The Garden of Magic

by Sarah Painter

  Jon stopped in front of her, his face almost level with hers, and Bex looked away to avoid gazing into his eyes, terrified that he would see the longing that lurked inside.

  ‘You going to tell me what happened?’

  Bex concentrated on her ice cream. ‘They accused me of stealing.’

  ‘That’s outrageous.’ Jon was waving his arms around, emphasising his words. ‘Egregious.’

  ‘I know, but …’ Bex shrugged. ‘There’s not much I can do.’

  ‘But it’s unfair. They can’t do that, can they?’

  Bex shrugged. ‘It’s their word against mine.’

  ‘I know what you should do,’ Jon said, his face lighting up. ‘You should go and see Iris Harper.’

  That blinking woman again. It was as if she’d cast a spell over the whole town.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he was nodding now. ‘She’s really good. She’ll sort this out.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Like that.’

  Bex pulled a face meant to convey deep scepticism. ‘She makes, like, face creams and stuff. From plants. My mum used to use her earache mixture on me. It was bloody disgusting.’ Bex didn’t want to admit that she’d already approached Iris and been turned down as a client.

  ‘Well, maybe. But she does other stuff, too. You know Bob?’

  Bex shook her head. ‘I don’t think so’

  ‘Yeah, you do. At the pub. Owns it.’ Jon sat back on the bench next to Bex, his leg almost touching hers. ‘Well, he told me that she sorted out a problem with his lease or something. Or a public permit. Something legal, anyway.’

  Bex had reached the solid chunk of chocolate at the bottom of the Cornetto. ‘That doesn’t sound likely.’

  ‘She did, I swear. Bob thinks she’s a superhero.’

  An image of Iris Harper with a long flowing cape and spandex suit popped, unbidden and unwanted, into her mind.

  ‘I’ll come with you, if you like.’ Jon dipped his head to look into her eyes. ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Bex said, eating the chocolate and slipping off the bench. ‘I need to think about it.’

  She put the rubbish in the bin and then headed to the canal path, which turned towards Pendleford. It was time to stop running away from the problem. She stopped when she realised Jon hadn’t followed. He was still sitting on the bench, ten paces away and frowning slightly.

  ‘You coming?’

  ‘I wish you’d learn to accept help sometimes.’

  Yeah, well, Bex thought. I wish you’d rip my clothes off and ravish me right here on the lawn. Guess we’re both out of luck.

  Back at home, Bex spent an hour phoning around the agencies for a new position. They all said the same thing – without a reference they wouldn’t put her on their books. Bex knew, from experience, that private clients who weren’t using an agency would be just as cagey. The only people who didn’t bother with references for their childcare provider were not the kind of people she wanted to work for. Catch 22.

  She could start again, of course. Erase the last year of work history and pretend she had just taken a break after her college course. But it was a tough job market and there was a part of her that felt soured by the whole experience. How could they treat her so badly? She’d been part of their family and she hadn’t done anything wrong. What would stop another family from doing the same? Bex’s eyes felt hot and she blinked away the feeling.

  If anyone had been in the wrong, it was Alistair Farrier, but she’d given him the benefit of the doubt, given him a second chance. Bex knew how easy it was to make a mistake, to do something stupid which you instantly regretted. When she’d turned her face away from Mr Farrier’s with a firm ‘none of that’, channelling her strict nanny alter-ego with all her being, his face had flushed bright red with embarrassment. She’d patted his arm and told him to think nothing of it, letting him know that she wouldn’t think – or say – anything about it, either. Bex had been given a second chance and she felt it was the least she could do to extend the same courtesy to others.

  Much as it went against the grain, Bex decided that it would be better to ask Iris for help one more time. She had definitely reacted to the name Farrier, and Bex felt there was more to it than simply recognising the name. If Iris knew the family, she might be able to step in on Bex’s behalf. Besides, Jon seemed to think highly of the old bat, and that was more than enough of a recommendation for Bex.

  At End House, she waited at the front door for a long time. She didn’t want to get caught in Iris’s garden again and she thought the polite, knocking-on-the-front-door method would be the best way to melt her heart of stone.

