by Tor Udall
‘Everyone thought the Metasequoia was extinct. There were only fossil records—’
‘Not another bedtime story . . .’
‘But in the forties, the Chinese found a specimen.’
Milly wanted to remind him that she was only a kid. Most of their time was spent discussing nature, Shakespeare or music; what about fairy tales, or learning how to skip?
‘Of course, we were the first to cultivate it once it came to Britain. This dawn redwood was planted in 1949. It now measures over fifty-two feet.’
Milly gawped up.
‘Did you know there’s a giant sequoia that’s three and a half thousand years old? The largest is as tall as St Paul’s Cathedral. Can you imagine that?’
Milly didn’t even know where St Paul’s was. She sat up and reached for her flower press – turning the screws loose, tightening them again. But it was impossible to sulk in the dark. If Harry and Audrey were together, perhaps she could have a mum. Go out to the movies, or the shops . . .
‘You should tell her how you feel,’ she blurted.
But Harry had already put his headphones back on and was nodding his head in time. As Milly, too, gazed up at the sky, she wondered what was stopping these star-crossed lovers. She rubbed the soreness in her wrist, as if it were a magic lamp that could tell the future.
Jonah stands at Mademoiselle J’Attendrai’s bench, reading the inscription about the mezzo-soprano voice that entertained troops during the Second World War. He moves on.
Her footprint on my heart and these gardens
forever
He thought that when he finally found it he would fall to his knees with relief. Instead he wipes his face, exhausted. He looks up at the pagoda to get his bearings, then lies down on the bench as if Audrey’s arms might wrap around him.
‘So you found what you’re looking for?’
Jonah sits up to see a girl half-hidden behind a bush. It takes him a while to realise that he’s seen her before – her dad’s a gardener. ‘How did you know it was missing?’
‘You’ve been looking for . . .’ She counts on her fingers. ‘June, July, August . . .’
‘You’ve been spying on me?’
‘Not really.’ She saunters out from her hiding place and perches on the arm of the bench. Jonah isn’t sure how he feels about this.
‘I’ve no idea how it got here,’ he mutters. ‘The staff swore no one moved it.’
‘Why’s it so important?’
Jonah feels a fishhook in his chest, tugging. ‘It’s my wife’s bench.’
‘Oh.’ Milly leans across to peer at the inscription then whips away as if stung by a bee. ‘Her name was Audrey? What colour was her hair?’
‘Red.’
‘But – how? How long ago did she . . .’ She turns back to look at the dates.
‘Where’s your dad – is he busy?’
‘You’re Audrey’s husband?’
‘Yes. Really.’
Milly rubs her wrist. Two ponytail bands are wrapped around her arm, leaving an angry imprint. Jonah remembers how, at her age, summer holidays feel like a lifetime. Kew isn’t a bad place to be a latchkey kid, but still . . . he wonders if she has a mum. He tries to formulate the question sensitively, but the child seems upset.
‘I don’t understand,’ she mumbles. ‘What about the woman I’ve seen you with?’
‘You have been spying!’
‘Is she your girlfriend?’
‘What?’
He can’t help but smile at her persistence; but her question stumps him. Last night, he’d suggested going back to Chloe’s, but she had refused, saying his flat was ‘better’. It had left him intrigued, shut out. Jonah stares up at the pagoda.
‘I think you’d like her. She could make art out of a bus ride . . .’ He snorts. ‘You’re better than my shrink.’
‘I’m big for my age!’
‘You’re a short-arse. And the problem is, short-arse, I’m still in love with Audrey.’
Milly wipes her nose on her sleeve, leaving a trail of snot.
‘What are you so frightened of?’
It’s the kind of brazen question only a child can ask. Jonah rubs his eyes, trying to focus. Ever since the bench went missing, his insomnia has been winning. But maybe this kid’s right. He’s scared of letting another woman down, of failing. When he thinks back to reading with Chloe in Vicky Park, he wonders how so many females know what he’s thinking.
