The Midsummer Garden

by Kirsty Manning

  Devastated, Pip slumped low in her seat, not bothering to wipe away the tears streaming down her cheeks.

  She was empty, drained.

  Eventually, they passed the worn telegraph poles at the front gate and reached Jack’s sagging weatherboard cottage in the far corner of the Ashfield House vineyard. The porch light offered a dismal flicker, the only light in the pitch-black paddock.

  Jack pulled up out the front and got out. He came around to Pip’s side and reached into the back tray, grabbing his fishing gear to pack it back in the shed. Pip wasn’t sure where to go. They’d each split into their own protective bubble—she needed to move as far away from Jack as possible. But, maybe, if she could just touch him …

  As Pip hopped out of the ute there was a clang: Jack had dropped the rod back in the tray. She could just make out his silhouette and the distinct smell of salt and damp earth. Suddenly she felt him close, his hands circled her hips and he pressed her back against the ute. He reached up with his left hand and brushed the hair from her face, pressing his palm to her cheek before tenderly stroking it with his thumb. He brought the other hand up to cradle her head. She breathed in his warm salty breath as he leaned down and their noses touched.

  Jack pushed in hips-first and gave her a deep, hungry kiss. Pip’s heart jumped and she dropped her shoulders, desperate for him not to stop. She wanted to wrap herself around him and drink him in.

  He was pressing her even harder now against the ute. Years of surfing and rowing had hardened his torso and thighs and she shivered every time she ran her hands along the well-defined muscles. She stood on her toes, reaching up to his tall frame, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him tight.

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ he whispered.

  Pip’s head was spinning. It was over—but her urge to touch him was impossible to stop. Her pulse raced and her skin burned as she followed Jack’s heady mix of seawater and soil to the bedroom.

  Later, when he had rolled over, asleep, Pip lay her head on Jack’s broad chest. She buried her nose deep in his wild curly hair and recalled Biology 101, when a funky young lecturer in Doc Martens had tried to sex up the session with a talk on pheromones. Professor Lett referred to a project at Harvard which said that women were attracted to men based on the hormones and scent they secreted from their glands. It seemed plausible enough to Pip. She could smell Jack’s tannins in a line-up any day.

  Pip inhaled and then sighed. She was a ship cut adrift from its moorings. Each time she took a breath her heart ached more. Her stomach churned and all her limbs were too heavy to move. She should pull away right now. Just get out of bed and walk away into the chilly autumn air. Salvage some pride. But as she rested her cheek on Jack’s chest, feeling the rise and fall with each breath—she couldn’t leave.

  Pip closed her eyes. She wanted to remember Jack’s smell. This warmth. His dark curls on the pillow. She nestled into the crook of his neck and wondered how the hell her life had exploded.

  It was her fault, of course. This breakup was inevitable. Jack deserved someone who wanted to settle down—whatever that meant. Pip felt clammy with shame. She loved him. Why wasn’t that enough for now?

  She wasn’t sure he was ever going to forgive her.

  As if he could read her thoughts, Jack threw a sleepy arm around her, cupped her breast and pulled her towards him. Sticky skin pressed against warm sticky skin as embers crackled in the fireplace. Pip marvelled over how perfectly they fit together. A tightening gripped her chest and she rolled onto her back and stared at a dead fly stuck in a cobweb on the ceiling.

  Chapter 9

  Château de Boschaud, Midsummer 1487

  Artemisia felt the parcel knock against her leg as she moved around the kitchen, but whatever was inside her pocket would need to wait. She dipped her spoon into the cauldron and tasted the thick green soup. It was not too bitter. Today’s porée was deepened by handfuls of nettle she’d found growing beside the woods, some roasted and crushed fennel seeds, a bouquet garni, and an extra thumb of ginger and some cinnamon flowers smuggled to her by Andreas last week.

  Satisfied with the taste, Artemisia unhooked the large ladle hanging beside the pot and spooned the dark green liquid into two deep bowls, concealing a dab of golden butter in each. She quickly stirred the soup in the bowls to melt the butter, giving the soup a glossy finish.

