The Poison Garden (2019 Sphere Edition)

by Alex Marwood

‘Yes. She was the reason Ali left home in the first place. Well, I say “left”. She wasn’t exactly given a choice in the matter.’

  Wow, I sound bitter. Well, I am, I am. They kicked her out, and now she’s dead, and I have to make a decision and I don’t know …

  The clock strikes, and she jumps. It’s literally hard-wired into her, now. Pavlovian. I’ll sell the bloody thing, she thinks, whatever else I do. Get an antique dealer round and flog him the lot. And then I’ll sell the house. I don’t have to put my life on hold for people I didn’t even know existed until yesterday.

  ‘I was going to go travelling,’ she says, mournfully.

  ‘I know,’ says Helen, ‘it’s a bugger. Life does have a few curve-balls up its sleeve.’

  ‘Can’t I just … I don’t know. Put money in trust for them when they’re adults or something? You know – give them what would have been Ali’s share of the house? That would be fair, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘If you can be okay about leaving them in care, I guess.’

  ‘I can’t do it, Helen. Except – God, I don’t know how I’m meant to do this. They’re going to be a mess. They saw everybody they’ve ever known die, for God’s sake … and a cult! The closest I’ve ever come to knowing about kids and cults is maintaining the anti-radicalisation staff training spreadsheet.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t be doing it alone,’ says Helen. ‘If they come to the school, there’ll be me, for a start.’

  ‘But they … they need someone who knows them. Someone who knows how to comfort children. Look at me. It’s not just them who’ll be a mess. I’m a mess.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say so,’ says Helen. ‘No more than half the parents I come across.’

  ‘I am! Come on – who would live in a place like this if they weren’t a mess? I need to sort myself out before I can be any use to anyone else. What if I screw it up?’

  ‘That’s fear talking,’ says Helen. ‘Which is perfectly understandable. You don’t have to do this, Sarah.’

  But it’s not their fault, Sarah thinks, and feels the guilt all over again. They’re orphans of a storm created by other people’s wicked choices.

  3 | Sarah

  They enter the room on light feet, smiling, the taller one leading and the shorter – not much shorter, just a couple of inches – following behind.

  They’re extraordinary. They look like space aliens. Not of this world, certainly. Long and thin, with delicate wrists and long fingers and big blue eyes with eyebrows dark and arched. Small noses, flared nostrils. And hair so fair it’s as though the sun comes out as they come through the door, curling close around elegant skulls like lambswool. They have got that, at least, from their mother, and the startling eyebrow colouring; little else reminds her.

  The hair has grown in from near-total baldness, she knows from the reports she read in the papers. They shaved their heads once a month, men and women – and children as well, once they reached puberty. A gesture of equality or something: everyone reduced to the same androgyny, no one able to flaunt a crowning glory. Whatever; an upmarket wig supplier came forward and claimed that it had been a regular customer for their shorn hair, which fetches a surprising amount on the open market. Nothing gone to waste, then.

  ‘Hello,’ says Sarah.

  It’s hard to tell which is which, to tell boy from girl. They’re both wearing jeans, loose-cut, and striped T-shirts that were clearly bought to be grown into. They’re thin, and Eden, the girl, is small-breasted even for her age. It’s only when they speak that she identifies who is who, for Ilo’s voice has started to break and he speaks in a rusty, uncertain tenor. He’s the shorter of the two, the best part of two years between them.

  ‘Hello,’ they say, both at the same moment. Same accent, same intonation. Surprisingly posh, though she’s not sure what she’d been expecting. Some sort of deep Welsh accent, probably, given where they were born.

  ‘Are you our aunt?’ asks Eden.

  ‘Yes,’ she replies. Awkwardly, for despite the fact that she’s been one for twenty-one years, she’s never thought of herself in that role. ‘I’m your Aunt Sarah. Sarah Byrne.’

  ‘Sarah Byrne,’ says Ilo. Considers it for a moment. ‘That’s a nice name,’ he says. ‘Did you choose it yourself?’

