Clay

by Melissa Harrison

  Linda took the secateurs and began attacking the choisya. There was probably a specific method she should follow, but it looked vigorous enough; it would surely survive. She had read that the cut stems smelled of basil, but to her they were more like cat. She threw them onto the grass behind her.

  Next to the choisya was the area she had dug over for Daisy to have as her own. They had gone on a day trip to see the bluebells at a big National Trust property out of town, and on the way back Daisy had asked for her own flower bed. So Linda had marked out a bed a couple of metres long, ruthlessly rooting up French lavender, stachys and several allium corms, and the next day had edged it with little rolls of split logs. She had pictured neat rows of seedlings, the two of them tending the bed together, and to that end had bought Daisy several packets of seeds: forget-me-nots, sweet williams and nasturtiums, chives, salad leaves and rocket. But so far none of them had gone into the ground, and weeds were coming up instead.

  ‘She’ll do it in her own time,’ Steven reassured her. ‘Don’t make it a chore.’ He was right, Linda knew; and anyway, there was no sense in feeling snubbed. At nine years old now and with a houseful of toys, only Daisy’s desire for a kitten had lasted longer than a couple of months. That, and her correspondence with her grandmother.

  Sophia’s letters often came by post, Daisy taking her replies with her when she visited her grandmother. Sometimes she would ask her mother for help with a long word, but for the most part Linda had little idea what they wrote to each other about.

  ‘Mummy, when will it rain?’ asked Daisy now. Linda stood back and looked critically at the choisya. Her daughter was gazing fiercely at the sky, one grubby hand shading her eyes, Susannah like a grave little shadow behind her.

  ‘I don’t know, darling. Why?’

  ‘We need the worms to come up and they only come up when it rains,’ sighed Daisy. ‘I’m going to ask Daddy,’ and she ran inside, leaving Susannah hesitating on the lawn.

  ‘Why do you need worms, Susie?’ Linda asked. ‘Is it for a game?’

  ‘No, it’s . . .’

  ‘Not a game.’ Linda’s mind was half on the choisya, now showing rather more of its pale trunk than she had planned.

  ‘For mud pies. Daisy says worm casts are the best kind of mud. Her granny told her.’ And with that Susannah ran off after Daisy into the house.

  The sudden rush of memory sent Linda’s hand to her chest. Of course! You collected the worm casts in the morning and mixed them with a little water, and you got the smoothest mud, without any bits in it. Then you put it in fairy-cake cases and let them dry in the sun. The little grey cakes were suddenly so vivid to her, stacked on the flat’s outside windowsills to dry; and there was a feeling to the memory, too, of her and her mummy doing something together, and it being nice. Why had she never thought to show Daisy how to make them herself?

  She had a vision of the little park in blazing summer, Michael pedalling away from her across the cracked, straw-brown grass in the tin jeep Dad had painted with old gloss paint because it rusted, herself a little girl making a house for her Womble behind the benches. And there was the little bike she and Michael shared, with its fat white tyres, and her mother’s gardening gloves, shaped by long use like carapaces of her strong brown hands.

  And there, of course, was her father: sanding the spindles of a chair-back at the side of the flats, or sitting inside in his favourite chair with his evening drink. How proud she had been when he taught her to make a Tom Collins: two ice cubes, a finger of gin, a little Jif lemon, some icing sugar and then soda water to the top. Mother preferred a whisky soda, and would make it herself.

  Nothing was ever lost, she reflected, and wondered what Daisy would remember from her own early years. Making a snowman together, perhaps? Though you didn’t get to choose.

  Before going inside she carried the pile of cuttings to the heap at the back of the garden. On the back wall of the house the barometer was falling.

  The rain began quite suddenly, while she was making supper. Steven came in from dropping Susie home and switched the kitchen light on, and Linda realised it had grown dim outside. Then came the rain, fat drops that darkened the patio and ran down the window in sheets. A distant flicker of lightning brought Daisy scuttling downstairs from her room.

