Diana was sitting back on her wellied heels, staring. She had a sense of things whirling in the air, slowly, then settling back down in a different pattern altogether.
‘I didn’t know that, actually,’ she admitted quietly. ‘I had no idea.’
The ankles shifted. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’ Bestowing upon her a conspiratorial wink, Sally went back inside.
Diana finished her digging and moved to a more secluded part of the garden between the pleached pears. She had planned clumps of hyacinths here but now, resolutely, she emptied out the bag of scorchingly scarlet tulip bulbs destined for the area instead. She handled them carefully; they were still flowers in the making.
Her mind was running on the Master. To lose your wife was a terrible thing, and to have no children, either. How alone he must feel, especially having moved continents. She at least had Rosie to show from the wreckage of her own relationship. Perhaps she should be nicer to him from now on. Rude he might be, but it was the grief speaking.
A few hundred yards away, in the Branston College development office, Richard was doing his level best to control himself. He wanted to explode with frustration, but he was fighting the urge hard.
He loathed the fact that, along with others, including the Bursar and Professor Green, he now had to sit in the development office to make the Big Ring-Round calls. And he had to do it between nine and ten in the morning, just the time he would normally be setting off for the labs. All, apparently, Clyde Bracegirdle’s idea. ‘He thinks that we need to create a bit of an esprit de corps, do it together, daily,’ Flora Thynne had explained earnestly.
Flora’s own contribution was some home-made scones – ‘wholemeal and not too sweet’ – which she placed before the telephoners with a rehashing of Napoleon’s remark about armies marching on their stomachs.
Richard reflected grimly that he had never yet seen Flora pick up the phone and that marching the entire length of France, as Napoleon had, in order to re-seize a throne was nothing beside the task of working through the Branston alumni list. This, definitely, was the last time he was doing it. He would pull rank – else pull the receiver out of the wall.
Miss Sarah Salmon had been at Branston between 1984 and 1987 and was now deputy editor of a national broadsheet. Her phone was picked up by a haughty-sounding young woman who asked Richard, disdainfully, who he was. Disdainful himself, he told her; more disdainfully yet, she returned in her clipped tones, ‘Miss Salmon’s in conference. You’ll have to call back.’
Richard marked time by phoning a few more names on the list. Graham Trowell had been at Branston thirty years ago, ‘I wonder if my room’s still the same,’ he thought wistfully. ‘There was a stain on the ceiling the exact shape of a naked woman. I used to lie there for hours looking at it.’
When Richard called Sarah Salmon back he was put straight through.
‘Richard?’ cooed a voice. ‘So lovely to hear you.’
Richard’s hopes rose. This sounded like money to him. And he wouldn’t let her get away, like Allegra Trott had.
‘Necker was divine this summer,’ went on the voice, dripping honey, ‘wasn’t it?’
He had no idea what she was talking about, except that it was at cross-purposes. ‘I’m Richard Black. Ringing from Branston College,’ he began. Clyde had instructed, via Flora, that college staff should not give their titles. This was, Richard understood, to preserve the illusion that students were calling. Very mature ones, presuambly.
An angry exclamation from the other end. ‘But Sasha told me you were Richard Branson.’
‘Well, I’m not,’ Richard said levelly. ‘I’m Richard, ringing from Branston.’
‘Branston?’ said Sarah Salmon. She sounded choked.
He began his spiel. Flora had originally written one out on a card, but it had been so bad he preferred to improvise. ‘We’re doing this big fundraising ring-round. Perhaps, as such a distinguished alumnus, and possibly because you feel Branston helped get you where you are now, you might want to contribute.’
A strange sound was filling the spaces between his words. It was coming from the other end of the line. Huh huh huh, it was going. Richard stopped immediately. ‘Sure I’ll donate to Branston,’ Sarah said lightly.
He need not have feared, Richard realised, satisfied. ‘Well, that’s great . . .’ he began.
‘But only,’ Sarah Salmon went on, ‘if the whole place is knocked flat, renamed and rebuilt in the style of the Palace of Westminster.’
