The Memory Garden

by Rachel Hore

  ‘Charles,’ she called. ‘Master Charles!’ And fled under the arch into the Flower Garden, searching the greenhouses then going to stand in the corner where he had posed for her painting, the painting she had now hidden deep in the cupboard in her attic.

  A footstep on gravel and she whirled round. ‘Charles,’ she breathed, but it wasn’t Charles, it was John Boase. He carried a shovel, which he leaned carefully against a wall before coming over to her, taking off his hat and standing before her.

  His look was of deep pity.

  ‘He’s gone, miss,’ he said gently. Then, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Gone?’ What did the man mean?

  ‘In the trap to Penzance. Zachary’s orders is to put him on the London train.’

  The London train? Why? She couldn’t ask Boase – no, she couldn’t.

  Boase cleared his expression on his faceller of throat awkwardly, then said in a hoarse voice, ‘They’ve sent him away, Miss Pearl.’

  ‘No,’ sobbed Pearl. ‘He wouldn’t have gone without . . .’

  She stopped. He wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye, surely? But he had. Shock hit her like a dash of freezing water. Then a clamour of voices started up in her head, and black childhood nightmare images of shrieking bats swooped before her. When they finally receded, she stood in a choking fog of desolation, desertion and despair.

  Through the madness came a gentle voice. ‘I can help you, Pearl, if you’ll let me.’

  ‘Help me? Of course you can’t help me. You don’t know . . . How can anyone help me?’

  And she pushed at him, darted away under the arch as the rain started to fall in great soft drops, the air soon a torrent of tears running down her hair, her face, her body. Gasping in panic, she grabbed her skirts and made for the gate, out into the road – which way? Down to the sea.

  Slipping and sobbing, she stumbled alongside the stream, the lichen-daubed branches of trees catching at her hair, and shadowed its rushed and noisy course down the valley to the home that called it, that was calling her. The wide open arms of the ocean.

  A shout. She looked behind her. John Boase was running after her. She darted past the jetty and up to the right, through the narrow gap in the rock onto the cliff path. Soaked by rain and spray, gasping with cold, she scrambled up the zig-zag path, her heart bursting in her ch

  Chapter 29

  The phone rang the next morning during an otherwise silent breakfast. Irina, looking pale and distant, sat sipping black coffee. Mel sliced large chunks of soft white bread and Patrick spooned boiled eggs, which Lana loved, into eggcups.

  ‘Can you pick it up?’ he asked Mel, who did.

  ‘Mel? It’s Matt,’ came the voice down the line. ‘Listen, I’m worried about Mum. I told you she was tired last night? Well she didn’t sleep. She’s very breathless and her chest hurts. I’ve made her stay in bed, but she’s pretty distressed.’

  ‘Have you called the doctor?’

  ‘Just now, yes. And he said . . . well, there’s an ambulance on its way. And of course I’ll have to go with her to the ho expression on his face">‘Q in frontspital.’

  ‘Oh Matt, that’s awful. Poor Carrie. But that leaves you . . .’

  ‘I know. I’m on my own here apart from Ella and George.’ Ella was a shy middle-aged woman who came to chambermaid every morning. Whilst utterly dependable in her unchanging routine, she would not be happy answering the phone or dealing with a customer complaint. George, a cheerful stocky pensioner whose jobs were portering and maintenance, would know little about the administration of a hotel.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mel?’ Irina broke in.

  ‘Just a minute, Matt.’ She cocked the handset away from her ear. ‘Carrie’s ill – she’s going to hospital. Matt’s a bit desperate for help at the hotel.’

  Weariness and concern fought for position on Irina’s face. After a moment she sighed heavily. ‘Give me the phone, please.’

  ‘Irina . . .’

  ‘No, they are my friends and I want to help.’ She held out her hand for the receiver.

  ‘Hello, Matt,’ she said. ‘It is Irina here. No, no, I am all right. Tell Carrie not to worry, I am coming now.’

  There must have been protest at the other end of the line because Irina repeated firmly, ‘No, no, I will come. You haven’t seen Greg again, have you?’ Her shoulders relaxed at Matt’s response. ‘Well.’ She looked at Lana and then beseechingly at Mel and Patrick. ‘Lana might have to come with me.’

