‘And you never knew your dad?’ Billy asked, something changing in his expression.
‘No, I never did. My mother was seven months pregnant with me when he was in the motorcycle accident.’
Billy considered that fact. ‘That’s sad. I bet he was sick if he drove a motorbike.’
Elsie smiled sadly at that simple statement. ‘My mother always spoke fondly of him,’ she said, ‘so yes, I think he probably was “sick”.’
Billy always laughed when she used his language. ‘What about the other stuff in the tin, the blanket and stuff? What does it all mean?’
Elsie stood up, pretending to need to wash the plate of pitta bread. ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, the words high, strangled.
‘Weird.’
‘Shall we walk?’ Elsie said, suddenly feeling the house was small and dark. ‘It looks like the rain’s stopped, and I wanted to show you something.’ She was aware she was speaking too quickly.
Billy let her, shrugging and following her to the door, where she handed him a cagoule in his size and explained, ‘I saw it in a charity shop, thought it might fit for rainy days.’
‘Thanks, Mrs M,’ Billy replied, taking the navy cagoule and throwing it over himself, tightening the string in the hooded part and grinning at her.
Elsie felt the tension lessen. Billy had already moved on.
Elsie set off, Billy behind her, the narrow alleys between familiar roads soggy underfoot, raindrops clinging to the nettles and grass. Billy excitedly pointed out all the places they had seen drawn on the map. ‘That’s the church,’ he said as they passed, ‘and this is the path behind the old fire station.’ They wound their way through, the sky a strange mix of colours, a cool blue line on the horizon, fat, grey clouds pushing down on it. Up ahead were the allotments, practically empty, people sheltering from the recent rainfall inside.
‘I wanted to bring you here,’ Elsie admitted, pushing on the gate and turning immediately right, walking on the narrow space between two flower beds, past a water butt, a compost heap, towards the corner of the allotments. She stopped in front of a large rectangular patch, the soil pockmarked with watery spots and a shed, its planks rotting, to the side.
‘What’s this?’ Billy asked as Elsie turned to him.
‘It used to be ours: Mother’s and mine.’ Elsie gazed around at the sorry state of the patch.
Billy’s eyes widened. ‘You own this?’ he asked, eyes drinking in the size of it.
‘No, I don’t own it, we rented it. Everyone rents their patch.’
‘You mean you can pay for one of these?’ Billy asked, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.
Elsie nodded, ‘They renew every year.’
‘Cool!’ Billy glanced at the space. ‘Bet it costs a lot.’
‘Well, it was about two pounds back in the day so I doubt it.’
‘Two pounds! What, a day?’ Billy asked, moving across to the shed, entirely empty, cobwebs clinging to the corners, weeds poking through the slats of the stairs.
‘A year.’
‘A year?’ Billy stopped dead, his palm on the wood.
‘Well, it’s probably more now. Twenty perhaps.’
‘Twenty quid! For the year. The whole year?’ Billy looked as if he might fall down with the shock of it. ‘In London once someone sold their garage for a hundred grand. Dad told me. Twenty quid!’ he repeated, looking back at the patch.
‘I thought walking around here we could get some ideas for the garden,’ Elsie said, one arm taking in the different rectangle patches, some lined with flowers, others vegetables, some derelict, some manicured to perfection.
They moved between them, winding their way round, taking in thin leeks, neat rows of potatoes, an overflowing barrel, flies spread-eagled on the surface of the water, small, polite signs pinned to a board about a nearby garden centre, a market on a Friday and one that forced Elsie to stop and stare. Discreetly, she pulled the sheet from its pin and put it in her pocket, the paper damp from the recent rain, the ink running. She had no idea that June was the answer to it all, but it would be worth it, she thought.
They retraced their steps back to Elsie’s house, swapping ideas, making plans for the beds in Elsie’s garden, Billy keen to make a start. They sat in the front room, Billy on the sofa with a notepad and pen. Seeing him there, bent over a sheet of paper thinking up more ideas for the garden, the wallpaper busy with flowers behind him, the higgledy-piggledy paintings and prints of her mother, it occurred to her how dated the room must seem to him, this modern boy.