  This was the only time today the kitchen staff would sit and eat. All the supplies were unloaded into the larder, the fires burning well and the roasts sealed. The extra servants had been sent upstairs to help the chambermaids and valets set up the banquet room under the close supervision of Abbot Roald. There were long oak tables to be carried from the barn and wide pews from the chapel. Abbot Roald had also specified that two hundred silver goblets lined up on the sideboard be repolished as he had spotted a lone greasy fingerprint. Artemisia had ensured the chambermaids polished the silverware with rags yesterday, but Abbot Roald insisted they were coated with a layer of dust and filth and they be redone so his face shone in the reflection. He’d held a goblet to the light and quoted holy words: ‘First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.’

  His face, spread wide around a goblet, had been hideous.

  The sun was creeping above the linden allée and the day was to be filled with banquet preparations. The feasting would begin at dusk and more than likely continue until the sun rose again. The great hall would be filled with lords shaped like wine barrels slumped over tables, blankets and careless maidens.

  Emmeline, Hildegard and Jacobus were sitting at the small kitchen table.

  ‘Sit up, Jacobus,’ Artemisia barked. ‘This will warm you up.’ She placed a steaming bowl of soup on the table in front of him.

  ‘It may well kill me.’ The boy laughed as he picked up his spoon and tasted. ‘I never know what strange herbs you have added to the porée. Last week it was—’

  Emmeline cut him off: ‘Shut up, Jacobus. Be grateful. There’d be no lard and bacon in the soup over the wall. If you don’t want it, give your portion to me. I’m starving.’ Emmeline meant no harm; she was just overworked today. The girl would see to it that Jacobus would be well-fed and loved, Artemisia was sure of it.

  Hildegard grinned, thumped her spoon on the table twice and waved her spoon at the lad, as if to say, ‘Eat it up, boy.’

  Jacobus Faber had been handed over to the Boschaud estate the year before when his father was unable to pay his tax to Lord Boschaud after a failed crop of wheat on the family allotment. Monsieur Faber was obliged to offer the service of his second son until the debt could be settled. Unfortunately, Monsieur Faber had died when a rotten tooth turned black and sour. The poison travelled down his throat and cut his breath. Jacobus had no choice but to remain in service to the great Boschaud family, thus guaranteeing his mother, brother and sister could continue to live in the nearby cottage and farm their allotted land on the estate until the bill was cleared. Artemisia knew Jacobus would be slaving in this hot kitchen forever.

  ‘Here, eat some bread,’ she ordered between slurps of her soup. She was full of wonder at the heat of the black pepper and could feel the warmth spreading down her throat to her belly. She hoped the added ginger and garlic would ward off midsummer head colds as the days grew shorter.

  She broke a large chunk of the fine white bread from the loaf and handed it to Jacobus. The boy snatched it with a nod, dunked it into his soup and stuffed it into his mouth. He broke off another chunk.

  Artemisia was used to the boy’s frenzied eating. The boy’s tasks were endless. At sunrise, Jacobus rose to collect pails of water from the wells before chopping and stacking piles of dried chestnut and oak high along the kitchen wall, ready to feed the huge fire that was the centrepiece of the kitchen. Though Jacobus had the broadening shoulders of a thirteen-year-old, his legs and arms were those of a wiry old man’s after a lifetime in the fields. Artemisia was thankful she could fill him with food at least once a day.
She always made sure she had a spare loaf just for the boy, warmed alongside the dulled embers.

  Their kitchen was hidden at the back of the château, propped against a soaring back turret that acted as a service stairwell to the main rooms. The kitchen itself was small by most château standards—five paces wall to wall. The thick granite wall at the back had a tiny window overlooking the herb garden, allées and the orchard beyond, filled with scores of pears, apples, peaches and apricots in neat rows. The inside wall had a large worn granite benchtop and above it hung rows of crocks, oules to hold the potagers, casses and frying pans and a series of spits and grills. Beside the bench, in pride of place, was the main fireplace, so large Artemisia could stand upright inside it.

  This central fire was the engine of the kitchen. Jacobus had to be sure it never went out.

  There was a steel rack as thick as Artemisia’s wrist suspended across the fireplace, and from it hung a series of black chaudrons with which she prepared all the meals for the house. The smallest of these black pots was her own little chaudron. She prepared a different soup or stew, depending on the season, and topped it up daily with herbs and vegetables, a scrap of bacon, lard, tongue, duck fat or some leftover offal.

