‘Would you like to plant them?’ the boy asked.
‘OK.’
He walked to the shed, picked up the pots and pulled the rose bushes out by the stems. He had already dug two holes and partly filled them with compost. The bag lay under the arch on the slate path. ‘Careful of the thorns.’
She lowered the first rambler into a hole and went to get down on her knees.
‘Let me do that.’ He was already squatting to fill the hole with compost, then stood to press it down firmly with his feet.
‘You’re not just a gymnast,’ she said, ‘you’re a gardener too.’
‘Ach, not at all. Anyone could do this. Have you been out for a walk?’
‘Yes.’
‘Here.’ He gave her a few lengths of green string. ‘If you tie this one up, I’ll plant the other.’
She tied two branches to the arch and did the same on the other side after Bradwen had planted that one too. The single rose — off-white, more bud than flower — wobbled on a branch that was much too thin but didn’t break off. The boy went inside and came out with a large saucepan. It was only when he held the pan at an angle next to one of the roses and water came pouring out that she realised what he was doing. He tossed the pan onto the grass, put his hands on his hips and sighed contentedly. ‘It’s time for your favourite programme,’ he said.
*
‘This ticks all the boxes!’ exclaimed a spoilt bitch. Even though she and her equally spoilt husband had a budget of eight hundred thousand pounds, their house-hunting just wouldn’t gel. He wanted ‘contemporary’ and she wanted ‘character features’. Sort yourselves out, for God’s sake, she thought, and don’t bother us with it. ‘This doesn’t do it for me,’ said the husband. ‘Not at all.’ She groaned. Bradwen brought her a glass of white wine without further comment. She didn’t notice him until he was right next to her. He’d crept up on his L and R stockinged feet. Fish, she thought. He’s taking good care of me. The boy crept back out of the room. He hadn’t taken off his new hat. The right side of her face was glowing from the heat of the stove.
She slumped a little and leant her head back against the sofa. Although on TV they were now talking about a typical Victorian hallway, she saw Shirley’s hairdressing salon before her: Rhys Jones waving his big hands to clear the cigarette smoke; the doctor in the cobalt-blue hairdresser’s cape with bloodshot smoker’s eyes and a strangely lecherous twist to his mouth; the hairdresser laughing so shrilly that her breasts jiggled and the tendons in her neck stood out obscenely; the house-and-garden magazines full of green pumpkins; and there’s the door opening to let in the baker of all people, it’s high time he had his hair cut too and his wife Awen pushes him in — her perm is sagging and a bit listless and it will be Christmas in a few days’ time. The hairdressing salon has got very busy all of a sudden. A Border collie is lying under the magazine table; it licks one of the table legs, maybe another dog lay there not so long ago. There goes the telephone. Shirley answers and says, astonished, ‘Yes, he is here. You must be psychic.’ And Rhys Jones takes the handset for a short conversation with his estate agent friend, assuring him with a smile that the woman will leave the house and also telling him that he groped her, that she’s got a ‘glorious arse’ and that she was only too keen to respond to his advances; a shame that she’s leaving really and no one knows where. Strangely enough there’s no cutting, washing or hairdrying going on. The word ‘badger’ crops up regularly and when it does they all laugh, except for the baker’s wife and the dog, dogs don’t laugh, and this dog seems to be trying to creep farther and farther away from the people. Near the door are plastic crates with big lumps of meat in them, watery blood trickling out over the tiled floor. Shirley asks the sheep farmer how his son is, what he’s getting up to these days, and the sheep farmer turns pale, whistles his dog out from under the magazine table and almost slips over in the puddle of blood that’s formed near the door. His dog starts to lick the tiles. ‘Enjoy your lamb,’ Rhys Jones says before banging the door shut behind him. Now she hears ‘Emily’ in the hairdressing salon. ‘Emily.’ It’s unclear who’s speaking. The doctor looks guilty and, like a bad actor, asks who they’re talking about.
Bradwen was standing next to the sofa. ‘Tea’s ready,’ he said, maybe for the second time.
On TV a team of clever people were competing in a quiz. Eggheads they called them here, even more mocking than bollebozen in Holland, the kind of people who did a PhD on someone like Emily Dickinson.
53
The boy had put new candles in the holders on the windowsill. There was a lit candle on the table too. Dickinson’s Collected Poems lay next to her plate, shut. On the plate it was haddock again, with mashed potato and fennel. Colourless food.
She sat down and looked at him, thinking of the almost subservient way he had worked for her an hour and a half ago. Stamping down the soil, pouring the water. ‘Why haven’t you gone away?’ she asked.
‘Who’d cook?’
‘I can cook too.’
‘Who’d plant the roses? Who’d do the shopping? Who’d keep the stove burning?’
‘Why?’
The boy looked at her. The hat looked really good on him, even at the dinner table.
‘Have you already brought in the pan?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Why?’ she asked again.
‘Do I ask you questions?’ he said. ‘Just look under the Christmas tree instead.’
She looked aside. A present was lying there. Before standing up to get it, she took a big mouthful of wine. She stayed next to the Christmas tree with Bradwen’s gift in her hand.
‘Socks,’ she said softly.
The boy sniggered. ‘That woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’
She tore off the paper. He had simply bought her a woolly hat. An incredibly ugly hat, purple, with sewn-on flowers in a range of colours, almost all of which clashed with the colour of the hat itself. A hippie hat, it even had two tassels hanging down the sides. She swallowed and was glad she was facing away from him. She swallowed again before pulling it on. It fitted perfectly. ‘Just what I needed,’ she said, turning and going back to the table.
Bradwen looked pleased and ate.
She drank and poked at the fish.
‘What is it with this Dickinson?’ he asked, gesturing at the poems with the mash-filled serving spoon.
‘Yes. I wanted to ask you that too.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Why do you keep turning her portrait round?’
‘Those beady little eyes.’
‘It’s a photo.’
‘So? She gives me the creeps. And you?’
‘I was involved with her because of my work.’
The boy chewed. ‘Hmm.’
‘She had a dog too.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yes, Carla.’ She squeezed her lips into a circle between her thumb and index finger. It was called Carlo, the name was in her head, another detail that had angered her in Habegger’s biography because the man only mentioned the dog four times. It was a Newfoundland, an enormous hairy beast — she had looked up a picture of the breed — and it was called Carlo. A timid little woman whose only friend was a big dog and Habegger didn’t care. Now that she’d squeezed her lips into a circle, she tried it again. ‘Carla.’
‘A lapdog,’ the boy said.
‘No, a very large one.’ She ran the back of her hand over her hot forehead and drained her glass of wine. ‘Pour some more.’
Bradwen picked up the bottle obediently. ‘Funny name for a big dog.’