Poppy and I have only mentioned Patch once. ‘I’m sorry about Patch,’ she said, when I first went to her with the plan.
I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I was surprised to find it was true.
She and I have worked like Trojans on this. Last night we were up till 2 a.m., praying to the gods of fine weather, and fixing and sorting the last tiny details.
Our prayers have been answered. The gardens are kissed with sunshine today, the wind has dropped away to a complete calm, it is as if every power, every wish or thought or spirit, is on our side.
The exhibition starts at the French windows in the Japanese room. We have moved the red cordon ropes so that we funnel the public through the side of the room and out into the garden.
There the magic begins.
Atalanta and Hippomenes dance in every shade of gold, every glowing incarnation. They point and run and balance, stretching their lithe legs and their long arms out towards the sky. They run from the danger of Aphrodite, away from her wrath, and – here and there – they appear as lions in papier mâché and clay and silver foil and every media under the sun, where she has caught them.
It is an astonishing display. Mobiles hang and spin from trees, totem pole figures of cereal boxes and glittering spray paint rise up from the lawn, paintings perch on easels – placed in the exact spot they represent. There are hundreds of versions of the lovers, each one made in Poppy’s classroom, each one an achievement.
We are so proud to be displaying them today.
*
I check my watch. It is time to walk round to the front of the house. I walk slowly, trying to gather my thoughts, trying to stay calm.
The familiar sound of tyres on the gravel reminds me of my first day here, of how little I knew and how much I assumed. The slam of a car door makes me look up.
Simon hasn’t changed. There is more grey in his beard and his tan is darker, but the way he opens his arms to me, the tightness of the way he holds me: that is all as it was. The awkwardness I had expected doesn’t appear – it is safely stored away with our memories, with our younger selves.
‘Thank you for coming,’ I whisper into the fabric of his shirt.
‘I’m here for good now,’ he says, ‘should you need a friend.’
I hug him back. It feels great to be able to do that again.
*
The chapel is cool and quiet. The visitors, and there were record-breaking numbers today, have gone home.
We changed out of our working clothes when we finished for the day. Everything was carefully timed so that we had an empty house, empty gardens, but time to walk down to the chapel together.
Everyone here loved Richard – except for Sophie, and she loves Richard’s son. The local vicar, whose father baptised Richard as a tiny baby, has come out to say a few words and to make this the solemn occasion it needs to be.
I went to London to collect Richard’s ashes earlier this week. I took Leo with me and, while we were there, we dropped into his old day centre: we saw Eric and Ollie and Sadie and Dean, just as he’d begged me when we first arrived at Hatters.
Everyone greeted him like a film star: lots of hugs and hand-shaking, lots of ‘welcome back’.
‘It’s different now, Mum,’ he said when we left. ‘I love my old friends but I’m different now. My new friends are my now-friends. They know who I am.’ He waved goodbye to his old classmates as we got in the car.
I understand him completely. Leo and I have been through so much together this summer. We have risen, phoenix-like, with the house and there is a special bond between those of us who really know how it all happened: the restoration applies to all of us who were there.
*
Exactly as he asked, I have brought Richard home. His ashes, left with the funeral director for four years while I thought about what to do with them, are in a strange black plastic urn.
I took it to the chapel when I got back and he will be there today, waiting for us, when we go in.
I stayed in that cool quiet when I took the urn in. I wanted to be alone with him for a few more minutes. I wanted to thank him, for everything.
‘You would be so proud of Leo,’ I whispered. ‘Of who he is, of his bravery. And I hope you’re proud of me: I’ve done my best.’
I smile through my tears. ‘And thank you for sending Simon, I need a friend. I love that he loves Leo, I love that he loved you: but I’m not in love with him – I never was. We both know that, you and I.’ I kiss the top of the urn before I leave him there. ‘It will always be you, Richard. Always.’
*
We sit in one row of the chapel, all squashed on to one dark wooden pew. Sophie and Leo, Araminta, then me, Simon on the end.
The vicar is sensitive to our lack of organised religion. He talks, very briefly about Richard and about the family. He mentions, as I’ve asked him to, Geoffrey and Hugo. He talks about Harriet and the family.
He reads their names from the ledger, his hands wide on the gold edges of the lectern. We have had a calligrapher add ‘Araminta Mary Buchan. 5th June 1952. Daughter of Geoffrey and Mary, sister to Richard.’ She is the first woman to be recorded in the book. I am confident now that she will not be the last.
