Getting Home (21 page)

In her mind, Stephanie already saw great aromatic cushions of vegetation spreading over her new paving scheme. The choice overwhelmed her. A greyish specimen with woolly leaves like the pelt of a prehistoric mammoth? Or the pennyroyal, so lush it would soon be ankle-deep? Or her old favourite, the Corsican mint, tiny heart-shaped green leaves sprinkled with pinhead-sized pink flowers? She toyed with the merits of a mixed planting instead of a bold statement. The pink flowers settled it. She picked out two dozen of them, inhaling their sharp scent as she settled them in the cart.

Neglect depressed Stephanie, she liked to see things flourishing. At the end of the enclosure stood a once handsome gothic glasshouse streaked with rust, with another sign reading ‘Please Pay Here'. She was surprised to find the conservatory plants in superb condition, with palms swaying to the roof and a banana in purple flower. There was a desk, and a till, not new but definitely operational because it was humming. A careless litter of documents covered the counter. It was impossible not to notice some overdue bills. Clearly, Gaia was not prospering.

She looked around, impatient again. Just an hour left to get the planting finished before she had to pick up Max. The glasshouse was quiet and there was only vegetable life to be seen.

‘Hello?' she called, hearing her voice evaporate among the still leaves. ‘Hello? Is anyone here?'

There was also a brass bell, such as the hotel managers have in old Western films. She hit it smartly. The humid air muffled the ringing. She hit the bell again, twice. ‘Hello!'

‘Oh – hi!' Unashamed, a woman emerged from behind a screen, one hand grabbing wild corkscrews of honey-brown hair off her face, the other making vague gestures as if a hairclip was going to be conjured from thin air. ‘I didn't mean to keep you, I was just on the screen chasing an order. Oh, Corsican mints – aren't these to die for? I haven't even priced them, let me just check the list …' Leisurely, she began to shift through the papers on the desk. No hairclip having materialised, the ringlets fell back in her eyes. Her free hand wandered to the pen pot on the counter and pulled out a topless ballpoint..

‘I'm in a hurry.' Stephanie had her Visa ready. ‘I have to pick up my son from school.'

‘Oh, I knew I knew you.' The woman looked up again, clearly more interested in conversation than commerce. ‘Isn't he at The Magpies?'

‘Yes – look, I really have to run—'

‘Don't worry – take them, pay me tomorrow. I'll have figured out the price by then.' She twisted some hair into a topknot and used the ballpoint to skewer it.

‘I can't possibly do that—'

‘I bet you could if you tried. Go on. Hell, you could just leave me your Visa number and I'll give you a call and tell you how much. Or you could call me. Take one of our cards, the number's on it.'

The cards were scattered on a soapstone lotus dish, under a coating of dust. The woman's smile struck Stephanie as over-eager. Her small face was widest at the high cheekbones and her eyes were deep-set, slanting and dark like black olives stuck in a loaf. She stood with her hands at the back of her rounded hips as if she were pregnant and had backache. A washed-out purple T-shirt, riding up under her overalls, revealed a roll of olive-skinned midriff. Her bare feet were in muddy Birkenstocks. Stephanie tried not to look at the belly area. No, she wasn't pregnant. It was just the way she was built and the way she was standing.

‘Look, I know you. I must do, my girls went to The Magpies too. I trust you. Take'em – they're gorgeous. I'm just dying to sell them to somebody. Please …'

‘I couldn't possibly,' said Stephanie. She was becoming angry now. ‘I really have to go.'

‘Ah! I've got it.' From the bottom of the pile of papers the woman pulled out one sheet, which sent a dozen more cascading to the ground. She ignored them and squinted at the page. ‘Let me give you a bulk discount here – ten per cent, OK?'

‘That's very kind.' Stephanie spoke through grinding teeth.
Hurry up.

‘You must be making a feature of them. A seat or something?' Keying in the price and calculating the deduction, her finger looped uncertainly over the numbers. Her hands were large but elegant, with strong wide knuckles. She seemed casually keen to develop the conversation.

‘An aromatic walk at the end of a terrace, an edging of cobbles, with these little things tucked between the stones so they'll give off a scent when people step on them.' Stephanie heard her voice getting clipped.
For heaven's sake, hurry.

