The Greening (23 page)

I awoke the following morning feeling troubled. I felt I was not going to be able to relax in my rural retreat. I felt out of place and out of sorts, as though I should be somewhere else, doing something else. It was disturbing to acknowledge how quickly my mood could change. As if in response to my sudden restlessness, the telephone rang. It was Ismene Vale. Even while escaping to the country, the journalist in me had been unable to resist leaving a contact number, in case of a sudden dramatic development in the East Timor story.

“Joanna, my dear, how are you feeling?”

“Oh, better. I’ve had some sleep.”

“I’m very glad to hear it. Now I’m telephoning because you asked me to. The European representative of the East Timor resistance will be in London next week for a meeting with the shadow Foreign Secretary. The Portuguese Embassy is hosting a reception for him. Would you like to be invited?”

“Oh, please, yes. Thank you.”

“Very well, I shall arrange it.” I think Ismene was about to conclude the call, but somehow sensed that I did not want to be tactfully left to my own devices. I invited her to join me for lunch at the cottage. She readily agreed, and then said, “Well, now, would you feel up to feeding three of us? On Wednesday, Paul, Gregorio and I are attending an international human rights conference in Southampton. We could start our day early, join you for lunch and then travel on, if that would be convenient?”

I was taken aback but could hardly say no. In any case, it would be good to see Ismene and Gregorio. I had met Gregorio a few times for a drink or a meal and enjoyed his company. I felt he read people and situations with great perceptiveness. It never ceased to amaze me that this quiet, cultured man had once lived rough in the mountains, as a soldier and bodyguard, his life in danger at every moment. As always, the prospect of seeing Ismene gave a sense of purpose to the day. Perhaps it was the knowledge that I never met her without learning something, without my life making better sense afterwards. As for Paul, well, I would have to simply take things as they came.

On the Wednesday, at midday, I parked in the station car park at Longbourne, a village some five miles away, and walked to the platform to await my guests. Train doors opened and three figures emerged: Ismene and Gregorio, both tiny, and Paul, towering above them. Gregorio and Ismene both hugged me. Paul stood back a little, smiling. I felt uneasy. As I drove back to Littlechurch Mead, I realized that I still felt very tired and really quite unsociable. Much as I enjoyed Ismene’s and Gregorio’s company, I felt I had little to give. I had begun to take time for myself and it seemed that an unravelling process had begun, which would not stop.

I served lunch in the courtyard. As the time passed, I became aware of the deep bond of friendship between my guests. I realized that the bond was strengthened by their commitment to East Timor’s struggle for freedom, the fact of a shared goal that mattered deeply to each. I understood why Gregorio and Ismene would have those feelings – but Paul?

As though reading my thoughts, Ismene asked, “Paul, what was it that motivated you to become a journalist?”

“Ah, well, curiosity, I suppose.”

“Only curiosity?” Ismene persisted.

“Well, I reckon I was always a bit at odds with the world. My family are very middle class, solid, respectable people. Everything as I grew up was determined and clear. There was no uncertainty, no insecurity – a very happy childhood, I was lucky. But I was always dissatisfied, always feeling I wanted to achieve something not
predicted and predictable, something of my own. I suppose we’re pretty much the product of our upbringing, one way or another – even if we kick over the traces!

“A new idiom!” exclaimed Gregorio. We all laughed. Gregorio was very fond of practising his vocabulary of English idioms on us. Paul laughingly explained the literal meaning of kicking over the traces. I was impressed. I had no idea what traces were or how they got kicked over.

“You could have chosen a different kind of journalism – though I can’t imagine it!” said Ismene.

“Well, I suppose the work chose me, in a way. I was very lucky – being in the right place at the right time. If I hadn’t been, you and I would not have met, and I would not have had the benefit of your help and kindness when I was green and ignorant. My life has really been a series of coincidences, chance meetings that shaped what was to come.”

“Now you are in Julian’s territory, where nothing happens by chance,” said Ismene.

Gregorio said “Julian of Norwich? I have met very few English people who have ever heard of her.”

“Surely she isn’t well known in East Timor?” I asked.