He was still working as Elsie brought him pizza on a chopping board, delighted by his response. Sausages, pizza… these were not things she normally cooked but she didn’t feel her haddock chowder would go down as well. He was still there as the sky darkened and Samantha appeared, weary from a long shift, a ladder in her tights, a red mark on the bottom of her white shirt, her make-up mostly rubbed away.
‘Come in, come in,’ Elsie said to her, shocked to see how much weight this woman had lost in such a short period of time, her curves now sharp jutting bones, her face pale.
Billy came running over, already talking before his mother sat down. Elsie offered her a slice of pizza, which she waved away: ‘I ate at the restaurant.’ Elsie didn’t know her well enough to expose the lie. Samantha didn’t look like she’d had a good meal in weeks.
‘Hey Billy, we better get home now, eh? Leave Mrs Maple to her evening.’
The thought of the empty house momentarily robbed Elsie of words: how quiet, how lonely it would suddenly seem. She realised all these snatched afternoons or mornings or evenings with Billy were making her used to the noise of another person in the house again. She hadn’t realised how much she had craved it.
‘Just you and me again,’ she said aloud.
Samantha was about to say something and then looked across at Billy.
‘What’s that, Billy?’ Samantha asked, her face alarmed as Billy pocketed the five-pound note Elsie had given him earlier that day for mowing the lawn.
Billy looked sharply across at Elsie, worried he was in trouble. ‘Elsie gave me it,’ he said quietly, a rare use of her name.
‘Billy, go and wash your hands before we go,’ Samantha replied and Billy didn’t need to be told twice, throwing one concerned look back at Elsie as he headed to the downstairs loo.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Elsie explained. ‘I did give it to him. A bit of pocket money for when he does some jobs for me, that’s all.’
Samantha wrung her hands, looking back at Elsie. ‘But I should be paying you for looking after him,’ she said, raking a hand through her hair that needed a trim more than ever, her fringe now totally grown out.
‘Honestly, he deserves it,’ Elsie insisted. ‘I need the help and he’s giving it to me in spades, quite literally. He has a real talent for the garden. I’d only have to pay a gardener to come in.’
‘But…’
‘No buts, I want to,’ Elsie said firmly.
Samantha sat in her chair looking defeated, too many other things weighing on her to put up more of a fight.
‘I want to do it for him,’ Elsie said, reassuring. ‘And that reminds me…’
Pulling out the sheet of paper from her coat pocket she had stolen from the allotment, she told Samantha about her idea.
Sulham Woods is always stunning in autumn and I remember one day in November we walked around the fields at the back of the village, out past the empty allotments, a few brave chickens pecking at the hard earth, over the stile and into the lane to delve into the woods. Blazing orange and red leaves stretched over our heads and under our feet as if we were walking through a tunnel of fire. Walking quickly to stay warm, thick coats keeping the cold at bay, our faces were mostly obscured, flushed cheeks and pink noses.
We’d stopped on a tree trunk, huddled together, grateful for the other large tree to keep the wind from biting at us. You had produced a Marathon chocolate bar from your pocket, breaking one in two and pa
ssing me the larger half. Always comfortable together. We sat in the chittering quiet of the forest, the rustle above, the smell of a distant bonfire in the air. Our breaths formed clouds of smoke as we talked, swapping silly stories to make the other one laugh. A game we played.
My hands were cold and I told you I’d forgotten my gloves. You clasped my hands in both of yours to warm them and then transferred your own pair to me. I thought then you’d offer me anything, even if it meant you were put out. You said it was nothing, batted the gesture off with a dismissive hand. But I knew that was what love looked like: I knew it was everything.
