Clay (18 page)

There are a lot of grey squirrels about at the moment. They are very playful, especially the younger ones. They can do acrobatic tricks like tumbling and hanging by their back feet. Yesterday I saw one steal someone’s lunch! A man was sitting on the benches eating a sandwich. He put half of it on the bench next to him, and the next moment it was gone. He looked very cross, but the squirrel must have been very pleased with itself. It took it up a tree to eat, and two crows made off with the pieces of lettuce that had fallen out.

And of course there are my chiffchaffs. The chicks are still doing well and it won’t be long before they fledge. They all crane out of the nest with their gapes (mouths) open, begging to be fed. They look like little dinosaurs.

Now, our flower bed project. What is coming up in yours? In my patch I can see lots of fat hen seedlings, some yellow corydalis, a dandelion, two foxgloves (I planted their parents, years ago!) and one little speedwell. There is also something else, a mysterious seedling that I haven’t identified yet. We will have to wait and see what it turns into.

The corydalis is interesting because it isn’t really a weed, but it seems to grow everywhere around here so it gets treated like one by most people. It just goes to show that a weed really is any plant growing in the wrong place. Dandelion seeds are airborne, as you know, and fat hen seeds are too, so we know how they got here. The speedwell seed was probably dormant (sleeping) in the soil. The corydalis seeds might have been carried in by ants. The seed has a tasty part which the ants like, but once they’ve eaten it the rest of the seed is free to grow. Isn’t that clever?

It will be interesting to see whether you get different seedlings growing in your flower bed from those I get in mine. Perhaps you could do me a drawing of what you can see, and next time I visit you we can look at it together.

With all my love, sweet pea,

Granny xx

Linda got up to close the back door, taking a few extra moments with the bolts.

‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ prompted Steven.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing. It’s just . . .
sweet pea
.’

‘Did she use to call you that?’

Linda returned to the table, leaned on the back of her chair. ‘No, Dad did. When I was very small.’

Steven smiled. ‘Well, that’s a lovely thing, then, isn’t it? Don’t you think?’

‘Yes . . . I know.’ She picked up the bottle and glasses, exhaled.

‘You still miss your dad, don’t you?’ Steven said.

Linda gazed out at the dark garden. ‘I’ve been thinking about him a lot recently; I’m not sure why. You know he used to take me on nature walks?’

Steven nodded. ‘Like your mum does with Daisy.’

‘Yes. And now we know what she’s up to with that ruddy flower bed!’

‘I know! Little horror.’ Steven grinned, relieved to see Linda’s wry smile. ‘She could have told you why she didn’t want to plant any of the seeds you bought her.’

‘It’s a good project, though, isn’t it? Just like Mum.’

‘It’s an excellent project. Do you think we’re allowed to know about it?’

‘Well, you are.’

‘I don’t think she meant to keep it secret from you. I think she just forgot.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Why don’t we ask her about it tomorrow?’

All night the wind gusted and fell, gusted and fell, clouds passing invisibly overhead in a black sky. Just before dawn rain fell again, but by the time the blackbird took up his position on the roof the sky was pale and clear. He opened his yellow beak and sang Sunday in on a cartwheel of notes.

15

Oak Day

Jozef’s back was hot under the hi-vis vest, but the earth was damp and cool beneath his knees. He knelt carefully between the busy lizzies and pulled up bindweed and creeping buttercup from the back of the semicircular bed.

One morning, out with Znajda on the common, he had seen the Park Ranger van parked up near the railway tunnel, and had sat on a nearby wall smoking roll-ups until the two men in their green trousers and sweatshirts returned.

‘Sorry, mate,’ they’d said, shaking their heads, and he had felt foolish for thinking things could be that easy. But then one of them had rolled down the van’s window as they pulled away and suggested he try a contractor, and so he found a couple of numbers. On his second call he was asked to go for an interview; he had been nervous, a little, but it turned out they just wanted willing hands and weren’t too bothered about his English; his agricultural experience, which he had rehearsed over and over in his head on the way there, was not even required.

