There was, however, another one from that Henderson person, the garden designer; they had been playing answerphone tag for days. Perhaps he would like to join Mr Bowman on the list of people who were supposed to be helping her Sort Out Her Life but inexplicably never turned up. He might like to come and overturn half of her garden and leave her with a nice big heap of soil and rubble. Then it would complement the sitting-room with its attractive collection of boxes. Maybe she should just offer to sleep with Mr Bowman – might that move her up his list of priorities? She suspected otherwise; no doubt he would say, ‘Well, I’m sure that would be most acceptable Mrs (he couldn’t quite bring himself to say Ms, but she was evidently much too old to be a Miss, so she must be Mrs) Krer … er (he typically ahem-ed his way politely through her surname rather than risk embarrassing himself by actually trying to say it), but I’ve got to service two other ladies first and they been waitin’ longer ’n you.’
Will Henderson’s message said his man with a machete was still chomping at the bit, but that they didn’t seem to be having much luck getting each other, her life was obviously one non-stop glamorous social whirl. Perhaps he would pop round on Saturday morning, around 10ish, but if not OK, could she phone and leave another message. Actually, could she phone anyway because she hadn’t given him her address.
Streuth, she might as well programme his number into the phone’s memory. Certainly she would, if she ever found the manual and managed to suss out how to programme the memory, she would do that.
She phoned in the morning, from work.
‘Hello again. Bella Kreuzer here again. Just calling—’
‘Hello?’ The phone was picked up.
‘Mr Henderson? In the flesh? You do exist, then. You’ve completely thrown me now. I was getting on so well with your answerphone. Best relationship I’ve ever had.’
‘Shall I hang up and leave you two alone together?’
She gave him her address, agreed that Saturday morning would be fine.
‘And please can I beg you not to cut anything back before then,’ he said. ‘It’s so easy to lose something wonderful because it doesn’t look like much and you might not recognize it.’
‘I promise. Scout’s honour.’
Friday. Best day of the week. In the afternoon someone would slip out for cakes and, if Seline was out of the office, a couple of bottles of wine. They’d dabble at bits of work while reading out highlights from Hello! and playing ‘Choices’ – ‘Would you rather live in an MFI showroom for three months with people coming round and watching you all day OR sleep with the man in the sandwich shop?’ ‘Which – not the one with the teeth?’ ‘Yup, and you have to snog him.’
Bella sketched in her layout pad, toying with grandiose schemes for her garden – a Victorian summer house on wheels, topiary pyramids, Moorish channels of water criss-crossing like a Mondrian grid, enormous craggy rocks with a full-scale waterfall, a swing hanging from a massive cedar tree, suspended on ropes entwined with roses and ivy. Could you transplant two-hundred-year-old trees, she wondered? Perhaps not.
Seline suddenly swept into the office unexpectedly. There was a muffled clinking as bottles were hustled under desks, computer games swiftly replaced by Quark layouts.
‘Has anyone seen my copy of Hello?’ she said.
Saturday morning. The doorbell rang. Was it really that late or was this Henderson character early? She ran down the stairs, buttoning up her jeans. Shoes? Never mind.
‘Springy Hair!’ She tried to turn it into a cough. The funny man from the poetry reading.
‘It’s you,’ said Springy Hair. ‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing, nothing. Just a tickle in my throat.’ She cleared it loudly. Very alluring. Why not just hawk phlegm all over him? ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve come to blowtorch your garden. Will Henderson.’ He smiled. ‘Hello. I’m glad I’ve bumped into you again.’ He apologized for having dashed off after the reading without saying goodbye. He’d been embarrassed when he saw her talking to the woman with the hat after he’d been so rude about it.
‘Hey, psychedelic toes.’ He nodded at her shimmering blue nail polish. ‘Or is that a rare disease I shouldn’t mention?’
Good grief. Blue toenails, as if she were a teenager. She cast about for a pair of shoes.
‘So, have you just moved in then?’ He waved at the multi-storey box park in her sitting-room. She explained that there was no point unpacking everything because there was still the DAMP to be done.
