Forget Me Not (25 page)

‘It’s too tight.’

I squinted at the photo. ‘Can’t say I’d noticed. Try not to be too critical, Cassie.’

‘Oh, it’s not a criticism.’ She shrugged. ‘Just an observation. And speaking of ties,’ she went on, turning to Dad, ‘yours is very snazzy.’

‘Er … thanks.’

‘It’s Pucci, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not sure. I just liked the nice bright swirly pattern.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s half past six, I’d better be off.’

‘Where are you going?’ Cassie asked him.

‘Well …’ He blushed. ‘I’ve … got things to do.’

‘Like what?’ she persisted as he stood up.

‘Erm … Bridge. With the Travises. And don’t forget my new planters, will you, Anna?’ he added as he stooped to kiss Milly. ‘I’ve just thrown out the old ones so the balcony looks bare.’

‘God, sorry, Dad, I’ve been so busy. I’ll pick them up from the nursery on Tuesday and bring them over at the end of the week.’

‘Thanks, darling.’ Bye, girls.’ He blew us a kiss.

‘I’ll stay for a bit longer,’ Cassie said with another sip of champagne. ‘Then I’ll have to go. I’m seeing Zack tonight.’

‘Who’s Zack?’ I asked as I ate a lime jelly. ‘I thought you were dating Sean.’

‘Oh, I ditched him.’ Men never ditch Cassie, it’s always the other way round. She’s very proud of the fact that she has a ‘one hundred per cent dump rate’. ‘Sean was a bit of a wimp,’ Cassie went on casually as she cut herself a slice of the eggless birthday cake that Luisa had made. ‘And when I told him it was over – get this – he broke down in tears.’

‘Poor guy.’

‘So I said’ – she bit into the lemon icing – ‘“For God’s sake, Sean, why don’t you butch up a bit and behave like a
man?
”’

‘I feel sorry for him,’ I said quietly. Mum would be horrified, I thought. She’d tried to instil in Cassie the same values she’d instilled in me, but with zero success: Cassie had always done just as she liked.

‘Easy come, easy go.’ I heard her sigh. ‘So now it’s Zack.’

‘And what are you doing workwise?’ I asked, as I often do.

‘Well … there’s not much temping right now,’ she said. ‘So I’ve got an evening job. I don’t mind as it means my days are free, which suits me at the moment.’

I groaned. ‘I hope it’s not – what was it you called it? – adult phone entertainment again.’ I began to clear the table.

Cassie shook her head. ‘I stopped that the day I got my old piano teacher on the line.’

‘No!’ I exclaimed. ‘Mr Brown? The one who used to come to the house?’

‘Yes.’ Cassie pulled a disgusted face. ‘It was hideous. I recognised his voice.’ She shuddered at the memory. ‘It totally put me off the whole thing.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. But what
are
you doing at the moment?’

‘I’m doing some work for a company called Decoy Ducks.’

The name rang vague bells. ‘What does it do?’

‘Well, it’s a specialist thing, for women who are concerned about their husband’s reliability, shall we say …’

‘Oh my God, you’re a honeytrap girl! Do you have to go in for these sleazy jobs, Cassie?’ I asked as I took things out to the kitchen. ‘You do seem to be attracted to the seamy side of life for reasons I can never quite fathom.’

‘It’s not really sleazy,’ she protested mildly as she carried the teacups through. ‘I only talk to them after all – they have to make the first move – but it’s providing a very valuable service.’ She opened the dishwasher. ‘Last night, for example, I had to test the fidelity of this woman’s fiancé – she’s loaded, he’s not and she wanted to be sure she wasn’t about to make an expensive mistake. So I got chatting to him at this bar he goes to after work and within five minutes he had his hand on my backside – and within twenty he was offering to take me to a hotel. Dis
gusting
,’ she added with a moue of disapprobation.

I almost admired Cassie’s moral flexibility. ‘The really disgusting thing, surely, is entrapping people,’ I said as she washed the champagne glasses.

‘It’s not entrapment,’ she protested. ‘If the man doesn’t want to stray, no woman will interest him. QED.’

‘You know that’s not true,’ I said. ‘Most men will take it if it’s offered to them on a plate, so you’re putting them in temptation’s way. I don’t know how you can do it,’ I added. ‘Plus you’re wasting your life on these low-grade enterprises.’

‘I don’t find it hard at all,’ she replied amiably. ‘In fact, in human terms I find it quite fascinating – plus I can make three hundred pounds a night. As for wasting my life, well, it’s my belief that no experience is wasted – low-grade or not.’