  After ten minutes, however, Bex gave up and walked through the lavender bushes to the back door. She caught sight of Iris’s face at the window and waved before knocking on the peeling paint of the back door.

  ‘I heard you round the front,’ Iris said as soon as she opened the door. ‘Couldn’t get that far, though. My back has gone.’

  ‘Aren’t you a healer?’ The words popped out before Bex could censor herself.

  ‘Sort of,’ Iris said crossly. ‘It’s not that simple.’

  ‘Of course,’ Bex said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  ‘Less of your cheek, child.’

  Evidently she’d failed.

  Iris was moving towards the table, very slowly. She lowered herself carefully into a chair and Bex felt guilty for having got her out of it. ‘Can I do anything to help?’

  ‘I’d offer you a cup of tea,’ Iris said, ignoring her. ‘But I just had one.’

  Bex glanced around the kitchen. There was no used mug on the table, the counter or hiding in the sink. She touched the kettle. It was cold.

  When she turned back, Iris was watching her with more interest than Bex had seen her exhibit before.

  ‘Did you want to something?’ Iris said, her head tilted. ‘Or is this bob-a-job week?’

  ‘What?’ Bex didn’t know why teens were always getting it in the neck for being incomprehensible; it was old people who spoke a different language.

  ‘Never mind,’ Iris said. Her face was paler than the day before and there was a layer of sweat on her forehead.

  ‘You’re in pain,’ Bex said. ‘Let me get you something.’

  ‘I’ve taken all the drugs I’m allowed,’ Iris said, grimacing. ‘Just need to let them work.’

  ‘What about a hot water bottle?’ Bex thought about how soothing that was when she had period cramps.

  Iris started to shake her head then paused. ‘All right, then. If you insist. It’s on my bed. Third door on your left at the top of the stairs.’

  Bex walked out of the kitchen to the sound of Iris telling her not to touch anything else. Bex was used to being in other people’s houses; she’d had cleaning and babysitting jobs before she’d started nannying, and she took the responsibility that the position conferred very seriously. She didn’t glance around any more than was necessary to locate the old pink hot water bottle, but she couldn’t help noticing that the whole place needed a good scrub. Iris seemed like the old school kind of woman, the type who would’ve counted cleanliness as next to godliness, but perhaps it was all getting a bit much for her in her old age. At the entrance to the kitchen, Bex almost stood in something that looked suspiciously like animal droppings.

  ‘Do you have family nearby?’ Bex said, filling the kettle.

  ‘Don’t you use that tone with me,’ Iris said.

  ‘What tone?’

  ‘The social worker tone. I’m not a pity case.’

  ‘I didn’t say you were.’ Bex filled a glass with water from the tap and put it in front of Iris.

  ‘I don’t like plain water,’ Iris said.

  ‘You don’t have to like it. It’s to take your next lot of tablets. So you don’t have to get up. Unless you’d prefer me to help you upstairs to bed.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Or to the sofa, perhaps. You don’t look very com
fortable there.’

  ‘I’m perfectly all right, young lady.’

  ‘Hey, I’m getting older,’ Bex said, hand on one hip. ‘That’s a good sign, right?’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Young lady. Older than “child”. That means you’re warming to me.’

  Iris smiled without any humour. ‘You are a very irritating child.’

  ‘Fine,’ Bex said, giving up. ‘I’ll get out of your hair.’ She went to find the telephone so that she could put it next to Iris. There was one in the hallway, but it was the old-fashioned dial type with an honest-to-god cord. A cord which didn’t stretch more than a metre. There was a beige-and-red community-nurse-issued panic button sitting on the phone table, so Bex took that instead.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have a mobile,’ she said, setting the button in front of Iris. ‘But you can use this if you get into bother. You ought to wear it around your neck, you know.’

  ‘I’m not a fool,’ Iris said.

  ‘Right. I’m going.’ At the door she hesitated. The woman was a crusty old bag of wrinkled rudeness, but she was also a vulnerable member of the community. Bex had been brought up to believe that you looked out for people like that. No matter how annoying they were. ‘Is there someone I can call to check on you later? A family member?’