“Oh, no, not at all. But the Sister I invited to your party, Ismene, Sister Eleanor, she is a great expert on Julian.”

“Oh, I do wish I had known when I met her!” said Ismene.

Gregorio had learned of the Sister’s interest in Julian during their time together at Tyburn Convent, in London, on the day of prayer for East Timor. He said, “Sister Eleanor has given me a book of extracts from Julian’s book. Her words are full of hope. I wonder what lies ahead for East Timor…”

“Freedom,” said Ismene, placing her hand over his.

“Yes, it will come,” said Gregorio. “One day it will come.”

Paul said, “Until that day we will travel with you, Gregorio, my friend, to the end of the road.”

“So I see God’s goodness in the actions of my friends,” said Gregorio, smiling, though there were tears in his eyes.

I was moved by the evident depth of feeling and commitment between the three friends. They had set their hands to a task and it was clear that they would not let go until it had been finished. I discovered that Paul and Ismene had made a valuable contribution to several human rights causes by bringing them to the attention of the world. I admired and envied them. They were doing work that was truly worthwhile. I was making a small contribution through my column – but suddenly it seemed almost insignificant.

I recognized again, just as when we were young, Paul’s talent for connecting easily with others. He empathized with people in a way that went beyond the commonplace. It was a quality that drew people to him: a killer combination, empathy and ruthlessness, I thought, perhaps the perfect combination for a high-achieving journalist. I couldn’t make Paul out. He was an enigma.

After lunch I took my guests on a tour of the grounds. It was a glorious day and the garden was at its loveliest. As we returned to the cottage, Ismene and Gregorio fell behind a little as Paul and I walked on.

Paul said, “Thank you for lunch. This is a beautiful place. How long will you be here?”

“Just this week.”

“Then you’ll be back in the swing of things?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been away for the past few months, on wall-to-wall assignments. I’m going to be around more now, at least for the time being. Perhaps we’ll see each other.” We walked on in silence. Paul asked, “Are you still angry with me?”

I felt irritated. I was not in the mood for a personal conversation and certainly not a confrontation. “Why should I be?”

“I don’t know, but I seemed to have upset you last time we met.”

Was he being deliberately provocative? Or was he just so full of himself that he could not imagine anyone objecting to his playing around? I began to feel so angry and exasperated that I felt sure I would say the wrong thing. It irritated me that I still felt attracted to him and that I was obliged to manage those feelings as best I
could, as well as my annoyance at his behaviour. It was all making me feel rather ratty at a time when I felt I had no resources to deal with anything complicated. As I was wondering how to respond, the others caught up with us.

“We should leave soon,” said Gregorio, glancing at his watch. I walked my guests back to the cottage, gave them tea and then drove them to the station. As I drove back to the cottage, I thought what a strange day it had been and how oddly Paul had behaved. I simply could not figure him out. I arrived back feeling distinctly at odds and uncomfortable in my skin. I needed to clear my head. I set off for the lake, walking around the gable end of the house and along the heather-lined path across the top of the lawn.

Everything was quiet now, and still. Everyone seemed to be away, all the doors and windows in the main house closed and shuttered, curtains drawn. I was glad to have the garden to myself. Birdsong and the soft rustle of leaves were all I heard as I walked across the lawn to the lake. I sat in my favourite spot, on the bench by the water’s edge, and looked down into the depths, where dark green vegetation swirled softly, casting rippling patterns that stained the glassy, viscous surface. The wind gently lifted the light branches and sent a soft, hushing murmur through their leaves. I felt in harmony, a part of the spirit of the place, suddenly at ease after the tension of the day. The sunlight broke out from behind a cloud and everything around me shone, each leaf and ripple sparkled and the whole place seemed to be imbued with the radiance of an interior light.

