’s magic, that’s what it is, sheer fucking magic.
Shuts the door and waits until the van has gone, the sound of the engine died completely away before he takes a bread knife and saws through the string. It’s well packed, as it should be, layers of brown paper, taped together, a wooden frame, sheets of bubble wrap – and, at last, Patrick.
‘Hello, mate,’ Tony says. His voice comes out tender, like it’s never come out before, he’s embarrassed by the sound of it. Runs a finger over Patrick’s face, familiar but strange, old and young at once. Close to you can see the brush strokes, how the colours blend to create the moulding of the flesh, strong face, long nose a bit reddened at the tip, the peaceful set of the mouth, the flecked eyes, kind of greenish, that look out at him so … so blissful, so almost, loving. Nobody has ever looked at him like that. Not his mum. Not girls. Even Donna, even Lisa, it’s not love he sees in their eyes – not that he wants to – it’s want, they all want something, that’s all that kind of love is, want and then disappointment. But not this. This is pure platonic love. Nothing physical in it even, it’s above all that, it’s one mind loving another mind, even after death. I love you, Tony whispers, then flushes, looks around, not that there’s anyone to hear. But he laughs as if there is, fuck off, he mutters, and looking into those eyes again knows Patrick understands. This is Patrick’s face, the last portrait. And here is Tony in the place where Patrick lived. It’s all coming together now, Christ, he’s getting warm.
TWO
It has been a delight and it has all been far too much. London is left far behind where it belongs. The countryside has changed its colours even in the short time she’s been away. Another palette – greens and greys, slashes of bright berry red, flaming bracken blur together, a wet sparkle. Not that she’s crying, it’s just one tear. Her heart lifts with the excitement of it and relaxes in her all at once. She strains her eyes for the first sight of the sea. Remembers Alfie, how fiercely they’d compete, she and he, on summer holidays, to be the first one to see the sea.
Connie slides along the seat as the taxi turns off the main road. A small road now, low between hedges, towards the scattered village – church, shop, houses, not even a pub – then they will be off the road proper and there will be the first glimpse of the sea, her sea, and then she’ll be at home where she so badly, badly needs to be.
Church against sky, a wavering spire. ‘You’ll have to tell me when,’ the driver says.
‘Past the shop,’ Connie says. ‘Actually, dear, if you don’t mind stopping a mo I could pop in there,’
He pulls up outside the Spa shop and gets out to open the door for Connie. ‘Take your time, I’ll have a fag,’ he says.
In her new hat and coat she can see she is, momentarily, a stranger to Barry who is serving, his mum on her weekly trip to Cash and Carry. Connie is comforted realising it’s Thursday and that is so. Nothing changes here except the weather.
Barry looks up. ‘Miss Benson!’
‘Like it?’ Connie does a little twirl.
‘Shit hot,’ he says. Poor lad, Connie thinks, looking at his blubbery lips, the lick of greasy fringe, the speckle of blackheads beside his nose, he’s probably never had it off, probably never will. He’ll help his mother in the shop till she drops. Then what? She doubts if he’s got the nous to manage it himself.
‘There were a man looking for you, Miss Benson.’ Connie picks up a bag of nuts, a pint of milk.
‘What sort of a man?’ Getting properly run-down in here, she notices, just the contrast with all those bright and shiny London shops. But still it doesn’t do to let things slip too far. There are filaments of spider’s web in the corner of a shelf, the lino floor-tiles have broken corners, there are grubby thumb-prints on cereal boxes. If they don’t keep it
up to scratch they might get closed down – then where would she be?
Since she’s in a car she might as well load up. She looks out between the notices stuck on the window at the driver, having his fag. Something flirtatious about the way he leans back in his bonnet, a flourish in the way he exhales the smoke. Yes! Connie chuckles as a girl comes in view, a girl in jeans and one of those draughty tops that show the midriff.
‘He were a nice man,’ Barry says, ‘long hair. I told him where you live. Mum says I shouldn’t of told him. She give me a row, she did.’ His bottom lips turns down as if he’s going to cry.
‘It’s all right, Barry,’ Connie says. ‘You did well.’ Apples, a box of russet apples, she runs her tongue regretfully round her teeth. She turns to the shelf full of tins, picks out soup, corned beef, spaghetti and a tin of chicken ravioli which is a new line in the Spa shop.
‘And you’ll want your baccy.’ Barry reaches it down for her.
‘And what else?’ Connie smiles. She’s got a soft spot for poor Barry.
‘Whisky,’ he says. He fetches her her customary half-bottle of Famous Grouse.
‘No, I’ll take a whole one,’ she says.
‘Feeling flush, Miss Benson?’ He giggles wetly, excited. This is a high point for him, a few words exchanged with an old woman. But then, Connie reflects, what is a high point for me? Shutting the door on myself on my own? What else? Biscuits, peanuts, cheese, tea-bags, pork scratchings, Bombay Mix. ‘Big box of matches,’ she says.
‘So I’ll tell Mum you’re not cross about the man?’
‘It’ll only be some journalist. No, tell her I said you did well.’
‘You’ve been up London?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s it like?’
Connie paused. ‘It’s not as good as here,’ she says, ‘you’re far better off here.’ Barry grins and Connie remembers him sitting up in his pram outside the shop, the very same grin on his wide red face. How time has catapulted forward.
‘When did the man come?’ she asks.
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