Juliet glanced down at the thin paper, the writing on the final fold, and felt her legs turn to water. It was handwriting she had not seen for years and years. On shopping lists scrawled on scraps of cardboard, on bulb catalogues, on birthday cards.
You were very dear to me. I have kept my word.
Your loving grandmother
Juliet’s eyes darted around the empty kitchen, searching, as though waiting for someone to appear. A joke. Or a ghost. Your loving grandmother. Sounds – distant planes, more traffic, some tinny music, far away. There was no one there. The thin paper shook in Juliet’s hands. She opened it out and read.
Dear Juliet
I am dead; don’t fear that a ghost writes to you.
If you are reading this letter this means the sketch has been sold. If it has been sold then I can tell you what I have planned for you.
Nightingale House is now yours. You have the right to claim it at any time.
I planned that it should be so. Long before I died I gave your father two paintings in lieu of inheritance; he agreed to this.The deeds are with the local solicitors who will contact you under separate cover. If you do not wish to have the house, tell them so, it will be sold, and the money divided between three charities.
I planned and planned for you and you abandoned me when you allowed yourself to be made pregnant by that young man whom I knew could not make you happy. I will always love you. I write this not knowing how old your child is, whether it has been joined by others.
It has long concerned me that you do not know the truth of it all, and that at the last I must right a wrong. It was a happy house! And I was happy there, for so many, many years. You were too, weren’t you? Weren’t we both happy, all those summers together? You, my darling, are the only one left.
You were very dear to me. I have kept my word.
Your loving grandmother
Stella Mary Horner
Juliet let the letter float gently to the floor. She stared at it, and then bent to pick it up. Blood rushed to her head – she swung around, certain this time someone was behind her, watching.
But there was no one. Of course not. Grandi had been dead for fourteen years. Juliet had been to the funeral. She had – for God’s sake – seen her grandmother, laid out, the day before the funeral, dressed in her best silk peacock dress, the violet-blue shoes she loved so much.
Juliet put the key in her pocket. She stood up and left the house. She wandered on the Heath for an hour, until it was time to pick up the children, which she did in ascending order: Sandy from nursery first, then Isla, then they walked up the road to meet Bea coming out of school. The pavement wasn’t wide enough for them to walk together, and the lorries that juddered up Highgate Road were extremely loud. As they turned into their front path, she saw Bea stopping to wipe a piece of dirt from Isla’s face, and suddenly Juliet thought of the painting, in the packing room at Dawnay’s, locked away, waiting for its new owner. And then teatime, and bath-time, and bed-time absorbed her, until she could almost have forgotten the day she had had before she collected the children – the painting, losing her job, and the letter, even seeing Matt.
When she was finally alone, sitting with an untouched glass of wine in the little front room watching a TV panel comedy show, Juliet realised she’d been waiting for a change for some time now. Like she’d been braced on the deck of a ship, waiting for it to crash into the rocks. Well, it’s happened, Juliet said to herself, as she turned off the TV and sat staring at a blank screen. It’s crashed.
What came next though? What came next was up to her. That was the thing. It was down to her.
She put the key on a piece of string around her neck and slept with it; so deeply asleep was she that she did not notice what time Matt came back.
Chapter Four
July
How can you not love July, Juliet? July is for Juliet. My father painted The Garden of Lost and Found in July. The sketch is all I have left, but my mother remembered the original well enough of course. According to her there were less of those white hydrangeas, and a few more of the rhododendrons, which I find awful blowsy flowers. Mum said she met Queen Mary once, at a viewing of the painting. Her Majesty said to her, well he got the rhododendrons quite right, they drop awfully quickly. And of course in the original there is no shooting star.
Yes July was my favourite month for ever so long! Most of my life in fact. Until He came – I knew not a moment’s happiness after that. That was in July— To business. I trust you will keep up with the sweet peas. When you do please pick them every day, there is a small slim brown jug packed away upstairs in the Birdsnest which I trust is perfect for them. If you don’t pick them they won’t flower again. Same with the roses. The roses were lovely the day He came and I remember that. There it is again creeping in.