  An odd question. But she’ll be getting odd questions; she’s been prepared for that. These two strange children have grown up away from the world. They’ve been in this care home in Barmouth for three months, but you can hardly expect the ferals they’re sharing their space with to have educated them in the ways of the outside world. ‘No,’ she replies. ‘Byrne was my husband’s name.’ She’s considered reverting to her maiden name since Liam turned out to be a cheater, but on balance going back to being a Maxwell feels even more like regression. If there’s one thing Liam has given her, it’s that she doesn’t have to walk round Finbrough with the burden of that surname, everyone wondering, just vaguely wondering, if she was related to that weird church on the High Street. As a Byrne, even though she lives in a house that belonged to the Congregation, sits on furniture it paid for, is gazed down on from the walls by generations of pastors, she is, at least, anonymous when she walks out of the door. Not an obvious target for press looking for relatives of the dead.

  ‘How interesting,’ says Eden. ‘We’re all called Blake. We were born Blake, but there were lots of adults who didn’t start off that way, like you. We were named after our Father.’

  Sarah doesn’t know what to say to that. What strange little creatures. ‘I thought you had different fathers,’ she says, confused.

  ‘Yes,’ says Ilo. ‘That’s right.’ Then ‘Oh! I understand! Yes. We had different conception fathers. But Lucien Blake was Father to all of us.’

  ‘And my actual father,’ adds Eden, proudly.

  ‘Yes,’ says Ilo. ‘Have you come to take us home?’

  Sarah starts. Another question she hadn’t expected. ‘I—’ she stumbles ‘—it’s not that simple, I’m afraid.’

  Their smiles never falter. Haven’t left their lips since they entered the room. She looks imploringly at the social workers for back-up and receives nothing in return. Hell, she thinks, I should have paid more attention to the hints they’ve been dropping about the strain on Social Services. These children aren’t really people to them, they’re just the remnant of a massively increased workload in a system that’s already creaking. Christ, they’d be encouraging me to take them if my surname were Hindley.

  ‘Look,’ she says, ‘I came to meet you, and see that you were all right. I only found out you existed a few days ago.’

  ‘I understand,’ says Ilo. There’s something eerie about that smile. She can’t put her finger on it. Maybe it’s just its constancy, or the fact that it’s another thing that makes it so hard to distinguish him from his sister. ‘Our mother told us about her parents.’

  Silence. Of course she did, thinks Sarah. Bruce and Barbara Maxwell and the Little Baby Jebus. I made a joke of them at university, still share eye-rolling laughs about the Congregation with the staff at the school, though they haven’t had any pupils from there in years. Turning them into a joke made it easier to live with. I should think Alison must have made them monsters, to her children.

  She attempts to move the subject on. ‘So, how are you both doing?’

  ‘Oh. We’re well,’ he says.

  ‘Everyone’s been very kind,’ says Eden.

  She doubts that. But then, she doesn’t really know much about their previous lives. Maybe life in a council care facility is a breeze by comparison. ‘I’m so sorry about what’s happened to you,’ she says. Has to cut herself short, for she’s shocked to find her eyes filling with tears. What for? My sister? The thought of their loss, the things they’ve seen, the mark it will leave on their life? She blinks them hurriedly back.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Ilo again. He seems amazingly composed. Shock, probably, she thinks.

  Eden breaks the uncomfortable silence. ‘It’s nice to
meet you,’ she says, and gives her the brightest of smiles. ‘Our mother always said that the one thing she regretted was not knowing you. I hope we’ll get the chance.’

  4 | Sarah

  The hush just before the bell goes is like the calm before the end of the world. Every day, at 12.25 and 3.40, the school enters the eye of the storm, the silence palpable as the students listen for the bell, the teachers’ voices suddenly audible above the shifting hubbub.

  Sarah, behind her desk in the administration office, has become so accustomed to it that she no longer needs to look at the clock. As the sound drops, she picks up her keys, locks the office and hurries down the raised corridor by the dining hall to stand on the doors. The last thing she anticipated when she left the Wellesley Academy – Finbrough Church of England School, as it was then – was that she would one day return to work there. But there’s barely a thing about her life now that she would have predicted three years ago.

