The Heart of the Garden

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘You mean going to California?’

  Cape scratched his jaw. ‘Does she talk to you about it?’

  Poppy nodded. ‘A bit. She says I’d love it over there. I’d get my own swimming pool and it’s warm and sunny all the time, not like the bloody Thames Valley.’

  ‘Poppy!’

  ‘I’m just saying what she said.’

  Cape bit back a smile. ‘I know.’ He’d recognised Renee’s voice through his daughter, but it had still been a shock to hear her swear.

  ‘So, you’ll tell me, will you? I mean if she ever mentions going.’

  ‘But we’d all be going together, wouldn’t we?’ Poppy asked.

  Cape smiled. He had to try to make light of this. ‘Well, you know – just in case she forgets to mention it to me.’

  ‘She wouldn’t forget, silly!’

  Cape looked into the innocent eyes of his daughter. She was so trusting and so unsuspecting, wasn’t she?

  ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘Of course she wouldn’t.’

  She smiled up at him and then continued with her work. She was making good progress too, better progress than Patrick’s boys, that was for sure. They were dawdling about, picking up stones and chucking balls of moss at each other.

  ‘Pack that in, you two,’ Patrick warned them. Along with the others, he was continuing to clear the path they’d begun the day before.

  ‘Can’t you keep those boys under control?’ Kathleen asked. ‘They’re going to damage something.’

  ‘Feel free to lend a hand,’ Patrick said.

  Kathleen glared at him. ‘They’re not really my responsibility, are they?’

  Patrick guffawed. ‘And here I was thinking we were a team.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t sign up for child-minding duties,’ Kathleen said.

  ‘And I didn’t sign up for crotchety middle-aged-woman duties,’ Patrick retorted.

  Kathleen gasped, her mouth falling open in horror. ‘What did you call me?’

  Patrick’s face had reddened. ‘I didn’t mean to say that . . .’

  Kathleen placed her hands on her hips. ‘You seem very good at saying things you don’t mean to say,’ she pointed out before moving swiftly away from him.

  ‘Kathleen – I really didn’t . . .’ He stopped, knowing the battle was lost.

  Everybody looked on in silence, passing shocked glances to each other, and it took a moment for the group to stop staring at Patrick and Kathleen and continue with the job in hand.

  ‘I thought we’d done this path-clearing job,’ Erin said.

  ‘I’m afraid the path goes right around the garden,’ Cape told her.

  ‘Ah!’ Erin said.

  ‘Not bored already, I hope?’ Cape said.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Erin exclaimed. ‘I just like to know what’s ahead of me.’

  ‘That’s the thing – we’re not really going to know until we start uncovering things,’ Cape confessed.

  ‘It’s more like archaeology than gardening,’ Dorothy said.

  ‘We need that team off the television,’ Kathleen said.

  ‘But don’t they only have three days to unearth things?’ Erin asked.

  ‘And we’ve got just a year,’ Dorothy said. ‘Do you think that’s going to be long enough, Cape? Especially as we’re all middle-aged or old and decrepit!’

  Kathleen laughed but Patrick just shook his head.

  ‘Seriously, Cape,’ Dorothy continued, ‘what do you think? Is a year enough time to really make a difference?’

  Cape stopped work for a moment and pondered this. ‘It’s hard to say, but we’ll give it our best shot and do what we can.’

  ‘Is somebody going to inspect what we’ve done in that time?’ Kathleen asked. ‘Are we going to be graded or something?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Cape said. ‘From what I understand, we need to show our commitment to this place. I don’t think we’re going to be judged on how much we achieve, just that we’ve really put our hearts into it.’

  ‘And our backs,’ Mac added.

  Everybody laughed.

  ‘It’s all going to look so different,’ Anne Marie said.

  ‘Of course,’ Cape agreed.

  ‘I mean; I’m going to miss it.’

  ‘Miss what?’ Kathleen asked.

  ‘The romance of it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Patrick said, his eyes narrowing at her.

