The Child Garden (13 page)

“A wonderful life, except everyone's either dead or we haven't checked yet,” he said. “Apart from Duggie and me.”

“I'll check the rest in the morning,” I told him. “The Scarlets and the weather girls. That's what Wee J called them.”

“Yeah, about that,” Stig said. “You said my mum threatened you? Why'd you go to Fawlty Towers, Glo?”

“I don't know,” I said. He waited for me to go on. “I suppose I thought they must have some answers.”

“Who did you ask—Mum or Dad?”

“They were all there,” I said. “But your mum was the one doing most of the talking. Stig … your dad.” He looked up at me. “What happened?”

He shook his head slowly a couple of times before he answered. “What do you mean?” he said. “He got older, like all of us. His health isn't great, but he's fine.”

This was so far from being true that I didn't know where to begin, but then I thought of Nicky and how I would feel if someone asked me
What happened?
in that heartless way and how I would do anything rather than answer.

“I never really got the chance to ask your mum anything much,” I said. “She was pretty upset. Well, angry. I'm sorry, Stig, but she doesn't seem completely convinced that you're innocent.”

Stig gave that bark of laughter again; I was getting to know it now, getting to recognise the pain of it so well that it hardly sounded like laughter at all. “I'll bet she's not,” he said. “And yeah, she's angry. See, the thing is, my mum didn't have much to do with Eden. It was always Dad's thing.”

I could certainly believe it wasn't Angie Tarrant's thing. A spa and a gym and hen weekends were much more her line. But the BJ Tarrant of my childhood was Angie all over again except for being a man.

“Wee J guessed who I was,” I said to Stig. “He's worried about you. He told me to tell you to stay out of sight and be careful. Does he know what's going on?”

“No, but he trusts me,” said Stig. He leaned back against the Rayburn rail and smiled, staring into the distance. “He was a nice wee boy and he's a good bloke now,” he said. “It's not his fault.” He paused and I was going to ask, but then he started speaking again. “When we came back from Saudi there was a lot of family visits and that, and one of my uncles brought a girlfriend to meet us. And there we were, sitting in the house having a beer, coke for the kids, and she asked why I wasn't called Jacky after my dad. Why it was the
second
son who was Wee J.”

“Was Stephen your granddad's name or something?”

“No, it wasn't that,” said Stig. “My mum explained it to the girlfriend that day. I'll never forget it. She stubbed out her fag in this big glass ashtray and said, ‘We didn't think he was going to make it—a lot of complications at the birth—so we didn't want to waste the name in case it ended up on a headstone.'”

I could feel my face falling. “With you just sitting there? Did she know you could hear?”

“Oh yeah,” Stig said. “It wasn't like some big secret she'd finally decided to tell. It was more like it had never come up before and then it did, so she answered the question. Like if
I'd
asked one day, she would have told me, just the same.”

“That's horrendous,” I said.

“Well, it is and it isn't. It made sense of things. Why Weej got taken on holiday with them to Turkey and I went to stay with my granny. She said it was too much to handle two kids at once.”

“But that's ridiculous,” I said. “It would have been much more fun for you and Wee J to be together, so you could play. Whether it was Turkey or your granny's makes no odds.”

“Yeah,” he said. “And then birthday parties too. He had a party in the middle of July and I didn't in the middle of December. She said it was because it was easy to have the kids out in the garden and mine was too near Christmas.”

“What did your dad say?”

“He told her to knock it off and stop being such a cow. When we were wee and then in Saudi. After Eden, he never said boo. But Wee J was never spoiled by it. He shared his birthday cake, made me blow out the candles with him and everything. And he even sent me a postcard from Turkey. Just scribbles and my dad wrote the address.”

“But I don't understand,” I said. “How can your mum
be
like that?”

“I suppose,” said Stig, “she didn't want to get attached. In case I died. And then it was too late. Or maybe she felt guilty and took it out on me. Dunno.”

I couldn't speak. I shouldn't have judged Angie. I knew from Duggie's grief that it was normal to feel that way. Nicky made him angry because he was guilty because he was ashamed. He even accused me to trying to make him look worse by—I'll never forget the word he used—
overacting
. I was puzzled. Overacting how? I wanted to know.

