According to YES (9 page)

Rosie, Red, Three and Teddy stride up the steps onto the plaza outside the Chase Manhattan Bank. There's not much to interest eight-year-olds in the Financial District, but Rosie has told them it's important to see the garden here to help them with ideas for theirs. She bids them to stop still for a moment and asks them what they see.

‘Umm, high rise buildings,' says Red.

‘Yeh, some old, some new, lots of glass. Ooo, and a huge totem pole! Wow. Is that what we came for?' says Three.

‘No,' she answers, ‘but I agree, it's a thought. So this is a flat area, isn't it? It's called a plaza, and there are lots of places to sit, maybe people eat their lunch out here? Can they sit in the sunlight?'

Red looks about, ‘Not much. The buildings are in the way.'

‘Right. So at different times of day, the sun will come into this plaza in different places, it's mainly over there now
because it's afternoon. Would you call this a garden?' She wants them to think.

‘No,' they all agree, and even Teddy gets drawn in to the discussion, ‘I guess we think of a garden with grass and trees 'n' stuff, or vegetables, this is all concrete. Central Park is better for gardens. It's one giant garden.'

‘Yes,' Rosie agrees, ‘but gardens can be many things …'

Three interrupts, ‘Some gardens are, like, just flowers. Tons of flowers like, everywhere. That would be so cool.'

Red can't help his enthusiasm, ‘Yeh, with like giant bug-eating plants.'

‘Triffids,' says Teddy.

‘Oh I love that book,' Rosie agrees. ‘All of that is true, but I just want you to see something here. Look ahead, right? All you see is flat plaza and a few trees in raised beds, and huge paving slabs on the floor. But follow me …'

She walks, and they fall in behind her, across the vast plaza towards a circular rail, where some other people are leaning and looking. As they draw closer they see that beneath the rail is a sunken circle, about thirty feet in diameter one floor down. It contains an undulating mosaic-style stone floor with occasional holes in it and about eight or nine rocks of various sizes scattered about untidily. Some of the holes have water spouting upwards, which eddies around on the stone, then filters away, playfully. The boys have never seen anything quite like it before and stare.

‘Look at the sunlight falling on just one stone over there,' Rosie says, ‘and I bet it would be on that one or that one or that one, depending on what time we were looking. This is a garden designed by a very cool guy called Isamu Noguchi. He was a bit Japanese and a bit American, and if he used stones in his gardens, he brought them all the way from Japan. Lots of people thought there was something significant about the stones, but actually, he just wanted someone to pay for his holidays to Japan, which was very cheeky. He loved going there, because it reminded him of when he was a little boy and lived there. And it reminded him of his dad, who was a bit too busy most of the time to remember he had a son. Which was the dad's loss. Because, what a son to have! Someone who can make such an interesting place, that lots of people come to, to enjoy. What do you think guys? Like it or not?'

‘This is so not what I thought was going to be here,' Red tells her, ‘so a garden
could
just be stone, you mean?'

‘Well, it can be anything you want it to be, but the thing to remember is that it doesn't have to be like any you've ever seen, or like anyone else's, it just has to be what you like, that's all.'

‘I like it. I really like it. It's sort of, a boys' garden. For boys,' says Three.

Rosie laughs, ‘Is it? Why?'

‘Coz you can climb on stuff, and there's water spouts and everything.'

Rosie moves towards the entrance to the building. ‘Let's go have a look at it from inside,' she pushes open the huge glass doors. The atrium is towering and bright. Rosie beckons the boys to join her on the escalators heading down to the floor below, which brings them directly into the actual bank, with all its bustling business going on as usual. In the centre of the bank is a wall of circular glass that looks out onto the secret garden from ground level, where it's even better, and much easier to see up close. Red and Three push their faces onto the glass and then run around the circle, looking at the remark­able structure from all sides. Rosie hands each of the twins a pad and a pencil, ‘OK, I want sketches and ideas for how we might do something like this on the roof. Go.' The twins find a table to sit at and draw, yabbering away happily to each other.

Rosie sits down with Teddy near the glass, and looks at the garden. They are in the very last sliver of afternoon sunlight that is seeping in through the plaza, through the garden and through the glass onto their legs. Even through their trousers, they can feel the early spring warmth, and it's lovely. They sit side by side quietly.

‘This is pretty cool. I didn't even know this was here, and I've lived in the city all my life,' he tells her.

‘Yes. It's something. It's sort of weird to be … in a bank … looking out at this. Surprising. I like that,' she says.

As they sit, a young dark-haired pretty woman walks by, and Rosie watches closely as Teddy can't take his eyes off her,
but pretends to be disinterested, ‘Hmm, gardening trip is looking up. Babelicious.'

‘He he he,' Rosie chortles.