  ‘The overgrown garden. The briars, the long grasses, the tangles of nettles and the great swathes of ivy. I’m going to miss all that. It was beautiful.’

  Patrick snorted.

  ‘She’s right,’ Dorothy said. ‘I’m going to miss the wildness too. There was something rather magical about it.’

  Cape looked at Anne Marie, understanding her completely. She was losing a little piece of herself, he realised: the special place she’d come to sit was now being ripped away by Mac and his digger.

  ‘A neglected garden can be a beautiful thing,’ Cape said. ‘It can be a place to dream as well as a habitat for wildlife.’

  ‘So why are we working our fingers to the bone restoring this place?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘Because it was a little too neglected,’ Cape said. ‘It’d become unsafe, unusable.’

  ‘We’re breathing new life into it,’ Dorothy said with a smile.

  And that’s when they heard the shatter of broken glass.

  Patrick threw down his fork and took off into the walled garden while the rest them stood absolutely still, listening to the tirade he rained down upon his two boys.

  ‘They went off,’ Poppy told them.

  ‘We’ve got to keep a better eye on them,’ Dorothy said.

  ‘They’re Patrick’s responsibility,’ Kathleen said. ‘We shouldn’t have to babysit them.’

  ‘But, if this garden is to be for the community, we’ll have to learn to share it with children,’ Cape pointed out.

  Kathleen didn’t look at all pleased by this and pushed her broom along the path with renewed vigour.

  Patrick emerged from the walled garden, a hand firmly placed on each of his boys’ shoulders. The others quickly got back to work, avoiding eye contact and thus embarrassment.

  Cape walked towards Anne Marie. ‘I’m sorry you’re losing your sanctuary,’ he told her.

  ‘Yes, I hadn’t realised until this morning,’ she said. ‘It looks so barren in the walled garden now.’

  ‘But we’ll plant it all up. It’s going to be beautiful,’ Cape said.

  She nodded, looking as if she was going to say something else. ‘Last night,’ she began after a pause, ‘it wasn’t what you thought.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When you were watching me.’

  ‘I didn’t think anything,’ he said, although it had baffled him why she’d been dawdling before opening the front door.

  ‘I needed a moment to gather my thoughts. That’s all.’

  ‘You don’t need to explain,’ he said. ‘It’s really none of my business.’

  ‘I must have looked odd.’ She gave a nervous laugh.

  ‘No,’ he assured her.

  She looked down at the newly revealed path beneath her feet. ‘Well, that’s all I wanted to say really.’ She turned to go.

  ‘Anne Marie?’

  ‘Yes?’

  He cleared his throat and lowered his voice so that the others wouldn’t hear. ‘You know you can talk to me. About anything.’

  She looked at him, her eyes seemingly full of emotion.

  ‘I’m a good listener,’ he went on, giving her a smile. ‘If you want to talk, I mean.’

  They held each other’s gaze and then she nodded and turned away.

  It wasn’t until lunchtime that he got a chance to speak to her again. He instinctively knew where she’d be. While the others were doing their best to keep warm in the kitchen, Anne Marie was nowhere to be seen. He asked Dorothy to keep an eye on Poppy while he went in search of her. Sure enough, she was sitting
on her bench in the walled garden. Mac had moved it to clear the space around it and now it stood in the middle of the freshly turned earth. She was wearing a thick winter coat, a green-and-blue scarf that had snaked its way around her neck and fingerless gloves while she ate a sandwich.

  ‘I thought you might be here,’ he said.

  ‘I couldn’t resist. Just for old times’ sake.’

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘The others are in the kitchen. Mrs Beatty’s put a heater in there, but it’s still not very warm. Patrick says he’s going to buy thermals as his unmentionables have turned to ice.’

  ‘He said that out loud?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘In front of his boys? And Dorothy?’

  ‘Everybody.’

  Anne Marie bit her lip, but couldn’t stop the laughter from bubbling out of her. ‘I’ve never met anybody like him before.’