“Putting it on and going too far.
My son this
and
my son that
. Like this, bringing him to the Gala Day and introducing him.”

“Why would I not introduce him?” I said. “I'm proud of him. You should be proud of him. He's our son.”

And then Duggie had said, “Come off it, Gloria. Nobody's bringing the cakes that didn't rise and the jam that didn't set to the Gala Day and saying they're proud.” And Nicky was right there when he said it, just like Stig and Angie.

“Who's mummy's little pot of runny jelly?” I'd said, wheeling him over the bumpy grass of the temporary car park to take him home. “You're mummy's little flat sponge, aren't you?”

“You know who you remind me of ?” I said to Stig. “Harry Potter. It always bothered me that a boy who was kept in a cupboard and given clothes hangers and tissues for his birthday ended up so well adjusted. He should have been setting light to cars and drinking in the swing park.”

“A whole cupboard?” said Stig. “All to himself ? Luxury.”

“I'm going to see Nicky now,” I said. “I'll be back by nine o'clock. What will you do?”

“More dead-slow-and-stop Internet.”

“But nothing … ?” I flicked a glance at the computer.

“Don't worry,” said Stig. “I'm not in the mood anyway.”

“Just tell me,” I said. “This teacher that Bezzo used to have a crush on. It wasn't Mrs. Hill, was it?”

“God's sake, Gloria, that's sick!” said Stig. “No, of course not. It was Miss Naismith at Eden. Tie-dyed t-shirts, hairy legs and all. I knew he fancied her because he never stopped giving her a hard time.”

“Poor thing. All on her own there with you lot.”

“Yeah, we were wee shites. One time she locked herself out on the roof because we wouldn't stop tormenting her.”

“Some people are just not cut out to be teachers,” I said.

Eighteen

But still, when I
looked up at the chimneys—dark against the moonlit sky—as I was getting out of the car ten minutes later, I felt sad to think of it: a teacher, overwhelmed by naughty children, sitting crying on a roof. And not just her; how many times in the life of the house must it have harboured people quietly weeping, quietly falling apart while they tried to hold it together. And, as I was just about to find out, it was happening again.

“Gloria?” said Miss Drumm at the sound of my footsteps. “At last. I need to talk to you.”

I sat down at her bedside. That was the first worry. She usually insisted on what she called
the niceties
. Dinner at a table with an ironed linen napkin and sitting in her chair until a decent bedtime. But tonight she was in a flannel nightgown and bed jacket with her hair pinned back off her face, gleaming from the cold cream she'd been rubbing into her skin every night for sixty-five years until her pores were monstrous pits, black around her nose and in the crease of her chin, while her wrinkles only looked deeper for the shine on their slopes.

“The hallowed place,” she said. “Is everything as it should be?”

I felt my insides drop and then bounce back to settle higher than they should be. What should I tell her? The chain on the padlock was cut through and the door wasn't closed or locked, but she couldn't know that or I'd have heard about it too.

“I can't think why not,” I said.

“And the stone?”

“As ever,” I said, although I felt a twinge of guilt saying it because the truth was I hadn't rocked the stone today, and yesterday I had only rocked it once, showing Stig. “I meant to ask you about the hallowed place, actually,” I said, hoping to distract her. I would rock the stone when I got home.

“Oh?” said Miss Drumm. She sat up, searching my face with her blind eyes.

“It's just what you said about it not being a crypt or a chapel but being consecrated. I realised I didn't know what else it could be.”

“Memorial,” said Miss Drumm, gruffly.

“It's an odd one,” I said.

“Granted. It was an odd circumstance that led to it being built.” She tugged at the pillow behind her until it was bunched enough to support her neck and then she let her head drop back. “It's a memorial and a sanctuary both, I suppose you would say. A haven.”

I wondered if she knew it was full of beanbags and teenagers once.

“A haven from what?” I asked her.

“I'm not in the mood to be scoffed at,” Miss Drumm said.

“I promise.”

Miss Drumm gave a faint smile, satisfied. “I've been feeling most uneasy,” she said. “
Most
uneasy. And I haven't felt that way for decades. The last time, I was hale and hearty enough to do something about it, but those days are over and so I'm relying on you.”

