by Rosie Thomas
She folded the letter over so that she couldn’t see the particular words, and focused her attention on China’s instructions for preparing a bed for planting.
The work began, very slowly.
Julia enlisted the help of two of the palazzo’s longer-term residents. One of them was mentally handicapped, but he was a big man with brawny arms and shoulders. Julia showed him how to dig, and he seized her spade and began to work. He tossed the clods of earth, matted with weeds, into a big heap behind him. His big, loose smile showed that he was enjoying himself.
Her other helper took longer to interest himself in the project, but once he did he became more enthusiastic than Julia herself. Tomaso was fourteen, the oldest of the children. He wasn’t ill or handicapped, but like her original lieutenant Raimundo he had nowhere else to go. Sister Maria told Julia that he had come from Naples, where he had lived with an ailing grandmother. Tomaso had got into trouble with the police, and his grandmother had been unable to control him. He had been removed by the authorities and at last he had ended up at Montebellate, under the care of the nuns.
He was a difficult resident. At the palazzo he was bored and unruly, and he was disruptive at school. But he attached himself to Julia as Raimundo had done, and through Julia he had found his way out into the gardens. At first he was dismissive of her efforts, but before long he was unable to conceal his fascination. He had a natural feel for plants that surprised Julia. He seemed to know more by instinct than she did after all her poring over China’s books.
She told him that he had green fingers, translating the expression literally, and he stared at his fingers and then back at her with an expression of bafflement that made Julia laugh. Tomaso looked angry for a moment, then began to laugh too.
Tomaso would have worked in the garden all night, if she had let him. He was particularly good with the willing, clumsy Guido, directing his onslaughts to the right place, and away from the beds that had already been cleared and planted.
Julia gratefully took whatever plants and seeds and cuttings Vito was prepared to offer her, and tomatoes began to ripen against the wall of the palazzo. It was a proud moment for her and Tomaso when they took the first small crop of tomatoes with some strawberries and fresh basil leaves to the kitchens. The nuns and the women who worked there accepted the tiny offering with grave congratulations.
Julia had pruned the roses, following the instructions in her books, and now the pink and white damasks and albas and fragrant centifolias bloomed in great drifts against the old walls. By contrast the earth in the parterres, although it had been cleared and then manured and lightened with straw just like Vito’s, looked barren and reproachful. Julia had managed to save very little of the original growth from Guido’s enthusiasm, and her precious vegetables filled only a fraction of the geometric pattern. The freshly clipped box edgings and smooth paths seemed only to emphasise the emptiness.
She began to dream of the flowers of the original design. Her books showed her geraniums and marigolds and petunias in carpets of colour. Nicolo gave her geraniums from his own plot, but the space of the secret garden swallowed them up.
Next year, she told herself, I will have planted my own seeds. I’ll take cuttings and propagate them, somehow, and I’ll have enough of everything to fill the beds. But what can I do now?
China had warned her that every novice gardener made the mistake of wanting rewards at once, and she smiled to recognise the failing in herself. But the recognition didn’t stop her from pursuing what she wanted.
She overcame her diffidence, and her mistrust of her Italian, and began to ask around the village. ‘Can you spare some plants, signora, for the nuns’ gardens?’
The wheedling and persuading reminded her of the beginnings of Garlic & Sapphires. She found that the small victories in Montebellate gave her even more satisfaction. At first she was greeted with shrugs, or blank stares, but Julia was careful always to call it the nuns’ garden, and the sisters were deeply respected in Montebellate. And the villagers were interested in what the peculiar Englishwoman was doing behind the palazzo walls. Slowly, bearing straggling greenery and lumps of earth, they began to wander up to the palazzo. They peered into the secret garden, warily at first and then more confidently. They met one another, and gestured with admiring surprise at the roses and the parterres. The residents followed them, and the walled garden suddenly became a social focus. The nuns nodded and smiled, and Julia and Tomaso and Guido found themselves welcoming visitors with gifts of plants at all hours.
Julia accepted everything that was offered, and put it in the beds. The empty circles and diamonds filled up under her care and Tomaso’s watering, sprouting a blanket of random colours and scents that should have been hideous, but was unexpectedly vivid and satisfying.
Next year, the year after, there would be time to make a white bed, another of misty blue, and the circle that formed the eye of the design would be a great splash of solid scarlet.
Julia realised that her plans would take a long time to bring to reality. She looked forward to it calmly. If her life in Montebellate lacked the intimacy of real happiness, it had its own different satisfactions, and a kind of richness that she had never known before.
By the time the summer came, she felt that she was woven into the life of the palazzo. If the garden occupied her thoughts, most of her time was still spent with the children. The fitter ones followed her as if she was the Pied Piper. They sat in the secret garden while the shade of the morning still lay on it, and Julia taught them songs and clapping games. Another parcel came from China. It contained dominoes and draughts and snakes and ladders. For your Italian children, China said. The thoughtfulness of the gesture touched Julia, and made her wonder why she had never made friends with China before. At the palazzo, the acts of friendship seemed simple. She wrote back at once, a warm letter that described her days in the children’s wing, and enclosed some of their drawings done as thanks. The games became a craze, and Tomaso proved to be so good at draughts that not even Nicolo could beat him. Nicolo taught him to play chess, and in the evenings they solemnly faced each other in one of the rose arbours while Julia weeded and watered her beds.