‘I see it in capital letters in my head now because I’ve been meaning to have it done for so long. Mr Bowman’s more elusive than the Scarlet Pimpernel.’
‘Bowman, eh. Hmm-mm.’
‘What? What?’
‘No, he’s very good. You’re not in a hurry though, are you?’
She explained that she’d already been waiting for over two months, then launched into a tirade about Mr Bowman and his imaginative range of excuses, he never came when he promised, now he wasn’t even bothering to ring to say he wasn’t coming. Was he a local legend, Bella asked, was that why Will had heard of him?
‘No. He’s my brother-in-law.’
‘Yeah, right. Very droll.’ At school, certain kids always made that joke; if you passed a man wearing a bad toupee on your way to the library (holding a sticky-handed boy with the tips of your fingers) and you hissed ‘Wig!’ at your neighbour, he would say, ‘That’s my uncle actually,’ and pretend to be offended. It was a fashion, a phase, like jacks or saying ‘Vanies’ or putting cartoon-character stickers on the inside of your desk lid.
‘No. He really is. Sort of. Well he’s my brother-in-law, in-law. My sister’s husband’s brother. What does that make him?’
‘It still makes him a very annoying person who hasn’t done my damp, I’m afraid.’
They went out to the garden. He nodded in places, humming, clucking his tongue in others, making a running commentary to himself – ‘mellow brick wall, dum-de-dum, courses of flint – hmm-mm, concrete pavers – dodgy lawn – few decent shrubs – good clematis dum-de-dum – Russian vine, oops – brambles – perennial weeds – clear this bit – transplant that–’ He plunged between bushes, got down on his hands and knees to peer under things, stuck his hand into the soil, crumbling it between his fingers.
She saw him make scribbly sketches, numerous notes, tiny diagrams. He would come back and measure properly if she wanted to go ahead, he said.
‘OK if I ask you a few questions?’ Will put down his mug and took out a notebook from one of the bulging pockets of his jacket.
‘Sounds ominous. It wasn’t me, Officer. I wasn’t even there. Ask anyone.’
‘Remain calm.’ He looked up from his notebook. ‘Trouble is, the reason people end up with a garden that doesn’t suit them is they plunge straight in without thinking about what they really want.’
Bella shifted in her seat and sat on her hands to stop herself fiddling.
‘I feel as if I’m in an exam.’
‘You are.’ Will rolled up his sleeves. ‘If you get too many wrong, my fee goes up.’
‘Ready? Right, question 1. What do you want to do in this garden?’
‘Can’t we start with an easier one?’
‘No we can’t. Judging from the state of it, can I assume you’re not a veteran plant-collector? So do you want somewhere for eating out? A bolt-hole from the rat race? Place to sunbathe in privacy? All of the above?’
‘What was the middle one again? I don’t know, I don’t know. But privacy’s a must. I want a secluded corner somewhere with lots of traily things hanging down. I hate feeling people are looking at me. Does that sound terribly paranoid?’
‘It must make life pretty awkward.’ Will jotted something down in his notebook.
‘What? Being paranoid?’
He shrugged as if it were obvious.
‘No – just – well, I imagine you get looked at quite a lot.’ He raised his eyes from what he was writing.
‘Next question?’
Bella looked down into her mug of coffee, then started to watch his hands to avoid his penetrating gaze. Why did he have to look at her like that? It was quite rude really. Now he had made her feel selfconscious. He was obviously only saying it to wind her up anyway. No-one could find her attractive the way she looked this morning in these grotty old jeans and baggy jumper. Her hair was loose and she hadn’t even bothered with lipstick, never mind the whole routine that she needed to feel even half-presentable.
‘Any kids?’
‘Nope. What’s that got to do with it anyway?’
‘Play space. You might want a sandpit. Swing. Whatever. Any on the horizon?’
‘The Vatican will declare me a modern miracle if there are.’
‘You’re not keen on kids then?’
‘Is this really part of the questionnaire?’
‘Not really. I’m just nosy.’ That look again.
Bella laughed. At least he was honest.