She slammed the phone down after that.
Richard rose to his feet. ‘That’s me done. I’m going.’
He strode rapidly over the garden, his accustomed short cut towards where his bike was parked. He caught his breath and slowed down as he saw, in the distance, Diana – talking to someone.
Goddamn it, and he hadn’t apologised to her yet. He hadn’t seen her for a few days; he had been hoping, he realised, that she might resign before he had the chance to say sorry and save him the necessity. The instructions he had given her, after all, had obviously gone down badly. She had not complained, not in the least, but her eloquent face had said it all. She was busy, anyway. Perhaps he could sneak past, before she saw him.
Her heart was so light, Isabel thought as she wandered across the lawn, it had gone up into her throat; it was bobbing there. Was it Olly? But no – it was Jasper. At the mere thought of him she felt filled with sunshine. She felt she floated above the ground; the sky was blue; the clouds were white; everything was beautiful – even Branston’s garden, which had previously looked so scabby, so unloved. No, but it had really improved. It looked attended to. Saved. Brought back to life.
And here was the gardener, a nice, smiling, friendly-looking woman.
Diana raised an earth-encrusted hand and waved. ‘How’s it going?’ she asked the smiling red-headed girl. What a difference! She looked transformed.
The auburn hair shimmered out as Isabel happily swung it. ‘Great!’
‘Good for you,’ Diana said warmly. The girl’s shining eyes said it all. Something good had happened, obviously. She felt relief; the girl’s situation had weighed on her, she now realised. She had been actively worrying.
Isabel now noticed the robin pecking about in Diana’s barrow. ‘Oh! Look at him! He’s so tame!’
‘He’s stalking me,’ Diana grinned. ‘Just watch this!’ She bent and turned up a clod under which, as she had guessed, a fat, ribbed, shiny-pink earthworm writhed under the sudden exposure. She placed it near the robin, now watching proceedings from the safe distance of a bush. As the women watched, he hopped out, grabbed the worm and scurried away triumphantly.
‘Not much of a contest,’ Isabel observed. ‘The worm had no idea what was happening, poor old thing.’
Diana smiled up at her. ‘That’s nature for you. Predator and victim.’
Isabel felt suddenly sober. Was that how it was? Did you have to be one or the other?
The bird had flown away and, as Isabel said goodbye and hurried off on pale colt legs, Diana looked after her. She was so lovely, so eager, so full of life. So happy now, obviously, thank goodness. But was there something fragile about her too?
She mused on this, sitting back on the heels of her wellies while the red net of bulbs lolled in her hands. A shadow fell over the grass, sharp and sloping in the low light, making her jump. She looked up, startled, into the sharp black eyes and closed expression of Professor Richard Black, the Master of Branston College.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ Richard said stiffly. She looked, he realised, frankly horrified. Was he really such a monster? He felt even guiltier than he had imagined.
Diana, too, felt uncomfortable. Sally’s words about his widower status burned into her memory. She was uneasy, knowing so many painful, private things. Her warm heart was already going out to him, no
t entirely with her permission.
‘I just,’ Richard struggled on, ‘wanted a quick word about the garden.’ He had tried to force a friendly tone in his voice, but it was coming out gnarled and strangled. Apology was not something he had much practice in or natural affinity for.
‘The garden?’ While her hackles had risen and her defences were up, Diana nonetheless sensed something conciliatory in his manner. She realised it was possible that his stiffness of expression was not personal coldness, only inability to communicate.
Richard cleared his throat. ‘I just thought . . .’ he began, then stopped. Oh, this was difficult. Why was he doing it? As his defensive instincts started to bunch together, forming the usual curtain wall, he shouldered his way through, forcing the words out. ‘A misunderstanding,’ he began. ‘There’s been a misunderstanding.’
‘A misunderstanding,’ Diana nodded. She wanted to encourage him, as one would a child. As she listened, a sense of unreality began to creep over her. Was he really saying that she could put in her delphinium border after all? She gazed up warily into the narrowed eyes in which something else lurked, something that she could not read. ‘Really?’