‘I need to talk to the office,’ he says abruptly. ‘There’s no way I can carry this bench.’
‘Can I come too? Perhaps afterwards I could show you the fish.’
‘I don’t think so . . .’
She’s already pulling him away from the pagoda. Jonah notices a hat lying next to the white flowers of the philadelphus. The flat cap is worn thin, as though the fabric has been worried by nervous fingers.
‘I should take that to Lost Property.’
‘Nah, it’s my dad’s.’ Milly scoops up the cap and plops it on her head.
‘Is he nearby? It would be good to have a chat.’
The hat has slid down past Milly’s nose. ‘He prefers talking to plants.’
‘Really?’
As she nods, the cap bounces up and down. She talks without stopping for breath, with no awareness of whether he’s even listening.
‘Sometimes, when he’s on his own, he laughs. It’s usually ’cause something’s surprised him – a plant, a squirrel, a cloud.’ She lifts up the peak, then thumps him on the arm. ‘You’re It!’
As she runs away, Jonah decides that he’ll take her to Victoria Gate; the staff there will know her. But first of all, he has to catch up.
In the basement of the Palm House, a marine display shows examples of habitats: mangrove swamps, salt marshes and coral reefs. As Jonah rushes down the stairs he finds Milly staring at a tank full of kelp ribbons.
She turns to him, cheekily, then points at a hairy file fish. ‘It looks like a swimming hedgehog.’
Jonah is still trying to catch his breath. ‘Why didn’t you stop for me?’
An old couple stand by one of the displays, the man taking photographs of a seahorse.
‘They’re like hobby horses, Marge. I don’t believe it!’
‘Come on, luv, you’ve been standing there for fifteen minutes.’
Climbing on to a footstool, Milly presses her face against the glass of a cylindrical tank. ‘Did you know that lots of fish only have a two-second memory? I learnt that at school.’
‘So that coral is a surprise each time?’
She squeals as a large fish swims towards her. It makes Jonah laugh. He takes out his phone, but just as he clicks, she ducks away from the gaping mouth, and he only captures the blur of her elbow. When he glances up from the photo, he realises that the old couple are staring. He’s desperate to tell them that he’s not a pervert who gets his kicks from hanging out with minors, but Milly has climbed off the stool and is tugging on his trousers. Hoping that he looks like a responsible parent, Jonah squats down to meet her at eye level.
‘Thank you for joining me.’ She solemnly gives him a kiss on the cheek.
‘C’mon, let’s get going.’
As he stands up, the couple are still gawping. Her kiss remains like a stamp on his skin.
Upstairs in the ground floor of the Palm House a Victorian glass structure is elegantly curved with wrought iron. The large sheets of glass are dripping with condensation. They walk through the moist heat, taking in the giant bamboo and sugar cane, her hot little hand in his. In the North Wing are plants from Asia, Australasia and the Pacific, and Milly points out the jackfruit and the pepper plant as if she were an ancient explorer. They move on through the Americas, past parrot flowers and Mexican yam, then Jonah stops at the entrance where the glass doors are steamed up.
‘It’s time I was going. Let me drop you off.’
‘Can’t we stay for a bit?’
‘Perhaps we’ll bump into each other again .
. .’
‘With Chloe?’
‘How did you know her name?’
‘You said it.’
It’s so hot in here that even the blazing sun outside will be a relief; at least there’ll be a breeze. There’s the sound of heels clicking against the lattice grating, and Jonah looks around for the culprit. There are signs warning visitors against wearing heels. Psht, psht; the sprinklers spray water from the mains. Jonah squints through the mist to see a woman climbing up the spiral steps. Up, up into the foliage, her elegant figure is framed by sunlight, glass and leaves. She wears a tailored skirt with a single back pleat, and it reminds him of a Hitchcock heroine, of Audrey. The shapely legs disappear.
When he turns back, Milly has gone. He is tired of her tricks but still he searches – past the rubber trees, the ginger, the frangipani. Suddenly there is commotion by the entrance, people shrieking then laughing. Through the Palm House a blackbird flies across the view like someone caught in the background of a photo.
