An Ocean Apart

by Robin Pilcher

  David drove slowly down the drive, trying to make his arrival as unobtrusive as possible, and pulled the Volkswagen to a halt next to a metallic-blue BMW 318 parked at the front door. Then, immediately thinking that this might be somewhat presumptuous of a mere gardener, he reversed and parked under the trees next to a long wooden shed, its sides and roof strewn with a tangle of trumpet-vine. He cut the engine, and Dodie, eager to get on with her new adventure, jumped forward onto the front passenger seat and sat blinking hopeful looks up at him.

  “Stay here for now, Dodie,” he said, putting up the window and leaving several inches open at the top for air. “I’ll come and get you in a minute.”

  He stood looking at the house, trying to work out where best he should go. Two dustbins sat beside the banistered steps that led down from the door in the stable, and presuming this to be the kitchen, he made his way towards it. He climbed the steps and knocked on the door, and as he waited, a muffled yelp sounded out from the Volkswagen. He turned to see Dodie’s face peering longingly at him through the side window.

  “Sssh! That’s enough!” he said in the loudest whisper he could muster.

  This seemed only to act as further encouragement to the dog, and she now followed up her muted overture with the main performance, throwing back her head and letting out a long, plaintive howl. David took a quick glance at the back door, and seeing that no one had yet answered his knock, he ran down the steps and started back towards the car, waving his hand in a downwards movement at the dog.

  “Dodie!” he called out, much louder, “get down and shut up!”

  Dodie looked at him quite surprised, as if unused to being addressed in such harsh tones and, sliding her paws down the window, she slowly disappeared from sight. David turned back to the kitchen door, only to find that the whole episode had been witnessed.

  “Oh, sorry!” he said, running back to the bottom of the steps. He looked up at the black woman who stood at the top, a grin stretched across her face.

  “You havin’ a bit of trouble?” she laughed.

  David smiled and looked back at the car. “Sort of, yes. I’ve got a dog in the car who thinks she can order me around.”

  “Ah,” the woman said, nodding her head slowly, “I’m glad it’s a she. Obviously knows who should be the boss then!”

  She was a large, happy-looking person, dressed in a strikingly bright pair of cotton trousers, a voluminous T-shirt and blue Reebok training shoes. David thought initially that she must have been in her early fifties, because of the faint wisps of grey that had begun touching at the edges of her tight black curls, but then, seeing her close up, he realized that it was almost impossible to guess her age, her face being as smooth and unlined as polished ochre.

  “My name’s David Corstorphine, and I—”

  “Oh, of course,” the woman cut in, her voice lifting in recognition of his name. “You’ve come from Helping Hands to do the garden.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Are you, erm, Mrs. Newman?”

  She threw back her head and laughed heartily. “Heaven’s sakes, no!” she said, putting forward her hand. “I’m Jasmine, Mrs. Newman’s housekeeper.”

  David shook her hand. “Hullo, Jasmine, nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you too, David. Come on in.”

  She stood aside and ushered David into the house, closing the door behind them. He had been right—it was the kitchen, a long, airy room with open rafter beams from which tracks of spotlights hung, its black-and-white tiled floor stretching the full length of the place. He was standing at the business end of the kitchen, from where he took in the custom-made units of reconditioned pine fitted with ultra-modern stainless-steel cooking hobs, deep freeze, refrigerator and eye-level oven. Dominating the centre of the room was a long refectory table with bentwood chairs pushed in around it. Its surface was scattered with open newspapers, cereal packets and plates, and in the middle stood a flourishing cactus, with a touch of surrealism added by a bicycle pedal, its chrome stalk pushed deep into the earth of the flower-pot.

  Beyond the table, two sofas were grouped around a television, the space between them taken up with two enormous beanbags. The whole area was bathed in light from the three full-length French doors that extended the complete width of the far gable end, each being open to allow the warm breeze to blow into the room from the front garden.

