The Garden of Lost Memories

by Ruby Hummingbird

  People were allowed their little secrets, she thought.

  Billy reached for the teacups and saucers, Elsie smiling for a moment at their ritual that had become so important to her. How wonderful to have him feeling more at home, more at ease. This new friend had clearly contributed to that.

  ‘So where is this delightful creature from? What a time you’ve had!’

  Billy fell quiet, his eyes darting quickly around the room, not resting. ‘OK,’ he said slowly, ‘so don’t get angry…’

  Elsie frowned, the kettle whistling impatiently, making them both jump. ‘Why would I get angry?’ she asked, a smile in her voice as she twisted the dial of the hob.

  ‘Well…’ Billy was scuffing the kitchen floor with a shoe, ‘I met her at the house.’

  Elsie didn’t follow his drift, her smile fading as she tried to decipher the meaning.

  ‘The house on the map,’ Billy clarified.

  Elsie’s eyes widened in sudden, sheer panic. ‘You, what the…? Why…?’ She felt as if someone had pushed her from a great height, the shock of pedalling in the wind, the ground disappearing beneath her before she fell.

  Billy had both his hands up, alarmed by her reaction, ‘She’s nice, and really, it’s fine. It’s amazing actually because you will never guess what I found out…’

  Elsie was too shocked to interrupt, so many thoughts crowding into her head that she barely heard Billy talking.

  He turned then and raced across to the dresser, ‘I know!’ he announced triumphantly, reaching to lift the familiar red tin down, plucking the blanket from the top. ‘I know whose blanket this is… well, I think I know…’ he said, holding it aloft and waiting for Elsie to respond. ‘It’s Tilly’s grandma’s blanket!’ he finished, his face expectant.

  Elsie felt nausea swirl, her legs jelly. ‘I…’

  ‘Isn’t that insane? She asked me how I knew about the house and I told her about the map and the tin and the stuff inside, and Tilly said that her grandma has the same birthday as the baby in the photo…’ He was speaking absurdly fast, Elsie’s whole brain spinning with the words, ‘So weird!’

  ‘That’s, she’s…’ Elsie could barely find the words, was struggling to breathe.

  ‘Elsie?’ Billy’s face loomed, concern etched on his young features. ‘Are you OK? You’re not angry? Isn’t that cool, that she might be the baby? Tilly thought it was amazing that we found this old thing from so long ago…’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Elsie said, swatting her hand, feeling choked by the truth, the thing she had been denying for so long, the secret that had caused her so much pain.

  ‘They’ve invited me back, anytime, they said. They have a tennis court and it’s so cool there, massive but not posh, they don’t make you take off your shoes inside or anything…’

  Elsie looked up, horrified. ‘You can’t go back there,’ she spluttered in alarm.

  You can’t, I refuse.

  ‘But they invited me,’ Billy replied, his face filled with hurt. ‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ he said, chin lifted in defiance, ‘she’s my friend.’

  ‘It’s everything to do with me and you will not go back there.’ Elsie’s voice was steel. ‘How dare you meddle. I told you not to, I told you,’ she hissed through tight lips, tears brimming, fists clenched, her knuckles white. ‘That tin… That tin should have stayed in the ground.’

  It was Billy’s turn to look confused, his face moving from excitement to bafflement in mere seconds, his mouth moving up and down as if he couldn’t select the right words. ‘But? Wha-what do you mean?’

  She stood up, suddenly. ‘You weren’t meant to find it. It was never meant to be found.’

  ‘I don’t understand…’ Billy’s brain was working, head tilted to one side, eyes narrowed. ‘Did you know it was there?’ he asked, his face serious.

  Elsie said nothing at first, everything roaring within her so that she wasn’t really in the room any more but caught up in her own red-hot brain.

  ‘Of course I knew…’ Elsie turned so suddenly, she jogged the table. ‘I buried it,’ she half-shouted.

  The teapot Billy had been holding left his grip, his eyes wide in surprise at Elsie’s raised voice. They watched it as it fell, turning in the air, the polka dots blurring until it hit the tiles of the kitchen floor and smashed, pieces scattering to every corner of the room.