  ‘Thank your lucky stars!’ Cape said.

  ‘You mean you have?’

  ‘One or two.’

  ‘I hope his boys settle into things. They don’t seem happy to be here.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s putting it mildly,’ Cape said. ‘I wonder if there’s a special project we can get them on – something Patrick can work on with them.’

  ‘Maybe they could grow something together,’ Anne Marie suggested. ‘If the boys are encouraged to plant seeds and see them grow, that might get them excited about gardening.’

  ‘Hey, that’s a great idea!’

  ‘And weren’t we going to have a bonfire yesterday?’

  ‘Ah, yes. That kind of got forgotten when the boys got lost in the maze, didn’t it? But we could definitely set that up for this afternoon. It would be a nice way to round the weekend off.’

  ‘And a good way to warm up!’

  ‘Nothing better than a bonfire on a cold winter’s day.’

  A robin flew down from the wall and landed on a sod of earth, its head cocked to one side as it searched for worms.

  ‘It’s not the same,’ Anne Marie suddenly said. ‘This place.’

  Cape looked around at the vast area of the walled garden that Mac had cleared. ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m going to miss that messy wilderness.’

  ‘It’s a different kind of wilderness now, isn’t it?’ Cape said. ‘A wilderness of possibilities.’

  She smiled. ‘I like that. Gardeners are dreamers, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Do you go around the county looking at people’s gardens and thinking what you’d do with them if they were yours?’

  ‘Occupational hazard,’ he confessed. ‘It’s impossible to pass a garden without wanting to plant something in it or take something out of it.’

  ‘And I bet your own garden is amazing.’

  ‘It’s rather on the small side to be amazing,’ Cape said. ‘It’s more practical. You know – a lawn for Poppy and the washing line, a tiny greenhouse and a couple of raised beds.’ He laughed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m just thinking of when we first moved there and I explained the importance of compost bays to Renee and how much space they’d take up. She didn’t speak to me for days. Made me fence them off too.’

  ‘But you got them?’

  ‘Fuel for the garden. Nothing can work efficiently without fuel.’

  They sat for a while longer, finishing their sandwiches and watching a flock of fieldfares fly over.

  ‘I’m sorry you can’t hide away on your bench anymore,’ he said.

  She turned to face him. ‘Is that what you think I was doing – hiding away?’

  ‘Weren’t you?’ He watched closely for her response.

  ‘Of course I was,’ she whispered, looking down at the ground.

  Cape took a deep breath, fogging the air as he breathed out. ‘I’m sorry you’re not happy.’

  ‘What?’ She looked up at him, a flash of fear in her brown eyes. He held her gaze and watched a kaleidoscope of emotions dance over her face and then she sighed. ‘I’m in a strange place at the moment. You’ll have to forgive me if I brood a bit.’

  ‘You’re not brooding,’ he insisted. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘You’ve said you’re a good listener,’ she reminded him.

  ‘I am.’

  She smiled. ‘But if I start talking about all this, I might not stop,’ she warned him.

  ‘That’s a chance I’m willing to take.’

  ‘Are you sure? You might unleash a beast here! You see, I don’t normally get to talk to anyone about any of this.’

  ‘I’m happy to listen – really I am. If you want to talk, that is,’ he said, holding his hands out, palms upwards as if in invitation.

  Anne Marie gazed out across the walled garden. The robin was still hopping around and had been joined by a blackbird, who was moving with intent across the bare earth.

  ‘Grant – my husband – doesn’t like me being here,’ she began. ‘He doesn’t like anything much, actually. Except his books. He loves his books. It’s hard to compete with them and I’ve tried. For years, I’ve tried, but I don’t really feel I’m there when I’m talking to him. I feel like I could be talking about anything: it doesn’t matter what because he’s not really paying attention.’

  ‘He’s an academic?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a lecturer at St Bridget’s in Oxford. Literature. He specialises in Romantic poetry and he’s writing a book.’