I find a use for the large bank of lavender by the terrace. You should do this. Dry the lavender in the linen cupboard, hang it upside down in bunches. Remove the buds and place them in a Pyrex bowl which you fill with oil – sunflower, or grape. Not olive oil. Heat it gently over a pan of simmering water on the Aga for two or three hours. Strain the oil when cool, then pour it into airtight glass bottles. The lavender oil can be used on sunburn, scalds, cuts – lavender is an antiseptic.
You can also make lavender bags. Take material from the Birdsnest. You may as well know everything old is stored up there. The old children slept there. Old cushions, curtains, children’s clothing, furnishings: the old items from the glory days when Dalbeattie designed everything for the splendid new house. The furnishings were threadbare by the time I was born and there were some things Mum couldn’t bear to see any more. So she packed them away. I used to go up to the Birdsnest, lie on the floor staring up at the stars painted on the ceiling and listen to the nightingales. I used to open the trunks, see the lives of others who lived in the house before me.
I made you so many little lavender bags, Juliet. To scent the baby’s room. I sent you them after you left, do you remember? You never replied. Anyway, Juliet is for July, darling. It is your month.
London, two months later
There was a festive air amongst the gaggle of parents and carers gathered outside the classroom. The dull July heat was puckered by a fresh breeze washing pleasantly over the pockets of adults waiting in front of the stern Victorian edifice of the school. As Juliet, pushing Sandy, hurried towards the Cheddar Class door, she looked up at the pointed Gothic towers on the roof. How many hours had she spent in this playground, rushing to drop Bea off, then Isla, or running into Kids’ Club in the evenings? She’d usually been one of the last. Now she’d joined the ranks of pick-up mums. She was there Monday to Friday, she and her little cohort; sometimes they were the only grown-ups she spoke to all day.
Juliet hated being late, and yet she frequently was. She thought this especially today as she caught a glimpse of herself: a sweaty mess in her battered espadrilles and her old worn T-shirts and one of her long floral skirts with pockets; the uniform in which she’d lived for most of the summer. This was the good thing about not working. She was entirely herself when it came to getting dressed now. Her red-gold hair was long, but she didn’t care, pulling it into a ponytail every day. She’d let Bea cut her fringe in the bathroom mirror, with mixed results – one side was great, the other uneven as Isla had made Bea laugh at a crucial moment. Juliet found she didn’t care about that, either. Like a lot of things, it just didn’t seem important. Panting heavily, she merged into the gaggle waiting outside the classroom door.
‘What are you doing for the holidays then?’
‘I’ve booked a place in Umbria for two weeks—’
‘Oh, how wonderful.’
‘Yes, it should be. I did it absolutely ages ago and since then it’s been in the Guardian in that kid-friendly feature they had –’
‘No, the place with the yurts by the swimming pool? Oh, it sounds marvellous, Jude.’
‘Yes, yes. How about you, Gemma?’
&n
bsp; ‘We’re going to Whitstable for a few days and then the Île de Ré. We’ve hired bikes – Ash says he won’t even try, but I reckon the kids and I can—’
‘Oh, brilliant.’
‘How about you, Tess?’
‘I’ve no idea. Probably Martha’s Vineyard. Robert has friends there.’ Tess tapped at her phone.
‘Oh, looks so beautiful, I’ve always wanted to go to that part of the world,’ said Katty, smiling. ‘How stylish, Tess.’
Tess smiled thinly. ‘I’m not looking forward to it actually. If we go at all.’ She pinched the bridge of her nose and waggled her jaw, and for a moment Juliet stared at her, drinking the sight of her in; her great, yet fragile beauty, her face, unhinged in that split second. Providentially, Juliet noticed Sandy had dropped his water bottle on the floor. She crouched down next to him and picked it up then pretended to busy herself, taking a bottle of squash out of her bag and putting it in the base of the buggy, shifting things around.
Without warning, Katty turned to her left. ‘Juliet? How about you guys? Anything exciting planned? Another one of Matt’s crazy extreme-sports holidays?’
‘Nope,’ said Juliet, standing up, and rocking Sandy’s buggy backwards and forwards as if to soothe him. Sandy, jolted out of contemplating a robin on the school caretaker’s roof, suddenly straightened himself in the buggy, writhing against the straps.