  “So,” Jasmine said, walking over to the sideboard and flicking on the switch of the electric kettle. “Where you from? I love the accent.”

  “Scotland.”

  “Oh?” she said, leaning back against the unit and folding her arms. “You sure don’t sound like any Scot I ever heard talk.”

  David smiled at her. “Well, it depends where you come from.”

  “Yeah, I guess it does.” She pushed herself away from the unit and reached up for two mugs from one of the top cupboards. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Well, if you don’t mind,” David replied, putting his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t want to hold you up.”

  “You’re not,” she said, picking up the coffee pot from the hob. “How you take it?”

  “Black, please,”

  As Jasmine poured the coffee into the mugs, the urgent click-clicking of high-heeled shoes on stone flooring crescendoed towards them from the main part of the house.

  “Jasmine!”

  “In here!” she called out and walked out of the door in the direction of the voice.

  David picked up his mug and, taking a cautious sip of the piping-hot coffee, started to move towards the French doors so that he could look out at the front garden.

  “Listen, there’s an old car out there with a dog in it that’s going ballistic. Do you know who it belongs to?”

  David stopped abruptly and swore quietly to himself.

  “Yeah, it’s all right. It’s David, the new gardener from Helping Hands.”

  He turned and hurried over to the back door and craned his head against the window to see if he could catch a glimpse of the car.

  “Oh, God, I forgot he was starting today. Look, I am so late, and I really need to get Benji to school, so maybe you could tell him what to do.”

  “Well, he’s here in the kitchen.”

  There was a short pause before the click-clicking of the footsteps started again. David moved quickly away from the door and stood with his hands thrust into his back pockets, an inexplicable feeling of nervousness in the pit of his stomach at the prospect of meeting his new employer. Jasmine came back into the kitchen, followed by a tall, strikingly attractive woman in her mid-thirties. She was dressed in a fawn linen business suit worn casually over a cream silk blouse, its collar opened wide to reveal the full length of her slender neck. Her honey-blonde hair was pulled back from her lightly freckled face and gathered at the back of her head in a large gold clasp. She wore no make-up, save for the merest touch of pale lipstick on her mouth, and her only jewelled accessory was a pair of tiny diamond-studded earrings. In her hand she carried a brief-case, and across her shoulder, slung by a long strap, was a large crocodile-skin handbag.

  “This is David,” Jasmine said, grinning at him. “He’s from Scotland.”

  “From Scotland, huh?” the woman said, coming no farther than where she had stopped next to Jasmine. “And do Scotsmen know more than Australians about gardening?”

  David frowned, not understanding the context of her question. “I’m sorry?”

  “Our last gardener was Australian. Actually he wasn’t a gardener, he was a butcher. He could mow the lawns, but he treated everything in the flower-beds as if it were a weed. Do you know the difference?”

  “Yes, I think so. I mean, yes, I know so.” He inwardly kicked himself at the uncertainty of his reply.

  “Good,” she said, glancing briefly at Jasmine as if seeking approval that she had said enough to the new gardener. She looked back at him. “Well, I’m sure that Jasmine will show you where to find everything, and then you c
an, well, just get on with things.” She caught sight of the clock on the wall. “Oh, God, Jasmine, look at the time! Where the hell is Benji? Could you find him and say I’ll meet him in the car?”

  “Okay.” Jasmine disappeared off through the house.

  “Oh, and Jasmine!” she called out after her.

  “Yup!”

  “Make sure that Germaine picks him up on time today. Benji said that he had to wait for at least half an hour outside the school last Wednesday.”

  “Okay, will do.”

  The woman turned and made her way towards the back door, and David, who still stood close by, quickly stepped forward and opened it for her. She glanced at him as she passed, a brief smile being the only acknowledgement of the gesture, and hurried her way down the wooden steps and along the path. David leaned forward out of the door to watch her go. As she approached the BMW, she began to talk urgently to a young boy who had emerged from the front door of the house and now walked unhurriedly towards the passenger door. He threw it open, slung in his school-bag, and got in. The woman revved up the engine and, with a spatter of gravel, reversed round in a tight arc and sped away up the drive.