Chapter Sixteen
BILLY
I was hanging out at Elsie’s house a lot. Dick was making Mum work extra hours because the new girl – Kia – had gone to work in the pub so Mum had to do her shifts. In London, Mum had worked at home making bracelets, necklaces, hair braid things for girls, with pots of beads in every colour on our tiny kitchen table, Dad annoyed if she left them all out. She sold the finished jewellery at Brixton market and I helped her sometimes when she had to take me too. She stayed up late working on them after I went to bed but she always said she liked doing it because it was better than a real job. I think waitressing is a real job. She didn’t bring any of her beads and wires and little clipper things with her from London anyway.
Elsie and I had visited loads of places on the map and today we were going to a big house thing that was apparently part of something called the National Trust, which meant it wasn’t owned by one wealthy person.
Mum had called for me as she had to leave but when I got to the bottom of the stairs it didn’t look like she was going into work. She wasn’t wearing her white top and black skirt, she was wearing jeans and a pale blue shirt and her hair was neat with one of those headbands the girls in my school wear to keep their hair tidy.
‘I need to go into Reading for something, something to do with your dad,’ she’d said. Whenever she talked about him she scratched at her arm or fiddled with her hair, ready for the questions, the anger. But today I didn’t feel like getting angry or asking anything at all. She’d made me pancakes with stewed apple that morning and we’d dragged our chairs outside and eaten in the sunshine and I was going to the National Trust house.
My eyes fell on her handbag, where a big brown envelope was sticking out. She’d been filling out forms the night before and having quiet conversations on the phone every now and again with all of the pieces of paper fanned out in front of her as she chewed on a pen and a little bit of me felt quite sick inside because I knew what the forms meant. Dad wouldn’t like it and I wondered what he’d do.
She’d made me promise before not to tell people at school I used to be called something different and I wasn’t sure why and didn’t bother pointing out that I had no one to tell. When we’d arrived in the village she’d put down her own surname, the one before she married Dad, so that at school I was William Greenwood on the register, not Billy Skinner. For the millionth time I wished I could talk to Liam about it all, or anyone.
‘Come on,’ she’d said, bustling me out the door.
Elsie was waiting for me, sat on the edge of her sofa talking to the walls again. ‘And we’re off!’ she called out as if she was saying goodbye to somebody.
I looked around. ‘Alright, Elsie?’
She had stood up and was rearranging the thousand billion cushions on her sofa: one pink one with diagonal orange squares, one with the newt embroidered into it. I was sure she’d heard me. I could see a half-finished letter on the desk in the front room, with lots of purple ink in neat lines, and I almost asked her who she wrote to as she never really mentioned any friends, and there weren’t really photos of other people except her mum on the wall. I didn’t ask though because she didn’t like questions like that, like when I found the tin.
We had to get a taxi there and when the man pulled up outside, I opened the door for Elsie and she beamed at me, telling me I was a good boy, which made me feel a bit like I was an inch taller.
I got in and rested my head back on the seat, a flash of memory at the last time I had been in a taxi, the man who had driven us in the early hours of the morning to the coach station while I held a banana, the funny feeling in my tummy as we’d pulled away from the block of flats where we’d lived, Dad asleep in the bedroom back at our place. We had left him there.
I wondered then what he’d thought when he’d woken. He got up pretty late when he wasn’t working on a job, and in the months before we’d left he hadn’t worked a lot and he was angry about one old man who had wanted to take him to court over an extension he’d done on his house that I don’t think he’d finished but it hadn’t been his fault and the old man was the rude word Grandma was. He’d broken the table lamp when he’d been telling the story because he’d got so mad. I didn’t really want to think about that now.
I wonder if he had realised straight away that we’d gone, not just out for milk or to the shops. I wonder what he’d thought. I wonder when or if he started to miss me.
I coughed as I felt tears building like they always did these days, the taxi now over the mini roundabouts in the village and turning right past the estate agent and the launderette, the garage with its flash cars all sat waiting for customers, and under the railway tunnel and past the restaurant overlooking the weir. The river sparkled in the sunshine, twisting out of the village and into green hills and trees in the distance. We drove along, a crumbling old wall to our left, large gateways and houses on our right.
