THE TRYSTING TREE (20 page)

THE BEECH WOOD

It has been our burden and sometimes privilege to bear witness. For centuries we have accepted gifts. Confidences. Confessions. Tears have watered our roots, their falling gentler than summer rain. We have seen acts of passion, of violence, self-slaughter even. We have observed and absorbed much grief.

On a dark winter’s day, two women, one weeping, one silent, committed a tiny body to a grave beneath our canopy. Prayers were said. They gathered fallen leaves and moss to cover the newly-turned earth so there should be no sign, no memorial, save initials graven on our bark. Then they left, one woman leaning heavily upon the other.

The child is forgotten now. Those who remembered are long dead. But we remember. While we stand, we shall not forget, nor shall we judge.

Were we human, we should pity.

Were we human, we should weep to see what we have seen.

PART FOUR

ANN

After Connor kissed me, I stopped sleeping altogether. Well, that’s what it felt like. I don’t think it
was
anything to do with Connor, but that’s when the serious insomnia started: after we’d stood under the beeches and I’d told him I knew I’d forgotten something.

Each morning as the grey light appeared at my window, I was convinced I’d lain awake all night. I grew to dread the solitary robin’s song, herald of the dawn chorus, knowing that was it for another night. The long day had begun.

I took to drinking red wine before bed, sometimes sherry. I even tried Phoebe’s sleeping pills, but they all had the same effect, or rather, no effect. I would fall into bed exhausted, sometimes a little drunk. I’d sleep, then an hour later I’d be awake again, my mind teeming, my stomach churning.

Eventually I worked out what the problem was and it had nothing to do with my furtive feelings for Connor. I dreaded my dreams. I dreaded the return of the nightmares I used to have as a child, after my father left. And I dreaded sleep itself, because I didn’t know where I might find myself when I woke.

~

‘I’ve started sleepwalking again.’

‘Good grief!’ Phoebe looked up from her breakfast cereal and gaped at me, spoon poised in mid-air. ‘You haven’t done that since— well, since you were very small.’

I poured myself another cup of tea, watching my hands, willing them not to tremble. ‘Last night I found myself in the kitchen at 3.00am. I didn’t remember getting up or coming downstairs.’

‘Oh, Lord...’

‘So I think I might start taking the key out of the back door at night. If I put it in a drawer, it will make it harder for me to find. More tea?’

Phoebe passed me her mug. ‘But that won’t work, will it? If your conscious mind knows where the key is, your unconscious mind will know where to look for it. Would you like me to hide the key?’

‘There’s not a lot of point, is there? If I decide to go walkabout, I can still get out through the front door.’

‘I must have a key to your room somewhere. I could lock you in if you can bear it. That’s what I used to do. You hated it!’

‘I’d hate it now. And supposing you needed me in the night or there was some emergency? No, I just have to crack my insomnia. I’m sure that’s the cause.’

‘Do you know what’s keeping you awake?’

‘Well,
now
I think it’s probably fear of sleepwalking, but originally…’ I spread honey on some toast and ate without enthusiasm.

‘What? Something happened?’

I swallowed a mouthful of toast and said, ‘I had a very bad dream. About Sylvester. At least, I think it was him. There was a man and it wasn’t Jack.’

Phoebe eyed me over the top of her mug, a knowing glint in her eye. ‘Connor?’

‘No, this man was dark. And very tall. A giant.’

‘Sylvester wasn’t tall.’

‘He would have seemed tall to me when I was a child.’

‘Ah. So you were a child in this dream?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened?’

‘I was out in the garden, looking for something.’

‘Here? Looking for Sylvester?’

‘No, for something I’d lost.’

‘And did you find it? In the dream, I mean.’

‘I don’t remember. But I did find something... Something awful.’

‘What?’ Phoebe asked, looking apprehensive.

‘I don’t remember, but I think that might be why I can’t sleep. My mind won’t let me, in case I have that dream again and I
do
remember.’ I pushed my plate aside. ‘I’m not making much sense, am I?’