  ‘I like storms,’ she announced staunchly, to no one in particular. Linda rattled the saucepan lid over the sound of the thunder.

  But no more came. While they were eating the rain thinned to a patter and then petered out, and as the breeze picked up it tore a ragged hole in the cloud, a low sun returning to light up the sparkling garden in which every living corner dripped and steamed.

  Steven opened the back door and breathed in petrichor, the rich green smell that follows rain. On the gable above him a blackbird shook the rain from its feathers and cocked a beady eye down at the sunlit lawn where worms rose and weeds were sending down secret roots, and where tomorrow a small girl would set about the worm casts before breakfast with a bucket and spade.

  After Daisy had been persuaded to bed, Steven and Linda sat at the kitchen table with a bottle of Bordeaux and the back door open, watching as the last of the light drained from the sky. Linda wore an old cardigan of her mother’s, left there after a visit, and picked at the earth under her fingernails. ‘My hands look the oldest,’ she said, holding one out for Steven’s inspection. ‘They’re even worse than my neck.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. They’re perfectly fine.’

  ‘All right for you to say, you’re the Younger Man,’ she replied, the soubriquet so old now it was threadbare. Still, though, he smiled.

  ‘Ten years is nothing. I’m a man, I’ll still die first.’

  Like Dad, Linda thought, but didn’t say it. ‘Do you think she should have had brothers and sisters?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Why are you worrying about it again?’

  ‘I’m not worrying. I was just thinking about Michael today. We used to play together, you know? All the time.’

  ‘She’s got plenty of friends to play with.’

  ‘I know, but it’s different with siblings. You have to get along. And you have to share. You don’t get everything your own way.’

  ‘You think she’s spoiled.’

  ‘No, I just think . . . it’s just her and us, you know? She gets all our time, all our attention.’

  ‘Paradise, I’d say.’

  ‘Well, now it is, I’m sure. But maybe there should be more people in her life.’

  ‘There’s your mother.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant; I meant people to share us with. Mum’s a grown-up.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘What do you mean, hardly? She’s still got all her faculties, you know.’

  ‘I know, I didn’t mean that. I meant she’s more like a friend to Daisy. They’re as bad as each other half the time.’

  Linda was silent.

  ‘I don’t mean she does any harm, love,’ said Steven. ‘It’s lovely that Daisy gets on with her gran.’

  ‘I know,’ Linda sighed. ‘I know. It’s just . . . I look at them, and I wish that things were better. Easier. You know, with me and Mum. I love her – of course I do – but when we’re together it’s like – it’s like –’

  ‘I know, love,’ said Steven. ‘But she doesn’t mean to rub you up the wrong way. She’s just . . . forthright. She means well, you know that. She loves you, darling –’ but Linda looked away.

  The wine was low in the bottle, and it was fully dark outside. Steven fetched some notepaper from the study and handed it to Linda. ‘Your mum’s handwriting is getting worse, so Daisy asked me to help read it. Go on.’

  It was Sophia’s most recent letter. ‘Dear Daisy,’ it began,

  I have found where the swifts are nesting. They are in the tower of St Francis’s Church! It’s not a very high tower, but it’s got lots of nooks and crannies for them to get in and out. Have your baby swallows fledged yet?

  You mustn’t worr
y about the hedgehog. It’s summer and he will be roaming far and wide, eating slugs and snails and having adventures. You probably won’t see him again until the days get shorter and he starts to think about finding somewhere to hibernate. Your garden is definitely his favourite, but I think he probably visits a few different ones near you as well.

  There are a lot of grey squirrels about at the moment. They are very playful, especially the younger ones. They can do acrobatic tricks like tumbling and hanging by their back feet. Yesterday I saw one steal someone’s lunch! A man was sitting on the benches eating a sandwich. He put half of it on the bench next to him, and the next moment it was gone. He looked very cross, but the squirrel must have been very pleased with itself. It took it up a tree to eat, and two crows made off with the pieces of lettuce that had fallen out.