  Today she had prepared a fine chicken stock using the old sod of a rooster—he’d flown at her yesterday morning feet first, scratching, pecking and screeching in a frightening show of his masculinity. Sick of the attacks and scratches, Artemisia threw her apron over him, bound the rooster tight and chopped off his head with the woodshed axe. Jacobus plucked the bird with a promise of some good feeds for the rest of the week. The soup was topped up with Artemisia’s favourite herbs: fennel, garlic, sorrel and savoury mixed with ceps and morels harvested from the nearby chestnut forest. All her dreams were poured into this pot—spices from faraway lands that smelled of adventure. She slipped her hand into her apron pocket and stroked the parcel from Andreas. There’d be little time for dwelling on that this morning.

  Hildegard tapped the spoon on the table twice to draw Artemisia’s attention. Her dear old friend would like some more soup too. Hildegard coughed once with force and took a swig of claret laced with cloves from her mug. She fished in her apron pocket for a rag, lifted it to her lips and started a long hacking fit, throwing her shoulders forward and leaning on the kitchen table with her elbows to brace herself. Artemisia stood and moved behind the older woman, rubbing her back to ease the muscles. She could feel Hildegard’s ribs through the thin linen and a telltale rattle deep in the middle of her back. The long cough was back early this year—never had it come before the summer solstice. Hildegard’s head hung low in her hands. When she stopped coughing and pulled the rag away Artemisia could see crimson specks of blood on the muslin. There was no mistaking it for the red wine.

  Artemisia moved across to the bench where she had steeped the dried violets, plus a few of the unseasonal fresh ones, in boiling water when she had returned from the garden earlier that day. She poured some of the deep purple liquid into a mug and placed it beside Hildegard.

  ‘Drink,’ she ordered.

  Artemisia saw resignation settle on the boy, Jacobus; he’d lost his grandmother to a cough such as this one, she knew. They were both aware that Hildegard would not see out the coming winter.

  The old woman never spoke. With her dark leathery skin, silver hair and wild, sparkling grey-blue eyes, Hildegard had always reminded Artemisia of a witch. A friendly one, mind, but there was something otherworldly and magical about her. Hildegard worked like an ox in the kitchen, making dough, turning sauces, fussing over the pots with her hunched back and hobbling in and out of the larder from dawn to dusk. In the evenings there’d always be a worker from the fields by the kitchen door revealing an ailment: a green hole on the sole of the foot, aching fingers, a red angry toenail or festering eyes from all the grain and dirt flung all day. Hildegard would examine each injury, drain it if necessary using a singed needle the length of her little finger. She’d apply a poultice or send the afflicted one home with a blend of dried herbs they could brew like a tea to sup through the night to reduce the swelling. Artemisia was always nearby, dispensing the salves and acting as translator for Hildegard’s hand gestures.

  Hildegard had no tongue and most of her front teeth were missing. This made her chin look long, curved and pointy—and even more like a witch’s. Artemisia shivered as she remembered Hildegard’s bad case of the tooth worm. She was much too poor to visit the booth at the weekly village market where the barber hacked out teeth with pliers and thus it was left to Artemisia to treat her. She would never forget standing behind a kneeling Hildegard, gently pulling the old lady’s head against her hard belly for support. She’d had to raise her right arm and smash a granite pestle into Hildegard’s mouth to gouge out another rotten black front tooth. Hildegard took her treatment on the wide granite flagstone steps outside the kitchen. Afterwards, she had washed her bloody mouth out with a jug of red wine to dull the pain and seal the wound, gargling and spitting and drinking a bit to kill the rot. Artemisia handed Hildegard a poultice of ground cloves and fennel wrapped in a muslin cloth to suck on for the rest of the evening. Jacobus whispered later that he hadn’t heard a sound from the old woman during the whole gory incident. Not a groan.

