by Hilary Boyd
‘We’re on the beach,’ she told him. ‘But we’ll be leaving soon. Why don’t you come round later and have some supper?’
There was silence on the other end of the line and Eve wondered if she’d lost connection. Then her father said, ‘Actually, I’m looking for your mum. Is she with you?’
‘No …’ Eve hesitated, then made a decision. ‘She’s gone to the rose garden.’
Her father did not reply at once. ‘Thanks, Evie. I might see you later.’ And he was gone.
67
The sun was low in the sky when Stella arrived at the Old Barn. It was Sunday night, and now that she was here, she worried that perhaps the owner – who used the house rarely, according to Jack – might have chosen this weekend to be home. There were no cars in the lane outside either house, but she rang the doorbell firmly anyway. No response. The air was very still; no human sound broke the eerie evening quiet.
She stood for a moment by the wooden gate to the garden. Her heart was racing and she shivered, pulling her thick navy cardigan tighter around her body. Do it, she prompted herself.
The desire to visit Jonny’s garden, as she called it, had been building for a while, although she had come on impulse today. She hadn’t been here since the previous summer with Jack, but these past few weeks she’d become crazed with an unaccustomed and shameful jealousy. It was making her feel physically ill and preventing her from sleeping. She wasn’t jealous of Lisa – that would have been so much simpler – but of Jack’s potential attachment to Lisa’s innocent baby. An attachment that could mean an end to his freedom to live the life he claimed to want.
As the child’s birth approached, she had begun to feel untethered and completely at sea, so disconnected from the Stella she knew that she found herself searching for something to cling to on the tossing waves – something that would ground her and bring her some peace. And the answer had been an obvious one: her son, Jonny.
The rose garden looked very different from last summer. Back then, the dazzling display of late July blooms had made the air almost vibrate with fragrance and colour. Now the scene was muted, the pointed buds still sheathed in their green sepals, barely visible pinpricks of furled petal poking through, giving the bushes an almost ethereal haze. But to Stella the garden was just as beautiful in its spring hue, the light as magical, the silence – without the buzzing of the summer insects – even more profound. She walked slowly along the stone paths between the rose bushes, before coming to rest on the bench beneath the arch of tight green buds.
The stone was cold and slightly damp, but she wasn’t aware of any discomfort, her thoughts were in such a tangle. She was so tired of being angry, so fed up with repressing her feelings for Jack, so frightened of being isolated and alone. Eve had found a family and so, perhaps, had Jack with little Josh.
Stella felt she had run out of energy. She couldn’t see herself trying again with someone new if it couldn’t be Jack. Maybe she would find a bungalow in the woods and get a big old cat like Possum, fold up her tatty bag-for-life into a neat square and worry about which day the bin men came – like Eve’s neighbour, Muriel, who, it must be said, seemed perfectly content with her life.
She breathed deeply, watching the evening sun cast long shadows through the bushes. The last time she’d been here, she remembered, the atmosphere had been fevered, her anxiety as she relinquished her long-held grip on her son’s remains so extreme that it wasn’t until the very last minute she’d been sure she could do it.
Now, as she gazed down on the dark patch of earth that had embraced Jonny that night, her vision was suddenly filled with her son’s little face, his incredible eyes, his cheeky, joyful grin. She gasped, the boy seemed so real, so present, as if she could reach out and actually touch his soft, auburn curls. The tears beginning to slip quietly down her cheeks were not painful to her. They washed through her soul, cleansing her – no longer heralding loss, jealousy, or even fear, just a gentle, soothing peace. She closed her tired eyes.
Stella was jolted out of her trance-like state by the sound of heavy footsteps on the gravel path that led to the rose garden. She jumped up, holding her breath in preparation, her dizzy brain trying to cobble together a viable explanation as to why she was so flagrantly trespassing on someone else’s property. She could not see who it was, as the hedge blocked her view, but she stood firm. This was her son’s memorial garden; surely they would understand why she needed to be here?
A tall figure appeared at the bow-topped gate and she almost fainted with relief. ‘Jack!’
