The greenhouse was a dusty mess, filled with a strong smell of damp: broken pots, slanted shelves and tools lying abandoned. A lot of the things on the floor looked heavy and I wondered how Mrs Maple managed them on her own. Stepping carefully over a smashed flowerpot, I saw what I thought was the trowel. Mud clinging to its surface, I picked it up and took it back outside.
Mrs Maple was still inside, a black outline in the orange square of her kitchen window. It would be dark soon but I didn’t want to stop just yet. There was a patch close by, underneath a tree in the corner of the garden, that was covered in weeds. In fact, compared to the rest of the garden, it looked sad and neglected. I headed across to it, wanting to test out the trowel.
Bending down, the pink dress protecting my knees from the dirt and pebbles in the soil, I pushed the trowel into the earth. Some of these weeds were huge and I wrenched them free, building up a sweat, amazed how much further I had to go. Sinking the trowel in again, I frowned as it hit something solid. A large stone? I tried again, a few inches from the first spot. The trowel couldn’t get through. There was something there blocking it. On a third go I hit something that sounded like metal. It definitely wasn’t a stone.
Frowning, I scooped some of the soil away, realising the object was large. The trowel kept striking the metal as I slowly cleared the little area, soil piling up next to me. It was something metal, rusting in places: a red tin.
I could hear Mrs Maple calling my name from the other end of the garden: ‘Billy, teatime!’
‘Coming!’ I yelled back, my heart beating faster at the thought that I had discovered something. This felt like in the films I’d seen, a tin full of gold or treasure. It might have been there for a hundred thousand years. I had to know. I pushed the trowel in again.
Mrs Maple had started to walk across the grass towards me, the house a big black shadow behind her.
‘Billy? What are you doing there…?’ she called as she moved nearer.
‘I think I’ve found something,’ I replied, gently smoothing at the surface of the tin, wiping away the soil, and lifting it out of its hole. It was heavy, things sliding around inside, and my heart started to race. This was so cool! Soil trickled from it as I placed it on the ground next to me.
It was a battered, rusty, red square tin, quite large, with letters on the lid: ‘H’ and a faded ‘P’. I ran my finger over a worn ‘&’ and felt excited at the thought of opening this great mystery.
‘Let’s get you inside, I’ve made your tea.’ Mrs Maple was close now, almost standing over me as I looked up, and I almost forgot where I was for a moment because all I could think about was the tin of treasure. The sun had practically sunk and it was only when she moved closer I could see the colour had drained from her face.
‘I found it,’ I said brightly, scooting around to lift the tin to show her.
Mrs Maple put one hand to her chest, stepped backwards, half-stumbling. ‘But how…? I…’
Chapter Seven
ELSIE
She frowned as she peered out of the window, seeing him hunched under the tree in the corner next to the greenhouse. Practically scalding herself on the saucepan, she abandoned the sausages, where they popped and hissed behind her. He was kneeling in the dirt with the trowel. She fumbled with the door handle to the garden, ignoring the pain in her hip as she moved down the lawn towards him. What was he doing?
They had been having such a lovely time. She had been so worried about allowing Billy in the garden, joining Elsie in a place that meant so much to her, that meant everything to her, to them. Two peas in a pod they’d been, spending their days outside in the garden together. For years, whatever the weather, they knelt side by side, back and fingers aching with their efforts, exchanging smiles, discussing the things they would plant, watch grow. The idea of allowing someone else out there had taken her breath away. What if it ruined the memories? What if he hadn’t cared?
But something about entering the garden with Billy had changed things between them. She had adored the shocked awe on his face as he had stared around at the space she nurtured daily. And to have company again there felt so natural. To have Billy there, no longer a nuisance but a help, felt just right.