‘Maybe she could offer some horticultural advice?'

‘Well, go on then.'

‘What?! I'm not seriously going to speak to her, look at her, she's a goddess, I was just kidding.'

‘For a start, she's a mortal. A gorgeous one, I grant you that, but she is human y'know. And even if she was a goddess, you'd still be entitled to speak to her, you gurt ninny.'

‘She wouldn't talk to me. Totally out of my league.'

‘Nah.'

‘Isn't she? D'you think she would?'

‘Yeh.'

‘Really? No. Anyway, she's busy,' and he keeps quiet, all the time with one eye on the dusky beauty as she goes about her work.

Rosie twiddles her feet, until Teddy wants to speak, ‘Do you think Dad has a chance?'

‘Of what?'

‘Of getting custody of my brothers. You've noticed Mom and Dad are fighting about it?'

‘Can't really miss it.'

‘But he knows that's not what they want. They want to be with Mom. See him, of course, see him plenty, but stay with Mom. She's … more … like a parent than him. And they don't
have to feel like they are disappointments all the time with her. Because you're not, you're her son with her, and she doesn't really mind if you get it wrong occasionally. Her family are chilled. The French … just are. Y'know it's OK, and they want
you
to be OK.'

Rosie is instantly aware of just how heavily Teddy carries the weight of all the secret squabbling, and of how protective he is over his little brothers. In the absence of a step-up dad presently, Teddy has stepped up himself, to try and fill that space for them, and in the meantime, everyone involved seems to have forgotten that he's only eighteen, and is of course wondering where
he
fits in all the fighting. But he's proud, and being eighteen and proud means that it's difficult to find a way to say that you want to matter as well.

Rosie's heart hurts for him. ‘Why don't you talk to your grandfather, Teddy? I'm pretty sure he's on your team.'

‘You know that for a fact?'

‘No. Just guessing.'

‘Listen, he's a great guy an' all that, but he has to be on team Granma, or he won't have any balls left. Seriously. And she hates Mom, so … y'know, I don't think he's the guy to talk to.'

‘OK, but … it's a thought … keep it in yer back pocket just in case,' Rosie advises him. ‘Why don't you say hello to that lovely girl …? Bust some loverman moves on her, guy.'

‘Yeh, sure. Not.' He tentatively looks over to the girl, who is oblivious to him and, as so often is the case for the virginal
Teddy Wilder-Bingham, even though he is six foot two he feels terribly terribly small.

The twins return to where Rosie and Teddy are sitting. They have done a few drawings, but mainly they have spent their time filling in the paper cheques and paying-in slips from the bank consoles. They have awarded each other millions of dollars and are poised to withdraw their booty soon as, so Teddy and Rosie take this as an ideal opportunity to adjourn to a café for hot chocolate and to explain how banking works. Rosie does the hot chocolate part. Teddy takes care of the pecuniary matters, during which the twins nearly nod off. Before she loses their attention entirely, Rosie has another adventure up her sleeve …

On a side street in Brooklyn, Kemble is sitting on a bench looking up at the window of a red brick house opposite. This is where he should be, with his family, like it was a year ago. All of them together under one roof.

Natalie has seen him from her bedroom window which used to be their bedroom window. She can't decide what is best to do. If she lets him in, it will encourage him to come back, and they've gone through such a lot to reach this point she doesn't want to retrace any of those painful steps, and lose ground.

Natalie is only now beginning to define and understand herself as single. Slowly. She hasn't been alone like this ever in her life. An attractive girl, half French, clever and sassy, she has had a lot of attention – firstly from boys, and then men – her entire life. She took it totally for granted that she would always be attended to, looked after, desired. Not for a second did Natalie imagine that she would eventually be parenting her three gorgeous boys on her own, with a failed marriage staring her in
her pretty face. Neither had she considered for a second that her face might not remain quite as pretty, and how this would erode her confidence as she grew into her forties.

Only now that she is a person in her own right, and not one half of a couple, does she realize that she has defined herself partly – or mostly, if she's honest – by how she looks. It's only in these last few months that she has let some of her anguish about her fading beauty and her chaotic relationship go. No way is she going to open the door and let all that trouble back in. She has just started to build back up the foundation stones of the self-esteem she once had, and this time, she is building on the solid ground of her independent self-knowledge and truth, not on the shifting sands of the reflected self-image that she had before. She must be strong now and stand firm. She must heed her instinct. No longer will she allow her prior, hidden sense of unworthiness, to halt her progress forward with her life.

BUT.

Natalie
did
build a life with Kemble. She did once share his fears and his worries and, most of all, that package of inadequacy which emerged later in their marriage as, frankly, a surprise. They did make those three beautiful boys.

