The Girls in the Garden Page 5

  Adele forced a smile. “What can I do for you, Gordon?”

  “Well, first of all can you show me how to get this blasted TV to show me something that isn’t a load of middle-aged hags screaming about who does or doesn’t do the housework?” He flapped the remote at the television, which was showing Loose Women. “And secondly”—he adjusted his position slightly and winced—“I’m afraid I do rather need to visit the bathroom again. If you wouldn’t mind just giving me a hand out of this thing.” He gestured at the sofa and grimaced.

  Adele’s teeth ground together with the effort of looking pleasant. “No problem.” She offered Gordon her shoulder, wrapped her arm around his back, and used her spare hand to pull him up by the elbow.

  He puffed and gasped. “Christ,” he hissed, finding his balance. “Christ.”

  He leaned against Adele for a moment. She gripped his elbow, helping steady him. Then she passed him his stick. He took it from her and sighed. “Never thought it would come to this, Mrs. H.,” he said, sadly. “Really never did.” Then he brightened a degree, turned to look out of the window at the private park, smiled, and said, “Some of the best years of my life out there. All those endless summers in the seventies, the little ones running about, everyone up to God knows what. Did I ever tell you about the girl who streaked across the lawn with a lamp shade on her head? Nobody did ever work out who it was.” He chuckled, caressing the wooden bird on his stick. “And whatever happened to that lovely girl, what was her name? Little blond thing. Mother was the headmistress of the girls’ school up the road?”

  “Cecelia?”

  “Yes!” He clicked his fingers. “Cecelia. That was the one. Pretty, pretty little thing. Whatever happened to her, I wonder?”

  “She still lives here,” said Adele. “Her mum’s in a home now. But Cecelia still lives in the same flat. And she’s got a daughter now, same age as Fern. Tyler.”

  His gaze turned to the window again. He licked his dry lips. “Lovely girl,” he murmured. He turned slowly and headed toward the bathroom, shuffling in his huge slippered feet, pausing every now and then to let the pain subside, singing creakily under his breath as he went: “ ‘Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart, you’re shaking my confidence daily,’ ” giving a showgirl kick at the doorway and wiggling his large bottom just once before disappearing.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Wild, this is Don Feild, I’m your husband’s treatment coordinator at St. Mungo’s.”

  Clare drew in her breath, fearing bad news.

  “I’m calling because things are progressing very well for Chris. We’ve been trying him on a brand-new medication. And we’re all completely amazed with the results. We’ve set up a meeting, later this week, for everyone in Chris’s team. To talk about the future.”

  Clare pulled herself up onto one of the kitchen bar stools and said, “Yes?”

  “We were hoping you might want to come along.”

  Clare fell silent for a moment. She’d kept her distance from Chris so assiduously these past few months that she’d almost forgotten she was allowed to be part of his life. “Not really. I mean, what’s the likely outcome of this meeting?”

  “Well, the way things are looking right now and going forward, my recommendations will be very strongly geared toward starting a discharge program. Toward getting him home.”

  “Home?” She pulled her spine from a hump into a straight line.

  “Mrs. Wild, your husband is doing remarkably well. He’s responded so well to the medications that he’s barely the same man who came in here six months ago.”

  “But, home? What home? I mean, you don’t mean here . . . ?”

  “Well, if not with you then another family member? Chris’s mother for example.” She heard the sound of papers being moved about. “Susan Wild.”

  “But she lives in Switzerland.”

  “Yes, right, I see. Anyone else? Closer to home?”

  “No. I don’t know. But I don’t want him here. Under any circumstances.”

  “I really think it might be a good idea for you to come and see him, Mrs. Wild. To see how much he’s changed.”

  “What, the man who set fire to his children’s home without even knowing if they were in it or not?”

  “Well. Yes. And I understand, obviously, why you haven’t been to see him. But I also know that his main objective every day since he’s been here has been to get well enough to be accepted back into his family.”

  Through the kitchen window Clare could see the girls. As with almost every moment of this warm and sunny half-term week, they were with the gang at the other end of the park. They suddenly seemed unimaginably far away, as though they were on a boat drifting far from shore.