‘Just my opinion,’ I said.

In the meantime Jamie and I had finished the Italian garden in Hampstead. The client, Simonetta, had invited us to help her christen it so we went round there with a bottle of prosecco.

‘I’m thrilled with it,’ she said in her accented English as we looked at the ‘before’ photos and compared them with what was there now. She waved an elegantly bejewelled hand at us. ‘I can imagine that I’m at home again in Calabria.’

Simonetta’s garden had been a nondescript Victorian backyard, but was now exactly what she had asked for: an Italian courtyard complete with fountain, box hedging, marble paving, a small classical archway and a riot of luscious Mediterranean plants, which already looked surprisingly well established in their ‘antique’ pots.

‘The thing about having so many of the plants in containers is that you’ll be able to move them around,’ I said, as I shifted a pot of rosemary nearer to the kitchen door. ‘Like changing the furniture inside the house.’

‘I adore the
Plumbago
,’ she said, looking at its powder- blue florets. ‘It’s …
fantastico
.’

‘It’s tender,’ I pointed out, ‘but your garden’s south-facing and very sheltered so it should be OK, but in winter you’ll need to cover the roots.’

‘I love the little olive trees,’ Simonetta went on. ‘And the sweet peas,’ she added with an air of surprise. ‘I’d always thought of them as being so English.’

‘They’re native to southern Italy,’ I explained. ‘They were introduced to Britain from there in the early eighteenth century. I learned about them when I was doing my course.’

‘And thank you for including the
Asphodels
,’ she enthused as she topped up my glass. ‘I remember those so well from my childhood. There was another lovely flower,’ she went on, shielding her eyes from the sunshine. ‘I’ve forgotten the name, but it was tall, and
bellissima
, with an umbrella of pale-pink flowers, each one like a little
Campanella
.’

‘Bell?’

‘Yes. There used to be so many in the pastures in early summer. They had a strong …
profumo
and my mother used to dry them.’

‘That could be Sicilian honey garlic,’ I said. ‘But I’d need to check.’ I suddenly remembered my mother’s old book,
Flowers of Southern Italy
. ‘I’ll look it up and if it’s the same thing I could get some bulbs for you to plant in the autumn. If I don’t get back to you within a week, send me an e-mail.’

‘Sure. What other gardens are you making at the moment?’ she asked as I took a few photos to put on my website.

‘We’ve been doing a big one in The Boltons,’ Jamie replied. ‘The landscaping’s all finished, so all we have to do now is get the plants in the ground and it’s done.’

‘Just in the nick of time,’ I explained. ‘The clients’ grand house-warming party’s next Saturday.’

‘It’s nice of them to invite us,’ I said to Jamie as we carried the plants into the Edwards’ garden a few days later. ‘I didn’t expect that. Are you going to go?’

‘Maybe,’ he replied as he put down a
Clematis orientalis
in its designated spot.

‘It would be good PR,’ I pointed out quietly. ‘We might even get another commission out of it.’

‘If I do come I’ll bring Thea,’ he said as we went out to my car again.

‘You will?’

Jamie gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘Of course I will, Thea’s my wife.’

‘I … know,’ I stuttered as I tried to banish the image of her with her lover at Cliveden. I reached into the back of my Volvo estate and handed Jamie the Chilean flame flower. ‘I thought she might be … away, that’s all.’

‘No, she’ll be in London – in fact, she’ll be spending more time here from now on.’

‘Really?’ I pulled out the star jasmine, being careful not to knock the flowers.

‘Yes,’ Jamie said. ‘Why do you look so surprised?’

‘Because … she’s been … working abroad so much, that’s all. But that’s really good news.’

‘It is. We’ll be able to lead a more regular life.’

I wondered whether, despite everything, Thea was going to try to make the marriage work.

‘And will you bring Patrick to the party?’ I heard Jamie ask.

‘No. As I say, I need to do a bit of schmoozing – plus he’s giving a talk on beekeeping that night.’

The Edwards’ planting took two days, most of which was spent trying to get the row of pleached lime trees through the house without damaging the newly decorated hallway. Then, when we’d finally got them outside we found that the root balls were too big for the holes, so that all took an extra morning, with Jamie doing some judicious stone-cutting. Finally all the beds had been planted, and all we had to do was fill the tall granite pots with the lime green tobacco flowers and the French lavender.

‘This is the part I enjoy most,’ I said. ‘The planting.’