‘Hey, great idea. So we can sell you some rocks? Did you see I have some four-inch granite cobbles out there?' She waved a generous arm at the door to the exterior.

‘I'm OK for rocks,' Stephanie confirmed with desperate calm. ‘All I need is the mints and to get out of here in time to fetch my son from school.'

‘They won't mind if you're late. I used to show up late all the time for my girls. Look, you're getting some moss thrown in here – you want me to scrape it off? Isn't that bizarre, when we're so close to the road? I always thought moss needed pure mountain air.'

Stephanie felt dizzy. She felt a blast of rage. She felt her face breaking into hard portions like river ice breaking up in spring. Nothing computed. She wanted to finish this planting, she wanted to fetch Max this instant, she wanted-people to stop bitching about her, she wanted a real job, she wanted Stewart back right now, she wanted her beautiful safe sun-dappled life back again just as it had been before. She needed these things, she should have these things, she deserved these things and she could not have them. She was going to explode.

‘Are you OK?' Something was showing on her face because the woman was immediately concerned. ‘Would you like to sit down for a minute? Can I get you something? A tea? I've got some rescue remedy some-where …' Stephanie shook her head. It was hot in the glasshouse, maybe this was just the heat. Her hands were together on the counter top, holding her Visa. She pinched herself at the base of a thumb, digging her nails into her flesh, knowing the pain would make sense.

The woman pushed past the loaded desk and came around towards her, holding out her arms. ‘Please, I am so sorry, I didn't mean to upset you …'

‘No, no.' Stephanie hated to be hugged by strangers. She felt the world was falling back into place. She took some deep breaths and stopped herself fending the woman off with a push. ‘I should apologise. I'm a bit stressed right now, that's all. But I am OK. Can we just settle up? I really have to get going.'

‘Absolutely. Absolutely. Look – ah – I can put these in the car for you but will you be all right to unload them?' Standing back on her heels, her muddy hands with their long, flexible fingers propped at her waist again, the woman was now eyeing her with curiosity. It was a frank instinct, tempered, Stephanie was amused to see, with the wish not to imply that another woman might be too weak or too prissy to handle plants herself.

‘I have help,' she assured the woman briskly.

‘Well – lucky
you.'

‘Nothing like that – they work for me.' Was that unjustifiably prim? She hated to be stereotyped as privileged just because she lived in Westwick. ‘We're in the middle of planting up a job. That's my business, I'm a landscaper.' She quite shocked herself. In Westwick people were guarded; disclosure was unwise for it led on to intimacy. Back in the torrent of city encounters, she used to enjoy the pleasure of making acquaintances but she had learned new ways. Besides, this woman was over-eager for connection, but Stephanie reassured herself that she could still withdraw; actually, she was skilled at it, fading away from people she chose not to know so softly that they often put down her departure to simple timidity.

‘A business?' Gaia's proprietor was outraged, her voice rising to a squeak. ‘You are in
business
and you're letting me charge you retail? No, no, no! I would die!' In histrionic alarm, the fingers flew to her perspiring forehead and seized clumps of her hair as if to pull it out by the roots. ‘Hold it right there! Right there! You can't let me do this! My father would kill me if he thought I'd let you just pay retail and drive out of here. Where's the invoice – have I given you an invoice?' She let go of her hair and started checking the multiple pockets of her overalls. ‘I haven't even given you an invoice, I deserve to go to hell. OK. OK. You're in a hurry, I know. It won't take a minute.'

A calculator was excavated from a stack of catalogues under the counter. With a mauve felt-tip she covered a sheet of newspaper with figures, muttering percentages to herself. The calculator malfunctioned and she banged it on the edge of the desk; the pen ran dry and she put it back in the pen pot; she picked another which was also finished, then a pencil which was broken, then pulled the ballpoint out of her hair, then arrived at a total, swiped Stephanie's Visa, keyed numbers into the terminal, made a mistake, swore, voided the process and began again.

