Nothing spilled, nothing broken. Just sips taken.
the weirdo’s kitchen
POLLY SITS AT THE TABLE IN Clare’s kitchen, as people do, the table long, Welsh pine, very battered, filling the space of the extension they had done ten years ago. Don’t regard it as a kitchen you eat in, see it as a dining room you cook in, said the architect. They discussed how they avoided the term farmhouse kitchen, but knew that was a subject. He grew up in one, in Italy, it was where the family lived. It’s great for making dinner for friends when you are a woman on your own. Clare did not think of this at the time, Geoffrey was in perfectly good health, but they both knew that a kitchen separated from the dining room didn’t suit them, either they had to prepare meals in advance, and they didn’t often want to spend the time, or one was in the kitchen listening to the waves of laughter from the living room. They said, We have to get the eating and the cooking together. This kitchen is the solution, tall, full of light, with french windows into the garden, people can sit or stand, eat and drink wine, and all the conversation is happening right there. Some people say they can’t make food while there are others about, and it is true it slows you down, but how does that matter? Others like messes hidden, but Clare doesn’t find food messes unsightly.
So the kitchen works well in this new life. The perfect set-up for a woman on her own, says Clare. When Janet and Bill are renovating their kitchen, she tries to persuade them to take a wall out, so it opens to the dining room. Don’t forget, she says, it’s highly likely that one of you will be alone in this kitchen. Leaving the guests to themselves while you’re shut away in here. But they choose to remain shut away.
Polly sitting at the kitchen table has a story to tell about her granddaughter going to school for the first time. She comes home, relates Polly, and first thing she says is, I found out what a weirdo is at school today. Oh yes, says her mother—you can imagine, says Polly, not all that thrilled, this is what school’s going to be like, loss of innocence etcetera—okay, what’s a weirdo? The child says, A weirdo is a woman whose husband has died.
Well, when they’ve finished laughing at that, Clare says, And this is the weirdo’s kitchen, yes, that’s right, that’s what it is.
Sounds like the title of a book, says Polly.
Polly the only person who gets this anyway near right, ever, prognosticating books, subjects, titles. Not very, but a bit.
Yeah, says Clare. The Weirdo’s Kitchen. I’ll work on it. But she doubts she’ll get far. It does sound rather sinister.
a year and a day
WHEN CLARE PUT THE FUNERAL notice in the newspaper it had at the end Garden Flowers Only Please. This was because she didn’t want wreaths or formal stiff arrangements, but loose natural bunches of flowers. Her friend Jane who was organising the food for the wake told people that it meant Clare wanted flowers to plant in the garden, so a whole lot of them brought plants growing in pots, and others when they noticed this thought it was a good idea and brought plants later.
Some people in funeral notices put No Flowers By Request. A curious phrase; Clare always wondered why you needed to say by request. It made it very peremptory. You could say, No Flowers, Please, and that would be a request, and quite polite. Families in such cases often wanted donations given to medical charities. Clare wanted flowers.
Wonderful bunches of them. They filled all the vases and jars she could find, and the fish-pond, which didn’t have any fish in it because it leaked, she hadn’t realised how badly until she found it nearly empty and Willy and Nilly belly-up and stinking. It was one of the ways in which life got out of hand. Now the fish-pond full of flowers was a gladdening sight. The funeral parlour men—can you still call them waits, asked Polly—had given her the flowers from the casket, a great spread of white and cream and pale greenish blooms that had hidden the ugly coffin—all coffins were ugly, the fancier the uglier the more expensive, which was why she’d hidden it under flowers—and when people left she gave them a handful each. The rest she put in water and slowly they died until finally there was a small cluster of white roses remaining, which yellowed and dried and didn’t fall; a year later they sit in a vase on the bookshelf, wrinkled, papery, but still roses. There were some lovely blowsy ones from people’s gardens. A former student brought floppy scented pink old-fashioned ones and with solemn eyes told her the names, which she’s forgotten. Her daughter collected the petals that fell and spread them in a shallow basket. She didn’t make pot pourri out of them, just spread them out. They have dried and crumpled, but they still smell faintly of themselves.