  Mel, impressed by Irina’s resolution, readily picked up the hint. ‘Don’t worry.’ She smiled at Lana. ‘Patrick’s giving me a lift into Penzance this morning to do a few errands. Would you like to come, Lana? We could go shopping and maybe have lunch out.’

  Lana slipped the last spoonful of her eggs into her mouth and nodded, her sulky expression suddenly gone. ‘Please, Mum?’

  ‘Of course, angel . . . Matt, I’ll come right away,’ Irina told him. ‘And . . . give Carrie my love, poor lady, if the ambulance comes before I get there.’ She replaced the handset in its cradle and took a large gulp of her cooling coffee, a picture of strength and purpose. Mel watched her in some surprise; her behaviour was such a contrast to that of the previous evening.

  ‘A woman of many parts,’ said Patrick, eyebrows raised, as he closed the front door when she left.

  ‘I think it will help her to have something useful to do,’ replied Mel, ‘rather than sit around worrying. And Carrie and Matt do need her. She likes being needed.’

  ‘Let’s look at the elephant I bought you. He’s so cute, isn’t he?’

  Mel and Lana had walked up and down the streets in Penzance, browsing in the shops and – Lana’s choice – had sat down to eat an early lunch in a Cornish pasty shop.

  Lana pulled a paper bag out of the plastic carrier hooked over her chair, unfolded the top and carefully withdrew a carved wooden elephant with a blue and gold howdah in which perched a tiny Indian boy. She had spent ages choosing the present, going from ethnic craft emporium to gaudy gift shop, fingering plastic ‘shark’s tooth’ necklaces and enamel flower brooches before settling on this.

  They had hardly spoken about anything unrelated to their shopping, but now that Mel was facing the child across the table, it was difficult to avoid conversation of some sort. She longed to ask Lana what she felt about everything – her father, her"; font-weight: bold; ed himis ces music – but was too nervous of destroying their easy companionship. The girl would tell her what she wanted in her own way, in her own time.

  Lana ate stoically, looking around her at the other diners. At one point, like a small animal alert to danger, she froze in mid-mouthful, her gaze focused on something outside. But whatever the danger was, it passed and she continued to eat. She was a reserved child, Mel decided, but one with a strong interior life. It was delightful, for instance, to see Lana’s free hand dancing a pattern on the edge of the table as though she were hearing a violin in her head.

  Lana stopped and looked up at her and said gravely, ‘I thought I saw my daddy just now, but it was someone else.’

  ‘Have you been looking for him all the time?’ Mel said quietly.

  Lana nodded and took another bite. Then she said, ‘Mummy shouldn’t be so frightened. I want to be here and live with her, but I’d like to stay with him sometimes, too.’

  ‘Does your mother know that?’

  ‘I have told her. I told her again last night.’

  ‘It’s very difficult, isn’t it,’ Mel said carefully, ‘when grown-ups don’t get on. You know it’s not because of you, don’t you?’

  Lana nodded. ‘I know all that,’ she said with the air of a woman of the world. ‘But she’s making it not fair for me.’

  ‘She looks after you very well, doesn’t she? It’s because she loves you, she wants to protect you.’

  Lana sighed and put down her pasty. ‘But there isn’t anything to protect me from. Daddy’s okay. He was just frightened that she would go away. And she did,
so he was right, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I fear it isn’t quite as simple as that.’ If you love someone, set them free. Maybe that’s where Greg had gone wrong. He had trapped pretty Irina, like a terrified little bird, and thought he could keep her in his cage.

  ‘That’s what grown-ups always say. As if I’m stupid.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mel, holding her hands up, palms outward. ‘I don’t think you’re stupid at all.’ Lana was, in fact, alarmingly discerning. ‘I’m really not on anyone’s side, you know, just trying to understand.’

  Lana looked solemn, pulled off a piece of crust, discarding it on the plate and said, ‘You like Patrick, don’t you?’

  What would this child come up with next? ‘Yes – yes, I do, very much.’

  ‘I think Mum liked Patrick for a bit.’

  Mel stared at Lana. ‘Did she? Really?’

  ‘Yes, she kept talking about him and inviting him to supper, but he didn’t invite her back or anything, and once she cried on the phone to him, so I suppose he didn’t like her enough.’

