Out in the garden, Ella was peering into the hole with great concentration.
“I’ve made you some squash,” Mrs Armitage said to Ella’s back. The hole had grown at a rather alarming rate. If she put the plant in now, the soil would cover up the first three or four inches of its leaves. “You’ll need to wash your hands before you drink it.”
“It’s not really deep enough yet,” Ella said. “I’ll just dig a little bit longer first.”
“It looks quite deep enough to me,” said Mrs Armitage.
Ella reached for the trowel. The light of fanaticism gleamed in her eyes.
“Fine,” said Mrs Armitage. “Another few minutes. And then you can come and wash your hands and have something to drink and a biscuit.”
Ella blinked. “I’m having juice and biscuits?”
“Or you can stop now. It’s up to you.”
“Just a little bit more,” said Ella, and bent over the pit.
Just a little bit more turned into another twenty-eight minutes of solid effort. After the first five minutes, Mrs Armitage wondered whether she should simply insist Ella stopped digging; after ten, she wondered if she should help her. But it was pleasant sitting in the patio chair with the sun warming her shoulders, and Ella seemed happy enough. And besides, it was her trowel and her garden and if she wanted to let a small child dig a pointlessly large pit in one part of it, who was going to stop her? One of the great advantages of living alone was that no one would know anything about your life unless you chose to tell them. She drank her tea and ate one of the biscuits. A small black fly crawled around the rim of Ella’s glass of squash, then fell in. For a moment it was safe, then the surface-tension broke and its legs wriggled in panic as it began to drown. She wondered if Ella’s mother had missed her child yet, and if she minded.
“There.” Ella straightened up and dropped the trowel onto the grass. Her face, behind the streaks of mud, was rosy and triumphant. “I think it’s deep enough now.” Her hands were thickly crusted with muddy soil and the knees of her jeans were filthy. “Now I can have my juice and biscuit.”
“Not before we clean you up first,” said Mrs Armitage sternly.
“Do you want to see how deep the hole is now?”
“We’ll look in a little while.”
“It’s really, really deep. It took me ages.”
“It won’t get any less deep for not being looked at for ten minutes. Come along.”
At the door of the kitchen, she encountered a new problem; Ella’s jeans and boots were so thickly plastered in mud that there was no way of getting her to the sink without ruining the kitchen floor. She pondered the dilemma for a moment, Ella waiting trustfully at her side, then took off Ella’s wellies and jeans, leaving her standing in mismatched socks that were far too big for her and a pair of tiny white pants.
“Why do the heels of your socks come all the way up the back of your leg?”
“I borrowed some of Jacob’s,” said Ella. “I like his socks more than mine.”
“Does your mother know?”
“She lets me get myself dressed.”
“I see. And how about Jacob?”
Ella shrugged. “I’ll put them back before he gets home.”
None of this seemed satisfactory, but it was hardly her problem how other people chose to raise their children. So she shooed Ella towards the kitchen sink, fetched a chair for her to stand on, and worked grimly away with a nail brush until Ella’s hands, a little pink from their scrubbing, emerged once more. There was a small scratch on her finger where the viburnum had jabbed at her, and another small ooze of blood.
As a child, Mrs Armitage had been to a zoo once and watched two chimpanzees as they sat under a dripping wet wooden platform in the rain and groomed each other, one sitting tranced and blissful as the other combed through its fur and occasionally extracted a tick, which it put in its mouth and ate. Her friends had cooed and sighed over the sight, then confessed how much they loved having their hair played with, as if they were the first humans who had ever discovered this. Mrs Armitage had wondered how it felt to eat a bug that had grown fat on the blood of your best friend, and if the burst of red iron in your mouth would spark darker wonderings about how the rest of their body might taste.
The girl’s hands were fit to be seen now, which made the contrast with her streaky face more distressing. There was no flannel here but there was a clean dishcloth, so she soaked that in warm water and dabbed and rubbed at Ella’s face until the sink was filled with fine gritty fragments and the elfin face was clean. Ella stood obedient and patient as a well-trained dog, letting this strange woman groom and neaten her as if they’d been friends all their lives. Her hair was beginning to unravel from its plait. Leaving Ella standing on the chair, Mrs Armitage took a comb from her rucksack, tugged the bobble from the end of the plait and began work. Ella’s whole body radiated the satisfaction of a cat being stroked. She finished the plait and lifted Ella down from the chair. Ella hesitated between the biscuits, chose a lilac one, and drank her juice in a long, industrious swallow.
“Shall we go and look at the hole for the plant now?” Ella asked.
“What do you say first?”
“Oh. Thank you.”
“Thank you for – ?”
Ella looked confused. “The biscuits?”
“And…”
“And… the juice…”
“And…”
“And…” Ella waited for a clue.
“And washing your hands and face and brushing your hair.”
“Oh yes. And washing my hands and face and brushing my hair. And for letting me dig the hole for the plant.”
“You don’t need to thank me for that, that’s the thing you did for me. So, thank you. Now shall we go and have a look at it?”