  David turned and walked back into the kitchen just as Jasmine entered through the other door.

  “What a hassle!” She picked up her mug from the sideboard and took a sip. “Monday mornings are always like that.” She made a face at the lukewarm contents of the mug, and throwing the remainder into the sink, she walked over to the table. “Give me a minute while I clear this up, then I’ll show you where everything is.”

  “I suppose that that was Mrs. Newman?” David asked.

  Jasmine turned from the table, her face aghast. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, I forgot to introduce you!” She picked up a stack of plates and carried them over to the dishwasher. “Yeah, that was Mrs. Newman. Jennifer, actually, she don’t really like being called Mrs. Newman. She always moves like a whirlwind, so sometimes formalities just fly out the window.”

  “She obviously works, then.”

  “Yup, and how. She’s what’s called an account eexecutive with an advertising company in Manhattan, so she’s away mostly during the week, usually Mondays through Wednesday or Thursday. She and her husband have an apartment in the West Village.”

  “Ah, right.”

  He paused for a moment, wondering whether it was preferable to remain silent or continue asking questions that might be considered inquisitive. Silence sounded like the wrong option. “And Mr. Newman? What does he do?”

  “Oh, he’s some big shot with a computer company. He was here for the weekend but left earlier this morning. He’s away most of the time.” She pushed the cereal packets into one of the cupboards and put her hand on the top of the unit, letting out a sigh of concern. “Hard on them both, I think. Don’t manage to see much of each other, only on weekends, sometimes not even that.” She supplied the dishwasher with detergent, shut the door and switched it on. “But it’s really hardest on Benji.”

  “So what happens to him?”

  “Benji? He stays here with me.” She picked up a cloth, and giving it a quick rinse under the tap, set about wiping the surface of the table. “Right now, it’s just three or four nights a week, depending when Jennifer gets back, but during the winter, I’m here for the whole week.”

  “Right.”

  She finished the table with a flourish and hung up the towel on a hook beside the oven. “Okay, so that’s done. Come on, I’ll show you the garden.”

  She began making for the French windows at the front.

  “Er, Jasmine, would you mind if we went out the back? It’s just that I want to let the dog out of the car.”

  She looked at him warily. “I’m not usually very good with dogs. It’s not some kinda guard dog, is it?”

  David snorted. “No, it’s a poodle.”

  “A poodle?” She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “What in heaven’s name are you doin’ with a poodle?”

  “It’s not mine. I’m only looking after it for someone.”

  Jasmine shrugged and walked towards the back door. “Okay, I think I can handle a poodle.”

  Dodie was delighted to see them, leaping up and down on the front seat of the car as she watched them approach. David let her out and instantly forgave her for having had yet another obvious gnaw at the steering wheel, in that she immediately gave Jasmine a rapturous welcome before endearing herself still further by picking up a piece of wood that was twice her own body weight and hauling it in circles around them.

  Jasmine unlocked the door of the wooden shed next to his car and showed him where to find everything, then together they walked round to the front of the house. The garden was much larger than he had envisaged, the trees on either side of the lawn running down to the edge of the bay. Over to the right, sheltered from the wind on all sides by a high evergreen hedge, was the swimming pool, a section of its sparkling blue water just visible through the white picket gate, and beyond this still, David made out the high wire-netting of a tennis court above the hedge. The uniformity of the layout was cleverly offset by the almost random positioning of brightly coloured herbaceous borders, although the sparsity of vegetation in some was proof enough of the brutal treatment they had received at the hands of the last gardener.

  “Pretty good, huh?” Jasmine said, surveying the garden with him.

  “It’s beautiful. It’s so, well, peaceful.”