  Helen Brown is waiting in her usual spot. They team up for this duty every day, since these supervisory roles are often handed out to the people who won’t be shut in a classroom when the bell goes. It was how they became friends in the first place; two-minute chats before the dam breaks, just short enough that Sarah didn’t get nervous, didn’t get shy, didn’t worry that she was boring Helen the way Liam said she bored him.

  She smiles as Sarah approaches. ‘Afternoon,’ she says. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Um,’ says Sarah, ‘it was … interesting.’

  ‘Nice to hear some enthusiasm.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe I need a while for it all to sink in?’

  ‘I should think so.’

  ‘Social Services seem to have practically decided I’m going to take them whether I like it or not.’

  Helen frowns. ‘Maybe we should talk about this in my office?’

  Am I a client now? she wonders. I thought we were friends. ‘No, it’s okay,’ she says. ‘I think I’d rather have a friend’s opinion than a therapist’s.’

  Helen nods. ‘Okay. Friend’s advice: you don’t have to do anything, Sarah. I know you probably feel like you don’t have a choice, but you do. I think you need to think hard about whether you’re up to the job.’

  ‘Surely nothing can be worse than the care system?’

  A little twitch of the eyebrows. ‘Why do you think the care system exists, if that’s really true?’

  ‘Okay, fair point.’

  ‘Look,’ says Helen, ‘devil’s advocate. They’re going to be a massive mess, you said it yourself. I mean, the stuff they’ve seen, by itself … there’s going to be trauma, and PTSD, and God knows what cognitive dissonances, and brainwashing, and survivor’s guilt, and … you don’t know them, Sarah. It’s not like taking on a real niece and nephew. It’s not going to be, you know, Little Orphan Annie.’

  ‘They are a real niece and nephew, though,’ says Sarah. ‘They’re the only family I’ve got left.’

  Helen glances at the clock. Two minutes till the barrage breaks. She glances around in case an early bird has broken loose to overhear, then steps over to stand beside Sarah and lowers her voice. ‘But you’ve never met them before yesterday. And a cult, Sarah. A cult. And they’ve not left it, you know, voluntarily. They’ll not be looking for ways to liberate themselves from their beliefs.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Sarah. ‘Don’t you think a mass suicide might straighten your head out a bit?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Seriously, this is well out of my zone of expertise. I mean, if they come to Wellesley Academy they’ll most likely be passing through my office, but I can’t say I feel confident about helping them. I’m more handsy dads and boozy mums, you know?’

  ‘But surely Social Services … ’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it. They’re buried under piles of shaken babies. You’ll be on waiting lists all over the place. Sorry. I know I sound pessimistic, but you need to know what you’d be getting yourself into. How did they seem, to you?’

  ‘Polite,’ says Sarah.

  ‘Polite?’

  She shrugs. ‘They said Alison talked about me,’ she tells her, and is surprised to feel that swell of grief again. How can I be grieving for someone I’ve not thought of for years? she wonders. Maybe it’s the other stuff I’m grieving. That my life has ended up so empty that Helen is the closest thing to a confidante I’ve found since I came back here and all the old friends somehow melted away with my husband. Alison was the only person who knew what it was like, in our family. If things had been different, we might have been friends. Might have been each other’s armour against the world.

  ‘Did they?’ asks Helen. ‘Do you know what she said?’

  ‘She said I was her one regret,’ says Sarah. ‘That she left me behind.’

  ‘So you think that makes you responsible for her kids?’

  ‘Well, at least I have a house,’ she says, lamely.

  ‘Which you were going to sell,’ says Helen.

  ‘I know,’ she says, and the sense that the prison bars are closing around her once again is almost overwhelming. ‘But you know, by rights half of it should have been their mother’s … ’

  ‘You don’t even know them,’ says Helen. ‘You didn’t even know they existed till last week.’

  ‘I knew about the older one.’

  ‘It’s not the older one they want you to take. Have they given you any sort of timeframe for this?’

  ‘I’ve not said I’ll do it yet.’

  ‘Mm,’ says Helen. ‘Look, do you know anything more about the sister? How about her? They know her.’

  ‘Yeah, not really,’ says Sarah. ‘She’s in a facility at the moment, apparently.’

