The Pieces of Ourselves

by Maggie Harcourt

  The door sticks, so I give it a shove, making the hinges squeak and the glass panes rattle. Hal eyes them suspiciously.

  “It’s okay, they always do that.” Reaching back, I slip my hand into his and pull him into the glasshouse, nudging the door shut again with my toe.

  “Are we meant to be in here?” His voice is little more than a whisper, swallowed by the green hush filling the glasshouse.

  “It’s fine. I come in here all the time.”

  Which is true. This is where I came every time I had a panic attack in those first weeks after The Incident; every time I felt like someone had swapped all the blood in my veins for pure distilled adrenalin and my lungs closed up and my heart screamed at me that it couldn’t keep doing this, while quietly, my head told me that this was what I deserved. This glasshouse was where I came to breathe in the scent of the plants, to hear the tick-tick-tick of the watering hoses, to dig my fingertips into the soil or run my hands along the old benches…to ground myself.

  Of course the next piece of the puzzle is hidden here. Of course it is.

  Drops of water from the humid air settle on Hal’s lashes, where they glitter. I can see myself reflected in his eyes – or at least a version of me. Whoever that girl is, surrounded by leaves and plants and flowers. And behind my reflection, I see – what, exactly? Deep in his eyes, I see him. Golden. Dazzling.

  Blinding.

  But when he smiles and leans into me and his lips press against mine, all of that slips away…and he’s just him and I’m just me…

  With his forehead resting against mine and his arms around me, I could put down roots here – right here, in the middle of the glasshouse and the plants and the flowers and the misty dew from the watering hoses. A made-up Eden, perfect for someone like me. Someone who needs a safe place.

  Maybe even for someone like Hal too.

  His breath and mine curl together in the air, and the glasshouse has never felt safer. I wonder whether it felt safe to them too, to Albie and Iris?

  I nudge my nose against his. “That wasn’t what I brought you here for, you know.”

  “I know.” He grins, and the glasshouse lights up.

  “This way.”

  I lead him deeper into the glasshouse – past the ancient potting bench, dented and battered by generations of gardeners; past the trays of seedlings for the autumn and the frames of baby vegetables for the kitchen gardens; under the sprawling grapevine that dapples the floor beneath it with shade even on the brightest day…and right to the back, to the oldest, gloomiest corner up against the hedge, where Charlie has his garden planning boards set up and keeps his favourite kit. Not even the junior gardeners dare come here looking for tools or seeds in case they mess something up. But I know exactly what I’m looking for – the point where two corners of the roof meet the walls, and the massive oak post that joins them.

  “Look there,” I say to Hal, and point at the post.

  “What?”

  “Look. Really look. Or better yet…” I lift his hand and press it against the wood, my hand on top of it, sliding down the beam. “You’ll know it when you find it.”

  Under my hand, he runs his fingertips down the grain of the wood until he reaches a rough patch, and he stops. His whole arm tenses and his eyes open wide. He’s found it, and I drop my hand, letting him duck around the post to get a better look.

  His nose pressed almost up to the wood, he outlines the letters cut into the post with his fingers. “What are they?”

  “They’re initials.” A dozen pairs of them, all in a column. BP, DF…and more, up and down the post. And right at the bottom: GH. “They’re the gardeners. When Charlie started working here, there was a guy on the gardening staff who’d been here basically for ever. He showed him these on his first day – he told him that right before they left, the gardeners who went to fight in the First World War all came here to carve their initials.”

  “GH has got to be our GH – right? George Harbutt.”

  I nod. “The one who helped Albie and Iris.”

  “It fits. It all fits, Flora.” He tilts his head forward and rests it against the pillar, almost like he rested his head against mine a few minutes ago, and his voice cracks as he says it.

  “It fits.”

  The glasshouse is so quiet that I can almost hear the plants growing.

  “I can’t believe it. I thought maybe I’d find a name or something…but all this?”

  “I’m glad. I mean, I didn’t want you to be…” I take a deep breath. “Disappointed.”

  In this. In here.

  In me.

  Half in the shadow of the post, Hal slowly shakes his head, his eyes fixed on mine and his lips curving into a smile.

  “What possible reason could I have to be disappointed? I came here looking for a story and I found it. And then I found something much more interesting.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You.”

  I know exactly what he means, because I didn’t even know I was looking for him, either…but suddenly, here we are.

  Found.

  “Listen,” he says as I haul the door closed behind us, keeping the damp air of the glasshouse in and the summer evening air out. “That party in a couple of days. Here.”

  “The anniversary one?” I brush my hair out of my eyes.

  “That’s what it’s for?” Hal clears his throat and stuffs his hands into his pockets, staring at the gravel path – suddenly awkward.

  “It’s ten years since Hopwood Home opened. The owners want it to be a big thing – Barney’s had to invite the local press and people from all over the place.”

  “Mmm.” He scuffs one of his shoes backwards and forwards on the path. Bits of gravel ting off a glass pane. “It’s just…I was wondering…would you…I mean, maybe? I thought…did you…?”