As we whisper our farewells to Richard, Simon squeezes my hand. Our fingers interweave, the crimped edge they made once before. It is good to have a friend.
On the other side, I hold Araminta’s hand. It is good to have family.
The vicar lodges Richard’s ashes in a cubby hole near the altar. Tomorrow, a stonemason will come to seal them in and, in time, a tablet will be laid over the top of it. A stone that will proclaim, in strong carved letters, who he was and that he lived here. A stone that will say the words we have chosen: that he was ‘Richard Lyons-Morris, son of Geoffrey and father to Leo. Much loved father, husband, brother and friend.’
We are quiet as we walk back. The fox cubs skitter amongst the new statues, batting at dangling details with their paws, looking towards the back door for Araminta to bring them their tea. The sun is setting over the tops of the trees and sparkles of light dance in the leaves.
These are the gardens laid out by Richard’s great-grandfather, a man who was part of my family. These are the lawns my husband and my sister-in-law played on as children. This is the place where, one day, a man will go down on one bended knee, tapping his thighs only once with nervousness, to ask his raven-haired solemn girl to marry him.
These are the lawns outside my house.
This is where we belong.
Acknowledgements
As usual, there is a whole village behind the writing and making of this book, even beyond my amazing teams at Simon & Schuster and Touchstone/Gallery.
In no particular order (because every piece of help and support is vital) . . .
Thanks to Phil McIntyre, as usual, for his insightful comments and eye for a story. To the Inked Fingerlings for their support as friends and writers: good at both. To Fionnuala Kearney for reading it about 100 times and Jacqueline Ward for always being at the end of a phone line. Thanks to Susan Johnson for unerring support and museum tours: without you this story really couldn’t have been written.
I’d like to thank Jess and Chloe Overton for giving me a space to start this story, and Dilys Hall for feeding a starving author. Thanks to Moniack Mhor: to the staff for my retreat week and the incredible care you show your writers, and to my MMU MM lot for being great – year in, year out.
Thanks to Nicola Martin and Deborah Michaelis for being a voice for Leo before it turned out that he had his own. Thanks to Max Richards for the game and Zachary Frith for the hat. Thanks to Cate Benjamin and Patch Friend for the loan of your names and to Ben Fielding for fixing a stubborn technical problem.
Enormous gratitude goes to the Deal Bookshop, to Charn, Gemma, Ali, and Adam, for being so amazing. Best bookshop in the world: fact. And to Clare Baker, Janet Lewis, Hattie Douch, Jess Ryn, Fay Franklin and Bex Rechter for reading and making help
ful suggestions. Thanks to Simon Nicholls for the mental health advice you gave me for another book that’s ended up in this one.
I owe an enormous debt to the East Bridgford Support Squad Girls, without whom I would not have got through this year. I have found it so difficult not knowing where Jane is, but she is here – between each one of these pages, in every one of these words.
My amazing teams at Simon & Schuster and at Gallery books have been beyond fabulous and put together such a gorgeous package of a finished product: Jo Dickinson, Louise Davies, Clare Hey, Maggie Loughran and Lauren McKenna; Judith, Pip, Bec, Jess, Polly, Laurie, Rich, Gen; and all the sales team, especially S-J Virtue.
Thanks to Sarah Hornsley, best agent in the world, and to Colin for years of love and support.
Most of all, thanks to everyone who supported Grace: readers; bloggers; reviewers. You are the people who put the wind beneath my wings so that I could write a second novel. Thank you, I hoped you’ve enjoyed it.
About the Author
Anstey Harris teaches creative writing in the community with her own company, Writing Matters. She has been featured in various literary magazines and anthologies, been shortlisted for many prizes, and won the HG Wells Short Story award. Anstey lives in Kent, UK, and is the mother of the singer-songwriter Lucy Spraggan. Her debut novel The Truths and Triumphs of Grace Atherton was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick for 2019 and won the Romantic Novelists’ Association Sapere Books Popular Romantic Fiction Award.
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First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2020
Copyright © Anstey Spraggan, 2020
The right of Anstey Spraggan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4711-7383-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-7385-1
Audio ISBN: 978-1-4711-7519-0
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset in the UK by M Rules
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Where We Belong Page 28