‘A white one.’
The urge to throw back my head and laugh hysterically at this extra twist of the knife was strong. ‘I don’t know anything about plants.’
‘But I do.’
It was ridiculous. Nathan should have been more careful. But, then, in conflating his two wives, he was making a point. Or perhaps he had reached a fork in the road where he had been too tired to consult the map. ‘You want to come in and plant this thing?’
‘Well, yes. I don’t feel we can waste it, under the circumstances.’
I thought of all the reasons why I didn’t want Rose to come inside the house with this muddled gift from Nathan.
‘I haven’t much time.’ She shifted the package to her other hand and checked her watch, a plain square Cartier that rested on a tanned wrist. ‘So?’
Across the road, Mrs Austen was entranced by this drama on the doorstep. She put down her fork and wiped her hands on her blue and white apron. Any minute now she would cross the road and push herself on to Rose and me.
I stepped aside. ‘You’d better come in.’
17
Rose walked into the hall and waited. Her gaze travelled over the unopened post on the table to the moraine of shoes and jackets at the foot of the stairs and the pile of ironing on the chair.
‘Don’t look at how untidy it is,’ I said. ‘It’s been difficult.’
‘Of course.’ Up close, Rose had as dark a pair of shadows under her eyes as I did. ‘Of course you won’t have been able to cope.’ She fixed on Nathan’s coat, still on the peg. ‘When Nathan left, it was the same. Stuff everywhere. No sense to the day. No shape.’
I bristled. ‘Do we need to rake over old ground?’
‘There isn’t any point in pretending that what happened didn’t.’ Rose’s shrug had changed. It was no longer weary and burdened, as it had been years ago, but light and sophisticated, an almost Gallic gesture.
I led her into the kitchen. She placed the package on the table. ‘You’ve made it nice,’ she said. ‘Different, but nice.’ Her eyes flicked towards the door. ‘How are the boys? Are they in?’
Again I bristled. ‘They’re in the garden.’
Her eyes went past my left shoulder to the back door. ‘I didn’t catch more than a glimpse of them at the funeral. It… gave me quite a shock to see how like Nathan they are. Is Felix the one with the slightly fairer hair?’
‘No. That’s Lucas.’
‘They seemed big for five-year-olds.’
‘They’re six,’ I said. ‘They were six in March.’
‘Sam was nothing like Nathan until he was eighteen or so. Then he turned into Nathan’s clone. I wonder if they’re going to be tall like their father.’
‘I have no idea.’
If Rose imagined that she could spread her maternal wings over my children, she was wrong, wrong. ‘I could never fault her as a mother,’ Nathan said. ‘Never.’
I gestured towards the kettle. ‘Can I make you some coffee?’
‘No, thank you.’
The shadows of four children fell over the ensuing hard, cold silence.
I broke it: ‘The twins are not your business, Rose. I don’t know what Nathan was doing when he made that extraordinary…’ I dropped my voice ‘… that senseless request. Was he having a huge joke at our expense? If I die or end up paraplegic or mad, my children will be with you. What was he thinking of?’
She moved restlessly. ‘Don’t make too big a deal of it, Minty. It’s optional and unlikely to happen.’
‘Even so,’ I said bitterly, ‘I don’t want you involved with them.’
‘For goodness’ sake!’ she flashed at me. ‘Do you think I want to be?’ She checked herself. ‘Sorry.’
‘I’ve realized I didn’t know Nathan at all.’
Rose sighed, and said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, ‘That’s what I thought when he left. It astonished me how little I knew about someone I’d lived with for so long. It happens all the time, and it’s probably better that you can’t pry into every nook and cranny of someone’s mind.’
‘Sometimes I wonder if Nathan was so bored that he dreamed up the guardian idea because it gave him something to think about.’ I knew perfectly well that I was traducing him.
And Rose evidently agreed with that: ‘If you think Nathan would have been so selfish…’ She sent me a glance that suggested no bridge would ever span far or wide enough to connect us. ‘He was only thinking about the twins.’ She tapped the package and said, without much enthusiasm, ‘Shall we get on with this?’
Smarting, I led her into the garden. But if I had been wrong to accuse Nathan of self-gratification, it did not mean that his motives had been entirely pure.
The twins had burrowed out of sight behind the shed. On our return from Cornwall, their heads filled with tales of pirates and rock fortresses, they had set up a camp, which, they had informed me, was very, very private.
‘Where are they?’ asked Rose.
I pointed to the shed. ‘In their headquarters. I think it’s the Jedi battle command.’
‘Ah,’ said Rose. She bent down and tugged at an elderly lavender bush. ‘You didn’t care for my garden. You never did.’
Rough, moss-infested grass. Shrubs that required pruning. Overgrown flowerbeds. Casual outrages, the result of Nathan’s and my neglect. ‘No. I never did.’
She straightened up, a sprig of lavender in her fingers. ‘Funny, that. I imagined every blade of grass and leaf would be imprinted on my memory. But once you leave a place, you leave. Or, rather, it leaves you.’
I had devoted not inconsiderable time to imagining Rose’s feelings on being banished from her garden. ‘You mean you forgot about it?’
‘No, never that.’ She rolled the lavender between her fingers. ‘It holds the early days… of us… of me.’
‘Height, route and rest?’ I asked. ‘Did you build those in?’
‘Height? Route?’ Puzzled, she frowned. Then her brow cleared. ‘You’re talking about the plans I sent to Nathan. Did you like them? He asked me for some ideas and it sort of took off. I knew the garden inside out, after all.’
‘Actually, he never mentioned them. I found them in a notebook.’
‘Oh.’ Rose flushed fiery red, and her lips tightened. ‘If you like, I can send you what I suggested. I have a copy’
‘No.’ I said. ‘No.’
After a moment, she added, ‘I don’t think Nathan liked it that I didn’t mind doing the plans. I had an idea that he wanted me to say I’d have nothing to do with it. I think he was surprised that I didn’t mind. Anyway, that was why he ordered the rose, don’t you think?’
‘Probably’ I flapped a hand at a damaged section of fence. ‘The boys. Playing ball. It ought to be mended, but I was never interested in it. Nathan isn’t… I mean, Nathan wasn’t. Occasionally, he had a fit of conscience and did a bit of digging. When I moved in here he said that it had been your thing, not his. I took the implication to be that it wasn’t mine either.’
‘Poor Minty,’ said Rose, ultra-dry. ‘What a lot you had to put up with.’
There was a shout from behind the shed, and Felix emerged red-faced and wailing, ‘Mum! He hit me!’ He flung himself against my knees.
‘Shush,’ I said. ‘He didn’t mean it.’
Felix wailed harder, and I shook him gently. ‘Shush, Felix. Say hello to Mrs Lloyd.’
But Felix decided that he wanted a scene and upped the decibels. ‘Don’t show me up,’ I whispered to him, at which Felix threw himself down on the lawn and kicked his legs in the air. He looked like an angry insect. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of grinning Lucas waving a stick to which he had attached Felix’s Blanky. I transferred my attention back to the insect, who was now roaring. I tapped his bottom. ‘Stop it,’ I said sternly, which had no effect.