After several minutes I rose and took the path to my left that circled the lake. I followed its contour between trees overhanging with the weight of their shadowing branches, past a rhododendron bush ablaze with vivid purple blossoms. Above me, high up in a tree, a blackbird sang. To my right, the water glowed mellow and still. The song of the bird was following me now, as though calling to me. Now at the far side of the lake, I stood in a clearing before a great redwood, whose outstretched arms reached high, as if in worship of the sky god. I continued on my walk and came to a small
wooden bridge overhung by an oak. The bridge led to the little island in the middle of the lake, which I had come to think of as my private sanctuary. The bridge was stained green by the falling leaves and rain of countless years.

I opened the gate and walked across the bridge and onto the island. Dense bushes crowded either side of the narrow track that edged the land. The birds were busy, sweetly singing, twittering, calling in the boughs. I ducked under a canopy of leaves, enjoying the crunch and scrunch of leaves and twigs under my feet. Now the bank dropped steeply away. In the water I saw reflections of soft, cotton-wool clouds and delicately etched silhouettes of intricately leaved trees, patterned in charcoal green against the grey-blue sky. Protruding from the water, at the land’s edge, was a goblin’s boat with raised prow, a jagged piece of wood, deeply scored and fissured by long tongues of water, waiting for its goblin crew to come at nightfall and set sail across the lake.

A little way further and I came upon my place of rest, a seat fashioned from a piece of wood, supported by a tree stump and a log that had been hammered into the ground. From within the dense foliage in the middle of the island, where the ducks had built their nest, came a pittering, smittering sound. Across the bright water and the wide expanse of grass and trees, the Victorian Gothic house seemed magical, mysterious and full of secrets. The water was filled with its rippling reflections in a fracturing glass.

Above me, the flat, shiny leaves of a rhododendron bush moved with a gentle lulling motion, as though tenderly sheltering me from the chance of harm. The wind lifted and the leaves and branches tossed and danced gently. For everything within that garden was gentle and proportionate. I felt, as I had felt when I first saw Ismene’s garden, that sense of everything being just as it ought to be, that all was well. In my heart I felt repose.

I rose and continued my walk along the sun-flecked path, beneath the overhanging, protective leaves of another sentinel oak. Ahead was the little bridge. I stepped onto it and reluctantly took my leave of the island’s small sanctuary. As I walked back along the
lake and towards the house I had a strange sense of being observed. Though no one had come during my walk, I felt as though this place was far from empty, never lonely, perpetually inhabited by life, a spirit of some kind. For how could a place be so alive without a conscious life force inhabiting it?

As I walked back along the heather-fringed path at the front of the house, I was surprised to see someone sitting in the little private garden at the gable end that had belonged to Lady Helen. She was a woman who looked to be in her eighties. She sat motionless and there was such an air of stillness about her that I could not help glancing her way as I passed by. At that moment she looked up and smiled.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“But you’re not,” she responded. “Why don’t you join me?” I had never been into Lady Helen’s garden. It was a patch of some forty square feet, tucked away among trees and enclosed by low wrought-iron railings. Roses and honeysuckle and wild flowers tumbled from nooks and crannies in a garden that was simple and unstructured, and yet possessed of a natural, uncontrived symmetry and grace. At the far end was an ancient summerhouse, and through its window I could see a faded pink parasol, folded and propped against the glass, as though its owner had left it there a few moments earlier. I pushed open the garden gate and entered.

The old lady offered me her hand. It was small and white, with knobbled veined tracery showing through the skin.

“I’m Molly Tillington. I’m an old friend of Helen’s,” she said. I introduced myself and offered my sympathy for her loss.

“Well, as I have been sitting here, remembering the many times we’ve sat here together, I don’t feel as though I have lost her at all,” she said. “Just before you came just now I had such a strong feeling of her presence. She loved her little garden and in a way I think she will always be here.”

I said, “You seemed very peaceful. I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Not at all. It’s nice to have company. You’re new here, aren’t you? I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.” I explained that I was there just for the week. “Do you like it here?” she asked.

“I love it. It’s beautiful and the atmosphere is so peaceful; there’s such a quality of serenity.”

“Now that was cultivated. The family decided to create a place with a particular quality of harmony and sanctuary.”

“Yes, I feel it. It’s like nowhere I’ve been. It’s a very calming, healing atmosphere. But at the same time there’s a kind of clarity about it…”