Sentimental is a word that comes into Clare’s head, but she does not believe it. This is ritual; these are small invented ceremonies to hold Geoffrey’s memory.
She gardened quite a lot in his last year. It was easier than doing her own work. Words did not easily come, not the kind she could make use of. Sometimes he’d sit for a while outside with her, other times she worked where he could see her from his window. In the spring the camellias were covered in blooms, huge perfect flowers, probably all the cow manure she’d given them, so he could look out and see the garden full of colour. She hung a basket of birdseed from the eaves outside his window, and king parrots and rosellas came to feed, squabbling and fluttering and observing quite strict hierarchies which occasionally one would try to subvert, sometimes successfully. She told herself she was getting the garden in order for Geoffrey to enjoy, and so she was, but she was also bending it to her will. Geoffrey’s life and health were also the subject of her fierce willing, but she knew she would lose this battle. With the garden she might win.
She advertised for a handyperson and got a big strong young man. She’d imagined him as an extension of herself, weeding, planting, tidying up. But he was a bit heavy and plodding, his huge boots stomped on delicate plants if she let him near the beds, and anyway it was clear that he knew what he liked, which was large-scale chopping, slashing, clearing. So he got rid of the privet that seeded everywhere, and in a corner that had become a wilderness he cleared away the thigh-high clotted mass of ivy and a whole lot of rogue bamboo. She and Geoffrey marvelled at how much bigger the garden looked, now that this corner was clear. They discussed what to do with it. At first paving seemed a good idea. Make a formal garden, around the silver birch, with geometrical patterns and plants in pots. She always thinks she’s better at plants in pots than in the ground. But when she grubbed around in the soil it seemed rich and friable. A pity to ignore it under paving stones. In a book she found a picture of a woodland garden, with random clusters of rough greyish rocks and drifts of small plants among them. Geoffrey liked that. And they have the rocks, hidden under the ivy were a dozen or more of them, from some forgotten intention of a rockery. So she strews them about in a casual fashion, the effort of course not casual; most of them she can’t lift and has to roll with her feet. She orders a teak bench to set against the luxuriant green wall which is all that is left of the ivy, to turn slowly silver in the weather. She parks Geoffrey in the chair, she sits on the bench, and they plan what might be grown. Polly brings special plants from a trip to Victoria, some Chatham Island forget-me-nots and crimson candelabra primula.
But nothing much got planted, though she tried to keep the soil tilled to stop weeds growing, and Geoffrey didn’t go out to the garden in the chair any more and the cultivation of this area like all the rest of their lives was suspended. Except the conversation, the conversation was full of incident, of events that had happened, might, ought to, could. Including the plans for the woodland garden. It filled the time while they were waiting. Clare marvelled that Geoffrey was so calm, that he could so courteously and with such kindness talk about things he knew he would never see. They considered how the fish-pond might be made waterproof in a way that wouldn’t harm the fish and whether the greengage would get fertilised, since the other sort of plum they’d planted to be its mate seemed to flower at quite a different time. (It didn’t, but this year the tree is covered in tiny green fruit; wil
l they ripen or be pecked off by the cockatoos, or simply stay dull and hard and pellety?)
