The Juniper Tree (7 page)

There were a few boxes at the end of the row where the green wasn’t very high and Gertrude remarked, ‘That’s queer, these are weeks behind the others and I remember they were all planted at the same time. It was a Sunday and you helped me.’

I said, with shame, ‘Those are the ones I planted.’

We both started to laugh and Gertrude, still laughing, said, ‘That proves Bernard is right as usual. He says that primitive people believe that pregnant women have special powers and they use them to plant the crops. Rather hard on the pregnant women, though.’

We planted, thinned out the hardy annuals, cut back and weeded, filled the urns with young petunias and trailing lobelia and watered the transplanted seedlings. There were so many surplus young plants Gertrude insisted that I take them home and plant them in the yard attached to the house. Although it had a certain amount of sun and was fairly private I’d never considered it as a garden, but, now I thought about it, I remembered noticing some green leaves pushing up through the tired earth that could be Michaelmas daisies and also some golden rod, and there was a straggling rose bush that had gone wild and a clump of something that might be self-seeded hollyhocks. On my way home I bought a garden fork and I started my garden that evening.

It was enclosed with high walls on two sides, a fence with a few lilac bushes above on the west side and on the south a low wall and large gates that led to the main road and were never opened. The ground was partly paved and partly wild green weeds which I gradually turned into a rough lawn. There were slight indications that someone had once made a herbaceous bed round three sides of the yard but more recently coke had been stored there. As I dug up splinters of glass, chips of china and coke I pretended to myself that it was a suitable place to find small treasure, so I dug deeper than I would have normally. I did find a few small coins, a cut-glass salt-cellar with an almost undamaged silver top, and something that might have been the remains of an antique bracelet but was more likely part of an old copper pipe. But my deep digging was rewarded when I exposed some really large York stones which I made into a low wall with climbing flowers planted both sides. If it had been higher I’d have planted wisteria there; instead I had it growing up the south wall of the cottage, dark mauve, and with it the rare white floribunda called ‘Alba’, and I hope they are still growing there to this day. The soil was tainted and dead, just dirt really, so I bought expensive earth and put it round each plant and sprinkled bone meal over the entire garden. After I bought a hose for watering I promised myself that it was the last thing I’d buy until the autumn. Then I broke my promise and spent ten pounds on a magnolia tree and this made me feel really ashamed and for the rest of the summer the only thing I spent on the garden was my time.

Almost every evening we gardened, Tommy and I. I let her stay until the dusk came and sometimes so late we went to bed at the same time. She so enjoyed stirring up the earth and watering the flowers with her little can, often getting so wet I had to take her soaking clothes off and, if it was still warm, I let her play naked. Fortunately no interfering neighbours could see us. She liked to run round the garden with her arms behind her and the palms of her hands facing upwards so that she almost appeared to be flying in the pallid evening light.

One evening when the watering was finished we were eating a simple meal of milk, cornflakes and fruit, sitting at the garden table I’d bought from a junk shop and painted white. We were eating by the light thrown into the garden from the cottage windows, but parts of the garden were almost dark. Suddenly we were disturbed by a rattling at the gate, then there was a head jumping up and down like something to be shot at at a fair. Perhaps it said something above the sound of the traffic, but I wasn’t sure.

Leaving our unfinished meal, I hurried Tommy into the house and through the side door that lead to the shop and, when I switched on the light, there was a face against the window, peering. It seemed a mad face to me, but when it started calling ‘Bella, Bella’ the voice was vaguely familiar. Then, to my dismay, I saw it was Stephen, not looking mad at all, just annoyed at not being recognized. Reluctantly I let him into the shop and then into the back room and said crossly, ‘I wish people would leave me alone. I suppose mother gave you my address.’

I don’t think he heard me because he was too intent on staring at Tommy, who had picked up a toy trumpet and was handing it to him to blow. He turned away from her and said in a cruel voice, ‘Is this the child your mother thinks is mine? She must be mad. You said you were pregnant by me as an excuse not to share the insurance money. Don’t think it is the money I care about, keep it for all I care, but the deceit, trying to pass that little blackamoor off as my child.’