  Billy looked in horror at his feet, at Elsie, everything collapsing in front of him.

  ‘Get out,’ Elsie said, her eyes filling with tears: the anger, hurt, sadness scalding her. The teapot, her mother’s favourite teapot. The memory box. The blanket. The baby.

  ‘I’m sorry…’ Billy held both hands up, took a step forward, pottery crunching beneath his foot.

  The noise caused Elsie to make a keening sound. ‘Get OUT!’

  Billy looked as if he’d been physically slapped; another crunch as he scrambled backwards to get out of the kitchen, out of her presence. Elsie’s chest moved up and down as she struggled to breathe through the mad swirl of her thoughts. What had he done? How dare he go there? How dare he?

  She barely heard the door slam behind him, couldn’t follow if she wanted, floored by the tsunami of feeling. With a shaking hand, she reached for the blanket, sinking slowly into the chair, the floor still devastated by jagged pottery.

  She sat there, gripping the blanket. ‘You’ve done this,’ she said aloud, twisting the blanket in her hands, ‘don’t you see? This is what your secrets do. Bring me misery…’

  Elsie had found the tin shortly after her mother had died. The breast cancer had spread quickly and the illness was brief and painful. Elsie imagined her mother moving slowly to place the things inside the red tin, the jigsaw of her secrets.

  Elsie had spent hours at her bed before she died, falling asleep in a chair pushed up to the duvet, holding her hand, and yet her mother hadn’t said a word. It was only afterwards, when Elsie had been searching for the pale blue silk scarf, a favourite of her mother’s, something inconsequential to stop herself unravelling on the morning of the funeral, that she had discovered the tin and what was inside.

  It had changed everything.

  ‘Two peas in a pod… but… but we weren’t, were we, Mother?’

  She barely remembered the funeral, going over the items in the tin in her head, the letter her mother had left her. It felt like everything her mother had ever told her was built on sand and gradually all the granules were slipping through her fingers.

  She recalled her own visit to the house on the map all those years ago. She recalled standing next to those grand pillars, heart hammering, stealthily creeping around the low wall to peer into a side window. She recalled seeing her there, a smile on her face as she gazed out of the window, scrubbing at something in the sink. Elsie recalled her stomach flipping at the sight. She recalled stepping forward to take a closer look.

  Her sister.

  Chapter Twenty

  BILLY

  God, I hadn’t meant to drop it. Her face… I’d just turned and legged it out of her house and down the high street, quickly peering into the window of the restaurant so Mum wouldn’t see me pass. She wasn’t there, maybe she was in the kitchen at the back. I ran faster. She’d be so mad if she knew I’d left Mrs Maple’s house, gone on a train on my own.

  I didn’t want to get yelled at again.

  The corner shop sold SIM cards, a flashing rectangular sign in the bottom corner of the glass telling me so. I got out the money Elsie had given me for all the gardening and slid it across the counter. This was more important than saving for other things. I thought of the form for the allotments – I’d really wanted to get to the village hall and hand it in. That idea disappeared with the memory of Elsie shouting at me. Gardening was our thing and now I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to do with her.

  I pulled out the object from my back pocket. It had been Tilly’s idea. It was an old handset of hers, an iPhone, unlocked but still way more expensive than anyt
hing I’d be able to get. Slipping the SIM card inside, I clicked the back closed and waited as the screen came to life: 29 per cent battery, I had time.

  I moved faster back down the road to the cafe, my heart beating fast as I saw the free Wi-Fi password on the board. Within minutes I’d downloaded the apps I needed. Tilly had typed in her number: ‘Everyone’s got one and some kids at my school have got two because their parents take them off them at night. I had this one forever ago. I’ll message you, yeah?’

  I tapped out a text. A simple Hey and waited, staring at the screen, hungry for a ping, a buzz.

  There was something else I needed to do. Opening Facebook, I went to my account. Liam and I had set them up even though we weren’t old enough. I was surprised to see a couple of friend requests from three kids in my class. I didn’t have much time so I accepted them and sent my new mobile number in messages to them. Becky sent me a smiley face back, which almost distracted me from what I was doing.