  And of course there are my chiffchaffs. The chicks are still doing well and it won’t be long before they fledge. They all crane out of the nest with their gapes (mouths) open, begging to be fed. They look like little dinosaurs.

  Now, our flower bed project. What is coming up in yours? In my patch I can see lots of fat hen seedlings, some yellow corydalis, a dandelion, two foxgloves (I planted their parents, years ago!) and one little speedwell. There is also something else, a mysterious seedling that I haven’t identified yet. We will have to wait and see what it turns into.

  The corydalis is interesting because it isn’t really a weed, but it seems to grow everywhere around here so it gets treated like one by most people. It just goes to show that a weed really is any plant growing in the wrong place. Dandelion seeds are airborne, as you know, and fat hen seeds are too, so we know how they got here. The speedwell seed was probably dormant (sleeping) in the soil. The corydalis seeds might have been carried in by ants. The seed has a tasty part which the ants like, but once they’ve eaten it the rest of the seed is free to grow. Isn’t that clever?

  It will be interesting to see whether you get different seedlings growing in your flower bed from those I get in mine. Perhaps you could do me a drawing of what you can see, and next time I visit you we can look at it together.

  With all my love, sweet pea,

  Granny xx

  Linda got up to close the back door, taking a few extra moments with the bolts.

  ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ prompted Steven.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just . . . sweet pea.’

  ‘Did she use to call you that?’

  Linda returned to the table, leaned on the back of her chair. ‘No, Dad did. When I was very small.’

  Steven smiled. ‘Well, that’s a lovely thing, then, isn’t it? Don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes . . . I know.’ She picked up the bottle and glasses, exhaled.

  ‘You still miss your dad, don’t you?’ Steven said.

  Linda gazed out at the dark garden. ‘I’ve been thinking about him a lot recently; I’m not sure why. You know he used to take me on nature walks?’

  Steven nodded. ‘Like your mum does with Daisy.’

  ‘Yes. And now we know what she’s up to with that ruddy flower bed!’

  ‘I know! Little horror.’ Steven grinned, relieved to see Linda’s wry smile. ‘She could have told you why she didn’t want to plant any of the seeds you bought her.’

  ‘It’s a good project, though, isn’t it? Just like Mum.’

  ‘It’s an excellent project. Do you think we’re allowed to know about it?’

  ‘Well, you are.’

  ‘I don’t think she meant to keep it secret from you. I think she just forgot.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Why don’t we ask her about it tomorrow?’

  All night the wind gusted and fell, gusted and fell, clouds passing invisibly overhead in a black sky. Just before dawn rain fell again, but by the time the blackbird took up his position on the roof the sky was pale and clear. He opened his yellow beak and sang Sunday in on a cartwheel of notes.

  15

  Oak Day

  Jozef’s back was hot under the hi-vis vest, but the earth was damp and cool beneath his knees. He knelt carefully between the busy lizzies and pulled up bindweed and creeping buttercup from the back of the semicircular bed.

  One morning, out with Znajda on the common, he had seen the Park Ranger van parked up near the railway tunnel, and had sat on a nearby wall smoking roll-ups until the two men in their green trousers and sweatshirts returned.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ they’d said, shaking their heads, and he had felt foolish for thinking things could be that easy. But then one of them had rolled down the van’s window as they pulled away and suggested he try a contractor, and so he found a couple of numbers. On his second call he was asked to go for an interview; he had been nervous, a little, but it turned out they just wanted willing hands and weren’t too bothered about his English; his agricultural experience, which he had rehearsed over and over in his head on the way there, was not even required.