  “And if he finds us? If he comes here?”

  “Please don’t worry, Mrs. Wild, nothing bad is going to happen. I promise you. No one will give Chris your new address and you will be absolutely safe. If that’s what you want.” He paused, as though waiting for her to say something. “Anyway,” he said after a moment. “I’ll call again at the end of the week. Let you know the outcome. But if everything goes according to plan, your husband will probably be discharged straightaway.”

  6

  Adele was standing at her back door holding a large wooden board piled high with wholesome-looking muffins and bars. She shouted out her daughters’ names and then indicated that everyone was welcome to help themselves too. The whole gang trooped across the lawn and into the Howeses’ backyard. “Fresh out of the oven,” said Adele, pouring out plastic beakers of elderflower cordial.

  Pip looked at the muffins and bars suspiciously. Were those raisins in there? And the bars looked as though they were full of seeds. She did not like seeds. Or raisins. “Help yourself, Pip,” said Adele.

  Pip smiled. She didn’t want to be rude. She picked up a muffin and tore off a small piece.

  Dylan and Tyler took their snacks to the swinging wicker chair in the corner of the patio and squeezed themselves together inside its bulb-shaped basket. Tyler hooked her legs across Dylan’s lap. Crumbs from her muffin fell onto Dylan’s legs and she pushed them off, nonchalantly, with the side of her hand. Pip watched, curiously, somewhat enviously. She couldn’t imagine ever being like that with a boy, particularly a boy who wasn’t her boyfriend.

  The three sisters sat in a row at the garden table, Adele at the far end with her arm draped across Catkin’s shoulders. They were tribal somehow, Pip thought, distinguishable only by their different haircuts.

  “Sit down, girls,” said Adele, smiling at Grace and Pip as though she thought they were quaint or amusing in some way. “Have some juice.”

  Adele was wearing a long-sleeved dress with a black and red pattern on it and old black plimsolls. Her thick dark hair was plaited and hanging over her shoulder. She had three holes in her left ear and a tiny pinprick golden stud in her nostril. The afternoon sun caught her cheekbones and the stud in her nose as she chatted with the children and Pip thought she was one of the most beautiful mums she’d ever seen, particularly as she was quite old—at least forty, she reckoned.

  After they’d eaten the snacks, the children started to drift into Adele’s flat.

  “Where’s your granddad?” Tyler asked, looking about suspiciously.

  “Don’t know,” said Willow.

  “He’s having a nap,” said Adele. “So try not to be too noisy.” Then she disappeared, leaving the children alone in the living room. The sisters arranged themselves across the enormous modular sofa and Tyler and Dylan sat on the floor with their backs against the sofa edge and the dog nestled between them. Pip squashed herself against Grace in an armchair and wondered what would happen next. The atmosphere felt strangely charged. Nobody was really talking. She wondered for a moment if it was something to do with them. If maybe they weren’t supposed to be here. She was about to whisper into Grace’s ear: Shall we go? when Tyler suddenly fixed them both with her chilly gaze and said, “Is it true that your dad set fire to your house?”<
br />
  Pip felt Grace’s body stiffen. “Who told you that?”

  Tyler shrugged. “My mum. She said she saw you lot in Waitrose the other day and she recognized your mum from the papers when it happened. Is it true?”

  Pip caught her breath and waited for her sister to reply.

  “No,” said Grace, a moment too late, “it’s not true. Our dad’s dead. Your mum’s wrong.”

  Tyler picked up her shoulders and said, “Whatever. I could always Google it.”

  “Feel free,” said Grace.

  “What’s your dad called?”

  “I told you,” said Grace, “he’s dead.”

  “Then what was he called?”

  Pip saw Dylan nudge Tyler hard with his elbow. Tyler threw him back a dirty look.

  “David,” said Grace, again a beat too slow. “He was called David.”

  Tyler nodded, unconvinced. “So is that why you moved here, then?” she continued. “’Cause your dad died?”

  “Yes,” said Grace.

  “What did he die of?”

  “Cancer.”