In the doorway, Ella leaned against her as she put her feet back into her wellies, ignoring her jeans. The warmth of Ella’s body against hers was disturbing. She had to fight the urge to move away. She wondered what it would feel like if Ella tried to hold her hand. She could see the mound of soil from the kitchen doorway.
Side by side, they stood and inspected the pit Ella had dug.
“I think it’s deep enough now,” said Ella, flushed and modest.
Mrs Armitage wondered how a child as small as Ella had dug such a thing, and if a few more trowelfuls of earth might disclose molten lava.
“I wanted to make sure the whole plant can get buried,” said Ella. Mrs Armitage blinked.
“I take it your parents don’t do much gardening,” she said after a moment.
“We plant bulbs, I’ve planted lots of bulbs, that was really fun. And seeds, one time I grew sunflowers. Anyway, I made the hole really, really deep. That way it can be nice and warm while it’s growing.”
The laughter was bubbling up in her throat like champagne, as if she was a bottle and someone had uncorked her and the slightest movement would send golden bubbles pluming up into the sky. Mrs Armitage kept herself very still.
“Did I do it right?” Ella asked, like a skilled actor covering for a friend who had blanked on their lines.
“It’s an excellent hole,” said Mrs Armitage briskly. “You did a splendid job. It looks exactly the right depth. And very strong sides as well. We don’t want it to cave in.”
“It was hard work, but I wanted to make it a really, really good one.”
“It’s possibly the best planting pit I’ve ever seen,” said Mrs Armitage, wondering where this effortless facility for lies had suddenly come from. “If I had a camera I’d take a photograph.”
“I could draw a picture of it for you. Only it might not be until tomorrow, because I’m a bit tired now.”
“I should think you are a bit tired. Anyone would be tired after digging a hole that big. I don’t know if I could have dug a hole that big.” Was she doing this right? Laying it on too thick? Ella’s eyes were shining with pleasure. “Now, shall we get this thing planted?”
Her gardeni
ng gloves were made of tough golden leather and fastened tightly around her wrists. The viburnum protested when she lifted it, but its thorns were no match for the cured skin of a dead animal. She pulled it free of its black plastic pot and lowered it carefully into its grave. Ella watched, quivering with excitement and tension, as the plant’s spiny tips disappeared below the surface of the soil.
“It was just right,” she breathed, obviously relieved.
“It was. Well done.”
“So, now do we fill all the soil in?”
“You can do that part, you’ve got the trowel. I’ll keep an eye on you and make sure you’re doing it right.”
The viburnum had been a strong healthy plant, chosen with care from the garden centre and carried perilously home on the bus. It had cost her eighteen pounds and ninety-nine pence (actually, nineteen pounds, since she’d put the penny in the charity box on the counter). She’d been looking for-ward to seeing if it would have time to grow and thrive and blossom before the sea came for it. Nonetheless, there was a certain fierce satisfaction in seeing the flat smooth circlet of earth that Ella had patted down with her trowel and watered carefully. It was a strong plant, chosen with care. Perhaps it would break through the surface and survive despite being buried alive. If not, at least she’d had this afternoon. Ella was leaning on her again, but this time she did not move away. There was something warm and silky beneath her fingers. When she looked down, she found that she’d removed her glove and placed her hand on top of Ella’s head.
“Now it’ll grow beautiful and strong,” said Ella, with great satisfaction, and yawned. “I like gardening.”
“You can come and help me another time, if you like.” Her voice, like the treacherous hand that stroked the smooth dome of Ella’s newly-plaited hair, seemed to have found a will of its own. “Or come for some juice and a biscuit. Unless you’re busy. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of other friends to play with.”
“No, not really. I do work with Mummy in the mornings, and then when Jacob comes home from school I play with Jacob.”
“Why don’t you go to school?” What she really wanted to know was is there something wrong with you that means you can’t go to school like a normal child? Why was she hesitating? “Is there something wrong with you that means you can’t go to school like a normal child?”
“Mummy says she likes to teach me herself,” said Ella, her voice calm and easy. “But I don’t think that’s the real reason. There’s a very bad man looking for my mummy and daddy, and they have to keep moving house to hide from him. Only now they’ve bought this house, so we can’t keep moving, so they have to try and stay hidden as much as possible.”
Mrs Armitage considered this for a moment.
“So your father doesn’t have a job?” she asked. “And what about your brother? Doesn’t he go to school either?”
“Oh, it’s safe for Daddy and Jacob. I think the bad man’s only looking for Mummy.” She said these words so easily, as if what she was describing was as mundane as and on Saturday mornings we go to the supermarket and then for lunch at a café, that Mrs Armitage wondered if she was understanding correctly. “So Daddy goes to work and Jacob goes to school, and Mummy stays at home and I stay with her so she’s not lonely.”
“And how do you know all this? Have they told you about it?”
“I hear them arguing sometimes,” said Ella, with a shrug. “Can I go to the toilet, please?”
“But what about – yes, I suppose so. Take your wellies off at the door and don’t touch anything on the way upstairs. I don’t want to find mud on my walls.”