  Typing in a name, I scrolled the tiny thumbnails until I found the one I wanted. The message was short and I hovered over the send button, feeling a short stab of worry. Mum wouldn’t like it and I trusted her. I bit my lip. But lately she’d been so full of secrets, avoiding my questions, getting cross with me for asking them. And what harm could it do?

  As I’d seen with Mrs Maple, who could I really trust?

  I couldn’t believe she’d known about that tin, had let me believe I’d discovered it. I needed to do something for myself. I was almost a grown-up now, almost a teenager – sort of. I felt some of Tilly’s earlier confidence rub off on me.

  I pressed ‘Send’.

  I just felt in the dark about everything. Mum never talked about anything and Mrs Maple was always making out she knew nothing.

  Who buries a tin in their own garden full of junk? Why’d she been so angry? I felt tears build in my throat. We’d followed that map, done a whole load of fun things, and all the time she’d said nothing, let me believe she’d never laid eyes on it before. It didn’t make any sense.

  And I couldn’t work out how Tilly fitted into it all. Why would Elsie bury a tin with a photo of Tilly’s grandma? Maybe it was a different baby, maybe the date was just an odd coincidence? Then I thought back to earlier that day.

  Tilly had dragged me inside after her grandma had called from the stone terrace at the back of their massive house. We’d been in the treehouse, Rory joining us, agreeing to be held hostage as Tilly and me tied twine around his ankles to a chair.

  ‘He’s a good sport, aren’t you, Rory? You don’t mind. He likes to be the prisoner,’ Tilly told me. Looking at Rory’s face, I wasn’t absolutely sure.

  Then Rory had begged us both to play Swingball, which was a pole with a ball attached, and only stopped asking when Tilly threatened to tell their mum that he’d thrown out his shorts after he’d peed himself when she’d been tickling him.

  ‘Oh my God, Tilly, shut up!’ he said, cheeks burning red. I’d coughed and looked away. I wasn’t used to seeing brothers and sisters together and it was sort of weird but cool.

  Tilly laughed. ‘Billy doesn’t care, he can keep a secret. He found us on a map.’

  Her grandma had called and Tilly had started climbing down the ladder, head disappearing as she called, ‘Come on, Billy!’

  Rory was still struggling with the twine.

  Tilly’s grandma was shielding her eyes from the sun as she watched us streak up the lawn. The grass looked like a big green zebra crossing, dark and light, cut in perfect stripes, the stone terrace edged with a border of purple and magenta dahlias, big pink oriental poppies that I knew Elsie loved. For a second I was distracted, almost tripping as I stared at all the colours, couldn’t believe I knew all the fancy names.

  ‘And who is this?’ her voice was teasing as she tipped her head to one side.

  ‘This is Billy. Billy, Grandma,’ Tilly said, motioning between us.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ I mumbled, cold terror making me shy. What if Tilly told her how we’d met? That I’d been watching their house? What would this lady with her large gold button-type earrings and clanking bracelets think? Daniel had called me a robber and I suddenly thought of my London accent and crap clothes and how it might look.

  The lady didn’t seem suspicious though and she seemed really familiar and I couldn’t stop myself smiling at her. Her voice was clipped but friendly, like I’d imagine the Queen to speak: ‘You too, Billy.’

  She was wearing a bright turquoise shirt and cream trousers and held out her hand to me. No one ever really shook my hand and I wasn’t sure I did a very good job of it, my palms sticky with nerves.

  ‘Are you a school friend of Tilly’s here?’

  ‘I’m…’ I was already looking around for some inspiration. What was I? How had I ended up at this house?

  Tilly diverted attention away from my reply. ‘Gran, can we have some Sprite and a biscuit? I’m starving,’ she said dramatically, giving a toothy grin.

  The woman waved her away with an indulgent smile. ‘Go on then, show Billy where to go and watch how you go, your mum is painting the hallway.’

  It was over lemonade and biscuits covered in chocolate (no custard creams!) that I finally admitted to Tilly’s grandma what had brought me to the house. I talked about the tin, the map, the house the only place we hadn’t visited.

  ‘And Elsie, she doesn’t know you’re here?’