He was calming down. She wasn’t all that similar, up close. Her wide, clean face lacked Amy’s freckles, her nose was smaller and her hair curlier, tangled, blow-away. It shone as the breeze affectionately ruffled it. So long as she did not smile, he would be OK. But how would he stop her – he was about to give her what she wanted, after all. He must keep his voice discouraging, grumpy even.
‘The delphiniums?’ Diana repeated. His tone was so unpromising she had to check.
‘The delphiniums, yes.’
Now Diana could not help a great beam of pleasure flooding her face. He looked down, unable to bear the impact of that smile. She could not know the sudden stab to the heart this gave him.
‘I’m so pleased,’ she said, glowing. ‘They’ll look wonderful, I promise.’
He was talking again, in more of a rush now, as if whatever obstacle had held the words back earlier had eased itself. She frowned to follow what he was saying about having given more thought to her idea about drifts of crocuses across the lawns.
Diana butted in excitedly. ‘And the roses? I’d picked some wonderful ones. Madame Hardy, Buff Beauty, Bengal Crimson, William Lobb, Pierre de Ronsard . . .’ She went on, unable to stop. ‘Of course, you never get more than three really perfect blooms at once, and one breath of the scent is never enough but it’s just so . . .’ She stopped; he was looking at her with a strange expression.
Richard blinked, brought up short. He had been watching her mouth – full, generous – and enjoying the feeling of being swept up and away in her pleasure. It was some time since he had seen a woman talk with such passion, on that particular subject.
He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, roses, great, that’s fine. My . . .’
No. He would not bring Amy into it. He looked at the ground, collecting himself. Resisting. He took a deep breath and looked at her. ‘And I believe you had some plans for wild flowers too . . .’
The warmth of her gaze was something he could almost feel; a strange, new, sensation of heat was spreading through his insides. ‘Can we walk round again?’ she asked him, eagerly. ‘Just to go through it again? Just to make sure?’
She had caught his arm – unconsciously, it seemed – and yet he was very conscious of it himself. Her fingers, light as they were, seemed to weigh on the outside of his fleece. ‘Don’t you think?’ she was saying, her face turned inquiringly up to him like a flower towards the sun.
He hadn’t heard a word but nodded eagerly, keen to seem all attention. Now he made himself listen, as well as look.
She was reiterating her plans. As he agreed and confirmed, Richard found himself admiring her certitude. She had a great ability to visualise. He could see, as she described it, how a sun-warmed wall to the side of the unlovely boiler room would look with honeysuckle and orange blossom tangled against it.
Diana was confused by such absolute attention. She had never known a man who followed what she said so carefully. The change, given how he had behaved before, was bewildering. He listened intently, eyes narrowed in concentration, nodding gravely, and then occasionally, and sometimes unexpectedly, smiling. There was something about his smile, Diana thought. It was slow, sensual, rather mesmerising. She could almost see what Sally had been talking about. Even if she had never particularly warmed to Mr Darcy.
‘Over here I thought, by the pond,’ she added hurriedly, ‘we could have primulas . . . Lots of colours, quite vibrant, because reflected in the water they’ll be gorgeous . . .’
Gorgeous. Yes, he thought, staring at her.
‘Thank you . . .’ she was saying now. Her eyes were brilliant, wide and warm.
He swallowed. ‘I feel I ought to make it up to you in some way,’ he said, quickly, helplessly. ‘I was so rude before.’
‘Oh, that.’ She flashed him a smile. ‘Let’s forget it.’
‘No, I was very rude. Completely unjustifiably.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps,’ Richard found himself suddenly adding, ‘I could take you out to dinner?’
Driving home later, with Rosie, Diana wondered if she had imagined the whole of the exchange. Had Richard Black really asked her out? She relived the conversation over and over again, Rosie’s chatter going over her head. It was not until she reached home that she realised Rosie’s tone had become more urgent and exclamatory.
‘Oh, Mummy!’ she was gasping. ‘Just look!’