She had been so upset recently, having to move inside, away from her beloved garden, forced to take painkillers, abandon jobs that were becoming too difficult. The ladder lay on its side where she had dragged it, wanting to clear the drain of leaves, unable to continue as her hip seared with pain. The heavy stone pots that she used to empty and manoeuvre seemed ten times heavier these days. The large spade seemed too daunting a prospect. A rake to scarify the lawn an impossible feat.
She had been frightened that soon some jobs would be completely beyond her, that the place would fall into neglect. That would be the greatest betrayal. The garden used to be a comfort, a release from her thoughts and feelings, but recently she had left it quickly, feeling less able these days, then seized by fear for the future, rage that her beloved place was becoming the source of her worry.
Taking Billy out there had changed that, giving her a tiny flame of hope that things could be different, that she had some help and some company, after so many years alone.
The garden had been getting out of control, weeds springing up faster than she could remove them, the grass needing mowing urgently, the ancient lawnmower in the shed unwieldy. Perhaps, she’d thought as she watched him pull at the weeds, moving carefully and quietly over the patio as instructed, calling out to her excitedly, perhaps they could revive it together? Certainly, she felt less awkward, conversation no longer stilted as they worked together companionably.
The sunlight had all but disappeared by the time she made it over to him. He had dug something out of the earth, it was there next to him lying on the grass. She placed a hand on her stomach: what had he found?
She told him dinner was ready, to get away from there. He looked surprised, getting up, showing her what he had discovered, passing it to her like an excited puppy with a bone.
She couldn’t believe her eyes. After all these years.
He pestered her and pestered her. ‘Can we open it?’; ‘What do you think’s inside?’; ‘Oh my God, I saw a show once where this man found treasure in his garden and he bought a yacht and his own whole island and stuff…’; ‘Let’s open it now.’
He’d kept going as they moved inside, as the smoke alarm started wailing, a knock on the front door and she had snapped at him.
The sausages were burning, steam filling the room as she jabbed helplessly at the smoke alarm with the end of a broom, missing each time.
Another knock and Billy’s mum Samantha was at the door, Billy streaking past. Samantha’s smile quickly disappeared as she took in the expression on her son’s face, as he shouldered past her without so much as a hello.
‘Say thank you to Elsie, Billy,’ she turned, frown lines appearing, realising that something had put her son in this mood. ‘Billy…’ she called.
She twisted back to Elsie, ‘Sorry, I don’t…’
Elsie hadn’t been given any time to catch her breath but she didn’t know how to make things better, her chest still heaving from the angry words she had fired at him, from the feelings that had risen up in her.
Billy was out on the pavement and through the gate, still only a couple of metres away. ‘I’ve got my key,’ he was saying as she looked across the low fence at him.
‘Billy, don’t be rude.’ Samantha watched as he turned the key and stepped inside their house, spinning back to Elsie. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure, he’s not normally, um… he’s, well things are… difficult for him right now. But…’
Elsie realised then that Samantha thought Billy was upset about something at home when it had been their row of course that had caused his reaction.
‘I burnt the sausages,’ she said distractedly.
‘Oh, I’ve got things. It’s not a problem, you are sweet for watching him. I hope he wasn’t too much bother… I’m not sure
why he just left like that, he has been…’
Elsie hadn’t meant to shut the door so quickly, throwing a hurried, ‘It’s fine, goodbye’, Samantha’s confused face disappearing behind it. She couldn’t listen any more, didn’t want to hear explanations when she knew exactly why Billy had been so angry. She shouldn’t have snapped at him, but he should have listened to her.
Moving back into the kitchen, she glanced in the direction of the tin, feeling the same tug whenever she thought of it all those years ago in the place it had lived, in that very room: such a familiar item. Billy hadn’t understood its significance, not knowing his questions were like individual bullets firing through a wall she had built years before.
‘Why can’t we open it?’
‘Billy, please, it’s nothing.’
‘Why won’t you look inside?’
‘It’s obviously old, it will be dirty.’
‘What is it? Do you know?’
‘Don’t be silly, how would I know what it is?’