14 November 2003
Upstairs in the Palm House, there are hot pipes stretching the length of the balcony. If you perch on them, they warm your bum. On rainy days it’s almost as good as a sauna.
The humidity has ravaged the wrought-iron arches, the white paint peeling. Birds’ bottoms sit on the glass roof, orange feet splayed. A flock of gulls fly over, screeing and squalling. Underneath us are different continents of flora.
The plaques say:
Sacred fig – tree under which Buddha meditated
Fishtail palm – flowers itself to death (consumed by its beauty?)
Attalea palm – huge shuttlecock leaves (so high I can touch them).
I love the woody scent, the intermittent sprays of mist. Tiny red spider mites run along the pipes . . . one nips me. A drop of water falls on my back, as if the glasshouse is sweating. Through the iron railings, I glimpse Africa.
But he’s not in the South Wing. He’s ten minutes late. My mouth feels empty. In here, I can’t light a cigarette.
…
I thought I saw him on the ground floor, but when I blinked he was gone. Was there a shadow behind the sugar cane, over there, under the coconut palm? I thought I saw a man climbing the spiral stairs but wasn’t sure. Then he was walking towards me. He was smiling as if his estimate of what I would look like that day had come true. But he didn’t touch me.
As we leant over the balcony, Harry explained that the technology used to build this glasshouse had been borrowed from nineteenth-century shipbuilding, the curved ribs resembling an upturned hull. He described it as if it were Noah’s ark, saving a cargo of plants. With the rain clattering against the windows, I imagined this glass boat sinking to the bottom of a lush, overgrown world. A place where lost things are held.
He talked about the cycads that grew when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the strangling fig, the cacao and the staghorn fern. His passion was infectious but I was curious about the storyteller himself.
When I asked, he said his dad had ‘kicked the bucket’ before he was born. A couple of decades later, his mother and brother died in the same year – then Harry began describing the African oil palm. Did these losses make him hide in this garden, tending to the small things of the earth? I looked into his eyes and thought, let me learn. Let me learn to be brave enough to kiss you.
20 November
This is a romance without kisses. Today we strolled along Kew Road and he insisted on walking on the outside edge of the pavement. He is thought and restraint and yearning. Or maybe that’s me.
24 November
As we passed the waterlily pond, I thought I saw a little girl but she disappeared behind the trees. When Harry made a joke I heard her laughter. My lost children still haunt me.
15 December
J has agreed to start trying again. But I’ve had enough of vitamins and ovulation tests. There’s too much damage. The only way I can fix things is through my absence.
25 December
When I went outside to bin the wrapping paper, I found the most beautiful wreath on the front door. Among the ivy and berries were tiny flowers that looked like snow. J thought that another tenant had put it there, but no one else could have made it. Only H would understand that today all I think about are my kids.
10 January 2004
Tonight I told Jonah about a funny thing I was translating for work. It felt like the past – the two of us finishing each other’s sentences and giggling at the world, as if there were nothing to believe in but our feelings for each other.
But the laughter began to hurt. I chose J because he’s everything my dad was not. Loyal. Idealistic. But it doesn’t matter what we do; perhaps we’re still fated to repeat our parents’ footsteps.
20 January
Yesterday, the glint in his gaze unclothed me.
Do all wives wonder what it’s like to have a different body inside them, to feel a different skin? I fantasise about H lying beside me, his eyes crinkling at the edges when he grins.
21 January
This love, or whatever you want to call it, is as peculiar as smoke. It’s there but we can’t hold it. Standing under the redwoods it felt like H couldn’t make up his mind whether to kiss me or not. Even his hesitation was attractive.
He seemed as startled as I, both of us affronted by unfamiliar emotions, shapeshifting, daring, wilting. Oh God. This is a strange endurance.
Jonah opens his front door.
‘I found the bench,’ he says, simply.
