The Skeleton Garden (3 page)

Simon swallowed the last of his beer. “We've an appointment in three weeks' time.”

“In late autumn?” Pru's voice climbed a register. “What will they see?”

“They'll see the bones of the garden,” Simon replied. “They'll see the hedges and the spaces—we can explain what'll be in bloom. They know what to look for.”

An argument ensued, but it was an argument inside Pru's head.
Don't be ridiculous, we could never pull it off.
He's right, the bones of the garden, its structure, could carry us through a scouting visit.
You're moving the bloody herb garden, for God's sake, how will it look with the boxwood hedge uprooted?
Everyone likes a good story—everyone can identify with a garden makeover.

All eyes were on Pru as she stared into her half-empty glass. “Well,” she said at last, “all they can do is say no.”

Simon gave his wife a kiss on the cheek. “You see, Pol,” he said, “I knew it would be all right.”

“It isn't all right. It isn't all right at all,” Pru said as she and Christopher picked their way along the lane, lighting the path with torches as a blackbird sang its twilight song.

“You could've said no,” he reminded her.

She didn't want this. When Pru and Christopher had accepted the Wilsons' gracious offer, it had sounded like a dream—to live the quiet country life with her husband, to garden, to get to know her brother. No pressure, no panic, no angst—no open garden. She no longer felt the need to impress the British horticultural world. But Simon wanted to put Greenoak on the international stage—the garden that had been practically his whole life's work—and he wanted to do it with his sister.

After she and Christopher had moved to Greenoak, an unsettling thought had occurred to Pru. Simon, fifteen years older than she, was near—if not just past—retirement age. The Wilsons had given the siblings a chance to get to know each other, but might they also be looking for a replacement gardener? It was an idea that Pru liked and—at the same time—didn't like. Every time the idea waltzed into her head, she escorted it back out again and shut the door.

Now another unpleasant thought vied for attention. Perhaps the magazine editor had heard about her involvement at Primrose House—not just the open garden, but the investigation into the death of someone on her crew. Or maybe Vernona had told the editor about the body Pru found in the Wilsons' London potting shed. To say nothing of the death of her colleague in Edinburgh when she'd done a stint at the botanic garden. Perhaps the magazine was more curious about her than the landscaping.

Christopher took her hand as they navigated the stile, shining the light from his torch to show the steps. “We've been plodding along on this renovation,” she said to him. “To have it ready for a photo shoot in a magazine that's popular here in England as well as in the States, well, we should've started months and months ago. Last year.”

“You didn't agree to it because you feel guilty—it isn't about Simon not knowing your parents?”

It was the subject that colored her days. She wouldn't answer yes, but couldn't say no.

Pru heaved another sigh as she thought about how much she wanted Simon to know their parents, now both dead, but she continued to vacillate between saying almost nothing to him and saying too much. Either she dropped tiny facts into conversation—“Mother could never bring herself to drink iced tea”—or she offered up long and involved tales of her youth, telling him about the time she and Lydia had sneaked out after curfew and cruised Keller's, the local burger joint. Her father had been waiting on the front doorstep when Pru got home, and she'd been grounded for a month. At times, Simon seemed eager to hear the stories, but at other times, she could see the wall go up in his eyes.

Pru opened her eyes to daylight. She stretched and sighed and looked over at Christopher, still asleep. She kissed him softly right at the corner of his mouth. He took a quick breath, turned toward her, and without waking buried his face in her neck. After a moment, she felt him kiss her shoulder, and then work his way up to her mouth. He ran his hand over her hip, but stopped all at once, opening his eyes halfway.

“What time is it?” he whispered.

“Time doesn't exist today,” she whispered back. “It's Saturday.”

She adored the weekend, and having Greenoak to themselves. Pru took to wandering around half of Saturday in her pajamas, draping a thin shawl over her shoulders and scuffling down the halls in fuzzy slippers. She'd take a steamy bath instead of a quick shower, adding scented oil to the water. They would drink tea out of mugs—Evelyn didn't approve of mugs and would serve only out of cups and saucers—while they sat on the terrace, basking in the last heat of autumn.