The children who could walk and play games were the lucky ones. There were others, who had to be pushed in their cumbersome chairs, and whose lolling heads didn’t lift to look at the bright splash of the flowers. Julia took them close to the beds, hoping that the rich scents, at least, would find their way to them.
There were other children, too. Julia saw less of these, because the nuns nursed the chronically sick ones. But sometimes she went into the two small wards to read stories, or to help with bathing or changing beds, or to walk a few shuffling steps, taking the weight of a seemingly weightless little body. Julia had learned to accept the suffering that she saw in the adult wings. When an old woman died, sitting in her chair under the arches of the courtyard, she watched the nuns’ faces as they lifted her up. There was no pain in them. Julia couldn’t share their faith, but she tried to find some of their serenity. But the sight of the children filled her with pity and anger.
When she bathed a little girl whose ribs were like sharp fingers and whose head barely turned as warm water dripped from Julia’s sponge on to her skin, there was no calm in her. She thought of Lily, and her round, firm arms and legs, with a mixture of terror and need and love.
Pia was seven or eight years old. Her body was covered with the oozing scabs and patches of eczema, and her fingers raked constantly at the inflamed skin. Julia used to cut and clean her fingernails, and bathe the red flesh with cool water to soothe it. Pia always wanted to hear the same story. Julia read a version of Rapunzel to her over and over again. The little girl was fascinated by the idea of Rapunzel’s long ropes of golden hair. She would pull at her own, the stiff dark spikes parting to show the blotched scalp, as if tugging at it and wishing hard enough would make it change colour and grow.
Julia tried to interest her in Cinderella, but she onl
y ever wanted Rapunzel.
Pia suffered from asthma, too. One evening, when Julia went into the ward to say goodnight the curtain was drawn at the side of her bed. Pia was having an attack. Julia stood for a moment, listening to the pitiful struggle for each breath, her fists clenched at her sides. She turned away again and walked slowly out of the ward. Sister Maria was with Pia; Julia had heard her voice.
Julia was carrying the Rapunzel book. She looked at the faded cover, then slipped it into her pocket.
She had reached the foot of the stone stairs and passed out into the evening light when she heard running footsteps behind her. It was Sister Maria, with the white folds of her headdress billowing. It was the only time Julia ever saw one of the sisters run. Sister Maria reached the door of the rooms where the palazzo’s doctor lived. A moment later the two women were running back again.
Julia sat down heavily on a bench under one of the arches. She watched the shadows lengthen on the stone flags, listened to the sounds from the open windows overhead. When she looked up again, she saw the priest crossing the courtyard with his bag. He was a young man with spectacles and a pale, serious face. He was a friend of Nicolo Galli’s. Julia waited without moving. It seemed a long time before Sister Maria reappeared in the doorway that led up to the children’s wards. She didn’t see Julia. She stood with her head bowed, then lifted her face to the light. The sky overhead had faded from blue to pearl.
Julia felt like an intruder, but she couldn’t sit motionless any longer. She walked across the courtyard and touched the sister’s arm.
‘Pia is dead,’ was the answer.
Pia’s mother lived in an inland village a dozen kilometres away. Her daughter had died before she could reach her.
Julia shook her head. She could hardly take in the words, even though she had known what must be happening. ‘Why?’ she asked stupidly. ‘She was well yesterday. I read Rapunzel to her.’
Sister Maria looked at her. The nun’s oval face was smooth and her eyes were clear. ‘It is God’s will,’ she said.
Seeing nothing, her eyes hot, Julia went out into the secret garden. Guido was brushing petals from the paving. He saw her, and his face split into his empty, happy smile. There was no sign of Tomaso. He must be playing chess at Nicolo’s house, Julia thought mechanically. She would have welcomed his company. She went back through the stone doorway and out into the main part of the garden. She walked faster, then began to run. She ran down the steps of the terraces, her feet catching in the brambles. The prickles tore at her bare ankles. She was thinking of Pia, the beads of blood that her scratching brought welling out of her skin, and the rending gasps for breath that were now silenced. The pity for her short life brought grief and anger welling up in Julia, bringing with them all the other angers and grief that she had known.
The world turned black, and hostile.
She was sobbing when she reached the last terrace that hung out over the smooth sea. She wanted to lash out against the amorphous weight of injustice. As if her efforts could affect the disposition of justice in Pia’s favour, in favour of any of the others, she began to pull at a mass of bindweed and thistle that grew at her shoulder. Something was hidden beneath it. With her bare hands she went on tearing at the weeds until she caught a glimpse of greenish marble. The tears dried on her face as she worked.
At last, the forgotten statue was revealed again. It was a boy, with plump limbs and a sly, secretive face. Julia smoothed her hands over the cold marble, wondering if he was Mercury, or Pan, or Cupid. He stood like a wicked sentinel, guarding the terraces from the sea. She looked upwards, over the cracked stones and the laced fingers of green, invading shoots.