  ‘He’s always very kind to your mother,’ said Mel, her mind working overtime. This revelation might explain some of Irina’s prickliness towards her and Patrick. ‘I’m sure he’s her friend.’

  It didn’t feel right to let this conversation go any further. ‘Have you finished? Yes?’ She consulted her watch. ‘We’ve got two hours before we can go and find Patrick to drive us home. Shall we go down to the sea-front? We can buy an ice cream on the way.’

  In the car on the way home, Mel rang Irina expression on his facester of ’s mobile but found it out of network range, so she tried the hotel switchboard. Matt answered immediately.

  ‘We’re on our way back with Lana,’ Mel said. ‘How’s your mother?’

  ‘A little better, thanks, now she’s in hospital. It’s a mild heart-attack, a bit of a warning really. They’re keeping her in for a few days. My aunt’s with her and I’m going back again later. Sorry, what?’

  There was some muttering in the background, then Irina came on the line.

  ‘Mel, thank you for having Lana. We are managing without Carrie, but something haAK9J">So there

  Chapter 30

  Mel awoke late the next morning with the feeling that something was badly wrong. The bed beside her was already empty. Scum had formed on the cup of tea that waited on the bedside table. The room was stuffy and her head ached.

  A roar and a series of crashing noises vibrated through the house. She hauled herself out of bed and slipped across the landing to the window of Patrick’s old room. The tree surgeon’s lorries were arriving, trailers, shredders and all. This truly was to be an industrial job.

  Wearily, she returned to sit down again on the side of the bed, sipped her tea, put it down again with a moue of distaste and contemplated the day ahead. Noise and bother all day and for days to come, someone else’s marital drama to witness and, worst of all, an underlying dread that filled her throat and stomach: the arrival of Bella.

  Once again, anxieties began to chase their tails around her head. What did Bella want? How could she just be ‘in the area’ in remote West Cornwall? Why had Patrick taken several hours to tell Mel she was coming, and what were all those emails doing in his Inbox? She wished she could have read them. Or perhaps that would have been worse. Ignorance is bliss, she told herself firmly. Yeah, said her brother William’s cynical voice in her head, and the truth will set you free.

  When she arrived downstairs after a hurried shower, Patrick was busy making a trayful of tea for the lads outside, Irina was sitting at the table, morose and smoking furiously, while Lana trailed in and out, whingeing, ‘W#arQ in fronthen’s he coming?’ Then, ‘Oh, I want my violin here, Mum, can’t we go and get it?’ And, ‘I can’t remember what he looks like. Why haven’t you got a photo?’

  Mel caught Patrick’s eye as he came back from delivering the tea. He looked utterly fed up, and just glowered at her. She glowered back. How could he? How dare he? It dawned on her that he was wearing his smartest cords and that his shirt was neatly ironed. Gulping down a couple of paracetamol she had found in the bathroom, she picked up the fresh cup of tea Patrick had passed her wordlessly, and said, ‘I’ll be working down at the cottage this morning. Call me when Greg comes, Irina, if you need me.’ She gave Patrick a beseeching look, to which he seemed oblivious, and stomped out, banging the scullery door behind her.

  At that moment, the bangs and crashes gloriously ceased. They’re taking their tea break, of course, she remembered. She hoped it would be the first of many, if they were going to be making that racket. When she reached the cottage, instead of unlocking the door and going inside, she stood sipping her tea, looking out over the peaceful garden. The ginger cat stalked past and off towards the rhododendrons.

  How dear this place had become. Her own flowerbed was blooming now with poppies and mayweed, though she’d neglected it recently. Beyond, Patrick had nearly finished rescuing the summerhouse from its pall of green. They had both ripped away great banks of bramble and the green, sour-smelling ivy that rampaged everywhere in these parts, uncovering the sandy path that led round the ghostly concrete-edged rectangle that had once been the pond. Patrick was still digging out the silt.

  The atmosphere was different now. The garden was awakening, throwing off its blanket. The muffled sound was gone. Instead it was full of birdsong. An agonising thought struck her: soon it wouldn’t need her any more. The time was coming when she would have to leave, and who knew, she thought sadly, thinking of Bella and of Patrick’s moodiness, whether she would ever return.