“We're spoilt for choice,” Pru had said when they'd arrived and been faced with choosing among the six upstairs bedrooms. They had settled in the Wilsons' cleared-out space; it was the largest room with a huge bath attached and an enormous dressing-room closet, which they used as storage. She didn't want the rest of the house to waste away though, and so made sure to admire the views out of every bedroom window. From theirs, she could see the hornbeam walk that led to the orchard; the walled garden could be seen from the bedroom over the kitchen, each vegetable bed lined in boxwood, forming a tidy pattern; from the front bedrooms and the floor-to-ceiling windows at the top of the stairs, the parterre lawn commanded the view.

They ate simply but well over the weekend, piecing together lunches from leftovers; Saturday evenings they would often eat at the Blackbird. Sundays, Christopher would go to the shop and get the newspapers, and they would stretch out in front of the fire on the leather sofa in the library. As Sunday drew to a close, they patrolled the house, collecting tea trays, coffee mugs, stray lunch plates, newspapers folded to the crossword. They would wash up dishes, dust surfaces, and straighten pillows before Evelyn arrived Monday morning to start cleaning.

“I'm off,” Pru said, pulling on a jacket. “There's an organizing meeting at the church hall about the Christmas fête. A theme—we've yet to come up with a theme.” She walked up beside Christopher, who stood over a map he'd unrolled on the library table. “Is that your badger sett?” she asked, nodding to a red circle.

“I believe it is. At the far edge of the copse the land begins to rise. They've dug into the hill.” As a founding member of the awareness group Badger Care, encouraging peaceable relations with the iconic black-and-white-faced animal, Christopher had been on the hunt for a local badger den for a few weeks. Pru had spent several evenings with him in the dark, holding still, waiting for one to trundle by.

“Do you want to go out this evening and look?” she asked. “We could pull our gear together when I get back.” She enjoyed the outings, as much for the search as for standing in the wood at night with Christopher's arms around her.

“We'll save it for another time.”

“Hang on,” she said, taking a closer look. “That map is wrong. It shows a big courtyard for parking in front of the house instead of the parterre lawn and borders. Oh, but look—there's an
X
right in the center. That's where Simon planted that little tree.
X
marks the spot.” She loved the parterre lawn—a square as wide as the house itself and defined by a yew hedge with the drive circling it. Two paths crossed on an axis, and shrubs and perennials filled each deep corner.

“This is an old map that Harry gave me,” Christopher said, pointing to the scrolly label in the corner that read:
G
REENOAK 1961
. “After Alf inherited from their great-uncle, he had some landscaping done before he let the place to Harry and Vernona.”

“Alf,” Pru said, wrinkling her nose. “I can't believe he did anything useful.” She'd never met the man, but knew him by reputation: Alf Saxsby, Vernona's no-good brother, had been involved in numerous shady dealings before ending up in prison, where he currently resided.

“He can't be all bad if he planted a hedge, now can he?” Christopher asked. “Fancy going into Romsey for a meal this evening?”

“Yes, that sounds lovely. Could we go to that Indian place behind Lord Palmerston?” A statue of Lord Palmerston held court in the town center's roundabout; it made a fine landmark.

“Indian it is. I continue to be amazed at your penchant for hot dishes.”

Pru smiled. “I grew up eating Lydia's mother's enchiladas, and this is the best substitute I have.”

Little was accomplished at the planning meeting. Instead of no suggestions for a theme—as had happened at the first meeting—now everyone had an idea, and each was reluctant to concede. They adjourned to the Blackbird, but after one pint, Pru left the remaining committee members to continue the debate—science fiction, Roman togas, American Wild West, Victorian. Pru had wondered aloud why they needed a theme and was told that a fancy-dress dance at the Blackbird concluded the day and people would want to choose their costumes to suit.

She walked into the kitchen—they never used the real front door—to find Christopher leaning against the Aga with a bottle of fine claret and two glasses waiting on the table.

“I thought we'd eat in tonight, after all, instead of going out for a curry—if that's all right. I've put together a beef stew,” he said, nodding toward the range.

“That's always all right with me,” she said, stripping off her coat and giving him a kiss. “You are an excellent cook.”

He picked up the wine and glasses. “Let's go sit for a while, shall we?”

Pru followed him into the library. “Oh, a fire, that's lovely.” She slipped off her shoes, they sat, and he poured her a generous glass of wine. “Thanks. And now,” she said, leaning in, “confess. Did you break one of Evelyn's Minton teacups?”