‘It’s not that I don’t like them. I just—’ she shrugged. ‘I – anyway, I’m— More coffee?’
Bella spent some time fiddling with the lid of the kettle, loudly opening and closing cupboards to look for biscuits.
‘Don’t bother. Really.’ Will got up to go. ‘I’ve been here way too long already. So, think about exactly what you want in the garden, any must-haves and so on. Make a list.’
‘Right. List-making, I’m good at that. Will you really design it to suit my every need?’
‘Not at all. I’ll nod and say, “I see. No problem,” a lot, then ignore you and do whatever I thought of in the first place.’
Will held out his business card.
‘Call me. Here – let me give you a few in case you want to pass one on.’
Bella smiled. ‘You had too many printed, didn’t you?’
‘Well, it’s ever so cheap if you have a thousand done.’
‘A thousand? Grief. Give me a stack. I can do shopping lists on the back.’
‘They’re quite good for sticking under wobbly table legs in restaurants too.’
There were no spare drawing pins on her kitchen pinboard, so Bella tucked one of his cards behind the corner of a photograph. The one of her and Patrick. Her finger rested for a moment on the pin, feeling its cold hardness solid beneath the fleshy pad of her fingertip.
She had been cooking when she heard the news.
∼ ∼ ∼
Bella is stirring her sauce, giggling at Viv’s description of some pompous pillock she has had to endure at her all-day conference.
‘So she offered him this piece of Brie and he said, “Actually, I’m a Stilton man myself,” and laughed, expecting us to acknowledge him as a great wit. Jill and I couldn’t look at each other. And he was wearing a blazer, with those shiny buttons with little anchors on them.’
‘A blazer, eh? Hangin’s too good for the likes of ’im.’
The telephone rings.
‘Get that, will you? I have to keep whisking – this is looking a bit blobby. It’s probably Patrick. Running late. Can we save him some supper? Blah, blah. Tell him we’ve got baked bananas – that’ll speed him up.’
‘Good evening, Kreuzer and Hughes residence.’ Viv’s over-corrected receptionist voice is spot on.
‘Yes, yes, she is. She’s just here.’
Viv hands her the phone, saying it is Patrick’s father.
‘Hello, Joe? How are you? Patrick’s not back yet. He—’
She is silent.
There is only the ticking of the kitchen clock.
Viv stops whisking and looks up. Bella’s face is a mask, pale and blank.
‘Mm-mm. Still here. I’m OK. Where are you? Hang on.’ She casts about for a pen. ‘OK. Where do I come to?’
Her writing scrawls unevenly across the bottom of a shopping list on the back of an envelope. Looking at the loops and lines of ink as they appear on the paper, she knows she will remember this moment for ever: standing in this kitchen, seeing the name of the hospital as she writes next to words that suddenly seem pointless, incomprehensible – butter, potatoes, green veg., coffee – NOT decaff, disp. razors for P. Wasn’t potato a peculiar word when you thought about it? Had she really been in such a hurry that she had put disp. razors? The look on Viv’s face, the way the whisk falls from her hand into the sauce. How loud the kitchen clock is. Why is it so loud?
Bella’s eyes rove across the cork pinboard and its patchwork of cards, lists and messages: Taj Mahal Take Away. Call for Free Home Delivery. Friday Night Tandoori Special. A picture of herself on the beach at Arisaig, from a holiday they’d had together driving up the west coast of Scotland. A preposterously cute photo of Lawrence, Patrick’s nephew, dressed as a nativity shepherd, wearing a tea towel on his head. A lone jet earring, optimistically waiting for its companion to be found. An old note: B. Don’t forget, not back till 10. Please save some nosh or I’ll manage with toast (sob …). Big snogs. P. A blurry picture taken on automatic timer of them both in bed wearing red felt antlers last Christmas.
She is shaking. This is probably normal, she tells herself. She feels as if she is outside her own body, watching her hand clutching the phone like a lifebelt, looking at her bare feet on the floor. She cannot feel the floor properly beneath her; presses her soles hard into the cork tiles, making contact with the ground. She is nodding, saying yes, yes, she is on her way, she will be there as soon as she can.
