The Insistent Garden (10 page)

“Oh, it's nothing, it's old.”

“Mustn't let it get old, here, let me have a go at it.”

Without waiting for a reply he took hold of my hand and pressed the splinter between his thumbs. No one had held my hand since I was a child. It was a strange sensation, the postman so close, pressing his nails into my palm, rubbing prickly sleeves against my wrist, tickling my arm with his watchstrap. I rarely felt the touch of another person; I could not remember the embrace of my mother. I had been about five years old when Vivian had told me she hadn't ‘gone away' as I'd always been led to believe, but that she'd died. Not kindly, not putting an arm around my shoulder, she'd rushed out a vague description of events that she'd never been willing to explain. There'd been no one to extract an eyelash from the corner of my eye or ease a splinter out of my hand. The thorn popped out.

“Voila!” cried Johnny, “Right, this won't get the baby bathed. I better get back to my round. Goodbye, Miss Stoker.”

I felt forced. “Call me Edith. And thank you.”

He smiled. “You're welcome. Goodbye, Edith.”

The postman's silhouette rippled in the glass as I closed the door behind him, his footsteps faded, and I was left alone with the letter. I placed it on the table and started the washing up, glancing at it every now and again. Then I returned to the table and held it up to the light. Were
his
fingerprints on the envelope? Had my fingers almost touched his
?

“What's that?”

I turned to see my father standing in the doorway.

“It's a letter,” I said. “For you.”

He picked it up and slipped it into his pocket. No comment, not even a dot of curiosity in his eye. I continued to wash a plate, blowing away a soap bubble that floated aimlessly in front of my face. The envelope no longer had anything to do with me. It was forgotten. It was marked with a tiny spot of blood.

It felt good to lie in the bath. Eleven o'clock at night was the safe time of my day when my father went no further than calling occasional instructions through the keyhole, which, I sometimes couldn't hear. I gazed up at the wallpaper, at the pattern of seahorses swimming towards the window and remembered times that had gone before. My father had only papered the bathroom once, a stressful occasion cut into my memory of shouting, of ladder's feet sliding across the bath and of grey, granular, wallpaper paste floating in the toilet. Mould had now bruised the creatures into pathological shapes and the sheets were peeling, their remnants clinging to the wall on ancient glue. Yet this was a place I could relax. A place of gentle steaming and quiet. Breathing in deeply, I closed my eyes, stretched out my spine, uncurled my fingers and felt myself growing.

Something made me open my eyes — a small sound maybe — and to my horror I saw a spider in the bath with me; it floated towards me on a wave of suds, rolling back and forth inside the current from my body. I jerked my knees up to my chest, scooped up the bedraggled creature and pressed it against the side of the bath before accidentally submerging it again in a second wave as I sank back down. I picked up a flannel, pinched its crumpled body into the folds then pressed it onto the rim of the bath where it lay glued to the enamel like a piece of black cotton.

I didn't like spiders. They cleaned the house, they ate flies, yet they had eight eyes in their heads. I could hardly bear to think of it, eight eyes, eight lenses, eight pictures of everything projected into their minds. But I managed to relax down beneath the water line and set about studying the tiny corpse. It was then that I noticed the hole. Just a black triangle, it marked the spot where two wall tiles had failed to line up; I'd never noticed it before. I tried to remember the last time my father and I had done any work on the bathroom but as I examined the hole more closely I was convinced I saw a tube of darkness piercing the communal wall that joined my neighbour's bathroom to mine.

A heavy hand thumped on the door.

“Hurry up in there!” said my father's voice. “You need to get the spare room ready.”

The water chopped into waves. “I'm coming.”

“I need to use the toilet, so hurry.”

“I'll be out in a second.”

With a towel tightened across my chest, I walked over to the window and pressed my nose against the frosted glass. I could just make out the outline of the oak tree in the back garden, swaying back and forth like a cloud on a string. Not for the first time, I fingered the edge of the pane and picked at the putty lining the glass, but it was impossible to open the window and draw a breeze into the room as it was welded to its frame with years of layered paint. I turned round to look at the spider. The spider was gone.

13

Tuesday came round more often than other days of the week. I felt convinced of this as I heaved a suitcase up the stairs with one hand and clutched a warm pair of slingbacks in the other. Vivian had arrived earlier than normal and I was standing on the doormat, listening to her list of chores, when I spotted a dab of green on the other side of the road. It could have been anything; a school cardigan flung contemptuously over a shoulder, or the olive jacket of the window cleaner doing his round of the street. Or it could have been a woman's suit. Vivian's checklist had reached a peak, rolling her tongue round the ‘
r
' in ‘ironing' like an over-zealous chemistry teacher, so I reminded her of the tea cooling on the kitchen table and stepped outside.