“But what does the stone have to do with the temple?” I asked her. “You said yourself it was about half a mile away.”

“It's exactly half a mile away,” said Miss Drumm, “as the crow flies. It's half a mile from the stone to the hallowed place—it's not a temple, my girl; we're not swamis—and it's another half mile from the hallowed place to the house. A mile in all between the stone and the house and the only way to go is by the bridge. So it seemed a good idea to build a little sanctuary.”

I turned all of this over carefully, not wanting to scoff or be accused of scoffing. But after almost a minute's quiet thought, I could make no sense if it.

“I'm not with you, Miss Drumm.”

“Promise me you'll be a good sensible girl. Walter Scott would be lost if you took a fit of hysterics and ran away.”

“I promise,” I said again.

She munched her teeth together for a while but took it up again eventually. “It isn't always safe to run through the forest at night, you know. Nor to cross a bridge to get home.”

“I agree about the forest at night,” I said carefully, more lost than ever. “Although I've always thought the Milharay woods were friendly.”

“Of course they're friendly woods! As safe as Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon.” She reached out, feeling for my hand. When I put it under hers, she patted it. “As long as you're rocking the stone.”

“Miss Drumm,” I said, “the stone isn't in the woods. The stone's in the garden. It's—”

“I might be old, girl,” Miss Drumm said, back to her peppery self after the compliment and the hand-patting, “but I am not senile. I told you not to scoff at me. If you won't listen, I'll need to find someone who will.”

“I'm listening,” I said. “I apologise. I'm listening, really.”

“Well now,” she began. “The Stone of Milharay. Everything I've ever told you about it is true. But it's not the whole truth. The whole truth, Gloria, is that the Stone of Milharay has something inside it. Someone, I should say.”

I said nothing. I only stared at her shining face. Was she really telling me that the stone that sat outside my kitchen window and that I laid my hands on every day, except when I forgot like this morning, was some kind of sarcophagus? How could that be?

“Who?” I asked gently.

“Remember your promise.”

“I remember. Who is it?”

“The devil,” said Miss Drumm. My mouth dropped open. “You'll catch flies,” she snapped. “I heard your breathing change.” I shut my mouth and swallowed hard. “That's better. Manners are so unpolished these days. When I was a girl, no young lady would sit gaping with her mouth open. Mind you, it made life terribly difficult for anyone who suffered from adenoids and it did mean that, when one had a cold, one was banished from society. But I daresay that was healthier than the way everyone just slugs down Day Nurse and goes about their business spreading germs.”

“Miss Drumm,” I said. “The devil?”

“He's been in there near enough full time for more than three hundred years, since my ancestor Margery Drumm tricked him into it in the 1680s. Of course, Rough House wasn't built until 1820 and even this place wasn't around. The old house was a terribly draughty place with seven storeys and no bathrooms.”

“Three hundred years?” I said, nudging her back to the point.

“More or less constantly. And I know you've been doing a splendid job for the last ten. And yet still I've got the oddest feeling that something is wrong.” She broke off and lifted her head. “I'm baring my soul here, girl,” she said fiercely, then dropped back again.

“And the last time something went wrong, I was responsible. I went away from home and didn't make provisions. Didn't want to tell anyone, you see. I vowed then I would never let it happen again and I shan't. So you make sure and rock that stone. Every day. Morning and night. And if you wake up in the small hours to spend a penny, go out and rock it again.”

“What exactly does rocking the stone do, Miss Drumm?” I said. “I always thought it was just for luck.”

“You could call it luck,” Miss Drumm said, “inasmuch as it's most unlucky for someone if you don't. Rocking the stone keeps him addled, you see. It's when it sits steady that he gathers himself and grows strong.”

I am, as she had said, as sensible sort, living all on my own in that big old house miles from anyone and never thinking twice about it. And I meant what I said about the woods too, how peaceful and cradled I'd always felt under the trees in the soft dark when I took Walter Scott out in the old days. But sitting there at her bedside in the low light shining in her bedroom door—a blind woman never bothers with lamps in the evening—I felt the flesh on my neck creep and tingle as a shudder rose through me and then felt my scalp shrink as it fell away again. It was terrifying listening to her sounding so old and confused instead of bright and funny. I was scared of losing her and scared too of the day I would be like her and no one would come to visit me, to listen without scoffing.