‘Why?’ Jamie asked. ‘Because it means the project’s over?’

‘No. It’s because although I love designing gardens, at the end of the day I just like digging away, getting the plants into the ground, then seeing them flourish. There’s a huge satisfaction in that.’

‘Very true.’

‘And my own garden’s too small to put much in it. I long to have a big herbaceous border to fill.’

‘What would you put in it?’

‘Oh, everything,’ I replied happily. ‘It would be crammed with dahlias, delphiniums,
Aquilegias, Astilbes, Achillea
, foxgloves,
Sedums, Euphorbia
, forget-me-nots … the works – there’d be something in flower all year round. And French lavender,’ I added, as I looked at the extravagantly feathery tops of the purple flowers. ‘I do love it. They look as though they’re off to Ascot in their ridiculous headgear.’

‘Not Ascot,’ Jamie corrected me. ‘The Notting Hill Carnival.’

I smiled. ‘The limestone looks good. I told you it would fit,’ I couldn’t help adding.

‘Yes …’ Jamie rolled his eyes. ‘You were right – I was wrong.’

‘It doesn’t matter – you’re not usually.’

‘I guess it was because I was so upset that day.’

‘I know. But everything’s fine now,’ I said, as I looked at the completed garden.

I heard a relieved sigh. ‘Yes,’ Jamie said. ‘Everything’s fine.’

When I got back that evening, I found e-mails from Xan and from Mark, thanking me for the photos I’d sent them of Milly’s birthday. How sad, I thought, that her dad and her uncle had never even met. With so few men in Milly’s life I felt even more glad to be with Patrick – she’d need someone to be a father figure to her day-to-day, not just for a few hours twice a year. There was also an e-mail from Elaine, promising to visit Milly and me soon; the last message was from Simonetta, reminding me about the honey garlic.

I went up to my office and looked at my gardening books – there must have been four hundred of them, the majority my mother’s. I still hadn’t indexed them as I’d intended to do, so it was a matter of remembering where everything was. I ran my finger along their spines as I squinted at the titles.
Plants for Shady Places; The Gardens of Gertrude
Jekyll
; The
Royal Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Plants and
Flowers
… I looked on the shelf below. There was the book Sue had given me on Alpine flowers, then
Clematis and
Climbers; A Short History of Trees; Flowers of Southern Italy
.

‘Here it is,’ I murmured as I pulled it out.

It was a very old-looking paperback, the pages tanned with age, the paper crisp and friable. The spine was heavily creased and as I opened the book it exuded the musty aroma of a previous era. I imagined my mother poring over the text, or examining the monochrome plates. As I turned the pages, some of which were loose, I saw that she’d pencilled a few notes in the yellowing margins:
Needs a south-facing position;
Does well in shade; Not much scent
. The sight of her neat, forward-sloping handwriting brought her vividly to life, filling me with an aching regret.

‘Honey garlic,’ I murmured, as I turned to the index. I ran my finger down the list of names. ‘Pineapple Broom,
Genista
, juniper, oleander …’ It wasn’t listed under its common name, but what was the Latin for it? I wondered. I used to know. It had come up in one of the lectures. It was ‘Nectar’ something, I suddenly remembered. Nectar …
roscordum
. That was it.
Nectaroscordum Siculum
, meaning coming from Sicily. I turned to ‘N’ and found the reference. As I was putting the book back, something slipped out of it and fell to the floor. At first I thought it was a couple of loose pages. Then I saw that it was a fragment of a letter, in my mother’s hand, and a photograph.

The photo was an old colour snap. There was my mother – she must have been about twenty-eight – sitting on a tartan rug on a beach somewhere, on a cloudless day. She was wearing a black-and-white cheesecloth dress with cap sleeves and she looked radiantly happy. Sitting next to her on the rug was a very attractive dark-haired man of about the same age. He was dressed in a blue open-necked shirt and dark shorts. There were some plates and glasses on the rug, and a picnic basket, from which protruded an open bottle of champagne. Their heads were inclined together, with an unabashed intimacy, while his muscular-looking arm was wrapped round her waist.

I gazed at the photo, the blood pulsing in my ears, then I turned it over:
Chichester, 12 June 1977
, my mother had written. Who was this man and what was she doing with him? And who had taken this photograph? Dad? Hardly, given the way the man was holding her. Then I felt a peculiar thud in my ribcage as I remembered that Dad had spent most of that year in Brazil. And now, as I stared at the unknown man’s saturnine features, I felt my whole world suddenly tilt a little on its axis.