He wouldn’t drop it – loud, insistent, until she had turned and spat at him, ‘Enough.’
He had stepped back, fallen deathly silent, eyes to the ground.
‘Stop asking me.’
He had looked utterly downcast, biting his bottom lip, tears pricking his eyes. Yet she hadn’t stopped.
‘I told you to leave it… Why couldn’t you listen?... How dare you.’
Then the wail of the smoke alarm, a knock too: his mother at the front door. He had moved wordlessly past her inside.
She looked across now at the tin on the dresser: the trigger to all of this mess. Some of the red had peeled away, leaving rusty spots on its surface. She remembered that tin as it had once been and a fresh stab of pain sliced into her. She knew Billy wanted to open the tin. It was understandable – which young boy wouldn’t want to open something they’d discovered buried, long-hidden? She didn’t want to open it though.
That tin had been her mother’s – and she hadn’t seen it in twenty-eight years.
I remember showing you a painting of the river I had been working on for days, frustrated that I couldn’t seem to capture the exact feel of the place, layering the paints on top of each other in the hope it would start to take shape, starting again until finally it began to resemble the image in my head.
A favourite spot of ours, halfway to Mapledurham, in the small copse we discovered hidden from view of the path. The ground flat, the bank dropping away steeply into the water, the reeds so thick the surface glowed green.
I’d been nervous as to what you might say – would you think it was a rubbish effort? I had sat for hours on the bank, legs dangling over the side, the grass tickling my thighs, the sun hot over my head as I immersed myself in the scene.
All those painting lessons at the kitchen table, the paintbox filled with different coloured promises sat next to the red biscuit tin on the dresser, always to hand, but this felt different. A painting I was keeping secret until its grand reveal. I’d hidden it under my bed for the week, worried it would be discovered. Now this was the moment you would look at it.
Had I captured the willows bending gently towards the water, their leaves trailing on the surface? Had I caught the silvery dashes in the centre of the river that danced when the sun beat down? Had I caught the soothing calm of the green hills beyond? The gentle put-put of a barge moving past?
I shouldn’t have doubted how you’d react. You were always kind to me, always encouraging any talent. I hadn’t had to wait long…
‘Elsie, this is—’ You had broken off to study certain aspects more and I’d been so grateful you were taking in every inch of the familiar scene. ‘It’s like we’re sat here,’ you’d said, your face crinkling as you looked up at me. ‘Like we’re the only two people in the world that know about this place.’
And that’s what I had thought too, that was the future: just the two of us sitting on the banks of the river, looking at the beauty all around us, peaceful. Two peas in a pod.
And that thought could not have made me happier.
Chapter Eight
BILLY
I thought she was going to have a heart attack. Her face went completely white and her eyes were all googly as she looked at what I was holding. It was just a tin. Did she not like gold and diamonds and buried treasure? Then she snatched it off me, didn’t even say why, and just turned back to the house. I knew she was a total misery. All those smiles and chuckles in the garden before were not really her. This was her.
I followed her and I was just asking her a few questions and she’d turned and shouted right at me, when I hadn’t even done anything apart from find treasure and it was so unfair. Then the smoke alarm went off and the door went and Mum was early, thank God, and Mrs Maple went in but couldn’t get the broom to make the alarm stop, but I wasn’t going to help her because she’d only shout at me again. And I thought Mum might get it but she didn’t give me any time to explain, she just followed me back to our house saying how embarrassed she was because I’d been so rude to Mrs Maple and I couldn’t just do things like that and she thought Mrs Maple was this nice lady and that was totally unfair too.
I went up to my bedroom, threw myself on the bed and screamed into my pillow because everything had gone wrong and it had all happened so quickly. The garden had been good and I’d been so excited about that red tin. I should have just opened it when I was on my own and then I could have kept all the gold to myself anyway. Mrs Maple didn’t deserve anything. It was like she didn’t even care about looking in it. Who doesn’t want to see what’s in a buried tin like that?