  As the screech of a mechanical saw rose once more into the morning air, Mel rubbed her stiff neck. She set her empty cup on the doorstep and dug in her jeans pocket for her door key. But as she wiggled it into the lock, there came a grinding of metal on metal and the roar of an ancient engine as Jim the gardener’s rickety van bounced up the lane.

  ‘Mornin’,’ Jim said, getting out, tipping his battered hat and shambling round to release the tailgate and drag out the lawnmower. ‘Still on yur ’olidays, I see.’

  ‘What? Oh, not holidays, I’m working,’ said Mel, ‘if I can think for the noise.’ They stood and listened to the sawing and the crashing of falling branches then, in a brief silence, she thought to ask, ‘What did you mean the other week when you said something about “her” being in the garden? Who was her?’

  A puzzled look crossed his face. ‘Did I say that?’ Then his expression cleared. ‘When I was a young ’un, I played hur, I told you.’ Mel nodded. ‘Well, there was once or twice I saw her.’

  ‘Who?’ repeated Mel.

  ‘The woman in the garden. I never do see her again, but sometimes I feel she’s hur watching.’

  ‘Watching? Like a ghost, you mean?’

  He shrugged. ‘Dunno, could be. This is Cornwall. Sometimes things be how they be and it’s no use askin’ a packet o’ questions.’ He turned away.

  As he fiddled with the mower and yanked fruitlessly at the startin"; font-weight: bold; htis cesg cord, there was a sudden violent twittering and screeching. Both of them looked up. The cat had reappeared, batting at something that skittered about the grass. Feathers floated into the air. The white blackbird.

  ‘Get away, get out of it. Ssssssttt.’ Mel ran at the cat, which turned and streaked off up the garden. She crouched down to inspect the injured bird as the old man came up to stand beside her.

  The bird tried to fly off, but staggered around in a circle, one wing trailing. The man bent down stiffly and scooped it up in his hands, cradling it in such a way that it couldn’t peck him, manipulating the broken wing. He made soothing noises and stroked the small body until its quivering lessened.

  ‘Bluddy cat,’ he said.

  ‘Do you know whose it is?’ asked Mel, putting out a finger to stroke the bird’s head. Its pink eyes were half-closed and she was curious to see the yellowish blotches on its beak.

  ‘Ay, it’s mine. Or not mine – mor
e like I belong to it. A stray, found me out. I feed it but it’s never at home. Often comes hur, I reckon.’

  ‘Can you put a bell round its neck?’ she sighed. ‘It’s always killing birds and mice.’

  ‘Ay, it’s a good mouser,’ the old man said, nodding glumly. ‘I’ll say that for it. Look, if you’ve got a box I’ll take him home, this ’un. Soon fix his wing like new, poor begger.’

  Trying to work was torture, what with the mounting heat, the noise of the saws and the dark whirl of her thoughts, and yet writing up the next chapter she had mapped out seemed the only thing to keep Mel tenured to sanity that morning.

  There was no summons to the house. The only phone call was from Rowena, asking her to confirm some details about next term’s teaching. The woman said something about teaching a course unit herself, but Mel didn’t ask her about it. She was too caught up in what was happening here and now, and forgot about Rowena as soon as she put down the phone.

  As the morning wore on and the phone didn’t ring again, she relaxed. Either Greg had arrived and all was progressing for good or for bad, or else he hadn’t turned up. At least she hadn’t been required to guard Lana against a kidnapping father or to comfort a sobbing Irina. Gradually the writing absorbed all her attention.

  It was satisfying finally to incorporate the new part of Pearl’s story she had learned into her narrative. In fact, the maid was to form only a small part of a chapter, but she stood as a metaphor for Mel’s theme about the mountain that women artists had to climb, and she was able to go back and slot Pearl’s case into her introduction. And as she gave the maid her tiny place in history, once again she felt a twitch upon the thread. For both women Merryn had been a haven after a storm. And in turn had become the arena for the testing of their strengths.

  Bella. Mel’s concentration evaporated. She pressed Save and rubbed her eyes. The computer clock flicked to 12.31 and the sawing and crashing up the garden ceased once more. Must be lunchtime. She closed down the laptop, splashed cold water from the kitchen tap over her hot face and arms then opened the fridge door. She stood there thinking for a moment, then let the door swing shut. Curiosity had won. She must go up to the house and see what was happening.