  I shook my head. ‘The tin was full of other stuff too, like a pearl necklace and a picture of a man and this baby with the date 2nd March… Although I wanted it to be treasure.’

  I hadn’t noticed that Tilly’s grandma had fallen silent at the date, her face white as she looked at me.

  ‘Sorry, could you describe the things inside the tin again?’ she asked in a slow, careful voice as Tilly piped up, ‘Your birthday is March too!’

  Something changed in the air.

  I’d told her about the photos, the brush, the blanket, the boiled sweets and she had just nodded, quietly leaning back, her own glass of lemonade abandoned as if she was in a daze.

  I’d been walking across the gravel on my way home when she’d rushed up to me, gripping my arm and looking over her shoulder back at the house.

  ‘Will you tell her… tell her I… I think, I think… I’m the baby,’ she had said, glancing over her shoulder again. ‘Tell her to come.’

  I frowned, not fully understanding. Her hand was firm on my arm, her voice different to earlier: faster, lower. I opened my mouth, not sure how to reply. Tilly was in the house, waving at me from a top window. ‘I…’

  ‘Tell her,’ the woman had repeated urgently and I nodded, something in her face making me agree, some deep feeling that I somehow knew this old lady, I trusted her. ‘Tell her to come and see me.’

  So, I had told Elsie about the baby but I hadn’t been able to tell her what Tilly’s grandma had said to me on the driveway because she got too angry to hear any more. Look at how it had ended. I was confused and fed up, but I didn’t regret going to that house.

  Tilly wrote back when I was walking home, the new phone vibrating in my pocket. I looked around as I pulled it out, staring at the screen, at the simple smiley face reply that gave me more joy than I’d felt since I turned up in this stupid village on the coach. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed having friends, having a normal life. Now I had this phone, I came up with a plan.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ELSIE

  She hadn’t moved from that chair at the kitchen table for hours, the sky outside streaked with pinks and blues, the orange ball of sun finally sinking beneath the treeline, lengthening the shadows until she was sat in darkness, her dresser, counters, oven mere outlines in the room as she blinked and came to.

  What a terrible mess, she thought as she switched the light on, the harsh yellow making her blink.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said aloud, walking across the tiled floor. The soft crunch of pottery underfoot, the pieces of the polka-do
t teapot. ‘I’m—’ She cut the apology short, a wave of anger gripping her. ‘What a mess!’ She wasn’t just talking about Billy.

  She crouched on the floor, picking up the larger parts of the teapot, muttering as she came across yet more broken pieces. She thought of the hundreds of cups of tea poured from that pot, her mother covering it lovingly with a caddy, setting it down in the centre of the table, cleaning it ever so carefully. And now it was broken: ruined, like so many other things.

  She sat at the table, desperate to fix it, fetching the superglue she kept in a drawer. With trembling hands, she tried to piece it back together. It wasn’t impossible, surely? The spout was still intact and maybe once the big pieces were held together the smaller bits would follow. It was like a complicated jigsaw, she tried to convince herself, her fingertips sticky with the glue, tiny china dust clinging to them like powder.

  But it was impossible, she knew, her eyes straining with the effort, her heart sinking with every attempt. She fetched the dustpan and brush from beneath the sink and with a choke, scraped the whole lot into the bin.

  The bell rang, a sharp, decisive noise in the still of the house, and Elsie frowned, weary from the day, wanting to get upstairs, run a bath, sink into the water and try to order her thoughts. So much had been stirred up, things that she hadn’t dared consider for over two decades. The bell went again, longer, insistent, as if someone was leaning on the button.

  Elsie moved tentatively through the house, seeing an outline through the glass of the door. She took a breath, knew she must be strong.

  Opening the door, she found her arms crossing, a defensive gesture of old, immediately glad to have done so in the face of Samantha’s obvious anger.

  ‘He might act all grown-up, but he’s just a boy,’ Samantha began, as if Elsie had interrupted her already ranting, ‘and I found him at home, on his own, because you kicked him out!’

  Elsie said nothing, bone-tired, her emotions spent. It was all true too: she had told him to leave.