I shouted, ‘Shut up, you conceited idiot. I never passed her off as your child, she’s mine. I don’t even know her father’s name, so she’s doubly mine. Mother has never seen her and didn’t even know she existed until a couple of weeks ago, so what right has she to interfere?’ And I scooped my child up in my arms as if to protect her.

For a moment she looked as if she were about to cry. I don’t think she had ever heard angry voices before. She buried her face in my neck, then looked out and with the sweetest smile again held the trumpet out to Stephen. To my surprise he gently took it and blew a long note and as the smile broadened he blew another. My anger faded. It seemed ridiculous to shout at a man blowing a tin trumpet. I put Tommy down and drew the curtains as if it were an ordinary evening. Anger and fear had left the room and I said, ‘I was just about to make a cup of coffee. Would you like one, Stephen?’

I put Tommy to bed and we sat talking in a friendly way. I asked after old friends I hadn’t seen for years and he told me of marriages that had ended and of new ones that had taken place, jobs that ended and new ones that hadn’t always taken place. Stephen was fortunate and still had his advertising job. Then we became more personal and he told me about his girlfriends, several casual ones and three more permanent, that is to say they had lived in the flat we used to share. I’d always felt like a lodger when I lived there. It had never been a home like the shop was. Everything had to be done Stephen’s way and my belongings tucked away and not in evidence. I supposed it had been the same for his other girlfriends. Poor things, no wonder they didn’t last long. Then he was asking me questions and of course the main one was my daughter’s parentage. Who was her father? I told him the simple truth but he could hardly believe it because it sounded so unlike my usual behaviour. He didn’t understand that when one is unhappy and without hope one does strange things, perhaps even murder. He went on asking unnecessary questions: ‘But what did he look like? Was he very dark? What did he do for a living?’

All I remembered was that he was kind, that he appeared to have problems, though I couldn’t remember what they were, and that he wore this rather smelly red velvet jacket, and even went to bed in it.

‘He doesn’t sound very attractive to me,’ Stephen said, staring hard at my face. ‘You could do better than that,’ and he ran his finger down my scarred face. ‘This thing has improved so much one hardly notices it after a few minutes.’

I felt my hand instinctively rising towards my scar but it didn’t reach it and I said offhandedly, ‘People get used to it and so have I.’ I knew his next question would be, Had I a lover? He might even suggest that we become lovers again. I didn’t want him as a lover; but I needed friends. I had so few.

Chapter Nine

S
o Stephen became my friend, not a trusted friend, but a friend. He used to arrive without warning, sometimes with a bottle of wine and sometimes without, but he usually expected a meal. He came about once a week, often when it was fine because now the days were drawing out; he liked to sit in the garden if it was warm enough. He even fixed an outdoor light and gave me two garden chairs, and the gritty old backyard turned into a flower-filled patio with whitewashed walls. Sometimes Tommy was still running around when Stephen came. At first he was uneasy with her, but when she talked to him in her trusting way and put her small brown hand on his knee and called him ‘Friend’, he was won over. She called him ‘Friend’ because I’d told her he was a friend when they first met.

One evening he took us both to Richmond Park to see the deer, and when he heard the passers-by remarking how beautiful Tommy was, he became quite proud, as if he really were her father. Another evening he took us to visit friends of his living at Kew, a photographer and his wife. They were delighted with Tommy and took photographs of her eating and playing. They thought she would do well as a child model; but I wasn’t at all keen on the idea because it would upset her settled life between the shop and nursery, just when things were going so well and we didn’t need the money.

I wanted to keep the Forbeses apart from Stephen and seldom mentioned them to each other; but he soon discovered that we were often away at weekends and that I went to the theatre now and then. One Saturday evening, when Bernard was helping me to close the shop, Stephen arrived, his golden hair glittering in the evening sun as he crossed the road. He said he happened to be passing, but I knew he was just being inquisitive or even spying for my mother. Of course I had to introduce them, particularly as Tommy ran up to him and flung her arms round his legs and called him ‘Friend’ so it was obvious he was a frequent caller. It amused me to see the two men summing each other up.