‘Free me! Free!’ he cried. ‘No! No! Free!’
‘Are you off to see your parents in France?’
Juliet kept on rocking. ‘Nope. Nothing really planned.’
‘Nothing at all?’ said Dana, staring at her. ‘That’s a long six weeks you got there.’
‘Er – well, no.’ Juliet shrugged, bending down to pat Sandy’s hair again. She couldn’t look at any of them. ‘It’s – I’m not working, and—’
Katty gave Juliet’s shoulder a quick pat. ‘Bit difficult this year I expect—’
‘My want food! My hungry! Please!’
Dana nodded, chastened. ‘Gosh, I’m sorry, Juliet. I should have remembered. Of course you can’t go away.’
‘Um. No bother.’ Juliet nodded. She caught Zeina’s eye. Zeina said nothing, but shook her head slowly. Juliet knew what she was saying. Don’t bring me into it. This whole plan is absolutely crazy.
Juliet changed the subject. ‘Farewell to the cheese classes, anyway.’
‘Oh well,’ Zeina said. ‘No more WhatsApp controversy about who got what cheese name.’
‘Well I liked Cheddar,’ said Louise, another mum. ‘There was too many European cheeses in the class names. I think it’s nice to have English cheeses shown some respect.’
There was an awkward silence.
‘It’s just it’s really unfair to people who are lactose-intolerant,’ said Dana. ‘They didn’t reflect that in the naming of the classes.’
‘It was cheeses,’ said Tess. ‘They couldn’t very well call a class “Something Disgusting Made from Soy For People With Made-Up Illnesses”, could they?’
As Dana opened her mouth to reply, Louise said with some relief: ‘Oh look. They’re coming out.’
The Reception class door opened and Miss Lacey appeared. ‘Thank you for the lovely vouchers, parents and carers!’ She peered around at the group. ‘Have a terrific summer! . . . Isla’s mum? Could I just have a word?’
Zeina nudged Juliet, who was staring into space. ‘Oi. Ju. She wants you.’
Juliet put the brake on the buggy and went forward, trying not to bash into any of the children streaming past her, biscuits in their mouths, clutching their pictures and exercise books and octopodes with tissue paper tentacles streaming behind them, accumulated cardigans and hats and socks built up over a school year’s careless droppage. She turned to Sandy to wave at him. Won’t be long, darling! she mouthed.
‘Eh?’ Sandy said, immediately alert like a meercat. ‘Eh Mama? Mama?’
‘Hi,’ Juliet said. ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing!’ said Miss Lacey. ‘It’s only – well, would you come inside for just a second?’
‘My son’s out there in his buggy—’
‘It won’t take long.’ As Andrea, the teaching assistant, dispatched the last of the children Miss Lacey steered Juliet past her into the cool of the classroom. ‘Just a brief chat, really. Isla’s been very upset today. She’s with Mandy now actually, just going to the loo. She’s extremely constipated.’
‘Poor thing. She gets like that if she—’
Miss Lacey carried on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘The thing is, Mum, she says she doesn’t want to have summer holidays. She says she wants to stay at school.’
‘Oh,’ said Juliet, ostensibly peering at Sandy, who was screaming in outrage outside while Zeina fruitlessly attempted to distract him.
‘I just wondered if there was anything going on at home . . .’ Miss Lacey paused, delicately. She looked at Juliet, guileless brown eyes peering over her huge round glasses.
Juliet said: ‘No. I mean, Isla does really love learning.’
Miss Lacey looked stern. She said: ‘Even a child who loves learning should want to be with her family. She should want the holidays to come around. Children who don’t – we think that’s rather unusual. It flags—’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Juliet, hurriedly. ‘I promise you, there’s nothing bad going on at home.’ But I would say that, wouldn’t I? Cold horror, manifesting as an icy snake of sweat, slid down her spine. ‘I lost my job in May. Things have been a bit tricky.’ That was true, anyway. ‘And I’ve had to, well, I’ve been – working some things out.’
‘I see.’ Miss Lacey nodded, sympathetically. ‘A difficult time. I wouldn’t have mentioned it only today she told me she didn’t want to move away.’
