The Seed Collectors (26 page)

The orchid walk begins at the Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory at 10 a.m.

‘So, kids, there’s a prize for who can record the most plants.’

‘But we’ll see all the same ones.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Well, what’s the prize?’

James sighs. ‘Um . . . cake. Yes, the winner chooses what cake I make this afternoon.’

‘Can the winner choose no cake?’

‘Christ, Holly, get into the spirit of this.’

‘Daddy, don’t swear.’

‘And we’re having roast lamb first.’ James tickles Ash under his ribcage. ‘Yum!’

Holly just sighs.

Bryony and Charlie are still inside looking at books. They come out with the guide, a large man with a moth-eaten jumper. Bryony is wearing huge sunglasses, like something from a magazine, which is sort of embarrassing. There are around ten other people waiting to begin the walk, including a woman who looks like a witch, with grey hair, a large mole and a bright red anorak, and a woman who is wearing a lot of make-up and new wellies, but at least no sunglasses. There are two boys with their dad. One of the boys is eating grass. No one is stopping him. Holly writes the date in her notebook: 28 May 2011.

‘Excited?’ Charlie asks Holly.

‘Why would I be excited?’

‘You’re going to see wild orchids!’

‘Right, whatever.’

They set off with the guide. Holly writes down plant names: silverweed, granny’s toenails and black medic. Then they see the first marsh orchids. Charlie throws himself on the ground and gently touches the pale mauve flowers. The boy who was eating the grass
starts eating some of these flowers, but no one notices. Holly wonders if he might die. The orchids are nice but quite small. You could definitely miss them if you didn’t know what you were looking for. But up close the flowers are amazing. It’s hard to explain why, but they just look nicer than other flowers. As if they were drawn by a better, more imaginative artist. There are also green winged orchids, which look a bit like the marsh orchid with extra green bits. The guide tells everyone not to touch or pick any of the wild flowers, and says you can go to prison if you do. They see yellow rattle, which, in autumn, has seed pods that actually rattle; lady’s bedstraw, which smells of honey and can be used to help people give birth; lesser bedstraw; evening primrose . . . The group scrambles through a meadow and then an alleyway and then onto a strangely quiet housing estate.

Holly catches up to Charlie, who is talking to the guide.

‘And then some divvy actually
mowed
one . . .’ the guide is saying.

Charlie shakes his head. ‘How could you not realise . . . ?’

‘There,’ points the guide. ‘Up ahead.’

Charlie sighs with anticipatory pleasure. They walk towards a grass verge outside a large house. There is a single orchid. It is bigger than the ones they have already seen, pale green and pale purple, and the flowers have long things coming out of them that look like lizard’s tongues. There are another two identical plants just a few yards away.

‘This is the lizard orchid,’ says the guide. ‘
Himantoglossum hircinum
. It is very rare. Although we have up to a hundred plants growing in the Sandwich Bay area, we are actually one of very, very few sites around the world that support this wonderful orchid. It’s a real beauty. Look carefully. Don’t touch. Smell the flowers – they have a powerful scent: some say like goat.’

‘Flowers that smell like
goat
?’ Holly says, but Charlie is on the ground again.

Holly drifts off to look at one of the other lizard orchids. The two boys and Ash follow her. The boy who was eating the grass snaps a flower from the plant.

‘Don’t do that,’ says Holly.

The boy gurns at her and eats the flower.

‘You spastic,’ says Holly. ‘I hope you die.’

She smells one of the flowers carefully, without touching it. It smells of socks.

Soon they are right by the sea. Here they find seaside daisies, yellow-horned poppies, sea beet, sea kale and white bryony. There is stuff growing everywhere! Then back across fields and meadows. Charlie and Bryony walk together, talking urgently, with their heads down. At one point Holly creeps up behind them and hears something like ‘If you don’t tell her, I will’. Which sort of sounds like it could be to do with a birthday surprise, but had an odd, un-birthdayish tone about it that made Holly reluctant to ask them about it.

‘And this,’ says the guide, pointing to something that looks like a really, really huge orchid, ‘is Himalayan balsam. It’ll be six feet tall by the end of the summer.’

‘Aren’t the RHS asking us to cut that down?’ says the woman with the make-up and the shiny wellies.

The guide frowns. ‘Not here, they’re not.’

‘But we’re all being asked to cut it down everywhere. It’s invasive! It chokes rivers, like Japanese knotweed. You want to cut it down. Dig up the roots. It drinks all the water, and . . .’

‘How much water do you see around here?’ the guide says, laughing. ‘This has been growing here for the last twenty years. I’m not going to cut it down.’

The group moves on. The witchy woman in the red jacket walks next to the welly-woman.

‘That’s rosebay willowherb anyway,’ she says.

‘I know.’

They both laugh.

‘And some fucking cunt doing sidestroke. Who does sidestroke nowadays? With plastic bags occasionally falling out of his pockets. And three fat women wearing fat women’s perfume which, as you probably know, can travel a hell of a long way in a swimming pool. Just because you are in the water does not mean you no longer smell of anything. And then the porno children. Don’t look at me like that. You’ve clearly never seen rhinestones on a four-year-old’s bikini before. Maybe they don’t do that kind of thing at the golf club. It’s no wonder they ban photography. I mean, with only a camera and an internet connection you could set up quite a profitable child porn site without actually doing anything that illegal or really even going very far out of your way. OK. You’re not saying anything again.
What
?’