Phoebe said nothing, but fidgeted in her chair as if she’d rather be somewhere else. In her studio painting, perhaps. Irritated, I found myself wishing I was talking to Connor instead, seeing concern in his eyes, rather than the squirming embarrassment I saw in my mother’s, but I plodded on, trying to make sense of the random thoughts generated by my weary brain.

‘That must have been what happened to Ivy, mustn’t it?’

Phoebe stared at me. ‘I don’t follow.’

‘She must have discovered something, or remembered something that changed things. Changed
everything
.’

‘I suppose so,’ Phoebe conceded. ‘But to react like that, she must have been quite fragile, mustn’t she? Of a nervous disposition.’

‘The thing is, she wasn’t. Connor said she was one of the first women to train in horticulture. She’d been a young woman in a man’s world. That must have been tough. Then when she lost her adult daughter, she stepped in as a surrogate mother for Connor
and
stood up to his father when Connor wanted to follow in her footsteps. She always sounds tough as old boots, not the sensitive type at all.’

‘And yet something knocked her sideways, poor old thing.’

I stood up and started to clear away the breakfast things while Phoebe sat in ruminative silence. I considered returning to bed for a few hours to catch up on sleep but rejected the idea, fearing a daytime nap would make insomnia even more likely.

As I loaded the dishwasher, Phoebe suddenly said, ‘What on earth do you think about when you’re lying awake at night?’

‘Work… The garden... I think about how nice it will look in the summer. But mostly I think about Sylvester. Whether he’s dead or alive. And if he
is
alive, whether it matters to him if I am.’

Phoebe didn’t reply immediately. She appeared to weigh her words, then said, ‘I’m absolutely convinced that
wherever
he is now, your welfare still matters to him.’

‘You really think so?’

‘I
know
so. He loved you, Ann.’

‘But he left.’

‘As I have frequently observed,’ Phoebe said loftily, ‘life stinks.’ She hauled herself to her feet, reached for her stick, then shuffled out of the room, breathing heavily.

Clumsy with tiredness, I broke a glass while loading the dishwasher, then, as I gathered up the pieces, I managed to cut myself. Applying Elastoplast one-handed to a bleeding thumb, I wept a little, for no particular reason.

I could feel myself unravelling, like a piece of old knitting.

~

Connor and I behaved as if nothing had happened. He did not presume, he exerted no pressure, nor did he sulk. He was as cheerful and friendly as ever, but also watchful, waiting for a sign. Clearly it was up to me to indicate if there was to be a shift in our relationship. Probably all I needed to do was speak, touch him, perhaps just smile invitingly and we would pick up where we’d left off in the wood.

I did none of those things. Insomnia made me too tired to think straight. I knew what I wanted, or thought I did, yet I did nothing, telling myself it was impossible to conduct a romantic relationship under Phoebe’s nose. If I was going to make a fool of myself with a younger man, I didn’t want an audience, let alone one as critical as my mother.

So I let things drift – long enough for Connor to conclude our kiss had been a whim on my part, an unprofessional gaffe on his. I watched myself throw away an opportunity, as if someone else was directing my life, someone too confused and frightened to know what she was doing.

My confusion was perhaps understandable. Years of living alone and many months of celibacy had undermined my sexual self-confidence, yet desire persisted. And that was what Phoebe would say, angry and maudlin after her third gin. “Don’t believe what they say about old age, Ann. You never stop
wanting
. You learn to go without, but you never stop noticing what other women have and you don’t. Youth. Beauty. Health. Husbands. Lovers.” I might have added, “Children”.

But what did I
fear
? My own emptiness and need? Other people’s? Did I see Connor as a threat to my shaky equilibrium, my fragile sense of self-sufficiency? I suppose going without must be habit-forming. I allowed myself to want, but not to have. I watched, though. And Connor waited.

~

As spring wore on and the weather improved, we were able to spend more time outdoors and made good progress in the garden. I knew the end of the project was in sight, but Connor always seemed to find more jobs that needed to be done.

One day he decided to build a compost bin, recycling bits of the old shed that had been crushed by the fallen beech.