A few days later he had his first shift. The worst part was litter picking and emptying the dog bins, but there was a landscaping team, and courses you could go on in arboriculture and biodiversity, and at the back of his mind there was a cautious hope, one he didn’t dare look at too closely, that perhaps he could find a way forward. Each night when he showered he watched the good earth leave his body in the water. Yet more remained, he felt, driven deep and invisibly under his skin.

This particular park was unfamiliar to him, and more formal than the common’s casual acres, but it was still good to be outside again, among living things. They broke for lunch, afterwards riding in the van to a scrubby triangle of land between a storage depot and a supermarket. It was hardly a park, yet there was a sign at the entrance with a little map and a surprisingly long list of the living things that depended on it.

Their task was to clear a pond. It was choked with flags, the water between them blood-warm and bright green; above it flew banded demoiselles, as darkly iridescent as petrol. Feeling his way into the water in thigh-high waders, Jozef hit something hard and straight with his shin. Hauling it out, streaming water and weed, he saw it was an iron crucifix three feet tall.

He laid it on the grass as around him the talk turned to a .303 rifle once recovered from a canal. Jozef looked at the innocent surface of the water and tried to imagine what circumstance had led to a cross being dumped – or hidden, or lost – in the pond in this peaceable country. Whose hands had been last to hold it, and when? These things were lost to time. He worked on, pulling from the water armful after armful of blanket weed and the occasional slick wriggle of a newt, while on the bank the crucifix dried rust-coloured and brittle in the sun and swifts screamed urgently to each other, high and faint, far overhead.

Sophia was setting the tea things out. She unfolded a tea towel, looked at it critically: it was freshly ironed, spotless, but threadbare in places. She found another. The teapot was ready by the kettle, and she filled up the striped jug with milk and reached the biscuits down from the cupboard, putting six, this time, on a plate, and setting two mugs next to it. Linda was coming over, with Daisy – ‘for tea’, she had said. Silly to be nervous. Her own daughter, for goodness’ sakes.

She sat at the kitchen table and looked out at the little park. How different from Daisy Linda had been at that age. Daisy was indulged, yes, and more protected, but also so much more confident about her place in the world. Linda had always worried too much about what other people thought, even as a little girl. Was that right, or was that hindsight?

And she herself was different, too. She was much more affectionate with Daisy than she had been with Linda; somehow it was easier. It made her wish that she could have her time with Linda again; but also glad, in a way, that all the worrying was over and that she could love the little girl easily, without any of the cost that being a mother entailed. And she had been a good mother, hadn’t she? Linda seemed happy with her life; she had certainly bettered herself. Goodness only knows how much money she made. Pots, probably. Steven too. What did any of it matter now? Sophia wasn’t sure. Her children may have made different choices from her, but they were both doing well; both, it seemed, were happy. What more, then, did she want for them?

She looked out of the window to where the little Turkish man from the takeaway was smoking a cigarette on the benches. He was a nice chap; they had once had a very good conversation about folk stories, and he had sung her a beautiful and mournful
türkü
.

There they were, her daughter and granddaughter, walking together into the park from Leasow Road. Her heart gave a jump, and for a moment she put her hand to her chest, but the palpitations didn’t come and she let out a long, slow breath. Daisy was running ahead and waving, and Sophia got up to let them in.

Daisy clasped her legs and put her face up for a kiss. Behind her, Linda looked . . . tense, somehow. She kissed Sophia and hugged her for a moment longer than usual. The thought came to Sophia that perhaps Linda was ill – or Daisy was. Surely not. They wouldn’t tell her like this.

‘Come in, come in – I’ve just put the kettle on,’ she said. In fact, she had boiled it twice, waiting, and now worried that the water might taste odd. ‘Let’s sit in here, shall we?’