  I can barely hear what he’s saying over the humming of my heart.

  He frowns and screws his eyes shut, and his chest rises and falls as he takes the deepest of all possible breaths, and I hope he’s breathing for both of us, because I just can’t.

  “Would you like to go? With me? Umm, what I’m trying to say is – would you like to go to the party with me?” The words rush out of him, and the second they’re out, he opens his eyes and I can see everything in them. Everything I’ve learned about him, everything I’ve felt…and the ground underneath me is just as solid as it’s ever been, but the sky is spinning and I could step up into it and soar.

  “I’d love to.”

  “Yesss!” Hal punches the air.

  I try not to laugh. It’s very difficult.

  But he shakes his hair out of his eyes and beams at me. “Sorry. It’s just…I was really worried you’d say no.”

  “Why would I say no?”

  “Because…” He shrugs, and mumbles something under his breath. It sounds a lot like “I’m me”, but why would he say that?

  I want to tell him so much that of course I want to go with him because he’s him. That all of this, the attic and the glasshouse and the roof of his car and the deer park under the moon…it’s because he’s him, and he makes me feel I can be the closest to me I’ve been in a long time. But instead of saying that – or even some of it – I freeze. If I told him that, I’d have to tell him everything.

  The version of myself I saw in his eyes isn’t all of me, is it? It’s the version who treads the line between the darkness and the light, not the Other Flora who couldn’t get out of bed, who couldn’t even speak or think or breathe without it hurting, who wished more than anything in the whole world that everything would just stop…And it’s not the Flora who ran full-speed and headlong into the light and left everything behind, even her mind, even herself. Sad Flora is the long dark shadow that the blazing light of Mad Flora casts, and both are part of me – but they aren’t the parts I’ve let him see.

  How could I? Should I? No.

  I can’t – because what if they’re not what he wants to see? What if he saw, an
d was afraid of them, of me? As afraid as I’ve been? What if he sees them, sees the condition, the label…and that’s suddenly all he can see?

  What if I took this moment, this thing, this glorious all of it, and just as it was spreading its wings to fly, I knocked it down to earth with a perfect, perfect bombshell?

  There are footsteps on the gravel path behind the hedges circling the glasshouse, somewhere near and getting closer, which means I don’t have time to think about it. Hal’s face says he’s been watching me, and he wants to ask something – I can feel it – but he doesn’t. Instead, he smiles. “Listen, I really want to go and write all this down. I feel like if I don’t get it out of my head and into a notebook, I’m going to forget something – and I want to be able to tell Pa all of it.”

  “Not all-of-it all of it, though – right?”

  “Okay.” His ears turn scarlet. “Maybe not all of it. But most of it.”

  “The important parts.”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “The stuff I wouldn’t tell him is just as important.” He beams at me again. “Are you okay walking home, or…?”

  “While I would absolutely love for you to walk me home again, I get it. You go.” I laugh, and shoo him in the direction of the hotel. My heart tugs at me to follow him, like it’s a balloon on a string and he’s holding the end – but I watch him turn the corner of the path, rounding the hedge and, just for a second, stopping to look back at me. I wave and smile, and then he’s gone – leaving me with one searing thought that crowds out all the others.

  I need a new dress.

  Because Hal Waverley asked me to go to the party with him.

  He asked me.

  I hold the thought to me, tucking it tightly around me like a pair of folded wings.

  “…know you’re just trying to protect her…”

  The crunch of feet on gravel is closer and Felix’s voice drifts over the hedge.

  “Of course I’m trying to protect her!”

  That’s Charlie.

  Charlie and Felix are heading for the glasshouse…and they’re talking about me.

  “And I understand, I do, but…”

  “But what, Fix? What?”

  I duck behind a stack of old planters at the side of the glasshouse, pressing myself back into the shadow of the hedge. Whatever they’re saying, I want to hear it. Felix, closer now, sighs.

  “You want to keep her safe, and make sure she’s stable.”

  “That’s my job! I’m her brother, and I promised…”

  “You promised your mother, I know. But it’s not your job to keep her on the level. That’s Sanjay’s job – and now she’s better at it, it’s Flora’s. Your job is being her brother.” They reach the path right in front of the glasshouse, and I hold my breath. “I want to protect her just as much as you do – I love her too, and that’s what I’m trying to say. She needs to be normal, and this place…” He sighs again, banging his hand on the glasshouse frame. The panes rattle even louder than they did earlier and I pray that one doesn’t fall out on me. “College, a life. Friends. That’s what she needs.”

  “And when she’s ready, I’ll support her doing that.”

  “She’s ready, Charlie. You know she’s ready. She’s so much better. Think how she’s been since that kid turned up with the research project! You said it yourself – it’s like seeing her before. She’s ready. And you need to help her see that.”

  There’s silence, except for a quiet scraping sound. My brother’s picking loose splinters of wood away from the door frame. He does it when they fight at home sometimes, leaning against the wall or the stairs and picking.