‘Shut up and pass me the roasting tin.’

‘I’m having
déjà vu
. . .’

‘Whatever. Can you just . . .’

‘Yes. Here.’ It’s the right tin. Ten points and a gold star! But . . .

‘OK. I am not going to nag . . . I
said
I wouldn’t nag.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it, I know.’

‘But, well, pudding . . . ?’

‘I’m on it.’

‘Are you sure?’

Imagine you have just been reincarnated, but instead of ending up back on Earth, you end up on the far side of the universe on some brown, rock-like planet that you don’t understand. In some way, you
remember being human. Whatever you are now – a worm, or an insect, or a grain of sand – in your heart you are still human. Now – close your eyes if you like – and imagine the person you hate most, now, in this life. Back to your rocky world, where you are all on your own, with no one who understands what it is to be, or to have been, human. And then, all of a sudden, from behind a tree or from the undergrowth, or whatever they have there, out walks, or flies, or crawls, your hated person. How do you feel about them now? If you were the only two organisms on a distant planet, how would you be with one another? What would matter, and what would not matter? Now ask yourself: is that person on the rocky planet your higher self or your lower self?

When they get back from tennis, the house is full of the smell of lamb stuffed with garlic, which is disgusting. It is disgusting and grey and wet and flabby, like a dirty flannel dipped in oil and blood. If you eat it, that’s what you end up with in your tummy, for days and days, until you poo it out. But you can never poo all of it out; some of it will stay inside you forever, and will actually become you, even things like your eyeballs. Imagine having sweaty, garlicky, flannelly, dead baby creature IN YOUR EYES. Holly wants to be sick. But in sort of a good way that she couldn’t really explain to anyone.

Charlie comes back from his shower and arranges himself on one of the sofas with a pile of weekend supplements: travel, foreign news, features. Holly does twenty press-ups on the floor by his feet and then manoeuvres her way onto his lap.

‘Uncle Charlie?’

‘Yes?’

‘I think you are the loveliest man in the world, apart from Daddy.’

‘Thank you, Holly.’

‘I can’t marry Daddy, so can I marry you?’

‘Hmm?’

‘We could get married in four years.’

‘You’re not twelve yet.’

‘I’m almost twelve.’

Charlie pinches her arm gently. ‘We all know when you’re going to be twelve, Holls.’

‘Anyway, when I’m sixteen, you’ll only be . . .’

‘I’ll be very old indeed.’

‘But you’ll still be very nice.’

‘Thank you.’

Holly kisses Charlie on the neck: it’s a little tiny winged kiss like a fairy landing on something soft like a cloud. No response. She does it again. She does it all around his neck like a fairy necklace. And then up and under his ears. He smells sweet and a little bit of the cinnamon soap in the spare bathroom.

‘Uncle Charlie?’

‘Yes?’

‘Am I good at kissing?’

‘You’re
very
good at kissing.’

‘Am I better at kissing than your girlfriend?’

‘I don’t have a girlfriend.’

‘All right, then. The last person you sexed.’

‘Much better.’

‘So basically there’s no reason for us not to get married.’

‘Unfortunately, I believe it’s still illegal to marry your uncle.’

Bryony comes in holding two glasses of white wine. She gives one of them to Charlie.

‘What on earth are you talking about? Holly, stop mauling your uncle.’

‘Your charming daughter has proposed to me,’ says Charlie. ‘And as she’s such a good kisser I am inclined to accept, except . . . surely it’s illegal to marry one’s uncle?’

‘He’s actually my second cousin, once removed, isn’t he, Mummy?’

Bryony sighs. ‘Oh, I’m sure marrying her is legal somewhere in the world. Holly. Off. Now.’

Charlie takes the glass of wine. Holly wrinkles her nose.

‘Uncle Charlie? Why are you drinking wine?’

Bryony rolls her eyes. ‘Leave the man alone, Holls, for goodness sake.’

‘Because I’m a grown-up,’ says Charlie. ‘And it’s Sunday.’

‘But is it Paleowhatever?’

‘It’s made from grapes, which are fruits that grow in the wild.’

‘So you’d find some wild grapes and jump up and down on them? With your tribe?’

‘Holly, give it a rest.’

‘I suppose we’re not married yet,’ Holly says. ‘So you can do what you like.’

‘What else won’t I be allowed to do when we’re married?’

‘Don’t encourage her.’

‘Well,’ Holly says, ‘obviously no drinking or smoking. No cakes. No McDonald’s. Nothing deep fried at all. No staying up too late. No watching sport. Oh, I suppose except the London Marathon, you can watch that. And tennis, of course. No bird watching. And no real sexing, just kissing. Because I’m still quite young. And . . .’

‘Holly!’

‘What?’

‘That really is enough.’

‘Sounds like quite a normal marriage to me,’ says Charlie.

Ash has been helping James in the kitchen. Now they both come in, James carrying a glass of local cider, and Ash with his apple juice.