Garden of Stars

by Rose Alexander

  Miles rested his hands, palms down, on the frosted glass tabletop. “And so that is the story, Sarah. I’m sorry for springing something so unexpected on you.”

  “It’s hardly your fault. And thank you for being so patient and explaining everything so well. I appreciate it.” She hesitated. “But it’s going to take some time for all of this to sink in.” Her voice tailed away to nothing at the end of the sentence and for a while a deep silence descended on the three disparate people in a stuffy meeting room where such an incredible story had been told.

  “I know. And – there’s one more thing.” Miles broke the silence. “Inês gave me this letter to give to you after she died. She wrote it some time ago, before she became as debilitated as she was in these last months. Maybe its contents will help you understand better than I can.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  Sarah left the solicitor’s office reeling. She walked along the Euston Road, oblivious to the taxis, cars and buses roaring past her. She simply could not believe what she had just heard. It was like something out of a novel by Dickens; some Victorian tale of greed, intrigue, lust and betrayal, all centred around an illegitimate child, a will and an inheritance. And to think that she had believed that the secret of Inês’s baby was the only one she had. When all along she had been harbouring this other secret, one perhaps not quite as devastating as your child’s death, but still utterly traumatic, more distressing than most people would endure.

  She had lived with the knowledge that John had betrayed her, had had a child with another woman, the child she herself had longed for and lost. She had lived with the husband’s grandson a daily presence, a constant reminder that she had not been enough, that her partner had needed and wanted another woman as well as – as much as? – her. And she had lived with these truths day in, day out, without saying a word to anyone.

  Sarah couldn’t face going home. She found a café, ordered a flat white coffee and laid the letter in its cream-coloured envelope before her. Slowly, she unsealed it, withdrew the stiff paper with its knife-sharp folds, opened it out and read.

  Dear Sarah

  When you read this you will already have met with Mr Venables. First of all, I want to apologise to you, for the inheritance and for all the secrets and lies this situation has necessitated over the years.

  As for Billy…it’s hard to know where to start. Mr Venables will have given you the outline, but I wanted to fill in some of the details. You will know by now that John had another woman. They met during the war. I was so worried about the dangers he was facing all those years whilst he was away, but the threats I saw were from bullets or bombs, inanimate objects made terrible by the power of humanity to destroy itself. I did not even imagine the threat of human flesh, the temptation of a warm body on a cold night when you have no idea whether there are many more nights left to you. And when I did find out – well, I myself had fallen prey to temptation, so who was I to judge?

  I know aspects of my relationship with Billy have always puzzled you – you questioned, for example, his free and easy access to the house. But now you know the full story, I’m sure that you will understand why things were that way, why I had to do what I did. Billy needed help, support and above all, love. Anybody with humanity and a heart would have done the same as I.

  You will wonder how John and I recovered and we had to work hard to rebuild, that’s true. But over time, we reassembled our lives and, despite everything, found contentment – and love. It is not so hard to forgive, Sarah. Forgetting is the difficult thing.

  Sarah had to stop reading for a bit. She drank her coffee and ordered another one before beginning again.

  On to my legacy. The vast majority of the value of our estate is the house. They have told me it is worth over two million pounds. It astounds me, but Mr Venables arranged for an estate agent to come round and that is what he said. John bought it for next to nothing and had no idea of how its price would rise.

  Sarah remembered the grey-suited man she had practically fallen over at Inês’s front door. It was only a few months ago but felt like years and now stood out as the first of so many mysteries that were slowly being revealed. She had thought at the time that he looked like an estate agent and not an energy salesman as Inês had said, and she had been right, and right also to be suspicious of Inês’s reticence.

  I imagine that you will be very shocked at what you have found out today. I am truly sorry that I couldn’t tell you myself. I felt it was too painful, and too personal, to discuss it even with you; it was one too many confessions after so many others.

  Sarah, you and the children have meant everything to me over the years. You filled the gaps that were left by not having a family myself; you and your girls feel like my own. You will always be my most precious, most beloved great-niece.

  With all my love, Inês xxx

  And then two lines that had been added much more recently, the writing scratchy and uneven, the lines crooked.

  Thank you for finding my baby girl’s grave. You have brought me the peace I craved at the end of my life.

  A spluttering half-cough, half-choke rose up in Sarah’s throat as she read these final words. She was crying, tears coursing down her cheeks for Inês and the baby, and Edmund, for Billy and even for John. For herself. She saw the barista glance at her a few times but no one disturbed her. She was left to cry and cry, her coffee going cold and her mind numb. It was too much to take in, and every time she read the letter she found more. Although nowhere any reference to herself, to Scott, to her own troubles that she had hoped Inês might help her with. And then she chastised herself fiercely – how could she be so selfish, so demanding?

  The important thing, the only thing that really mattered, was that Inês had understood what Sarah had told her about Isabel.

  Eventually, looking at her watch and discovering that she had been there for nearly two hours, Sarah left the warm fug of the café, buttoning up her coat against the freezing wind and pulling her hat down over her ears. The cold weather seemed to be attacking her bones and petrifying her mind and movements. She took the bus home instead of walking, sinking into the seat at the front for the disabled and elderly, exhausted.