Jack pushed open the gate, his eyes never leaving hers. He looked determined, his mouth set in a firm line as he covered the space to the arch of roses with rapid strides. When he reached her side, there wasn’t even a second’s hesitation. He opened his arms and scooped her up in a close embrace. He was warm, strong, impassioned and she heard her own, shaky intake of breath as she collapsed against him.
‘Stella,’ he whispered, nothing more.
For a while they stood, clinging together as if their lives depended upon it. Stella’s heart was soaring, breaking free of all constraint like a kite off its string. She could barely breathe as she looked up into Jack’s face. The sun was disappearing behind the trees on the opposite hill, but his eyes shone blue with tears in the fading light.
Stella smiled at him and he smiled back. They were mad smiles, she thought, the relief at being in each other’s arms so huge that she felt her face might crack with the joy of it. She was reminded of that day on the beach, of Lou Reed’s song, the stars and Jack’s proposal of marriage. She had felt mad then, too, in much the same way.
Jack was silent as he took Stella’s hand, pulling her down on to the bench. It felt strange to be next to him again on the cold stone, just as they had been last year with the bamboo box containing Jonny’s ashes between them. He put his arm around her shoulder; she put her hand in his.
‘Eve told you I was here,’ she said.
Jack nodded and let out a long sigh. ‘I had to see you. I had to tell you.’ He paused, squeezing her hand. ‘It’s over, Stella. I’ve done it. Lisa’s fine, the baby’s fine, Greg is as on board as he’s ever likely to be. I think we’re all going to be OK.’
She waited, hardly daring to believe what he was implying. ‘And the baby?’
She felt him shrug. ‘He’s a cute little chap. Small and dark like Greg.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Definitely not mine.’
Neither spoke. Stella felt she was floating on some strong hallucinatory drug. ‘Are you going to be part of his life, Jack?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, I envisage a sort of fond uncle role. They’ll be living in my house for a while, anyway … not that I’ll be there much.’ He looked at her intently. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Why would it matter whether I minded or not?’ she asked, giving him a wide-eyed grin.
‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Well, if, by some miracle, you and I …’ He stopped, his eyebrows raised in question.
‘You and I what?’ She did not dare form the words either.
She saw a frown flit across Jack’s face. Then, instead of answering, he just reached down and kissed her very softly on the mouth. His lips were cold, but his kiss was as warm and inviting as the summer sun.
‘I love you, Stella Holt,’ he said, pulling back after a long minute. ‘I simply and utterly love you.’
Stella took a wobbly breath. The words that she had spent so much time denying hovered deliciously on her tongue. But she was allowed to speak them now. ‘And I love you too, Jack. I love you with all my heart,’ she said, at last, looking into his eyes. It was as if they were making their vows for a second time. ‘Please …’ she added, her tone suddenly weighted with feeling, ‘don’t ever, ever leave me again.’
‘I promise I will never leave you,’ Jack said solemnly, making them both laugh with joy.
She leaned against him, wishing this moment would never end.
‘What will Eve say?’ Jack asked after a while.
Stella chuckled. ‘What she’s said all her life, I suppose. That we’re a couple of crazies.’
He nodded. ‘Are we crazy, Stella?’
‘Maybe, but I don’t give a damn any more.’
They both fell silent, huddling close together on the bench as they turned to gaze through the dusk at the rose garden and the place where their son’s ashes had fallen. Stella knew exactly what Jack was feeling as she held his warm hand in hers.
‘Jonny’s here, Jack. Can you see him?’
‘Yes,’ Jack said, ‘Yes, I can see him.’
‘Our beautiful boy.’
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks go to my brilliant editors, Tilda McDonald and Clare Bowron. To my agent, Jonathan Lloyd. To Shauna Bartlett for her great copy-edit, Emma Henderson, the editorial manager, and all the team at Michael Joseph, particularly Maxine Hitchcock, for their support for The Anniversary.
I would also like to thank Julia Samuels for her moving and important book, Grief Works, Penguin Life, 2017.
THE BEGINNING
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First published 2018
Copyright © Hilary Boyd, 2018
Cover images © Trevillion and © Getty Images
The moral right of the author has been asserted
ISBN: 978-1-405-93486-2