His ears turned pink. “They are not Evelyn's teacups, they belong to Vernona—and no, I did not.” He took a drink. “That transparent, am I?”

“Only to your wife.”

He cleared his throat. “Claire rang,” he said. His sister, Claire, her husband, Tommy, and family lived in Plymouth on the south Cornwall coast.

“How are they?” When he didn't answer Pru's mind went immediately to the worst possible news. “Is something wrong?”

Christopher stroked the back of her hand lightly. “They are all well. There's nothing to worry about.”

Christopher's sister had never been anything but kind to Pru since they met. “I haven't seen him so happy in ages,” Claire had said at Pru and Christopher's wedding. “You're very welcome to the family.” And yet Pru had not made that firm connection with Claire that she had with Polly. Claire's entire being seemed to be made up of a cloud of charitable committees—to benefit St. Cuthbert's School, or to raise money to refurbish the memorial to those lost in the Great War, or to replace the eighteenth-century bell in the parish church tower. It was difficult to find a solid presence in all that community spirit.

Claire had married early and brought up a girl, Bess, and a boy, Tom, followed by throwing herself into Good Works, which was followed by—oops—another boy. Orlando had appeared on the family scene twelve years after his brother, who was already away at school. His sister, living at home and in college, became more of a nanny than sibling, and his grandmother—Christopher and Claire's mother—had lived with the family until her death when Orlando was about nine.

Growing up in an adult household had its effect: Orlando was sixteen going on forty. He was as polite and quiet as his parents, but seemed a mere shadow to Pru. Always on his computer, he mostly talked of battling intergalactic enemies. Smart—he had graduated early. He was meant to take a gap year—usually reserved for travel—but had stayed home and made no university plans as of yet. Pru rarely saw him laugh. The Barnes household valued its serious nature.

“And so, if they are well, what is it?”

Christopher gave a tiny nod. “It's Orlando. There's been an…incident.”

My God,
police vocabulary.
“What has he done?”

Before answering, Christopher swirled his wine and looked into his glass at the resulting whirlpool. “Right, well, he hacked into someone's private email account and posted the correspondence on that person's public website.”

“Oh, no. Who? Why?”

“A businessman in Plymouth,” Christopher said, raising an eyebrow. “Claire didn't go into details—she struggled to get that much out.” He didn't speak for a moment, but watched Pru, his eyes holding some silent question. “She's asked for our help.”

“Do you know someone in the police department in Plymouth?”

Christopher shook his head. “The man isn't pressing charges, apparently. They've reached an agreement and have decided that Orlando could do with a change of scenery.” Silence again. The fire popped. Pru waited. “Claire asked if he could come and stay with us for a while.”

Pru grabbed his hand as she saw their carefree weekends drain away. “Of course he can stay—he's family.” Family events made life take unexpected turns; now that she actually had one, she must get accustomed to that.

Christopher kissed her hand and smiled. “Claire hoped that we could keep him occupied. Maybe I can find something for him to do at the Romsey station. Nothing involving the computer, however—that's strictly off-limits.”

“Did you tell her yes?”

“Not without talking with you.”

“Ring her back right now and tell her we would be delighted to have Orlando stay for…did she say how long?”

“A couple of weeks, perhaps?” Christopher asked.

“Oh, that's nothing,” Pru said, a bit relieved. “Find out when he can arrive.”

Pink ears again. “They could bring him over tomorrow. Claire has a conference for one of her charities in Manchester starting Monday, and Tommy is off to Oslo. They didn't want to leave him on his own.”

A teenager at loose ends, no wonder he got himself in trouble, Pru thought. She stood and pulled on Christopher's hand. “We'll have to be proper from now on, and eat in the dining room. Let's bring our dinner in here by the fire tonight,” she said. “We can make a plan. Do you think he'd like the corner bedroom down the hall from us?”

Christopher responded to her tug, but instead of following, gathered her up in his arms. “You certainly didn't ask for this.”

She smiled. “Yes, of course I asked for it.”

By Sunday afternoon, Pru and Christopher had tidied up and set out the tea things. No need to make up Orlando's bedroom, because Evelyn kept everything at the ready, as if a large house party were expected down from London at any moment. Pru still felt the need to participate, however, and so she had fluffed the bed pillows.