‘It’s Patrick isn’t it?’ Viv says.
‘There’s been an accident. On a site.’ It sounds like a line from a poor movie. She wishes she could rewind the tape and say something more meaningful, more poignant, better.
‘Is he …?’
Patrick is alive but unconscious, suffering from severe head injuries and internal haemorrhaging.
‘Shoes?’ Bella is saying. ‘I need some shoes.’
Her legs start shaking compulsively as she sits and tries to lace up her boots, her knees pumping up and down like pistons. Viv kneels by her feet and ties the laces, holds Bella steady by her shoulders.
‘You can’t drive like this,’ Viv says. ‘I’ll take you.’
∼ ∼ ∼
‘… or the weekend?’ Will was saying.
‘Mmm?’
‘Sorry if I’m boring you. It’s just that now’s a good time to get your garden under way, so call me soon. Yes? Am I being too pushy?’
‘No. Yes. You’re right.’
‘I am pushy?’
‘No. About coming back. Soon. Next weekend? Or perhaps that’s not—’
‘Fine. It’s fine. See you then, then. Never sounds right, that, does it?’
‘Which?’
‘Then then.’
‘Have you thought of having treatment? They’re working wonders with laser surgery these days. Burn whole lobes of your brain right off.’
‘Thank you. I’ll bear it in mind. I’m going now, but don’t forget.’
‘I won’t.’ She nodded decisively. Forget what? she wondered.
10
‘Croissants,’ said Will, waving a paper bag under her nose as she opened the door. ‘As I’ve made you get up early.’
‘Nonsense. Been up for hours. Done my ten-mile morning run. Hundred press-ups. Hoovered the house. Licked the windows clean. Retiled the roof.’
They took their croissants and mugs of tea out to the garden, stood talking as they leant with their backs against the French windows, pleasantly warm from the spring sun. What kind of plants did she like, he wanted to know.
She closed her eyes to picture it, to see it fresh and alive in her head: grasses, she said – feathery heads waving in the wind, catching the light – different textures, felty foliage and shiny stems and those plants with the downy, pleated leaves that held the raindrops like glass beads – drifts of colour – scented things, big blowsy roses and lavender and jasmine – herbs, lemon balm, plants for cooking – dramatic, spiky jobs, maybe a yucca, something that could be lit up at night
, throwing its shadow on the wall.
They talked of shapes, proportions, styles, materials. He sketched ideas, paced up and down, swirling his arms like a manic conductor, showing her, squatting to model the position of an urn, standing tall like a tree for her to assess the effect from the house. Discussed the budget – ‘Don’t go mad, I’m not the Sultan of Brunei.’ ‘No marble patio, then? No cavorting gold nymphs in the fountain?’ He asked her even more questions, how much time would she spend looking after the garden? ‘Be honest,’ he said. Was she lazy? What else did she do with her time?
‘Is this OK? My mother calls me the Spanish Inquisition.’
‘Hah! My mother makes the Spanish Inquisition look like a church outing.’
Would he like a bite to eat, only odds and ends from the fridge, she said, embarrassed that she had taken up so much of his time again, but perhaps he would have a proper hot roast lunch waiting for him at home?
‘No chance.’
‘Help yourself.’ She set out dishes on the kitchen worktop. ‘This is sort of a grazing lunch. Just pick at whatever you fancy.’
‘What a treat. Like a midnight feast – I love picking.’
‘Me too.’
‘Me three.’
Bella looked at him. ‘I used to say that when I was little.’
Will insisted it was a banquet compared with the contents of his own fridge.
Cold chicken with basil dressing, home-made coleslaw, hot ciabatta bread, runny Brie. She shrugged.
‘’s just leftovers. Don’t you eat properly?’
‘I do. Why do women always imagine that men don’t cook? I can do a good roast chicken. A stew sort of a thing.’ He seemed to be thinking. ‘Chops!’ he said triumphantly. ‘Pasta with sauce.’
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