“There,” she murmured. “I've said my piece. Now go and see that boy of yours. I'm tired, Gloria. I'm getting more than a day's worth of tired at the end of every day now. I'm getting once and for all tired, I fear.”

“Don't,” I said softly. “You've probably got a little cold or maybe you need an iron pill. But don't talk about once and for all.”

She shook her head twice, and on the second shake she kept it turned away from me. And so I did a thing I never do. I stood, bent over her, and kissed her cheek.

“You are my good friend,” I said. “I can't do without you.” But she was already sleeping.

When I turned, I saw Donna standing in the doorway, watching us. I raised my eyebrows in question, and she gave me a sad smile and shook her head in answer.

“That you off ?” she whispered.

“No, I'm running late tonight. I haven't been in to Nicky,” I said.

“Ah, and he's lovely for you,” Donna said. “We have him in the taupe and mauve stripes from Next, and he's a picture.”

I grinned at her and dug in my bag for my phone. “I better make sure and get a snap of him.”

“You do that,” Donna said. “I'll be there in a minute with a cup of tea.”

He really did look handsome in the pyjamas, grown-up and rakish, like the lead in a Noël Coward play.

“Hello my little West End sensation,” I said to him. I took a gauze square and wiped his mouth, then carefully applied some of the salve where the feeding tube dries his lip. Sometimes in winter it gets bad enough to crack, what with the dry air from the central heating as well, and the sight of that red line and the swelling on either side of it makes me hurt in my stomach. Of course he can't feel it—he can't feel anything—but it looks as if, were he to waken suddenly and smile, it would be sore.

“Now then,” I said, lifting the book and opening it at the marker. The next poem was “Time to Rise.” It was short but it struck me as cruel, a little bird hopping around a windowsill chirping at a child in bed: “Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head?” so I had started skipping it as we went along. “The Marching Song” too and the one called “At the Seaside.” But most of the poems are about bed and dreams and life outside the sick-room window. Or they're thoughts that you could have from anywhere, like “The Moon” or the one I would read tonight.

“‘Looking-glass River,'” I said, and started in. I'd always enjoyed it before; it's got an interesting rhythm, and you have to pay attention to get the sound right. Tonight though, by the time I was halfway through it I had forgot about the rhythm completely and was speaking the words in a kind of trance.

“‘We can see our coloured faces, floating on the shaken pool,'” I said and I thought of Moped Best, the little boy in the snazzy shirt in his school picture, leaning over the footbridge and gazing down. I thought of Miss Drumm saying calmly,
it's not always a good idea to cross a bridge to get home
. “‘See the rings pursue each other; all below grows black as night,'” I read. “‘Just as if Mother had blown out the light.'” I glanced up at Nicky's face, checking to see that I wasn't frightening him. He was as serene as ever. “‘Patience, children, just a minute'”—it was the last stanza—“‘see the spreading circles die. The stream and all in it will clear by-and-by.'” Then I shrieked as Donna out a hand on my shoulder.

“Mercy!” she said, stepping back. “I didn't mean to startle you. I only just came to say it'll be a while because Iveta's emptied the kettle to clean it. This hard water! And I've put a pot on the stove instead.”

“Actually, Donna,” I said, “never mind the tea. I'm going to have to dash off.”

“Ah well,” said Donna. “I've said it for years now, Gloria, as you know.”

I bent over Nicky, kissed his eyes and his hands as usual. She
had
been saying it for years—telling me I should be out at evening classes or line-dancing, could just as easy pop in and see Nicky in the morning for five minutes.

“How has Miss Drumm been these last few days?” I asked, hoping to sound casual.

“She's fading,” Donna said.

“And getting wandered with it,” I said, keeping my voice low. The connecting door was shut, but it was better to err on the side of caution.

“I wouldn't say that. She's old and her body's betraying her, but her mind is sharp as a tack,” Donna said. “Always was and I think it always will be.”