  A few days later he had his first shift. The worst part was litter picking and emptying the dog bins, but there was a landscaping team, and courses you could go on in arboriculture and biodiversity, and at the back of his mind there was a cautious hope, one he didn’t dare look at too closely, that perhaps he could find a way forward. Each night when he showered he watched the good earth leave his body in the water. Yet more remained, he felt, driven deep and invisibly under his skin.

  This particular park was unfamiliar to him, and more formal than the common’s casual acres, but it was still good to be outside again, among living things. They broke for lunch, afterwards riding in the van to a scrubby triangle of land between a storage depot and a supermarket. It was hardly a park, yet there was a sign at the entrance with a little map and a surprisingly long list of the living things that depended on it.

  Their task was to clear a pond. It was choked with flags, the water between them blood-warm and bright green; above it flew banded demoiselles, as darkly iridescent as petrol. Feeling his way into the water in thigh-high waders, Jozef hit something hard and straight with his shin. Hauling it out, streaming water and weed, he saw it was an iron crucifix three feet tall.

  He laid it on the grass as around him the talk turned to a .303 rifle once recovered from a canal. Jozef looked at the innocent surface of the water and tried to imagine what circumstance had led to a cross being dumped – or hidden, or lost – in the pond in this peaceable country. Whose hands had been last to hold it, and when? These things were lost to time. He worked on, pulling from the water armful after armful of blanket weed and the occasional slick wriggle of a newt, while on the bank the crucifix dried rust-coloured and brittle in the sun and swifts screamed urgently to each other, high and faint, far overhead.

  Sophia was setting the tea things out. She unfolded a tea towel, looked at it critically: it was freshly ironed, spotless, but threadbare in places. She found another. The teapot was ready by the kettle, and she filled up the striped jug with milk and reached the biscuits down from the cupboard, putting six, this time, on a plate, and setting two mugs next to it. Linda was coming over, with Daisy – ‘for tea’, she had said. Silly to be nervous. Her own daughter, for goodness’ sakes.

  She sat at the kitchen table and looked out at the little park. How different from Daisy Linda had been at that age. Daisy was indulged, yes, and more protected, but also so much more confident about her place in the world. Linda had always worried too much about what other people thought, even as a little girl. Was that right, or was that hindsight?

  And she herself was different, too. She was much more affectionate with Daisy than she had been with Linda; somehow it was easier. It made her wish that she could have her time with Linda again; but also glad, in a way, that all the worrying was over and that she could love the little girl easily, without any of the cost that being a mother entailed. And she had been a good mother, hadn’t she? Linda seemed happy with her life; she had certainly bettered herself. Goodness on
ly knows how much money she made. Pots, probably. Steven too. What did any of it matter now? Sophia wasn’t sure. Her children may have made different choices from her, but they were both doing well; both, it seemed, were happy. What more, then, did she want for them?

  She looked out of the window to where the little Turkish man from the takeaway was smoking a cigarette on the benches. He was a nice chap; they had once had a very good conversation about folk stories, and he had sung her a beautiful and mournful türkü.

  There they were, her daughter and granddaughter, walking together into the park from Leasow Road. Her heart gave a jump, and for a moment she put her hand to her chest, but the palpitations didn’t come and she let out a long, slow breath. Daisy was running ahead and waving, and Sophia got up to let them in.

  Daisy clasped her legs and put her face up for a kiss. Behind her, Linda looked . . . tense, somehow. She kissed Sophia and hugged her for a moment longer than usual. The thought came to Sophia that perhaps Linda was ill – or Daisy was. Surely not. They wouldn’t tell her like this.

  ‘Come in, come in – I’ve just put the kettle on,’ she said. In fact, she had boiled it twice, waiting, and now worried that the water might taste odd. ‘Let’s sit in here, shall we?’

  Daisy had already run into the sitting room and installed herself in Henry’s chair. ‘Ohhww,’ she groaned, ‘we never sit in the nice room.’

  ‘Daisy!’ said Linda. ‘All the rooms are nice.’ She looked embarrassed.