  Facility. Oh, the lengths we’ll go to, to avoid saying ‘mental hospital’.

  ‘Sarah,’ says Helen, ‘it sounds as if you’re talking yourself into it, honestly.’

  The bell goes.

  ‘Oh, hell, here we go,’ says Helen, and goes back to her post. ‘Brace!’

  An escalating rumble, a salvo of slamming doors and the rumble becomes a thunder. Children tumble from the classrooms like water over rocks, ignoring raised voices begging them not to run. The big ones toss the littlies aside like flotsam; thousands of words burst from hundreds of mouths as though their owners have been in solitary confinement for days rather than the hour and a half since morning break. Sarah stands her ground as the wave breaks. The rebels first: big boots, greasy unisex hair, girls pouting and boys with ties at half-mast. Tuesday is chip day in the canteen – the only prospect that will make the rebels break into a run. Then, once they’re safely out of the way, the normal kids, the ones who have friends to walk with, the ones who have nothing either to fear or to prove. And finally, blinking into the light like dormice emerging from hibernation, the kids who want to avoid the attention of the ones in the front: the undersized, the ones with the cumbersome musical instruments, the geeks and the uncool and the socially awkward. And, hanging over it all, the scent of body odour.

  And then here comes Marie Spence. Always the last to appear and always, nonetheless, at the head of the queue. Every school has one, at any given time, and the moment one melts away to join the real world, another springs up in her place. At her shoulders, inevitably, following in her wake like Secret Service agents, Lindsay and Mika and Ben McArdle, this year’s court favourites. Sarah can’t stop a wry smile rushing across her lips when she sees that they have taken to sporting white earbuds dangling from a single ear. It’ll be Ray-Bans next, and grey suits. And even from this distance she can smell Victoria’s Secret body spray.

  Marie swanks up the hall past the staff room, and the smaller children – the less privileged children, children who don’t want trouble – part before her like the Red Sea.

  She reaches the queue, walks past as though it doesn’t exist.

  ‘There’s a queue, Marie,’ says Sarah.

  ‘Someone’s saving my place, miss,’ says Marie. Tosses her hair over her shoulder like a shampoo ad
. ‘She’s got my purse.’ And she walks on past, her sentinels in step behind her.

  Sarah looks up and catches Helen’s eye.

  Helen winks. ‘God, I hate that girl,’ Sarah says, as they count up the lunch tickets, and Helen doesn’t even bother to ask who. The entire faculty hates Marie Spence and her Jaguar-driving parents.

  ‘The curse of entitlement,’ says Helen.

  ‘A curse on who?’

  Helen laughs. ‘God, on everyone. Like the universal quest for victimhood. It’s a zero-sum game, in the end.’

  ‘I can’t wait for GCSEs,’ she says. The school doesn’t have a sixth form. They go to college in Newbury, or one of the big schools in Reading, if they want to go on to A-levels.

  ‘The sister,’ says Helen ten minutes later, picking up their earlier conversation. ‘Can you maybe track her down and get in touch, at least?’

  ‘I’m not sure how.’

  ‘Ask someone?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘It might give you some sorts of clues, at least. See what she’s like? I mean, she might well be fine.’

  ‘She’s in a loony bin, Helen.’

  ‘We don’t say loony bin these days,’ says Helen, all professional offence.

  ‘Okay, sorry. I mean yes, if I could. It would be helpful to meet someone who’s got some knowledge, but I don’t think that’s particularly an option.’

  ‘Well, just think about it a bit more, then, Sarah. Don’t take this decision in a rush, please. If you really are the last resort, and it sounds as though you are, they’ll still be there.’

  5 | Romy

  The circumference of the Earth is 24,901 miles. There are 123 billion acres on its surface, of which just 37 billion acres are land. The Plas Golau estate was 487 of those. I knew the size of the Earth – for knowledge, as Lucien has told us many times, is the key to our survival – but the gulf between knowing something and understanding it is vast. I used to look at Cader Idris, towering above our farmland, and believe it to be a behemoth. Now I know that its 2,929 feet are just a pimple on the surface. The world is huge, and that scares and excites me all at once.