  That evening, she told Hugo.

  About everything she had found out; the extraordinary tale of Inês, John and Billy.

  But she didn’t tell him about Edmund nor, of course, about Scott. Those were the secrets that would go with her to the grave, as they had gone with Inês to hers.

  “Oh my God,” Hugo spluttered, when she had finished the story, so loudly that Honor called out from the bedroom above for him to be quiet. Then he began to laugh, loudly and raucously, until it was Sarah’s turn to croakily tell him to shut up and explain what was so funny.

  “Just that,” Hugo was still snorting with laughter. “Just that I said this morning that I hoped she hadn’t left it to the cats’ home or the donkey sanctuary. When all along it was the gardener! Unbelievable!”

  Sarah grimaced weakly. “Yes, but as I explained, Inês didn’t actually leave it to him, John did. By all accounts, she didn’t have any choice in the matter.” The headache that she couldn’t seem to shake off intensified, making her brain throb as if it would explode.

  “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean to criticise her. I understand what you’re saying. I always thought John was such a decent, honourable bloke. It seems we didn’t know the half of it.” Hugo pursed his lips in concentration. “Although, on the other hand, I suppose it was honourable of him to want to do the best for his son and grandson. I suppose it shows that a good person can do bad things.”

  Sarah shut her eyes, momentarily too distressed to speak.

  “So many things are hard to believe, and yet true,” she replied, almost whispering now. “And I’m sure that a lot more people than we think have similar secrets.”

  “That sounds very cryptic. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  Sarah mustered all her
energy to reply. “No. Nothing.” She put her elbow on the table and let her head fall forward so that her hand could take its weight. “Nothing worth troubling yourself with.”

  Hugo shook his head, still incredulous, and then stared at Sarah, suddenly seeming to register how bad she was feeling. “Love, you don’t look too clever at all. I think you should get to bed. I’ll bring you some Lemsip.” And then, as an afterthought, “Let’s just hope there are no more bombshells on the horizon.”

  Sarah pushed a stray Rice Crispie feebly along a groove in the wooden tabletop. “Yes. Let’s.”

  32

  London, 2010

  Sarah’s persistent cold took a turn for the worse. Her nose had been streaming and her temples pulsating for days, and her chest was sore and painful from coughing. Even breathing hurt. For the first time in years, she went straight back to bed after dropping the girls at school one day, telling herself that a bit of rest would see her right. But by mid-afternoon the bedroom walls were contracting and expanding around her, and morphing into curious shapes before her aching eyes. She called Hugo and told him he had to come at once. By the time he arrived at 4pm, having collected the girls on the way home, Sarah could barely speak, needing all of her energy to fuel her rapid breathing.

  Her ragged cough, and the clammy feel of her wet, dank forehead that burned with fever was enough to make Hugo do something he had never done before, not even for the children. Watching him dial 999 felt unreal to her in her delirious state, and disappearing inside an ambulance as he stood in the doorway, shrunken and defeated, even more so.

  The doctors diagnosed pneumonia and admitted Sarah to intensive care, where she lay drifting in and out of sleep for the next three days. She was vaguely aware of Hugo by her bedside, of him holding her hand in his, pressing it to his cheek. On the fourth day, she came to, and sat bolt upright asking politely if she could go home now. But two more days followed on a general ward before she was deemed well enough to leave.

  “I’ve been so worried about you. I thought you might die,” whispered Hugo, once the doctors had declared her out of danger. “And without you, Sarah – everything would be over. None of us would ever get over it.”

  All around, the ward continued with its daily routines; beds were changed, charts checked, drips replaced.

  “I know it wasn’t Carrie you were talking to that day.”

  Nurses took blood pressure readings and temperatures, doctors oozing self-confidence strode up and down, and the backdrop to it all was the incessant, constant, ringing of the phones.

  “And you left your email open one morning – I read your mail. I know I shouldn’t have pried.”

  Tears were pricking behind Sarah’s eyes but she hardly had the energy to cry. Hugo crouched down purposefully beside the metal bed and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “I don’t care, Sarah, about any of it. I still want you. We can’t do without you.”

  Sarah leant her head back on her pillow, reached out to take his hand and shut her eyes.

  Later, after Hugo had gone, Sarah lay in bed looking around the ward, at its white walls and floors, at the blue curtains that hung around the bays, at the harsh strip lighting and at the nurses, chatting and laughing at their station. Finally, her eyes fell on the flowers by her bedside; lilies, roses and irises, all completely out of season, flown in from some foreign land, brought to her by Hugo to make her well. She had blamed Hugo for never listening – but if you want someone to hear you, you have to give them the chance to do so. She and Hugo had got into the habit, over far too long, of not setting aside the time to listen or be heard. That is something she could change the minute she was out of here.