  ‘Oh, wow. That’s interesting.’

  ‘You’d think so,’ Anne Marie agreed, ‘but he’s writing about this obscure poet and – this is going to sound mean – but his poems aren’t that good.’

  ‘And that’s the reason he’s obscure, you think?’

  ‘I do, but Grant won’t hear my opinion about it, and I feel he’s wasting such an enormous amount of time on this.’

  ‘You’ve told him what you think?’

  Anne Marie nodded. ‘But I’m not an academic. I mean, I have a degree. Grant was my lecturer actually.’

  ‘So he should value your opinion.’

  She frowned. ‘I’ve never thought of it like that before.’

  ‘He’s missing out if he doesn’t talk things through with you.’

  ‘You think so?’ She sounded surprised by this declaration.

  ‘Of course he is. You’re smart, Anne Marie.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  She threw out a laugh. ‘I – well – I have a degree.’

  Cape shook his head. ‘That’s all well and good, but you’ve got something more than a degree.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Emotional intelligence,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen the way you work with the others here. You’re really great with people. You know how to talk to them and, crucially, when not to talk to them – when to just listen.’ He paused, wondering whether to go on and deciding that he would because it seemed obvious to him that this fragile woman really needed to hear his words.

  ‘I overheard part of your conversation with Dorothy earlier,’ he told her. ‘You knew all the right things to say when she was talking about losing her husband. It was obvious that she needed to talk to someone and the look of joy on her face when she was sharing with you was really something. Your husband’s a fool if he doesn’t listen to you. Your step-daughters too. They’re really missing out.’

  Cape leaned forward to look at Anne Marie’s face. She’d turned away from him and now he knew why.

  ‘Oh, God – I’ve made you cry! Anne Marie – I’m so sorry. What an idiot I am!’

  ‘No, no.’ She gave a big sniff. ‘I’m being silly, that’s all. It’s just that nobody’s ever talked to me this way before. Nobody’s ever—’ she stopped.

  ‘What? What did I say?’ He rested a hand on hers.

  When she looked at him, her big brown eyes were shining with tears. ‘Nobody’s ever praised me before.’

  He frowned. Had he heard her right?r />
  ‘You can’t mean that,’ he said.

  She sniffed and then reached for a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t apologise. I said you could talk to me, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t mean to spill all this out on you.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he assured her. ‘It’s just that I’m sorry it’s made you sad.’

  ‘I’ll be okay in a minute.’

  He nodded.

  ‘It’s just an odd time for me at the moment. I feel like I’m moving through some strange twilight world where nothing’s really happening. It’s like I’m watching everything from a distance. Except here. This is real. This place. This work. I really need this in my life at the moment.’

  ‘And we need you,’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘It’s nice to be needed. I don’t get that at home.’

  Cape shook his head. ‘That has to be one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard. God, Anne Marie – how can you live like that?’

  She gave a little shrug. ‘I don’t know. I’ve just been floating along, I think, trying to get by.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like much fun to me.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘So you used to come here to think things through?’

  She nodded. ‘This place is such a wonderful escape. I think I would have gone a bit crazy if I hadn’t been able to come here.’

  ‘Does your husband know you used to come here?’

  ‘No, he never knew.’

  ‘You never told him?’

  ‘I never needed to. He never noticed I’d gone.’

  ‘He didn’t notice?’

  ‘When he isn’t teaching, he’s always in his study. He shuts himself away in there for hours.’

  ‘And he’s always done that?’

  ‘Ever since I’ve been married to him and probably before,’ Anne Marie said. ‘He lost his first wife some years ago. I’m his second wife. The second wife and the second daughter.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  Anne Marie gave a tight smile. ‘Just my little joke. I’m always second.’

  Cape was about to ask her more when Poppy ran into the walled garden.

  ‘There you are!’ she cried. ‘Elliot broke the toilet chain and his dad’s furious with him. Apparently, he tried to swing on it like Tarzan.’