In The Garden Of Stones (6 page)

“
I said odd, not kinky, you filthy perv, so
get that idea right out of your head.”

Grace feels a laugh bubbling up, because now she’s going to
say it out loud, what she’s agreed to sounds totally
ludicrous.

“
I have to create an imaginary friend,” she
says. “A pretend someone with whom I can discuss all my problems,
my fears, my indecisions, anything that’s troubling me. We get
together either face to face, imaginarily, or I use a prop, like
the phone, and we simply talk them to death.”

Alec’s entire face curls up like a furled umbrella. “You’re
joking, right? What sort of buggery bollocks quackery is that? Has
he got unicorn milk on special offer as well?”

He can see from her well maintained deadpan expression that
she is not joking. Far from it.
He looks at her sideways. “You think it
will work, don’t you?”

“
I don’t know, but what harm can it do?
We’ll have to wait and see how it goes.” She kisses his fingertips.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh? Cup of tea? I’m
parched.”

In the
privacy of her own room, snuggled in bed with the fat grey tomcat,
Mr Pickles, in her lap, Grace sips at a cup of hot chocolate and
thinks back over her meeting with Dr Mal.

“
How do I go about conjuring up an imaginary friend?” she
says. “Kids seem to manage it easily enough. In fact, they don’t
even have to try. They just sort of … appear. Adults though...?
It’s positively discouraged. Frowned on even.” She takes a sip at
the hot dark brown liquid. “I’ll be going against the grain. Normal
people don’t like it when you do something different, something
they don’t understand. I’m going to have to be careful how I do
this. Keep it private or at least subtle. What do you think,
Pickles?”

The cat
blinks at her, twitches its tail, its opinion kept firmly to
itself.

Grace
finishes her drink, scrapes out the ring of melted marshmallow and
sooks it off her fingertip.

“
Waste not, want not.”

Now she
has to clean her teeth, else the sugary residue from the
marshmallows will do its dirty work while she sleeps.

But the duvet is so warm and cosy...

A quick
brush, a rinse and a pee, and back to bed. Out goes the light. The
bedside clock glows a ghoulish green in the dark, digital numerals
showing ten past nine. The night is young, but she is
exhausted.

In the
ward, with all the comings and goings and the noise, meaningful
sleep was a rare commodity often out of her grasp and she has a lot
to catch up on, although she’ll probably be wakened again in an
hour or so when Alec gets back from the cinema with his boyfriend,
the too gorgeous to be true Denny.

Why are all the nicest, fittest, most handsome, most
domesticated men, all gay?

She
knows their routine by now. They’ll have a bit of supper, probably
a glass or two of wine, and then retire to Alec’s bedroom, which
happens to be next to hers, and through the thin walls she will
hear every squeak and moan and groan of their lovemaking. To them
sex is a pure pleasure, and both are totally uninhibited as they
bang each other senseless. Having someone able to hear them
probably enhances their pleasure.

Lucky
bastards.

How long
has it been since she’s had a decent shag? A proper one mind, not
the sort that came with a side order of cigarette burns and
bruises?

She
slaps her palms onto the covers, scaring Mr Pickles. He hisses and
springs off the bed, seeking sanctuary beneath it. “For God’s sake,
stop feeling sorry for yourself you daft cow, sex isn’t everything
and love is an illusion. You don’t need either. Now do what Mal
suggests, go find your happy place and your pretend
friend.”

She
pounds her head into her pillow and closes her eyes. “Where would I
like to go? Back to that beach of course. Soft sand, palm trees,
lovely blue water lapping at my feet.”

She
tries to form the image, a tropical white stretch of sand, blue sky
above, azure water shading into a deep jade. No. Not working. Try
harder.

Nothing.
It seems the harder she tries the further away the image goes, and
the tighter her inner tension spring coils.

“
Bugger it! You’re trying too hard. You have to relax. Try
again. Do the breathing exercises.” She shifts herself, settles
again. “Okay, here we go. Breathe in and… toes relax.” And out.
“Legs relax.” And in. “Body relax.” And a deep, slow blow. “Mind …
let go…”

Gradually an image comes to her, forming as if emerging from
a morning mist. She breathes gently as if a stray breath will blow
it away again.

The
colours deepen and strengthen, and her surroundings solidify. What
she sees, however, could not be further from the beach she is
looking for.

It is
day again, and the sun is warm on her eyes. Soft white clouds float
over a sky of cobalt blue, teased along by a light
breeze.

She is
standing at a wall. Tall and imposing, it runs away left and right,
as far as her eye can see, in an unbroken stretch of solid stone,
thickly coated in green ivy and brambles. Too high to see over, and
no footholds for her to use to climb up.

Out of
curiosity she turns around to see what lies behind her, to see
where she has come from … and she is back in her bedroom, in her
bed, Mr Pickles on the pillow beside her, gazing at her with his
bright green eyes.

“
Well, that was … odd,” she murmurs.

Mr Pickles concurs with a flick of his tail and a
knowledgeable
miaow
.

Chapter 5

“
How’s it going?”

“
It’s only been two days,” Grace says, sipping at her
coffee. “Give me a chance.”

“
Have you been doing the breathing exercises to help you
relax?”

“
As best I can.”

“
And cutting down on the wine?”

“
Erm … yes?”

“
And how is the … visualisation going?”

“
A bit hit and miss. I have been trying, but I can’t seem to
hang on to the place I’d really like to be. It keeps slipping away.
I was trying for a nice soft beach, something tropical, with clear
blue water and palm trees and nice warm sun, but instead I got a
huge stone wall covered in ivy and brambles. More Gothic than Goa.
It was quite an interesting, if spooky, sensation.”