When Chloe holds him, she realises how much he needs to be held.
‘I’m so tired,’ he says. ‘I’ve had enough of searching.’
She tries to embrace the depth and breadth of him, his yielding. It calls for honesty so she opens her mouth to tell him everything.
‘Thanks for sticking around,’ he adds. ‘I know it’s not always been easy.’
Chloe has lost her bearings. He is pulling up the hem of her skirt. This is the laying on of hands – the laying down and the lying.
Jonah reacquaints himself with her rebellious, tattooed body. She is naked apart from a skirt that falls in scarlet folds from her waist. Her cropped hair reminds him of an animal pelt; the wolf wrapped up in Red Riding Hood’s cape.
She lies down on the bed. Sitting back, he can view her like a painting, each dent and ellipse of her pale torso. Can all of this seem new to him, unopened? With his eyes, he traces the sincerity of her contours. His fingers then sketch the idea of sex into her muscles. He finds the place that he likes best. Pressing his palm against her coccyx, she curves towards him.
They are as naked as dawn, their sweat like dewdrops. She delves down into the many layers of being, drilling down into bliss, and the trick, she thinks, is for them to remember this. She lets herself be reshaped like origami.
‘I want you inside every part of me.’
This is the guitar of her body plucked and plucked again until there is a song spilling from her limbs; a symphony. She is so moved that when she comes, a tear spills, and this, this is a kiss. This is being touched to the very quick.
His hands are covered with her juices and the smell of spring and piss.
As Jonah sleeps, light streams through the open windows. Chloe watches the dreams flicker across his face. Her thighs throb, awakened.
Funny how well she knows his hands and feet. In return he knows little of her and she wants to write a letter on his back: a confession. Because it’s these ribs she wants to press against for the rest of her life; it’s these legs, these arms. He is the most real thing she has.
How to not say ‘I love you’. The words buckle and strain in her chest, the silence painful. She dams up the words, her throat wanting. Don’t breathe, you’ll gasp; don’t sigh, you’ll scream. Keep it buttoned down, bite your lip. I love you. She can think of no other words in the English language. She stands up.
Chloe dresses in yesterday’s clothes and leaves without saying goodbye, as if he were any other man she has tangoed with;
she is skilled at closing doors without sound. But as she walks down the street, the sky looks strange, perhaps the blue a little deeper, or brighter, and when she sits on the train back east, the daylight stuns.
Even the patterns on the seats are vibrant. Chloe notices a lollipop stain around a boy’s lips, a man doodling next to his crossword, a dead ladybird lying on its back on the floor. Each detail is unexpected. As she presses her face against the pane, she feels like a child taking her first train trip. A thousand views rush past the window.
The entire world has been rearranged – or she rearranged within it. But what has changed? Chloe remembers the night before and freezes that frame. When Jonah had gazed at her, she had noticed her reflection in his pupils. But now she feels like a newborn calf trying to stand on her legs. Unlike the serene pictures of Audrey, Chloe feels a mess. Her red skirt is stained with him. She studies her face in the window – a snapshot of herself, midsummer. There she is, more naked than she has ever been.
The Wounded Angel
As usual, they sat on Mademoiselle J’Attendrai’s bench by the pagoda. Harry was quietly watching the view, anticipating nothing but each moment as it passed him. He could feel Audrey struggling against it like a curbed horse. They sat in a cloud of smoke, until eventually he said, ‘The orchid display is on. Would you like to go?’
‘Yes.’
‘They’re such tricky, wonderful bastards. I remember when . . .’
13 February 2004
I wanted to know the thoughts he had in his silences, the sentences he never finished. The guessing is one of the things that kept me there, that kept me fascinated.
He explained how the orchids were tied on to the display with ladies’ tights – something about their stretchiness being kind to the stems – but I was tired of talking. I wanted to be kissed for the longest time. I noticed the tape holding his bootlaces together and was about to ask why he wore the same suit. But Harry lit another Montecristo then joked about killing himself in style.
I want to get pregnant.