  Still shaken, Jacobus had tucked himself under Artemisia’s armpit and through tears lamented that his own father had died of tooth rot. But his father refused to take the short walk through his fields and into the castle keep of Château de Boschaud to ask Artemisia and Hildegard to heal him. He had no time for fancy physicians trained with new lessons in far-off lands, and he certainly had no time to seek the remedies of womenfolk. Teas and herb craft were best left for childbirth. His obstinacy meant that he’d ended up as cold as a stone, dug into a small, unmarked plot at the edge of his beloved field. Worm food. This explained Jacobus’s expressionless face and the way he kicked a rock hard when he stomped over that unmarked grave on his monthly Sunday visits to his mother. By God’s blood, Jacobus always said, he hoped the heavy chunk of granite hit his stubborn ass of a father where it hurt.

  Jacobus finished his soup, licked the bowl and shovelled the pile of mushrooms into his mouth.

  ‘Steady, boy,’ said Artemisia. ‘Don’t want you throwing up the lot on my floor. It’s a long day’s work before this banquet is over.’

  Chapter 10

  Tasmania, May 2014

  Pip ducked behind the large, swinging door that separated the restaurant from the industrial kitchen, her backpack slung over her arm. She was late and she could hear Chef Dan barking instructions for the consommé to the poor commis, Jean.

  Dan looked furious. She was in trouble. Fortunately, he was too busy talking Jean through his instructions for the clear broth to waste time with Pip. She placed a knotted grey plastic grocery bag beside Dan on the stainless-steel bench as she sneaked past.

  ‘Sorry! Nettles,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll make that soup later—the one I told you about that my mum made when we were kids. I’ll make it for staff lunch, if you like?’

  ‘It’d better be good, Pip. I’m not having you late because you were out picking some bloody weeds.’ Dan’s Yorkshire accent boomed across the kitchen. He didn’t look up as he spat out the words.

  ‘Can I use some of that stock if there’s any left over?’ asked Pip.

  ‘Jesus. Anything else, sweetheart?’

  ‘No, I’m good, thanks!’

  Pip scooted over to the corner and started unloading her precious booty from the backpack. Woody and sharp aromas filled her corner of the kitchen as she removed unwieldy bunches of fresh mint, rosemary, parsley and chervil that had been yanked straight from a college garden bed on her way past. She tried not to think about the little garden bed Jack had made for her at Ashfield Cottage. Was it empty? Jack had left early for Italy and had sent no word as to when he’d be back. Meanwhile, she was back in student dorms as a tutor until she could find a long-term option.

  Pip leaned against the
bench as her breath shortened and her heart galloped. She closed her eyes for a moment until her pulse eased and she felt better. By a fraction.

  She headed to the large industrial fridge to store her treasure. Then she dug into her backpack and removed an old jam jar filled with brown seed. She shook it and then popped off the lid for a quick sniff.

  ‘Give us a smell,’ Dan demanded, standing at her shoulder. He lifted the jar to his nose and inhaled the sweet, musty liquorice scent.

  ‘Mm, fennel seed. Did you roast these yourself?’

  ‘Ah, yes … I picked the seed heads on my way home from work last week and laid them out on newspaper to dry. I thought I’d bring you some to try.’

  Dan sniffed the fennel seeds again and looked at Pip thoughtfully. ‘Why are you here?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’m rostered on.’

  ‘No, no, no. That’s not what I mean. Why are you working in this kitchen? Why aren’t you working part-time in a lab or those stinky mudflats you’re always raving about?’

  ‘I … I … I love working here.’ Why was she stuttering? She didn’t stutter. ‘I don’t know. It’s just fun to do something different. Creative. I like watching how you put the dishes together.’ She hoped he believed her. Besides, there was nothing else left here in Tasmania—not for Pip, anyway. No Jack. Her chest tightened. Was Dan about to give her the flick too?

  Professor Grant and Imogen had called Pip to a meeting at IMAS last week to suggest she take some leave. She was struggling to keep on top of her data analysis, and they thought some time off ‘may prove beneficial’.

  ‘I told you no extensions,’ said Imogen, ‘and I meant it. But in light of the cancelled wedding …’ Imogen paused and tucked a stray piece of blonde hair back into her tight ponytail. ‘There’s no funding, you understand?’ said Imogen. ‘No funding extensions without a medical certificate. You’re not dying!’