She hates to ignore him. She worries about him. So, after a couple of hours, as the light starts to fade, she opens their front door and crosses the road to where he sits, slightly dishevelled in his expensive, slept-in coat. She remains standing, ‘You should be at work.'

He says, ‘You should be with me.'

‘Go home, Kemble'

‘I am home. This is my home.'

‘Go home.'

‘Come with me?'

Kemble is pleading with his eyes. Natalie is very sad to be having this moment with him. Like this. Here. She shakes her head slowly. No.

‘Go home, Kemble.'

Now Kemble shakes his head. No. ‘I'll try harder …?'

‘There's no more trying, K, it's finished. You know it. I don't … love you any more.'

Suddenly, there's glass in his blood and deep down he knows. He looks at her and nods. She sits down next to him, two soldiers, exhausted from the battle.

Kemble surrenders. ‘I'll deal with the kid stuff. I promise. I know what's best for them. And it's not me.'

They sit in silence for a minute, allowing that giant truth its moment in the light.

Natalie says, ‘That's not what your mom wants.'

‘I'll tell her. I promise. It's OK.'

Natalie looks at Kemble, searching his face, to see if this is true. Can she believe him? Two big promises.

‘Thank you, Kemble,' she says, softly. ‘I hope you do tell her. Tell her everything.'

‘Fuck my mother,' he mumbles into his hands as he rests his
face there. The two of them sit in silence, looking back over the road, at what should have been.

Under the same fading light, elsewhere in New York, Rosie has brought the three Wilder-Binghams to a place none of them will ever forget. They needed to rush here because the light is the thing, the whole thing. Luckily, they are the only four souls in here. They are all lying on the floor of the James Turrell light room, his
Skyspace
, which is a white room with a round hole where the roof should be, so that the sky is framed like a roof picture. The four horizontal folk are lying in a starfish shape on the floor with their heads touching, looking up directly at the sky, watching the clouds skid over and noticing the change in the light, and how it transforms the room. For some reason, they whisper.

Red says, ‘The sky is just the sky, isn't it? Like, it's the same sky for everyone, isn't it?'

Teddy says, ‘Yes, basically. I mean for some people, say in Japan, it will be night time, so they will be looking at the same sky, but dark.' As he speaks, he glances over at Rosie just as the light crosses her face and he notes how pleasurable it is to watch that.

Three says, ‘So, wait a minute, is Will Smith looking at this same sky?'

Teddy, ‘Yep.'

Red, ‘And Jay Z, and President Obama … and Hermoine?'

Rosie, ‘Who's Hermoine?'

Three, ‘From Harry Potter. He loves her.'

Red, ‘No I don't, douchebag!'

Rosie, ‘Shush, please. But yes is the answer. All of those folk will be seeing the same sky. And look at the colour in this room now, it's so different to when we first came in, and look where the light is on the wall. How long do you think we've been lying here?'

Red, ‘Ten minutes.'

Three, ‘No! Two minutes.'

Teddy, ‘Thirty minutes.'

Rosie, ‘I have no idea. How great is that?! We have been lovely and still, and time has just ticked by … can you feel your heartbeat? Mine has slowed down, I think.'

Red, ‘I can't feel mine.'

Three, ‘You're dead dude.'

Red, ‘I'm like totally dead.'

Rosie, ‘You're not dead, you're just peaceful and resting. It's really OK to slow down sometimes. That's when you can hear the other noises in your head.'

Three, ‘Like mad murderers do?'

Red, ‘Kill him! Kill him!'

The twins convulse themselves with laughing.

Rosie, ‘No, not weird voices, more like quiet … thinkings …
that don't get thought if you're too busy rushing about and being noisy all the time.'

Red, ‘Yeah.' He thinks he gets it. He doesn't. ‘Like what?'

Rosie, ‘Like … well for me, it's stuff to do with how I am feeling. So, say, today I am feeling very very happy, so my little thinkings are making words pop up. Words like – smile, jokes, bright, cake.'

Teddy suddenly snores very deeply, so much that it wakes him up, ‘Sorry, what were you saying? I was so chilled man … just dropped right off there.'

Three, ‘Rosie has happy words like smile and jokes in her quiet head she's saying. I have candy and … ice-cream … jumping …'

Red, ‘PlayStation, Mom, gummy bears …'

Teddy, ‘Girls … music … girls …'

Rosie, ‘Music, yes! Clapping. Clap your hands …'

They all join in, still whispering, but getting louder, ‘… If you feel like a room without a roof!'

They look up. Red says, ‘Hey! Yeah!' and they carry on with their whispered Happy song as they get up and do funny little dance steps all the way out of the room and the evening light through the roof casts a soft twilight in their wake.

‘Clap your hands, if you feel like happiness is the truth …'