  Iris shook her head, not able to hide the wince of pain the movement brought on.

  ‘Children?’

  Iris lifted her chin and didn’t answer.

  Bex was going to ask about nieces and nephews, cousins, anyone, but it struck her that perhaps Iris was truly alone. It was a chilling thought and it softened her towards the woman. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll call in later.’

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ Iris said. ‘I’m never alone for long.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Bex said, trying to sound upbeat.

  ‘Someone will be along wanting help or a refill of their love potion.’ She smiled properly for the first time. ‘You’re never alone when you hold the keys to the town’s erections.’

  Bex decided that she’d misheard the old lady. There was no way she’d just heard an octagenarian say ‘erections’.

  ***

  Before her visitor, Iris had been happily dozing in her chair. When the door closed behind Rebecca, she allowed her eyes to drift closed again. She’d never had children of her own, but End House had been a family home once. When her sister had died, Iris had taken in her daughter, Gloria. For a while it had gone well, but as Gloria grew older, she’d grown angrier right alongside. Iris could still hear the sound of Gloria stamping along the landing, slamming doors and clattering down the stairs. Iris, the first to admit she wasn’t especially maternal, had been adrift. She had never been a teenager, either, as they hadn’t been invented when she was a girl. You were a child and then you were a young lady and that was that. Even if her mother hadn’t been spitting out diamond engagement rings at the breakfast table, there wouldn’t have been any room for nonsense.

  Gloria, however, was all about nonsense. Boys and smoking and cheek and, worst of all, a total disregard for the old ways. She was a talented fortune teller, could read people’s future in just about anything she focused on, but she took it all too lightly. Didn’t have the gravitas necessary. Of course she didn’t, Iris chided herself now. She’d been sixteen. But it was too late to say those things to Gloria, too late to mend that particular bridge.

  Iris felt herself nodding off, the pain in her back pleasantly receding to the background. At once, she was a young woman again. Still in her fifties and feeling strong. Gloria was on one of her rare visits with her girls and Iris was making skin softener and gout medicine. Gwen, the younger of Gloria’s girls, was hanging by the door of her work room. She’d been picking daisies in the garden and she offered a bunch to Iris. ‘Make yourself useful and collect me some chamomiles and marigolds,’ Iris said, holding up sample flowers. ‘I need a good handful more of both.’

  The girl disappeared.

  Iris continued pounding with her mortar and pestle and, after a few minutes, Gwen returned, staggering under the weight of an armful of greenery. Ten out of ten for effort, at any rate. Iris sifted through the plants, pointing out the stray weeds which had been picked by mistake and showing Gwen how to strip the petals from the flower heads and slice the stems, opening them down the middle with a fingernail and getting her to tear them into little pieces and put them in the mortar. She preferred a good sharp knife for that job, but things were strained enough with Gloria as it was without Iris arming her seven-year-old.

  Gwen’s head bent over her task and she watched carefully as Iris showed her how to pound the mixture with the pestle and then stir in the melted beeswax and almond oil to make a cream. Iris approved of the careful, thorough way she combined the mixture, her hand made tinier still against the large mixing bowl and wooden spoon. She tilted the bowl while Iris scooped the mixture into a clean jar and poured a layer of oil on the top to keep it fresh. ‘This is good for dry or sore skin,’ Iris said, sticking a label onto the jar, ‘but you must never ever eat it. Poisonous.’

  Gwen’s serious little face grew more solemn. ‘Poison kills people,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, it can. Or it makes you very, very poorly.’

  Gwen stayed quiet, digesting this, so Iris continued. ‘But there are lots of things that are good for you in a little dose, or when you’ve got a particular thing wrong with you, that are very, very bad in other circumstances. Nothing in life is straightforward good or bad, healthy or poisonous.’

  Gwen nodded. ‘I was sick last week.’

  ‘Were you?’ Iris had turned back to her plants. She had several batches to make and Gloria had said she’d pick the girls up in an hour. It must’ve been over that, by now.