The view of the street was better from the porch, empty yet busy. A paper bag bashed against the gate and the breeze sent a shiver through the leaves of the cherry tree on the opposite pavement. Then I saw her. Dotty Hands had emerged from behind a van parked opposite and now she strode down the hill, looking neither left nor right. She attempted a jaunty stride but the spare tyre that circled her waist hindered a purposeful arm swing and she marched along like an out-of-condition soldier. Still she did not turn her head and before I knew what I was doing I raised my hand to wave.

“Tuh, who does she think she's going as?” said Vivian, back by my side, reeking of half-chewed biscuit.

“Who?” I asked.

“That woman in green.”

“Which woman?” I felt a smile somewhere inside my face.

“Her. The madam in the suit,” She glanced down at her own dress. “Green's such a foul colour. Never suits anyone.”

Dotty reached our gate, glanced in our direction and then veered back down the street.

“I'm not sure if I. . . ,” I began.

Vivian regarded me suspiciously. “I'm going upstairs for a rest, make sure the ironing is done when I get back down.

“I will.”

After she had thumped her intentions out on the stairs I sauntered up the path and leaned over the gate. The green suit was gone.

For someone I had spent an afternoon with, I didn't know much about Dotty. ‘I'm a listener,' she'd said when I asked in the car. ‘That's a job,' she added when questioned further. I liked the way she did whatever she liked. She seemed to float, a seed in the wind and the best thing was, she didn't care. I wished I didn't care. I wished I could feel so carefree that I could climb over fences and clamber over walls just because I could. I took one last look up the street then quietly closed the door.

Dotty. Perhaps she was coming for me.

14

Hours of wall-tending meant hours of laundry. Every day I gathered my father's shirts and limp-seamed underpants out of the laundry basket, sometimes still warm, and washed them by hand in the kitchen sink. Touching my father's dirty clothes repulsed me. Something about the orange lines gathering inside his collar made me feel dirty myself. I was standing in the kitchen, wringing water from the arms of a sweater, when I heard an object skim the doormat. I rushed to the hall to find a letter resting against the skirting board. Surprised by its lightness, I picked it up and read the address, ‘
To the Occupier
.' I smiled. How I loved letters addressed to the occupier. It meant I could open them. Mad moths danced in my stomach as I slid my finger along the seal and pulled out a piece of paper, flimsy with cheapness.

Dear Occupier,

As you may have read in the local newspaper
your area is suffering from a severe infestation of
Fireblight. This is a serious disease, which affects
apples, pears, hawthorn and other members of the
Rosaceae family. It is recommended that you carry
out a full inspection of the plants in your garden
and report any sign of blackening or cracking to the
council immediately. Infected branches should be
pruned. Fireblight is a contagious disorder and it is
important to burn all cuttings and disinfect all tools.
For further advice please contact our horticultural
advisor at the telephone number above.

My eyes were glazing over in the dull pot of council advice when I noticed a single word sited innocently on the fifth line. Ten small letters.
Contagious
.

The newspaper was up when I entered the kitchen.

“I think the council might want us to remove some of the hawthorn,” I said.

My father didn't reply at first. He picked a hair from his shoulder, grasping repeatedly at the reluctant thread until he held it between his nails. I watched it float upwards as he threw it into the air, then drop down, snagging back onto his arm. But it wasn't short and black as I expected, but long and straw-coloured, with a bend in the last inch. “What for?” he said.

“They might be infected.”

He looked up, but didn't speak.

“Poisoned,” I said.

His eyes snapped into focus, right onto my mouth. “What did you say?”

“Diseased. . . poisoned.”

I had no idea which of the two words pulled the trigger but my father shoved back his chair, crossed the floor and stood right in front of me. “What the hell do you mean?” he demanded.

“In the garden,” I stammered. “It's the Fireblight. The letter said.”

“What letter!” he roared.

“The council letter. I have it here.”

I felt for my pocket, but my pocket was gone. My skirt had twisted round my waist and the pocket was now helplessly lined up with the centre of spine. I pulled it back round, plucked out the letter and placed it into his outstretched hand. He scanned the page rapidly. “Fireblight,” he said, without intonation.

I remained still; an itch teased the side of my nose.

“Get the matches,” my father he said.

I scurried to the kitchen drawer, pulled out the matchbox and was poking through it, when he yanked the box out of my hands and wrenched open the back door.

My father was standing in the Little Meadow, arms outstretched, reading the newspaper by the time I'd found the courage to look outside. The stillness, coming so quickly after the agitation of the past few moments, frightened me. From the safety of the threshold, I watched as a stalk of grass tapped the back of his trousers and dropped a seed into the back of his shoe.