‘This is it,’ Elsie said after a while, pointing to a large entrance and driveway sweeping out of view. It was like where the queen would live if she had a place near us. Elsie paid the taxi driver and we stepped out onto gravel, a large fountain in the centre, water spilling out of the lips of what looked to be a man with a fish tail.
‘They open their gardens at this time of year so I thought we could walk around the grounds?’ Elsie said, setting off past the fountain to some steps. I followed her, trying to look enthusiastic but I hoped the walk didn’t take long. I wasn’t sure about walks. What was the point of them? We weren’t even taking a ball. Then I looked down and saw the biggest garden in the world. My mouth fell open.
‘My mother used to bring me here, for inspiration for the garden,’ Elsie explained, stopping at a sign, a beautiful border bursting with large flowers of every colour: deep purples, bright oranges. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing to some of the flowers as we passed: spiky leaves, clusters of petals, long grasses, neat rose bushes. My eyes were round as Elsie told me about the flowers and plants, her normal voice different when she was talking about the garden: higher, more excited.
‘It’s sick,’ I said, and I was being honest. It was sick. It was just massive and crammed with so much to look at, and I was pretty sure there was a maze and everything. We were heading down a pebbled path, new trees lining our route, a sparkling circle of lake at the bottom.
‘My mother loved the lake,’ Elsie said, no more quick chatter about the new saplings, the different species of tree.
‘What was your mum like?’ I asked, wanting to get the excited Elsie back.
Her face changed again, a soft bite of her lip before she spoke. ‘She was—’ Elsie stopped right in the middle of the path. ‘Everything. It was just… us,’ she said.
‘Like me and Mum,’ I nodded, but something in the way she nodded didn’t make me feel it was the same.
She didn’t say anything else and didn’t talk more about the signs or the plants.
We walked around the lake. I was distracted by smiling people passing us, saying hello even though we didn’t know them. That was so weird, it never happened in London. If I’d gone out saying hello to everyone in Brixton they’d think I was going to take their wallet.
We spent a while exploring the paths down by the lake, Elsie writing down a few of the names on the signs in a little notebook she pulled out. I liked the fact she asked me which flowers I liked and made a note of them. The
n we went inside the maze, which was so cool and you had to keep remembering which way you’d turned to check you could get out.
We were in there a while and once out, we followed the path back towards the house, which was this enormous palace-type place with thick white-grey stone and floor-to-ceiling windows and scaffolding on one side where they were fixing a turret, a window in the top like in Sleeping Beauty.
She was about to order us a taxi back but changed her mind. ‘How about a cream tea?’
My stomach rumbled, the pancakes seemed forever ago now. I followed her past a sign with an arrow and into a massive dining room, which had a chandelier and a maroon carpet with thick gold swirls. I felt a bit embarrassed I was wearing a bright orange T-shirt but Elsie didn’t seem to care. I wished I was wearing one of my new ones. She’d given me a couple of long-sleeved tops. She’d said they’d been lying around in her house but it was like the worst lie and I’d found the price tags on them. She was weird, but nice.
The afternoon tea was brilliant because it wasn’t really tea but scones with thick clotted cream and scoops of strawberry jam with enormous chunks of actual strawberry inside and I was allowed a vanilla milkshake instead of the pot of Earl Grey that Elsie ordered. By the end I was totally stuffed and sat back in my chair, staring up at the cream ceiling which was full of a hundred different-sized swirls.
‘This place is amazing,’ I said and Elsie gave me a wide smile, dabbing at the corners of her mouth.
‘I’m so glad. I hoped you would like it. I haven’t been back here in years… I didn’t think I’d…’ Elsie trailed off, and I think she was back in the past, a small, sad smile on her face. I think she was thinking about her mum.
The Garden of Lost Memories Page 11