Alone in her garden, she stared at the spot where her new plant was buried and reminded herself that she didn’t want to get involved. She had her own life to live and her own demons to face. As she said these words, out loud and very firmly, to the buried viburnum, she remembered that she hadn’t told Ella which door led to the bathroom, had not even checked if Ella was capable of using the toilet without supervision. The child ought to be old enough by now, but she was home-schooled and her parents both sounded entirely mad, so it was best to be sure. She hurried inside, stumbling over Ella’s discarded wellies. There were a few crumbs of mud on the stairs, but the walls were clean of fingerprints. She could hear Ella singing to herself. There was a muddy streak on the bathroom door, and another one on the door to her bedroom. She tapped sharply on the bathroom door and the singing stopped.
“I forgot to ask if you need any help,” she said into the silence.
“No, I’m fine.” The toilet flushed, and then there was the sound of running water as Ella began washing her hands. She was only little; the chances were she’d give them a quick rinse and then smear the rest of the soil off onto the hand towel. Mrs Armitage pushed the door open and came in.
“Use plenty of soap,” she instructed. “That’s it. Now rinse, and wash them again. I don’t want my towels ruined.” Ella reached for the nailbrush and looked at Mrs Armitage questioningly. “That’s right, give them a good scrub if you like.”
“I didn’t know you could get brushes for your hands.”
“Well, now you’ve learned something worth knowing. Another rinse. That’s it. Now dry them.”
“I got some mud on the door,” Ella confessed.
Mrs Armitage held the cloth out to her. “You can wipe it off, then.”
“And I got some on the other door too. I didn’t know which was your bathroom so I went in your bedroom for a minute. Then I came straight out again and went in here.”
“Then you’d better wipe that door too.”
“I saw a photograph by your bed.”
“If you saw the photograph then you certainly didn’t just go in for a minute and come straight out again.”
“Is it your husband? The one who drowned?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I just wondered.”
“Yes, it is. Go and wipe the door.”
“How did he drown?”
“I told you. He went out in his boat when he shouldn’t have.”
“All by himself?”
“No, with a friend. His friend drowned too.”
“Do you miss him?”
“I loved him, of course I miss him. But these things happen. And just so you know, you shouldn’t ask people questions like that. Now go and wipe the door.”
“And didn’t you have any children before he died?”
“No. No, I didn’t. I live entirely on my own and I have no husband and no family and no friends or gentleman callers. And I am completely happy with all of that. Do you have any more questions, or are you going home now?”
“What’s a gentleman caller?”
“If you need to ask, you don’t need to know. Go home now.”
“Should I come again?”
“Did I say you could come again?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s the answer, isn’t it? Now put your jeans on and off you go.”
Standing beside the gate that led to the cliff outside, Ella paused for a moment. Mrs Armitage felt her shudder.
“You don’t have to go back along the cliff,” said Mrs Armitage. “There’s a perfectly good road. It’s even got a footpath.”
“I’m not allowed on the road.”
“You’re allowed to walk along the cliff-top on your own, but not on the road on your own?” Ella looked guilty. “Does anyone even know you’re here?”
Ella stuck out her lip. “Mummy said I was allowed to go out and play so I went out and played.”
“Well, all righty then.” If this strange girl’s even stranger mother was wandering the garden or roaming the cliff-edge, or even on the phone to the police or the coastguard, that wasn’t Mrs Armitage’s problem. “Off you go.” Ella hesitated. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t like the sea being so close,” Ella whispered, then took another deep breath and climbed out through the gate.
Mrs Armitage watched as she picked her way home, as
slowly and carefully as if the path was littered with broken glass. It must have taken some courage for her to come here. Or perhaps it was simply the desperation of the lonely. She herself had never minded being alone, but she wasn’t much like other people.
She thought about going after the girl, about taking her hand in hers and putting her strong stocky body between the girl and the edge of the cliff. She could imagine exactly how Ella’s hand would feel in hers, the softness of her palm, the slight but growing strength of the muscles beginning to form beneath the remnants of the childish pudge. Ella’s legs were shorter than hers, and the child would have to take three or four paces to every two of hers, bobbing alongside her like a puppy on a lead. Of course, she could always slow her pace to the child’s, but she imagined that she would choose not to. She was done making compromises to please other people. Instead, other people would have to fit in with her, or not.
She watched Ella as far down the cliff as she could. When she returned to her house, she found Rainbow Dash standing on the kitchen table.
She put the toy on her bookshelf, turning its face to the wall so she wouldn’t have to see it staring at her. Then she took down a gardening book. Before Ella came again, she would have to dig up enough of the viburnum to take some cuttings, so she could deceive Ella into believing the plant had begun to put out strong green shoots above the ground.
Chapter Seven
Now
Afterwards he had no clear recollection of the time that took them from the fierce tight embrace beneath the apple tree to the two chairs in the kitchen and the glass of water and the single brimming bowl of cereal that she tore into with the shameless concentration of the truly hungry. He could remember only a series of small distinct moments that pricked at his skin. The sobbing hitch in her breath as she waited for him to recognise her. The thundering of blood in his ears. The flashes of light that came through the leaves of the apple tree and jabbed him in the eyes before he closed them. The way she smelled, warm denim and warm human and a blue-scented deodorant.
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