  “What kind?”

  “Lung.”

  Tyler nodded again. Then she got to her feet and said, “Can we go and play with the chinchilla, Wills?” Her manner was affectedly bored and offhand. She yawned. But though she was feigning ennui, it was obvious to Pip that she was rattled.

  After she and Willow had left the room, Dylan turned to Grace and said, “Sorry about that. She can be a bit . . .”

  “Yeah,” agreed Grace, “what is her problem?”

  Catkin stalked across the room to the fruit bowl and picked up a plum. “She’s jealous,” she said, examining the plum in minute detail, turning it over and over in her hand before finally biting into it.

  Grace frowned. “What of?”

  “Jealous of everyone, really. But especially of you two.”

  “What? Why?”

  “No particular reason. It’s just, you know”—she waved the plum around the room in an arc—“this is her territory. You’re the new cats.”

  Pip and Grace exchanged a glance. “That’s really silly,” said Pip.

  “Yeah, well,” said Dylan, getting to his feet and helping himself to a plum from the bowl as if this was his own home, “Tyler’s got issues. I mean, her home life—it’s quite difficult. She’s very insecure.”

  Pip couldn’t work out if he was being defensive or explanatory. Either way she felt strangely put out by the intimate tone of his explanation; there were infinite impenetrable layers of shared history behind his words. A whole world that had nothing whatsoever to do with her or her sister. An emptiness opened up inside her, an out-of-placeness, and she felt almost as though she was about to cry. But just at that moment they heard the front door bang shut and a male voice and then Leo burst into the room and immediately the mood changed and the tension lifted. “Hello, cherubs!” He kissed Fern on the crown of her head and threw his arms around Catkin and spun her around. “Hello, Dylan, old man. How are you?” He greeted Dylan with a man-hug and a firm pat on the back, which Dylan appeared to relish. “And you two.” He smiled from Grace to Pip and back again. “Apologies: I can’t quite remember which is which, you’re so similar. Pip?” He pointed at Pip and she nodded, blushed slightly, and Leo said, “Phew!” wiping his forehead.

  “Where’s Wills?” he asked then, looking around the room.

  “She’s in her room with Tyler.”

  “And Puppy?”

  “Sleeping,” said Catkin. “How come you’re home from work so early?”

  He flung himself down on the sofa beside Fern and kicked off his shoes. “I got bored,” he said. “Kept thinking of my family all loafing about at home in the sunshine and couldn’t bear not being part of it. So”—he switched his attention to Pip and Grace—“how are you two getting on in our private paradise?” He indicated the park beyond the windows. “Do you like it?”

  Pip nodded effusively. “It’s really good,” she said.

  “How about you, Grace? How do you like it here?”

  Grace shrugged and forced a smile. “It’s okay,” she said.

  “Good,” he said. Then he slapped his hands onto his knees and said, “Right, well, I suppose I’d better go and check on dear old Puppy. Make sure he’s still all in one piece.”

  “Or alive,” said Catkin.

  Leo smiled. “Yes. That too.”

  He left the room and Pip saw Grace follow him with her eyes. She turned to see what her sister was seeing: a middle-­aged man in colored trousers and a rumpled blue shirt, very slim, nice brown hair, curls of which covered the nape of his neck. He walked with a looseness in his joints, as though his cartilage was made of rubber bands. He walked, she thought, like a teenager.

  “Can I use your toilet?” Pip asked Fern, suddenly curious to see what lay beyond the door of the living room.

  “Yeah, sure,” said Fern, “it’s in the hallway, by the front door.”

  The hallway was high-ceilinged with gray-green walls and black and white encaustic floor tiles. The internal front door, with its panels of glowing stained glass, was ahead of her, and the kitchen to her right.

  “Hello, Pip!” said Adele, who was sitting at the kitchen table reading a pile of paper with a pen in her hand and black-framed reading glasses on. “You okay?”

  “Just going to the toilet,” she said.

  “Oh, okay, but don’t use the one in the hallway, it doesn’t flush properly. Use the one in the bathroom, over there.” She pointed at the other end of the hallway. “Second door on the right.”