  When her mother visited, she brought her a beautiful silk kimono, saying that she couldn’t have her only daughter wearing a hideous hospital gown. “You brought me back that gorgeous Portuguese linen wrap to wear for my radiotherapy sessions,” she said, as Sarah opened the parcel. “I wore it almost every day until they gave me the all clear and since then, it’s been safely stored in my mementos box. It’s the most thoughtful present anyone’s ever given me.” Natalie shuffled in her chair, causing its metal legs to screech against the linoleum floor. “That, and the fact that you came back. There was a point when I thought I was going to lose you. I’m not sure that I’ve ever thanked you enough.”

  Sarah looked at her mother, studying her face, the fine bone structure and clear skin, the wrinkles that sat well on her and seemed to reflect experience rather than old age. The tears that she saw moistening Natalie’s eyes were so unexpected that they made Sarah cry, too, and wonder whether the crying would ever end.

  Once back home, Sarah found that she was still unaccountably, inexplicably, tired. She spent much of the day resting on the worn red-checked sofa in the shabby living room, unable to work, paralysed by inability to stir herself to any kind of action. She thought often of Scott, but found her memories a chimera, an illusion that evaded capture, as you might reach out to grasp a passing butterfly but never catch and hold it in your hand.

  One day the phone buzzed with a new message. It was Carrie. Her baby had been born.

  It’s a girl!!! I can’t believe it. 4 kilos exactly. We are calling her Isabel - I hope Inês would be pleased. I’ll send some photos as soon as I can. Cx

  PS. Any pink clothes going begging??? Can’t wait for an end to my life of khaki and sludge!

  Isabel was her fourth child and at last, the little girl she so longed for.

  Hugo did everything he could to help out, cooking and shopping, even some days leaving work in time to pick the girls up from school. One afternoon, he strode into the room waving a piece of paper as if it were a proclamation from on high.

  “We’re going on holiday!” he announced.

  Sarah’s first thoughts were of surprise, followed by what she knew should be delight but was in fact dread. She saw only the suitcases to pack, suncream and insect repellent to buy, flights and apartments to book, meals to cook in some kitchen in a rented villa, never as convenient and well-equipped as one’s own, supermarkets and fresh milk to find…challenges that seemed impossible to overcome, and that she had no inclination to face.

  “Hugo, that’s a lovely idea, but I’m not sure that I’ve got the energy to organise it all just now. Maybe it would be better to stay at home until I feel a bit better.”

  “It’s all done, love. I’ve booked it. A luxury hotel in the Seychelles, with a kids’ club. You won’t have to do anything, I’ll sort out all the preparations and when we’re there, all you have to do is rest and recuperate. We’re going as soon as the girls break up for the Christmas holidays. In fact, they’ll have to miss a few days of school, but that’s all right, I already asked the headmaster, he’s fine about it, in the circumstances.”

  Sarah couldn’t believe it. He had never booked so much as a theatre ticket before.

  “But we can’t afford it, can we?” she faltered. “Unless – I suppose we could spend Inês’s money…but I wanted to save that for the future, for our non-existent pensions.”

  “It’s fine, we’ve got the money.” Hugo’s tone was firm. “I’ve got the money. You’re not spending a penny of yours. I got that big job in, didn’t I? They’ve made an advance payment.” Hugo’s voice was coaxing, encouraging her to see the benefit, to understand the wisdom of his words. Asking her to be proud of him for his thoughtfulness and business acumen. “It will be worth it, if it helps you get better.”

  Sarah bit her lip doubtfully. “Well, if you’re sure.”

  “I’m really sure, Sarah.” Hugo faltered, flapping around the piece of paper he was still clutching. “This holiday is something for us. It’s my treat, I’m paying, and I don’t want you to even think about the money any more. We need it.”

  He paused. “Sarah, I know…I mean, I’ve been wondering…”

  Stopping again, Hugo took a deep breath. He looked away from her and Sarah could see his eyelashes moving as he blinked rapidly.


  “I don’t want to rake things up,” he said, his voice solid, determined. “Going away – it’s for us, for all of us, to make us well again. To try, at least.”

  A deep, heavy silence descended on the room.

  Eventually, Sarah spoke. “I’m sorry I’ve been so ill. I know how upset you’ve all been. I don’t think I realised how exhausted I was, how much Inês’s death took it out of me, and then the revelations about Billy and John and everything. All of that on top of the time I spent looking for the baby, worrying about finding her, trying to end Inês’s life of silence and despair about her only child.”

  It still hurt to talk too much. She forced herself to slow down. “And…I…I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything else to say right now.”

  “No, it’s my fault.” Hugo’s reply jumped out, instantaneously. “I was spending too much time at work and not enough with you and the girls, with my family. I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. Will you let me try again?”

  In the room, where the dust motes danced and the detritus of family life lay around her – the scattered toys, stained cushions and chipped furniture – Sarah smiled and nodded. It was all she had the energy to do.

  A week passed, and then another and then the imminence of the holiday galvanised Sarah into action. There were some things she needed to do before she left, things she had been meaning to get around to since the day that Inês had died. There were a few items that had been promised to her – the photo albums from Inês’s childhood, the set of antique azulejos that Inês had always known she coveted. The music box that her girls, and herself before them, had so loved to play with. And the love letter with the photo inside of baby Isabel. She wanted to collect them now, in case…. She wasn’t sure what it was in case of – that Billy might lose them? Give them away?