  “Yup,” Jasmine said, nodding. “Sometimes too peaceful.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, well, I’ll let you get to work. You want anything, I’ll be in the house.”

  She smiled and turned to make her way back towards the kitchen, then stopped and looked back at him. “Have you got anything for lunch?”

  “Yeah, I stopped in at the deli on the way here.”

  “Okay, but come and eat it with me, and in future, don’t bother with the deli. I’ll give you lunch.”

  “That’s very kind. Are you sure?”

  Jasmine laughed and shook her head. “Of course I’m sure. Do I look unsure or somethin’?”

  She turned and David watched her as she walked over to the French doors and back into the house. He looked down at Dodie, who was sitting at his feet staring up at him, her head cocked to the side, a twig now sticking out the corner of her mouth like a twisted cheroot.

  “Right, Dodie, let’s get started.”

  He reversed the sit-on mower out of the shed and started on the lawns that bordered the drive, and from the moment that he set the cutters in motion, he felt an instant and overwhelming sense of release. It was like a coming home, his return from the wilderness, and immediately the broken lines of communication and thought that he had had with Rachel in the garden at Inchelvie seemed reconnected. He smiled to himself, relishing the sweet smell of the newly cut grass, realizing now that this had been all that he needed since leaving Scotland, his whole spirit being further uplifted and revitalized by the heat of the sun on his body as he worked.

  It took him the whole morning and the first part of the afternoon to cut all the lawns. Dodie ran alongside him for the first half-hour, but then, suffering from the heat and the sudden increase to her exercise regime, she chose to retire to the shade and lay watching him from beneath one of the blue awnings that were hung over the kitchen doors. David joined her and Jasmine for lunch at one o’clock, and the three of them sat together on the paved area outside the kitchen. They talked initially about Dodie, David explaining how his charge had come as a job lot, with a house and car attached. He only took the story back as far as Carrie, never mentioning Richard or Angie, and although to Jasmine his story seemed light and unconvincing, leaving many a question unanswered, she thought better than to ask them. She liked him; she liked his polite and unassuming manner, and his natural ability in displaying a genuine interest in herself. She talked easily about her employment with the Newmans, how she had started seven years ago as a domestic help, and how it had then evolved into her becoming their housekeeper, a
t the time that Jennifer decided to go back into full-time employment. Lunch went on much longer than it should have, and at two-thirty, accompanied by exclamations of horror at the time, they both jumped up from their chairs. David took off once more across the lawn on his mower, while Jasmine went into the house to continue with her work upstairs.

  Having spent two hours giving Benji’s room a much-needed clean, Jasmine was in the process of carrying the vacuum cleaner down the stairs when she heard the sound of a car pulling away on the front drive, followed by the sound of the back door slamming shut. She put the cleaner away in the cupboard under the stairs and walked through to the kitchen to find Benji helping himself to a carton of chocolate milk from the fridge.

  “Hi, darlin’, how’s school today?”

  “Gross,” Benji replied.

  “Did Germaine turn up on time?”

  “She was five minutes late.” Benji poured too much chocolate milk out into the glass, and it overflowed onto the sideboard. Jasmine picked up the cloth from beside the sink and was making her way over to clear up the mess, when Benji picked up the glass and deliberately flicked his hand across the spilt milk so that it sprayed over the floor.

  “Benji!” Jasmine said, “Why’d’ya do that?” She bent down to wipe it up.

  “Why’d’ya do that?” Benji said, imitating her voice, his mouth turned down at the corners. He carried his glass over to the television area, put it down on the floor and, flumping into one of the beanbags, he turned on the television with the remote control.

  Jasmine finished wiping up the mess and rinsed the cloth under the tap, then, leaning her back against the sink, she folded her arms and watched him silently. He had really changed so much in the past year. He always had been such good fun, so full of crazy and wicked ideas, but now, ever since moving up to middle school, he had gotten all moody and uncommunicative, something she could understand of a kid in his mid-teens, but not for one of eleven years old.