When the machine accepted its instructions it fell silent. Stephanie realised she was grinding her teeth and opened her mouth to stop it.
I don't believe this.
‘Everybody's shopping this afternoon,' the woman said, tapping her teeth with the chewed end of the pen. Stephanie sighed again. The conservatory microclimate was close. ‘You're so calm,' she observed. They exclaimed with relief when the transaction went through, then the paper jammed printing the receipt. ‘I
don't
believe it,' the woman hissed, hitting the desk with her fist.

‘I do. You put the roll in the wrong way again.' A young woman with a deep voice and an air of nun-like transcendence was gliding towards them between the towering palms, the hem of her skirt undulating rhythmically at each step. In one smooth sequence of movements she reached over the apparatus, flipped open the casing, turned the roll, eased the edge under the roller, flicked out the wad of crushed paper, closed the lid and touched a key to reprint.

‘Have you met my daughter, the electronics engineer? Topaz, this is …'

‘You're Mrs Sands. Hello.' The girl had the same powerful hands as her mother, and very similar features although her hair was dark and cut as short as a lamb's fleece. Everything about her was economical and controlled. She carried a briefcase. All the buttons of her ice-blue cotton cardigan were fastened, running in an even line between breasts whose symmetrical masses were effaced almost to flatness by stern underwear. She had elfin ears, lying close against her head, decorated with tiny pearls. ‘Nice to meet you. I'm Topaz Lieberman. I was really sorry to hear the news about your husband. Hope he'll be home safe soon.'

‘What news? Topaz, what haven't you told me that I should know?'

Embarrassed, the girl glanced from Stephanie to her mother. ‘We heard at school. Mrs Sands – I don't know if I have the facts right …'

‘My husband was away on a business trip in Eastern Europe and he has been kidnapped.' For the first time, Stephanie found it simple to say, although she also felt pain at being an object of discussion in the high school. Announced to the chaotic Mrs Lieberman amid the bizarre proliferations of the Gaia Garden Centre, the facts sounded less monstrous. And there was something about the daughter, with her over-mature manners, her geeky beauty and habit of taking control; she promoted trust.

‘My God, that's
you?
I heard about that. That's terrible. You're the one, and we've been gassing away about nothing here all afternoon?' Gemma was now looking at Stephanie with blatant admiration.

‘Moth
er
…'

‘Excuse my daughter, she has feeling difficulties.'

‘Mother, please.'

‘She's been having remedial classes since she was ten but there's so much to make up. We may have to go for a heart transplant. Darling, will you mind the store for me while I deliver Mrs Sands's stuff for her?'

‘Oh no.' Strangers, emotions, spontaneity – Stephanie recognised that she had become afraid of them all. Was this the herd instinct of Westwick, fleeing from everything new and unpredictable? ‘That really won't be necessary. I'll be fine.'

‘Let me help you get them in,' Gemma insisted. ‘I'd feel better – I've wasted your time and been so insensitive.'

‘No, please …' She was wavering. She was weak from chronic high emotion, her resistance was low.

‘Look,' Gemma pressed her, ‘I know you think I'm a crazy person but I'm great at planting, really. Even my daughter will let me have that, won't you dear?'

‘Yes,' Topaz agreed, gathering up the spilled paperwork from the floor. ‘Everything grows for my mother. It's a good offer, I'd take it if I were you.' There was a note of command in her speech.

And so they changed places, Topaz sliding gracefully behind the desk and seating herself on a stool. As they left she was opening her case and taking out books.

‘Look, I'm Gemma. Gemma Lieberman.' One of the grubby long hands was offered in a sweeping arc. Clumsy in the Birkenstocks, she half-turned to walk sideways.

‘Stephanie Sands.'

‘You can hardly go around giving newscasts to every stranger who crosses your path.'

‘It's been difficult.'

‘I bet. My husband left – did you know that? Nothing like you at all, I mean, forgive me, actually he went to jail. But I just got so ticked off telling everybody all the time. Saying the same words over and over.'

‘I'm …' Jail? Had she jumped at that word? In alarm, Stephanie groped for the correct response. ‘I'm sorry that—'

‘Please, don't be sorry. It's the best place for him. Please God, I should never have a worse problem than how to tell people. But it was such a drag. I felt like sewing it over my chest in sequins or something.'