  “Thank you,” Pip said, smiling widely.

  There were numerous doors off this part of the hallway. She peered through them as she passed. The first had walls painted dark red, curtains drawn, bed unmade; she heard the scratch of small claws against plastic and thought it must be Fern’s room. Opposite this was another bedroom. Here the curtains were open and there was a view across the park. A neatly made single bed, clothes hanging from a freestanding rail, inspirational posters on the wall—sunsets and dolphins—this must be Catkin’s room. Then came the bathroom, and beyond that three more doors. Pip looked behind her, checking she was out of view of Adele sitting in the kitchen. The door at the far end was open so she went and peered through the door. This was clearly the master bedroom, where Leo and Adele slept: walls painted bright white with a giant futon, colorful artwork and family photos on the walls, an oversized linen light shade hanging from the ceiling, and a freestanding bath in the corner with bottles of organic-this and homeopathic-that unguents arranged on its sides.

  Hearing footsteps she turned and quickly headed toward the bathroom. As she passed one of the closed doors it opened, revealing a scene Pip hadn’t expected to see. A child’s bedroom: pink walls, fluff-covered fairy lights, a heart-shaped rug on white floorboards, a basket of soft toys, a white wrought-iron bedstead with twists and flourishes, and there, on the bed, Leo sitting side by side with Tyler, her hand inside his, her head rested on his shoulder.

  Willow, who had opened the door, looked at Pip in surprise. “What are you doing?” she asked softly.

  “Looking for the bathroom.”

  “Just there.” She smiled. “Next door down.”

  And then Willow left her own bedroom, where her father sat hand in hand with her thirteen-year-old friend, and she pulled the door shut behind them.

  Dear Daddy,

  I’m starting to think there’s something not right about this community. Seriously. Yesterday we went into the sisters’ flat again, but this time with all the gang, and first of all Tyler was really rude to me and Grace. Well, particularly to Grace. She asked us if we were the girls whose dad burned down their house. But she asked it in a really nasty way, in front of everyone, and so Grace had to lie and say we weren’t, but you could tell she didn’t believe us and then she stropped off. And then the sisters’ dad came home and a few minutes later I went to use the bathroom and when I walked past Willow’s bedr
oom, he was sitting in there, on her bed, holding hands with Tyler. I’m not lying. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. And she was all snuggled up next to him. And when Willow left her room, she closed the door behind her, like she was giving them both some privacy or something.

  Anyway, I was really freaked out and wanted to leave, but when I came back into the living room, Grace and Dylan were sitting next to each other, looking at something on Grace’s phone and laughing, and I could tell she was all excited to be sitting with Dylan and she wouldn’t want to come with me. So I just left. And after that I walked around the park on my own for ages. Trying to work it all out in my head. Like, why is Tyler so offish with me and Grace and what the hell is going on with the sisters’ dad and Tyler? And what does Dylan’s mum look like? And where does Tyler’s mum live? And where are their dads? Stuff like that.

  I walked past the halfway house. Mum says it’s for women and their babies. I could hear a woman shouting at a child and it made me sad. It made me wonder what it’s like where you are. Is there lots of shouting? Does it keep you awake at night? Are there scary people there? Do you get scared? I haven’t seen you for six months now. I’m starting to forget what you look like . . .

  Anyway, there was a woman sitting on a bench in one of the hidden-away corners. She was quite old and very thin and she had a cat sitting next to her in a cat box. The door of the cat box was open but the cat didn’t try to get out. And then when I looked closer I saw that she had a huge rabbit on a lead by her feet. A real rabbit, not a toy one. So I couldn’t help but smile and she said it was okay to come and stroke the rabbit. He was called Fergus. He was so soft and calm. This is what he looks like (sorry, I’m not very good at drawing animals!):

  The woman said her name was Rhea and that she’d lived on the park since she was fifteen and she was now eighty-four! She said she’d seen everything there was to see. And then she said a strange thing; she said, “Best to keep yourself to yourself out there. Don’t get too involved.” She said not to stroke the cat because he would bite.