‘The wood’s perfectly sound,’ he explained, ‘and the bin will blend in better if we use old wood. And cost nothing.’

‘I shudder to think what we owe you in man hours,’ I said as I sorted through the heap of broken wood, removing nails with pliers.

‘And I shudder to think what I owe you in gin and Rioja, not to mention all the food I’ve put away.’

‘It’s kind of you to see it like that, but we owe you big time.’

He took a long piece of wood, examined it, then laid it across the arms of a garden bench, saying, ‘It’s been a pleasure, Ann. I’ll be sorry when it’s all over, but pretty soon it will be. The garden’s ready now. And waiting.’

I looked round at the pale new leaves, the breaking buds and the white flowers on the fan-trained pear trees, the first fruit to blossom. ‘It
is
waiting, isn’t it? And it’s been such a long wait. But finally the time has come. It’s waking up.’

Connor didn’t reply, but gazed at me for a moment as if he wanted to speak, then evidently thought better of it. Bending over his piece of wood, he began to saw.

We continued to work together in silence.

~

Connor was always a pleasure to watch, at ease with his tools and materials. I admired the unhurried and meticulous way in which he worked, his easy grace as he swung a hammer or stooped to pick up a wheelbarrow. I derived a sensual pleasure from the sight of a man trusting his body, using it skilfully. It soothed me in a way, aroused me in another. When we worked together I would sometimes stand, my trowel or secateurs idle, and watch Connor surreptitiously, hypnotised by the rhythm of his digging or raking.

Once he must have sensed my gaze, because he looked up from his digging and his eyes met mine. I meant to look away at once, but didn’t. It seemed pointless to pretend.

He straightened up and said, ‘You look tired. Still not sleeping?’

‘No, not much.’

‘Maybe you should rest. It’s good to have company, but I can manage.’

‘Yes, I know, but I like to be outdoors, listening to the birds. There’s so much activity now. It’s… reassuring.’

‘Spring’s here again,’ Connor said leaning on his spade.

‘Yes, it’s the continuity, isn’t it? Yet every year Spring is just as exciting.’ He nodded, smiling. ‘It reminds me—’ I stopped, unsure whether to continue.

‘Of what?’

‘Of my father. Being out here and helping in the garden. I think he must have found me little jobs to do. I remember being very happy out here, before—’ Again I faltered.

‘Before he left?’

‘I was happy enough, but I suppose he and Phoebe must have been miserable.’

‘You were only five. You might have noticed, but you couldn’t have understood.’

‘No.’

‘And it wasn’t your fault he left.’

‘I know that now, but years later I used to wonder why I hadn’t been enough. Why he hadn’t wanted to stay for my sake. I’m sure if I’d ever had kids I’d have wanted to hold it together for them.’

‘He probably tried.’

‘Yes, I’m sure he did.’

I knelt down again and bent over a tray of plants and began to tease them out of their plastic compartments. One by one, I dropped them into the holes I’d dug for them, then I filled in around them with loose soil, patting it down carefully.

Connor was silent for a while, then said, ‘Perhaps Sylvester thought you’d be better off without him, you and Phoebe. Or – if you don’t mind my saying so – maybe he was just a selfish sod.’

I sat back on my heels and dusted soil from my hands. ‘Well, that would be the obvious explanation. But somehow I don’t think he was.’

‘Phoebe might have a different view.’

‘Well, she didn’t ever
say
he was. Selfish, I mean. She never mentioned him, let alone criticised him. Everything I know about Sylvester, I had to wheedle out of her. She didn’t seem to hold a grudge as so many abandoned women do. She just wanted to move on. And she did.’

‘Did you?’

I looked up at him, surprised. ‘You think I haven’t?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m just asking the question – and maybe I shouldn’t. But whenever you mention your father, I find myself thinking you and Phoebe ought to talk.
Really
talk.’ 

I bent over again and started to dig more holes with my trowel. ‘Oh, there are loads of things Phoebe and I need to talk about. Her future mainly, but she won’t hear of it. We don’t
talk
, my mother issues
decrees
. The latest is, she’s not celebrating her seventieth birthday.’