  ‘Everything had to go into the washing machine,’ Gwen said. ‘Even Winnie-the-Pooh.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ Iris said.

  ‘His fur isn’t fluffy any more and one of his arms is empty.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The stuffing moved,’ Gloria said from the doorway. ‘In the machine. I’m sorry, sweetie.’ She dropped a kiss onto Gwen’s head. ‘I told you I was very sorry about that.’

  Gwen looked solemn. ‘You didn’t know it would happen to Pooh bear.’

  ‘No,’ Gloria said, more impatient now. She wanted to be gone. ‘Get your things together, give Auntie Iris a kiss goodbye.’

  Gwen did as she was told and Iris was surprised to realise that she was disappointed the child was leaving.

  Gloria lifted her chin. ‘Thanks for having them.’

  ‘It was a pleasure,’ Iris said. She wanted to ask Gloria if she was still with that man, the one who had the forehead of a Neanderthal, and whether she’d gone ahead and started charging cash for telling lies instead of fortunes, but she didn’t want to spoil the peace. Didn’t want to scare her away for good. She only wanted to ask because she cared, but caring was like nutmeg. Too much of it could kill you.

  Chapter Five

  Bex was finding it difficult to keep busy. She’d tidied up the kitchen and even thought about cooking, but her dad was away for the night and she couldn’t quite summon the energy. At this time of the day, she would usually be feeding Carly and Tarquin their tea, making fruit faces to entice Carly into eating. Banana slices for the eyes, half a grape for a nose and an apple-slice mouth.

  Bex decided she would pay Iris Harper a quick visit. Just to check on the old girl.

  She wasn’t doing it because Jon had suggested it, Bex decided. She was doing it to be a good citizen. Iris had been in pain earlier and she was an old woman alone. She would do a good deed and it would take her mind off things at the same time. And, a small voice added, perhaps Iris would be so impressed by her kindness, she’d agree to help her after all.

  The garden at End House, which had looked overgrown but lush with exotic produce earlier, was drooping and forlorn. There were thick brambles where Bex could’ve sworn she’
d seen a bed of bright marigolds in amongst the pea plants. Doubting her own sanity, Bex looked closer and, sure enough, there were the pea canes buried within the thicket. Leaves choked and dying and the occasional green pod. There was no way all of that could’ve grown overnight. It wasn’t possible. Perhaps she’d been mistaken and was thinking of a different part of the garden. She turned around, scanning the garden and the path and the position of the house. No, she was definitely in the same place.

  To the left of the peas, there had been peppers and aubergines. Bex had clocked that they ought not to be growing outside in spring, in England, and sure enough they were no longer thriving. Bex felt a stab of guilt, as if she’d caused them to fail by thinking that way, and she stepped forward, parting the overgrown foliage to get a closer look. The plants weren’t just drooping, though, they were black and swollen, flies buzzing around the burst fruit in a way that looked almost obscene. Bex felt sick and, with this feeling, came the total certainty that something was very wrong.

  Bex knocked loudly, but didn’t wait for an answer, pushing open the door and calling out. ‘Hello. It’s me, Bex.’

  The first thing she saw was Iris’s chair, tipped over. Halfway through the open door of the kitchen, there was a shape on the floor. It was Iris and she wasn’t moving. The room was freezing, far colder than outside, but the part of Bex’s brain that was registering her breath fogging in the air was buried under the more pressing demands of running through her first-aid training. She checked for breathing and for a pulse, surprised when she found both. The woman was frozen to the touch and her skin waxy and yellow.

  ‘Iris, can you hear me?’ Bex’s voice echoed strangely in the room, far louder and harsher than she expected.

  The panic was there, too, but Bex shoved it away. She put Iris into the recovery position, horrified at how light she felt. She couldn’t stop thinking about brittle bones, and was terrified of hurting Iris further.

  ‘Gwen?’ Iris’s voice was quiet but clear.

  ‘It’s Bex,’ Bex said. ‘I’m going to call for an ambulance.’

  Iris’s eyes snapped open. ‘No!’ She began to push herself up to a sitting position.