And now it has become a memory garden, planted with the Garden Flowers Only. Her brother-in-law offers a medlar because it is a medieval tree, so she and her sister go and buy one. It flourishes, and in the spring almost a year later it is covered with small flat flowers like enamellings in a manuscript. The star jasmine flowers then too, and she cuts bamboo stakes to make a pyramid for it to twine around. The hostias come back bigger than before and she fights the snails for them. The campanulas, the ajuga reptans, the creeping thyme cover the ground, and there are small spots of nearly black heartsease. The aquilegias are spreading, and the geums. The lily of the valley is a small green spike. The dozens of bluebells don’t seem to have come to much, but they were put in too late, she left them in the crisper drawer of the fridge long after they should have been in the ground; that was because she was away travelling a lot, it was her year of saying yes to everything, going to Tasmania and Melbourne twice and Geelong and Wagga and Brisbane and Adelaide for a month. Maybe next year for the bluebells; they like to naturalise, anyway. The camellia she moved because its leaves were dying, turning brown and dry, seems to be happy here, and is putting out leaves as though it is as keen as she is to lose its old spindly shape. The acanthus in a dark and hidden corner is hanging on, it’s supposed to like full shade. Polly gives her a tree peony, which is terrifying because she knows how difficult they are to grow and what a lot of negotiation and travelling afield even acquiring this one involved. Polly is not like Clare, grateful when humble plants bloom, she is ambitious, she wants to grow grand rare difficult things. And succeeds, as often as Clare does with her common ones.
She leaves the peony in its pot over winter. It disappears. But then with the spring it comes back again, taller and bushier, so she plants it in the ground, in the same place. So far it is happy.
When Elvira comes to visit she brings several pots of small geraniums. True geraniums. Not to be confused with pelargoniums. There’s Geranium cantabrigiense, specially appropriate, which is a cross between G. dalmaticum and G. macrorrhizum, with aromatic leaves, G. clarkei, the variety called Kashmir purple, G. maculatum, good for woodland gardens. They are all pinkish purple colours.
I’ve marked their names on them, because I know you won’t remember. You can call them cranesbill if you like, which is quite charming.
This is a reference to Clare’s hopelessness at remembering botanical names. Elvira is always deploring it. Mental laziness, she says. She always uses the true Latin names.
But it’s your field, says Clare.
You’re the gardener, that’s the field.
Elvira is in town on business. She’s staying her last night with Clare, otherwise the Hyatt is just so handy for clients. Elvira is slim and dressed wonderfully powerfully, a little red fitted jacket, a short black skirt, black stockings and shoes with real heels. Elvira flies business class and orders limousines instead of taxis.
Nunc est bibendum, she says, as always, so it’s one of the bits of Latin that Clare knows. Now for drinks. She’s brought Veuve Clicquot. The Widow for the widow, she says. You should drink nothing else.
Of course, says Clare.
Remember what la Veuve said: she drank it when she thirsty, and when she wasn’t, with meals and between meals, when she was happy and when she was sad. Etcetera.
I visited Champagne once, says Clare. They seemed to be still doing the same thing. And believing it doesn’t make you drunk.
You know, says Elvira, you’re lucky. Your husband is dead, you can grieve, whole-hearted and with real tears. But what if the sod is living on the other side of town with his new love, and they are doing all the things that you planned to do, travelling, and spending a year in Rome, and sailing round the Greek islands, all the things you were going to do when the children went and you had enough money. She empties the last of the champagne into their glasses. And are you supposed to stop loving him, just because he’s stopped loving you? Can you hate him, wish him dead, ill, dying? Or are you supposed to rejoice in his happiness with his new love, this boy with the lovely body? Who’s probably a better wife than you were anyway, more wifeish, in the way none of us are any more. The church ought to canonise you if you’re that saintly. You feel like a monster if you hate him, another kind of monster if you love him still. And yet, he is still the beloved husband that you’ve lost. How you could have grieved for him if he’d died, instead of gone off. Rejoice, my dear, that you are saved from ambiguity.
She gets the other bottle of champagne out of the fridge. She always brings two, one for now, one for later, and later is usually now. She raises her glass.
To death, and widowhood, and the absence of ambiguity.
Clare’s sip of champagne turns into a gulp. She looks at Elvira, and sees tears in her eyes. She takes her hand.
Oh, admit it, she says tenderly. He did you a favour.
Maybe, says Elvira, flashing four inches of black lace stocking top as she shifts in her chair.
Maybe. She loves the life she’s made herself, the business, the travel, the grand hotels and little dinners, the frequent fallings in love. So she tells Clare. But wouldn’t she give it all up to have stayed plump and comfortable, married to her childhood sweetheart and teaching Latin to schoolgirls?