  But he only ever does it when he knows Felix is right.

  The glasshouse door creaks open as Felix speaks. “Listen to me, Charlie. You want what’s best for Flora, yes. But she’s been treading water – and people can only do that for so long before they sink.”

  They close the door behind them.

  I lean into the hedge, barely daring to breathe in case they notice me, watching their shadows move as they head for the back of the glasshouse, where Hal and I were, what now feels like a lifetime ago.

  She’s ready.

  Ready for what, exactly?

  But even as I try to draw the safety, the familiarity of Hopwood closer, something deep inside me – just like Charlie – knows Felix is right.

  She’s ready.

  Does ready mean not being scared?

  Because I’m still scared. More scared now than I was before…because I know what can happen. I remember that I didn’t see it coming when I broke.

  College, a life. Friends. That’s what she needs.

  A life.

  Like the one Mira’s making for herself? She knows where she wants to go, and what she needs to do – and she’s doing it. She’s going. She’s leaving me behind, because how can I go anywhere when I don’t know where it is I’m meant to be heading? How can I have a life when life is the thing I can’t seem to handle?

  It’s like seeing her before.

  I’d forgotten what it felt like to be me before. But I think, just maybe, I remember now.

  The old me, the Flora I was, who didn’t always second-guess and doubt and worry about moving too fast or too slow…The one who just was, who didn’t need to be afraid that what she felt might not be real or right. She just felt it.

  Suddenly I think I might have been more like her again than I realized – ever since Hal arrived. Not because he’s some kind of handsome prince, riding in to rescue me from my tower, but because he reminded me I don’t need that.

  You don’t seem like the kind of person who needs rescuing.

  He even told me. He believed it, so why didn’t I?

  Because I never know if it matches, if it fits. If my mood matches the moment, whether what I feel is true or not – and whether I can even tell the difference.

  The memory of the library at Fallowmill crowds into my head, pushing everything else out. The orderly rows of books, all lined up and locked behind their wood and wiremesh doors. Caged to keep them safe.

  Who decides what safe means?

  Me.

  I do.

  Me.

  My head. My doors, my locks.

  I keep my own keys.

  I guess it’s time I used them.

  Charlie walks past my open bedroom door, carrying a basket full of laundry…then stops and takes two steps back to poke his head round the frame and stare at me.

  “Flora?”

  “Hmmm?” I half-lift my head from my pillow.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking at dresses.” I turn my phone screen around to face him.

  “Yes, fine, but…you’re on your phone.” He dumps the basket on the floor and a load of rolled-up socks bounce out.

  “Well, yeah. How else am I supposed to look?” I sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

  “Right. I mean, yes. Exactly. I was just…surprised.” He eyes me thoughtfully. “So you’re looking for a dress for the party?”

  “I can’t exactly wear my pinafore dress, can I? And nothing else is, you know, a dress?” I survey the wasteland of my wardrobe. I’ve not really bothered too much about clothes since I came here. There’s never been any point. Mostly I wear the same stuff all the time: T-shirts and denim shorts or jeans, and I steal Charlie’s old jumpers if I need one. And there’s always my uniform…But none of them will do for the party.

  The set-up has already started – a fleet of big white vans with Angelo Events written in neat silver lettering on the sides streamed up the drive yesterday afternoon, ready to start unloading for “the greatest moment in the hotel’s history” according to Barney. The funny thing is, the most important thing in the hotel’s history – the house’s history – happened a hundred years ago…But to me, it feels like it’s happening now too, and I want to tell everyone. I want to show them the world as it was when Albie stood in the gardens at dawn, when Iris whispered his name i
nto the water at Fallowmill, when George Harbutt cut his name into the beam in the glasshouse. I want to tell them that they lived. That they were here.

  And that so are we. So am I.

  Which is why I need a dress.

  The stairs creak as Charlie heads back downstairs, the un-emptied basket of clean laundry still in his hands. It sounds like he gets to the bottom just as Felix comes out of the kitchen.

  “I thought you were putting that lot away? What’s wrong?”

  “She’s in her room.”

  “And…?”

  “Felix, she’s on her phone.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Scrolling through dresses.”

  There’s a pause, then I can hear Felix smile.

  “I told you.”

  “Look, this one’s been posted in Britain too. Southampton – and it’s uncensored.” The uncensored letters are getting rarer again – either things changed in France, or Albie’s luck getting them sent unread ran out. Some of them now are barely more than notes, little more than I’m still alive, scribbled on flimsy army-issue paper. Some are longer but almost all of those have long black bars of writing scratched out, redacted in heavy ink. How anyone could have got anything from the censored letters – anything at all – I don’t know, but more and more, finding one that isn’t feels like hitting gold.

  “There must have been someone else from his unit on leave. Southampton had lots of troops coming and going through it – whoever it was probably posted it as soon as he got off the boat.”

  “Albie doesn’t say anything about where they are, though. There’s nothing, you know, confidential – he’s not that stupid.”