Mitch and Debs’ house had come alive. When Debs had mentioned, casually, a day or two earlier, that they were putting up Christmas lights, Diana had envisioned a line of bulbs along the roof or around the window or doorway. The kaleidoscopic-kinetic outer carapace their home had now acquired was something she had never imagined. It was completely covered in a flashing, multicoloured framework of exuberant illumination. Outside Oxford Street or Piccadilly Circus, Diana had never seen anything quite like it. Not an undecorated inch remained. The lights were all colours, not only edging doors and windows, but arranging themselves into tableaux, spelling out messages, continually restless, flashing, rippling, strobing and pulsing. It made Diana tired to look at them.
Stars throbbed. The roofline dripped with running blue flashes. Various red-dot, rolling messages of seasonal goodwill scrolled, headline-like, endlessly along an invisible frame. A three-dimensional plastic Father Christmas, complete with sack and illuminated with an inward bulb, had been attached to the edge of the roof, apparently en route to the chimney. In the space between the sitting room and bedroom windows was a framework of lights on which a wildly flashing sleigh, complete with reindeer and crammed with presents, switched to three different succeeding positions before returning to the start of the sequence. On the wall by the front door, a pulsing Christmas tree flashed down through several diminishing, multicoloured versions of itself before beginning again.
‘But,’ Diana breathed, ‘it’s only the beginning of November.’
‘Can we go round?’ Rosie was pleading. ‘Shanna-Mae’s going to paint my nails for me.’
Diana drew in her breath, then let it out again. In the old days she would have refused without a second thought. Nine-year-old girls had no business with painted nails. But Shanna-Mae, as determined a character as her mother, intended to open her own beauty salon one day and practised on anyone who would let her. What Diana had seen of her handiwork – and face-i-work and hair-i-work, come to that – was impressive and it now it flashed through Diana’s mind that she could use some of Shanna-Mae’s skill with cosmetics for the forthcoming date, not to mention the cosmetics themselves. She hadn’t worn make-up since the divorce.
‘OK,’ she said, ‘but you have to do your homework before any manicures.’ Especially Shanna-Mae manicures. She went the full nine yards, with crackle polish, stuck-on
gemstones and the lot.
‘I will,’ Rosie said. ‘Mrs Biggs won’t let Shanna-Mae do anything before she’s done hers, anyway. You know how strict she is.’
Diana grinned as she nosed the car into a parking space. Debs was strict, certainly. Her belief in the importance of education made her every bit as much a tiger mother as the ambitious West London women Diana had left behind.
She and Rosie went up the path to Debs’ house. After the first shock, the lights were rather growing on her. That they looked cheerful there was no denying. And the successful juggling of colours and balancing of design represented, in its way, a considerable artistic triumph. It had inspired others, Diana could see. A few houses up the street, someone had created a vintage motorcar in coloured lights, its spoked wheels rolling. Someone else had a big plastic nativity scene in the front garden, glowing from within and complete with flashing halos for the Holy Family.
People had clearly been busy. But no one had reached the heights and ambition of Mitch and Debs.
‘Like it?’ Debs grinned, opening the door to Diana’s somewhat muffled knock. It had been difficult to find a space to put her fist amid all the plastic holly.
‘It’s amazing,’ Diana said truthfully, stepping inside, which, illuminated as it was by the one bare bulb, seemed infinitely less luxurious than the outside.
Debs explained that they budgeted all year in order to afford the electricity bill, that the vintage car two doors up had been there last year but that the nativity scene was new.
‘Like to put on a good show, we do,’ Debs said proudly. ‘Cheers everyone up, it does. People can get low, this time of year. I like to think of it as our present to the street.’
Diana smiled, but felt inwardly slightly ashamed. The class prejudices with which she had arrived in the street had not been borne out. Life on a council estate was not in the least what she had expected. It was not as it looked in the tabloids, or on the TV news.
What she had not expected was the old-fashioned sense of community. The estate’s children played outside constantly, in all weathers, watched from a distance by an informal and revolving rota of benign adults. Relations between the adults, meanwhile, were supportive. People exchanged information, ran errands for each other, helped each other out.
Gifted and Talented Page 17