Nonsense. Of course she wouldn’t. Been there done that, fun while it lasted. Now on to the next thing. She’s got grandchildren in most of the capital cities, it seems, flies in, hugs them, dandles them, talks to them, is more fairy godmother than granny though that is what she likes to be called. Why would I want that old life back? What would be the point? Sometimes she has dinner in a restaurant with her former husband. She tells Clare that one of her daughters describes him as a good person to dine with but you wouldn’t want to live with him. He doesn’t bring the boyfriend, for which she admires his tact.
The lovely boy makes pickles, says Elvira. And jam. From their own fruit trees. His cumquat marmalade is a sensation. And his Christmas pudding has to be tasted to be believed. What’s more, he grows blackcurrants so he can make his own cassis.
Entirely admirable.
The good life, dictated by the seasons, says Elvira. Sounds as though he invented it.
A year and a day was the space in Clare’s mind. Before anything could be settled. Before she could even think what might be, for instance the plans of the lover in his palmy days, whatever. The space of the fairy stories, which have their own wisdom. Though she’s not sure what she expected of it, that’s the point, that something slightly magic might happen. The garden’s known what to do with it, the new plants have grown and flourished, none of them has died, even some that seemed to disappear have come back again. But Clare is less sure about herself. There was one potent morning, more than halfway through, a Sunday, when she woke up and thought, I can manage this life, I know how to do it, and she lit the fire and sat reading a book, for the first time not overwhelmed by the anxiety of all the things she had to do. But this was a simply practical thing, of managing money, paying bills, keeping the house going, a kind of husbandry she knew to be within her achieving. It wasn’t to do with how she might live.
Grief has flourished, and she did want it too, has cultivated it, though the kind of happiness that she thought might shelter within it seems rather sickly. Grief itself endlessly surprises, and this is a kind of delight, the way it catches you, and you marvel that it should have such shapes, such resources. For instance when she was in Adelaide, and suddenly realised with an exquisite sharpness that she could not telephone Geoffrey, he was not just in another city, not just absent from her in that old normal surmountable way, but not in life, nowhere she could ever talk to him again.
So even the habit of his death isn’t certain. Sometimes she forgets he’s dead, expects him home, thinks, when I see him, and realises with a sickening little jolt that she won’t again. And she holds these words in her mind, not again, never again, and wonders
at them. They have no resonance, they are not believable. She doesn’t believe them. It’s a trick, a not very good joke, of course it isn’t going to be like that. And there’s another thought that comes sometimes; Geoffrey what have you done, leaving me like this. It is so unlike you to be so careless. As though soon he’ll notice and come running back to find her.
And sometimes grief vouchsafes moments of grace. This is one of her pigeon papers:
You turn over in bed one morning and there is your young husband lying beside you, his thirty-year-old self, his hair dark red, his face on the pillow turned toward you, looking at you with love in his eyes and—yes, probably—sex on his mind, and the moment is as sweet as if he had leaned forward and kissed you, his soft lips opening and his tongue finding yours, and for a long time, days, perhaps, he stays with you, his head on his pillow, his eyes gazing at you, with that quizzical light of love, and the touch of his kiss on your lips.
She sits in her garden sometimes and reads. Books offer strangely apposite messages. And maybe she chooses them for this. Jim Crace’s Being Dead, for instance: Grief is death eroticised. And he describes sex as a kind of premature death, a trial run, where you actually leave your life—shuffle off this mortal coil is the expression he uses—and fall into a post-coital afterlife. Which is only putting into more words what is already in the phrase little death. And how the shock of a death sets adrenalin flowing, and adrenalin cannot discriminate, so that at first people feel invigorated and erotic. A friend whose wife died when they were young, not quite thirty, and he’s married again since and had a number of children, but still he remembers the grief of his widowing, he tells her about his wife’s good friend taking him home after her funeral and fucking him, and how important that was, and how he ran about the town where he lived for months and that was what he did, he needed to do.
The Fog Garden Page 18