Bernard seemed a little huffed. He hung the ‘Closed’ notice on the door and said, ‘I’m afraid we are about to leave. My wife is waiting for us at home and we’re late already.’

I said, ‘Yes, we’d better go out by the side door now it’s all locked up. I’m sorry we have to rush off like this, Stephen.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said petulantly. ‘As I said, I was just passing.’

We all left together but I had to run back to collect a plastic bag containing our things for the weekend and to turn the water heater off – I always forget things if I’m rushed. When I rejoined the men I saw that by a coincidence they had parked their cars nose to tail against the Green, Stephen’s an MG and Bernard’s a large Volvo he used for work. They were talking cars and seemed more relaxed and Bernard was holding Tommy in his arms ready to put her in her own little seat at the back.

We parted in a friendly way but immediately we left the Green behind, Bernard was asking me questions: ‘So that’s the man you left home for,’ he said teasingly. ‘He’s certainly handsome, except that his eyes are slightly close together. Didn’t you say he was a little on the mean side?’

Feeling rather disloyal to Stephen I agreed, but added, ‘He isn’t as bad as he used to be. He brings me wine quite often and he gave me the garden chairs and fixed the light, you know, so he must have improved. I expect I didn’t know how to manage him.’

‘And now you do?’ he asked smiling.

I thought for a moment. Did I know how to manage him? ‘No, not really, but I don’t care for him all that much. I used to be fearfully vulnerable when I did.’

We crossed the bridge and weaved our way through Richmond’s narrow streets towards the Forbeses house. When we reached it and I stepped into their courtyard I felt I was on enchanted ground. I think my daughter felt the same and she always called it home.

It was May. Hardly anyone noticed Gertrude was pregnant except that she had this radiance and just to look at her made one feel happy and at peace. Bernard adored her more than ever and kept saying, ‘Look at her, isn’t she lovely?’ When we were alone, he’d sometimes become quite apprehensive and ask me if I thought thirty-seven was too old to have a first baby. ‘You don’t think anything could go wrong, do you?’ he’d say in a most unBernard-like way. ‘The doctor would tell me if anything was wrong. I asked him about all the gardening she did and walking the dog in the park, but he said pregnancy wasn’t an illness, exercise was good for her.’

That weekend they teased me a little about Stephen, but it was kind teasing and I didn’t mind. I wasn’t very pleased, though, when they got on to the subject of my mother. They really pitied her. Poor woman, deprived of her lovely little grand-daughter and living in Kilburn with the horrible Mr Crimony smelling of coal-dust. I said she was happy as she was; she liked her work in the travel agency and seemed to like Mr Crimony too. She’d known him most of her life and if she wanted to see her grandchild she was welcome to come any day she liked. That wasn’t quite true; I was dreading her coming.

Fortunately they soon forgot about my mother because some German friends arrived with a small boy not much older than Marlinchen and they played together very well as soon as we left them to their own devices, which consisted of mildly teasing the old dog, putting stones on the swing and picking wild flowers in Gertrude’s thicket. They left the flowers scattered on the kitchen floor and when she saw them Gertrude was upset because they had brought may into the house. She kept saying, ‘It’s fearfully unlucky to bring may into the house. Don’t tell Bernard.’

I tried to reassure her by saying that may in the house was considered lucky in some countries; but she looked at me with her great eyes filled with disbelief and said, ‘We are not in other countries, we’re in England.’

She still appeared uneasy when it was time for Bernard to drive me home. As we said goodbye, I whispered in her ear, ‘I don’t think it was may. It looked like blackthorn to me and I definitely saw a thorn.’

It was worthwhile lying to see the relief on her face as she murmured thoughtfully, ‘It’s late for blackthorn, but it’s shady down there in the thicket. Yes, it could easily have been blackthorn.’

It was as if a ripple of our talk about mother had touched her because she telephoned the following evening, when calls are cheap, and said that she had run into Stephen, which must have taken quite a lot of arranging because he lived in Chelsea and she hardly ever left Kilburn. She said, ‘I asked Stephen about your little girl and he said that she was a lovely child but he wasn’t her father. Is this true, that he isn’t her father?’