‘What?’
‘She said she wasn’t coming back to Marston next term.’
‘Why on earth would she say that?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Miss Lacey. She glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Could she have overheard a conversation between you and your husband?’
‘Possibly.’ Juliet scratched her head.
‘If there’s trouble at home, and Mum and Dad are fighting,’ Miss Lacey said, ‘the child really picks up on it. Perhaps you need to talk to her, reassure her everything’s OK. That you’re not going anywhere and you and Daddy have just been having a few rows about—’ she waved her hands in the air. ‘Things all parents row about. Holidays, money, jobs, chores.’
‘Yep,’ said Juliet, deadpan. ‘All those. I’m sorry. Look, I’ll talk to her. The truth is—’
‘Here’s Isla!’ Miss Lacey said in a bright voice. ‘Hello, Isla! All OK?’
‘I couldn’t do a poo,’ said Isla, in a small voice. ‘I tried and tried and it hurt and I can feel it, Mum, poking out, but it’s really hard and it hurts, I think I ate something like a brick or something without realising it.’ Her little face was white, shadows under her eyes.
Juliet pulled Isla towards her. ‘Let’s go home, honeypot. It doesn’t matter.’
‘But the poo is there, I know it’s there. I’ve felt it with one finger and it’s –’
‘OK!’ said Juliet a little too loudly. ‘Darling, Miss Lacey says you’ve been a bit sad today. Don’t be sad. I’ve got you a sticker book.’
Isla’s face lit up.
‘Egyptians?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just Egyptians, not anyone else, not Babylonians or Israelites or anyone? Just Egyptians?’
‘It says “Ancient Egyptians” on the front. So if any Babylonians have wangled their way in I’ll have something to say about it.’
Isla gurgled with laughter. ‘Oh great, Mummy. Oh great.’
Miss Lacey was moving around the classroom, gathering stray pens, geometric offcuts of coloured paper. ‘Mum’s going to explain to you it’s all rubbish about you moving,’ she said, and coming over to Isla, she capped her smooth head with the palm of her hand and the tenderness of the gesture stopped Juliet’s heart. ‘H
ave a lovely summer, little one.’
Isla nodded, and allowed Juliet to take her hand. At the doorway she stopped and turned.
‘But it’s not rubbish,’ she said. ‘I heard Mum talking to Yasmin’s mum about it. She said—’ She took a deep, juddering breath like the narrator at the school play with the big speech and said in a monotone: “I’ll bring the deeds over so you can have a look at them, make sure it’s not a hocks.”’ She stopped, and mumbled under her breath, as though recalling the exact wordage. ‘I don’t know what that word is. Anyway. “One day I’ll wake up and pile them into the car without saying a word and we’ll drive down there and I’ll never come back again.”’
Miss Lacey, rolling paper doilies into a craft box, stopped, and looked up in alarm.
‘That!’ said Juliet. ‘That’s about us going on holiday with Yasmin and Nawal and Zeina when Daddy’s working!’
‘It is?’
‘Yes! Sort of – well, it’s a beautiful house in the countryside, Zeina knows all about it. You’ll love it.’ She held out her hand again; it was shaking. Surely something would happen, she would be struck by lightning, for lying like this. But, incredibly, Isla seemed convinced. ‘Shall we go to the swings and slides? I’ve got you a special end-of-term treat.’
‘As well as the Egyptian sticker book?’
‘As well.’
‘Oh Mummy!’ Isla sighed, in her best child-in-a-movie way. ‘That’s wonderful!’ She clasped her hands together. ‘Goodbye, Miss Lacey!’
‘Goodbye, Isla love,’ said Miss Lacey. ‘It’s been—’ She turned to Juliet as if to say something, and Juliet paused, waiting for the inevitable, because people always wanted to talk about Isla, her ability to read anything, even when she was tiny, her aptitude for numbers, the knowledge she had acquired somewhere – where? – about Brunel or Thutmose or Frieda Kahlo. ‘It’s been really lovely getting to know you this year, my dear. Take care of her,’ she added softly, as Isla ran out ahead of her, towards Zeina and Yasmin and Sandy.
The Garden of Lost and Found Page 6