Mum made cheese on toast for tea even though it was late so I had to go to the kitchen but then she started on me again.
‘You can’t get so angry all the time,’ she said and it just made me feel angry all over again.
She didn’t even want to hear my side of it. I got the whole blame and she told me, ‘You’ll have to go back tomorrow and apologise to Mrs Maple.’
‘I’m not going back there.’
‘You are.’
‘No way!’
‘Billy, this isn’t a debate.’
‘I’m NOT going back there.’
I pushed the plate away then and I didn’t mean it to slide off the table but it did and it smashed into pieces, which was sort of how I felt inside, all jagged, but Mum went mental before I could say sorry or clear it up, shouting that we didn’t have lots of new stuff and I couldn’t just break things and God, Billy, what was my problem? Then when I had gone to help, she had screeched at me to get away and I didn’t even want to be there anyway and cheese on toast wasn’t even a proper dinner, and I told her that and that I hated her and ran back upstairs.
Mrs Maple could probably hear Mum crying from her kitchen. I could hear her from my bedroom even though I pressed my head right into my pillow and squeezed my eyes shut and it was so unfair that she was crying. I just wished I was back in London and Dad would be there, asking if I wanted to play Forza Horizon 4 on the Xbox and he would call me ‘good lad’ and listen if I wanted to complain about Mum and never made me feel bad about that – ‘Women, you can’t understand them, just let her go on.’
And I wished he was here to say that to me and help me escape from this stupid new house in his car that had crisp packets on the floor and smelt of the last owner’s dog but at least it would get me places. Away from here.
Why had she brought me to this stupid village where we didn’t know anyone? And she wouldn’t even let me have a mobile so I couldn’t call Liam and tell him what was going on. Did he miss me? Did he notice I wasn’t there? Did he have a new best friend now? I bet he did and I bet he’d forgotten me already. I had nobody and even worse, Daniel was making everything a hundred times harder.
All these thoughts made me start to cry too so we were both crying and then Mum was suddenly at the foot of my bed, stroking my back and saying ‘Shush!’ like I was small again and had scraped my knee. I was glad she was there and it m
ade me cry a bit louder because everything just sucked and everything was wrong.
‘I don’t want to go back there, she’s horrible, she shouted at me,’ I said, my voice all muffled in the pillow.
‘Billy, please, it can’t be that bad. What happened, anyway?’
I turned on my side and I told her, ‘I found this tin in her garden… Her garden is huge and this tin was buried… but she shouted at me and then you came… I don’t want to go back there. It’s horrible, it’s like a house from the olden days… I want to go back to London… Liam said I could go camping with him this summer ’cos they go to this lake every year and now he won’t remember me and why can’t we see Dad? Maybe he’d say sorry, and…’
Mum had tears rolling down her cheeks. I struggled to sit up and it was all spilling out of me but she didn’t really talk back, just sat there listening until I sort of ran out of stuff to say. Then I lay back down feeling empty and tired.
‘Get your pyjamas on, OK, and clean your teeth.’
‘I don’t want to go to Mrs Maple’s any more. Please, Mum.’
She sighed, standing up, holding out her hand to me. ‘I don’t know. I’ll see wha––’
‘Please, Mum.’
‘I’ll look for a babysitter,’ she said, her voice quieter now. ‘Alright?’
I nodded, sniffing, wiping my nose, which was wet like my cheeks.
‘Sorry about the plate. I didn’t mean to.’
She sighed again. ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you. I know it hasn’t been easy…’
And for the first time since London I felt like she was back to being Mum, and it made me want to hug her, but she had moved towards the door of my bedroom, her body a bit slouched like she was tired.
‘Pyjamas,’ she said again and I reached under my pillow and got my pyjamas like she told me to.
Nothing was fixed but at least I wouldn’t have to go back to Mrs Maple’s house, treasure or no treasure.
The Garden of Lost Memories Page 5