Dr Mal
did a passable impression of the Simpsons’ Mr Burns, drumming his
steepled fingers together and murmuring, “Excellent.”

“
Shall I keep at it?” Grace says. “Even if it’s not going
quite the way I want?”

Mal nods
enthusiastically. “Oh yes, absolutely. It’s early days, so we
should expect a few hiccups. Keep trying. I think you’ll find it
gets easier and easier as time goes on.”

She
tries. Every day she tries.

Every
day for a whole week the blinds are drawn, the room warm, and Grace
sits cross-legged on the carpet, eyes closed, shoulders and neck
relaxed, hands folded loosely in her lap. She sucks a deep breath
in, holds it for a count of five, lets it out in a slow even
stream, just like Mal instructed, and feels the tension drain
away.

And in.
And out. And …

Nothing.

Every
day she tries, and every day she fails, getting up to make herself
a cup of tea instead

…
until the weekend.

After a
quiet Friday evening in, snuggled on the sofa with Alec and Denny
watching a detective drama on TV, sharing fish suppers, bottles of
lager and one of Denny’s rather 'special' hand rolled cigarettes,
Grace is feeling particularly mellow, relaxed and ready for
bed.

No
sooner has her head hit the pillow than she feels reality slip away
and she is transported back to the wall.

Not
daring to breathe in case everything vanishes again, she turns her
head slowly from side to side to follow the line of the wall. It
runs off to a vanishing point so far distant it is out of focus.
She is about to turn her head, to check what’s behind her, and
stops herself.

“
That’s what I did last time. Whatever you do Grace, don’t
look back.”

She
concentrates on the section in front of her, scanning back and
forth until her eye picks out a thinning of the foliage. Half
hidden by the leaves and prickles is an ornate gate, more than man
height, its ironwork wrought and hammered into stylised flowers and
birds and ears of wheat. The handle looks like a ring of twisted
barley sugar, its black paint peeling, patches of rust showing
through in places.

It is
solid and cold in her hand. A slow turn, and the sneck on the other
side lifts. A gentle push, and the gate swings on rusty hinges,
setting up an ear-splitting squeal. Grace slips through and lets it
swing closed behind her.

Gravel
crunches under her shoes as she treads along a broad level path set
between immaculately maintained herbaceous borders. The air carries
the scent of flowers – roses, Sweet William, lavender, the perfumes
heady and sickly sweet, made more so by the humid warmth of a late
summer afternoon. Myriad insects buzz industriously - butterflies,
bees, and the occasional damselfly.

Ahead is
a tall conifer hedge, clipped flat and smooth, its top completely
level, not a frond out of place. A perfectly executed arch is cut
into its facing edge, and the path leads her to and through it, an
arrow straight walkway dividing an area of grass as close and neat
as a bowling green.

She
squats to run her hand over the bright green closely trimmed
blades. Soft, like velvet. Someone has worked hard to maintain a
lawn in such a state of luxury. No notice telling her to keep off,
and no one in sight, and so she takes off her shoes and walks out a
wide lazy ring, letting the warm grass tickle her bare
feet.

Then it
is cold. Wet. This part of the lawn is in shade, drops of morning
dew clinging to the leaves. They gather between her toes bringing
about a disorientating unpleasant rush of déjà vu.

She
shivers and hurries back to the path, puts on her shoes and
continues onward to where the gravel walkway swells to a circle of
stones, at the centre of which sits a fountain, a chubby stone
child carrying a seashell on its back through which water spouts
and dribbles into a reservoir, tinkling like a wind chime, catching
the light and blinking rainbows at her. Beautiful.

Grace
continues forward to another hedge wall and another archway. This
one is more intriguing because whatever lies beyond is hidden in
deep shadow.

Curiosity must, of course, be satisfied.

She steps
through the archway to something totally unexpected, yet shockingly
familiar. A cemetery, very neat, very tidy, laid out like… a
garden. A garden of stones.

Rectangles of neat grass bounded by low railings, guarded
by rough hewn moss covered crosses and obelisks, marble columns
topped with serene angels, kneeling winged cherubs with their
chubby hands clasped in silent prayer. A number of plain upright
markers sit between table-like slabs. They are old, very old, the
words and numbers on them all but obliterated by age and
weathering. This is all
too
familiar.

A beam of
sunlight has draped itself over the nearest flat stone like a
tablecloth, warming it and illuminating the faintest of barely
legible inscribed markings. She traces over the list of names and
dates with her fingertips, like a blind man reading
Braille.

“
John Edward St John. Born January 15, 1712. Taken into Our
Lord’s care February 2, 1713. A baby, barely a year old. How
sad.”

Looking
closer, she can just about make out two of the other names engraved
above his. Two girls. Alice and Catherine. Twins. They too died in
infancy.

She
moves higher up the list. Seven names in all, four boys, three
girls. Not one survived past its fifth birthday.

“
This grave is filled with children. Their poor parents. How
could they bear it?”

She
tries to imagine the family if Death had not intervened, a proud
mother and father watching from a distance as their happy thriving
brood chased each other in innocent play across those immaculate
lawns, laughing, tumbling, squealing with childish
delight.

“
Perhaps they are playing together wherever they are now.”
She runs her hand across the sun warmed slab.

“
Let’s see if it’s as solid as it looks.”

She
smoothes her skirt over her legs, perches on the stone, giving it a
little weight. Seems strong enough. She gives it some more. Still
fine. Satisfied it isn’t going to give way under her, she shifts
herself until she is in the centre of the pool of light, turns her
face to the sun and lets it warm her closed eyelids.

Around
her birds sing, insects buzz, and there is the gentle babble of
running water from a nearby stream. So peaceful.