Daisy had already run into the sitting room and installed herself in Henry’s chair. ‘
Ohhww
,’ she groaned, ‘we
never
sit in the nice room.’

‘Daisy!’ said Linda. ‘All the rooms are nice.’ She looked embarrassed.

‘Goodness me, Linda,’ said Sophia, ‘I shouldn’t worry. I don’t.’

Linda smiled and took off her coat. ‘No, you’re right. Sorry.’

‘Come on, sweet pea,’ Sophia called to Daisy, ‘come and sit with us. I’ve got biscuits!’

Linda sat down at the kitchen table with its checked cloth, and Sophia brought the tray over.

‘Goodness,’ she said, picking up one of the mugs with its faded design, ‘I remember these. I can’t believe you’ve still got them! Well, I know what we’ll be getting you for Christmas.’

Sophia smiled and looked away.

‘So, how are you, Mum?’ Linda asked. There wasn’t really any other way to begin.

‘I’m well, thank you,’ Sophia replied, wondering if they were going to have A Talk. ‘Shall I be mother?’

Daisy was swinging her legs under the table and grinning up at both of them. ‘Can I have a juice box?’ she said.

‘Can I have a juice box . . . ?’ said Linda.

‘. . .
please
.’

‘Yes, darling – there’s one in your backpack,’ she replied. ‘Go and fetch it. And there are pens and pencils, too.’

Daisy took two biscuits and scrambled down from the table. ‘I’m going in the nice room,’ she called out. ‘I won’t spill anything, I promise.’

Linda wrapped her hands around her mug and stared down at it. ‘The park’s looking nice,’ she said. Sophia raised her eyebrows. ‘I mean it!’ Linda continued. ‘Those trees are out – what are they?’

‘Ah,
Prunus padus
. Pretty, aren’t they?’

‘The white ones. They’re lovely. And the herb robert’s flowering.’

‘Goodness me, you have been doing your homework.’ The remark came out tarter than Sophia had meant, and she smiled, to soften it.

‘I have, I’ve been looking things up.’

‘Have you indeed? What’s brought this on?’

‘And I got rid of the gardener; I’m doing it myself now. I thought maybe you could give me some advice about things, when you’re next over. Or just come over. If you wanted.’

‘I’d be happy to, love. Just name the day – I’m sure I’ll be free.’

Linda paused, looked out of the window. ‘Mum, are you . . . are you happy?’

‘Happy? Of course,’ replied Sophia, looking at her daughter with concern. ‘I’m fine. I miss your dad, of course, and your brother doesn’t phone often enough, but you know that.’

‘Yes, of course . . .’ but she didn’t sound too sure. ‘Of course. Are you . . . lonely?’

‘Lonely? No, I don’t think so. I don’t have time to be lonely. I think lonely means bored, doesn’t it? Or nearly. You’re all round the corner, which is lovely, and in between times I’m certainly never bored.’

Linda looked at her as though she found that hard to believe; Sophia reminded herself that, to those who need their days to be full of tasks and commitments, the lives of those without such things often seems barren, when in fact it can be rich and full. There seemed so much they didn’t understand about each other, but no easy way to bridge the gap. Yet she could see that her daughter was trying.

‘I’m fine, love, you mustn’t worry,’ she said, putting her hand over Linda’s on the table. ‘But it’s nice that you asked. And how about you – how is work? And Steven?’

‘Yes, all fine,’ Linda replied. That clearly wasn’t what had brought her here. ‘But I’ve been thinking about . . . about when we were little, and Dad, and you of course. That’s all.’

That meant everything, a lifetime of love and misunderstandings. Sophia wondered where her daughter would begin, and whether she really wanted her to.

‘I remembered Dad saying something,’ Linda said haltingly. ‘Well, lots of things, obviously. But this one thing: “We are the clay that grew tall.” Do you remember that, do you remember him saying that, at all?’

‘Did he now?’ said Sophia. ‘It doesn’t ring a bell. I think it must be a poem, or the Bible. Have you tried looking it up?’