It is God’s will.
She had none of Sister Maria’s faith. She would have to search for her own answers to the enormity of a child’s gasping death.
And as she stood there, a kind of calm possessed her. She listened to the sea, and spread her fingers out over the stone wall. The earth under her feet was warm, and she could hear the faint rustle of the spreading leaves. She could almost have believed that if she listened hard enough, she would hear the blind roots burrowing beneath her feet, and the music of the earth turning.
There was a solace in that. The turn of the seasons was lovely, and immutable. The cycle renewed itself beyond human reach. Beyond Pia. Beyond herself.
Julia stood up straight. She was convinced, as she went on looking upwards, that it was not enough to play in her walled garden with a boy and simple Guido to help her. Nothing less than a complete restoration of the whole garden would be enough. She would make it live again. That would be her challenge, and her offering.
Julia stayed out in the garden until it was completely dark. Then she went back up the ruined terraces to the black bulk of the palazzo against the midnight sky. She let herself silently into the chapel. There was a nimbus of candlelight glowing around the Blessed Family. She knelt down in front of it and said her own kind of prayer for Pia.
Before she went to bed in her bare room, she put the Rapunzel book away in George Tressider’s marquetry box. She didn’t want to read the story to anyone else.
Julia went to see the Mother Superior, and they talked about the ruined gardens.
‘It will be a very great job,’ the Mother observed. ‘It will need men, experts as well as workers. And money.’
‘I’m not an expert,’ Julia said slowly. An idea was beginning to take shape. ‘But experts can always be found, and workers too. It only takes money.’ She went on quickly, the idea already more than an idea. She was convinced of what she must do. ‘If I could find enough to pay for everything, all the work, should it be spent on the garden? Or would it be better given to the ospedale, to assist the work that you do here?’
The nun considered, then she smiled, a surprisingly worldly smile. ‘I think that our ospedale will continue in any case. And perhaps if some generous person were to give us money for it, we would lose our little assistance from the authorities. But a benefactor for the gardens, that could affect nothing, could it?’
‘No, of course not,’ Julia said gravely.
‘Do you have all this money, Julia? You do not have the look of a rich woman.’ There was no surprise, or curiosity even. Only the calmness that Julia loved.
‘I have a business, in England. Some shops. I gave many years to them, perhaps too many. I think that now the time has come to sell. If I did sell, Mother, I would like to use my money to pay for the gardens.’
More than like, Julia thought. It would give me more happiness than almost anything else I could imagine.
She said, ‘The work would take a year, perhaps. We could employ local men, and Signor Galli might advise us where to turn for expert assistance. And once the restoration is complete, I think that the gardens could be maintained by two, perhaps three workers. Maybe one man with help from some of the residents here, like Guido and Tomaso. And myself, of course.’
The plans came to her mind ready-formed, as if her subconscious had established every detail.
The Mother Superior looked at Julia. ‘Do you intend to make our gardens your life’s work?’
Julia thought of the simplicity of life in the palazzo, the friends that she was beginning to make inside its walls and in the houses that clung around them, and then of the sweep of the terraces overlooking the sea. She remembered her empty flat in Camden Town, and the dull, busy streets. There was nowhere she wanted to be except Montebellate.
Only Ladyhill, and that was impossible.
‘If you will let me,’ she answered.
The nun smiled again. It was agreed that Julia and Nicolo could begin to plan the restoration of the entire garden.
The sale of Garlic & Sapphires was less easy. The business was doing better than it had ever done, since the very beginning. For Julia, in her isolation at Montebellate, it had been both reassuring and saddening to read the reports and balance sheets that were forwarded to her, and to realise that she was no longer needed. It
would be a relief, in a way, to cut herself off altogether. But Julia still cared enough about her business to want to find the right buyer. It had taken enough years of her own life, and too much of Lily’s childhood, to be worth less than that.
The sale took weeks of long-distance calls, while independent valuations took place, then more talks, and finally haggling between solicitors. Julia made two brief trips to London, seeing no one while she was there and feeling each time as though she was visiting a foreign city. At last, at the beginning of the summer, a deal was struck. Julia’s shops would be owned by an astute, cold-eyed young businessman and his warmer, vaguer, artist wife. Julia thought that they would do well together. At least her creation would not be swallowed up and obliterated by a bigger chain.
The contract was signed, and a very large sum of money was credited to Julia’s Italian bank account. It arrived none too soon. The money left over from the sale of the house by the canal had already been poured into the gardens. Julia flew back to Italy, with the sense that she was going home for good.
Then it was July, and Lily’s summer holiday. To Julia, it seemed a painfully long time since she had seen her, and yet the months had gone so quickly that she had had no time to look for the village house that she had intended to make into a home for herself and Lily. Julia went to see the Mother Superior again.
‘I could ask Signor Galli if Lily might stay in his house …’
‘But you would like to have your daughter with you here, of course. There are other guest rooms. We have no shortage of space for our friends, Julia.’
‘Thank you,’ Julia said.
She borrowed Nicolo’s car, and drove to Naples to meet Lily’s plane.