The Seed Collectors (55 page)

Zoe is bored with hearing the story. OK, the drama was exciting at first, and, yes, she got Clem all to herself for a while and she made cups of tea and poured wine and bought expensive cottage pies from M&S that Clem would not even eat in the end. But what can you really say to someone whose husband killed himself because of a stupid love triangle with a fat cousin who tried, but failed, to kill herself too? Oh yeah, with the weird plant that you grew. Or some other version of it. OK, you can say trite, baffling things like ‘This too will pass’, which Zoe found on a bereavement website. Or you can offer to listen to the person who is bereaved. You can see if there is anything practical you can do for them. And then you discover that, yes, there is something practical you can do for them: you can help plant, give away, donate and eventually begin throwing out each of the 1,000 strange, almost black
Clematis viticella
plants that Ollie ordered before he killed himself. But what happens when you just get fucking bored with it all? Sex is completely off the agenda. Last time they made
love was, well, the day before it happened. Did Ollie know? Clem has never actually said. It’s become the thing Zoe can’t ask. In fact, Zoe can’t ask anything that implicates her in any of it. It’s almost as if she can hear her mother’s voice:
This is not all about you, Zoe
. But why not? Why can’t her shiny new relationship that, OK, has been dropped pretty heavily on the floor, why can’t it be all about her? And if you find you are in a relationship that is not all about you then it’s time to move on, right?

Ash is alone in the garden when the goldfinches come. Should he be alone? Perhaps not. But Bryony and Holly are buried deep in the spare room, pulling out things to keep and things to go in the big skip outside. His father has asked for all his things to go into the skip but apparently he no longer knows what he is saying so they will go into storage. Holly is carefully putting black wool in a cardboard box and not speaking much. She still doesn’t eat. Even after all this. Even after Aunt Fleur gave her a magical book that she has to keep very, very safe. It makes Ash sad. Ash is to collect all the things he wants to take to Jura and put them in a sensible pile somewhere. What does he want? Perhaps photos? Some things are going to Jura on the plane and some are going in a boat and . . .

Ash has a really horrible feeling inside. He wanted to move out of this house, out of this village, and now, well, he is. Does that mean everything is his fault because he wished for it? When everyone was in hospital he stayed with Beatrix and Skye, and Skye told him you can definitely ask the universe for things but you have to be careful how you phrase your requests. You must always ask the universe for positive things. Never say ‘I don’t want to be poor any more’ when what you mean is ‘I want to be rich’. Because if you use the word ‘poor’ then that is what the universe hears and that is what it gives
you. But even asking to be rich is problematic because you might become rich because all your family are dead. Ash didn’t phrase his request very well at all, and all his family almost did die. Still, when he goes to secondary school on Islay, because there is no school on Jura, it will just be normal. ‘Hi, my name’s Ash.’ Although of course he will never be normal again because of what happened. But as Skye said, he doesn’t have to tell everyone, or even anyone, what happened if he doesn’t want to.

He hears them before he sees them. They come in groups of between five and ten until there are twenty, fifty, seventy, eighty, a
hundred
goldfinches in his garden, as many of them as possible squabbling over the niger seed in the feeder. There is nothing on the bird table for them, even though some of them do land there. Ash goes into the kitchen, although he no longer feels good or even OK in this kitchen, and looks in the cupboard. There is the unopened bag of sunflower hearts that his mother bought in the spring. He opens the bag carefully, with scissors rather than with his fingers, and takes it outside. All the goldfinches fly into the small holly tree or land on the wall just beyond and watch in silence as Ash reaches for the bird table and pours the entire contents of the bag onto it.

‘I hope that keeps you going,’ he says to them.

They say nothing. Really, they should fly away. But they don’t.

‘I probably won’t see you ever again,’ says Ash.

A gentle wind rustles through the holly tree. Still the goldfinches stay. Ash wonders what might happen if he stands very still, and . . . Then a single goldfinch flies over to him. Something in its little red face looks familiar, as if Ash has seen it many times before. Ash keeps very still and the goldfinch lands on his shoulder. His heartbeat rips through him. Being this close to a bird is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to him. In this moment Ash knows that he is going to work with birds, that he is going to become an ornithologist, and everything is going to be hard, but it is somehow going to be all right.
The goldfinch moves on Ash’s shoulder. This is strange, though. Surely he smells wrong to a goldfinch? He must smell of human, not of tree. Maybe it’s because of his name. He remains very still. The goldfinch hops up to the place where Ash’s shoulder becomes his neck, and it tickles, but still he doesn’t move. He can feel a strange energy coming from the goldfinch now, something loving and kind and warm. Ash will never be able even to try to describe this to anyone, but it feels like a soft ball of long-ago things like cuddles, bedtime stories and hot water bottles, and this is what is standing there with its claws now only slightly digging into his neck. Then, just like that, the gold-finch seems to kiss Ash’s earlobe. As it flies away he is sure he hears the little bird whisper something. It sounds like ‘Namaste . . .’ He is sure it is his aunt Fleur’s voice. And then Ash runs into the house to get his mother and his sister, but by the time they get outside it’s as if the goldfinches were never there.

Family Tree (revised)

Acknowledgements

So many people helped with this book, but I would particularly like to thank Rod Edmond, my first, best and most demanding reader for his love and support; and my family, Francesca Ashurst, Couze Venn, Sam Ashurst and Hari Ashurst-Venn, for being my longest-standing and most dedicated fans. Nia and Ivy, I am thrilled that you are joining us. To my father Gordian Troeller, many thanks for your inspiration and encouragement. And my other father, Steve Sparkes, who was also a big influence on this book, may you rest in peace.

I would particularly like to thank David Miller, my agent, for being so serious about writing, and Francis Bickmore, my editor and dear friend, for making this all so much fun. Thank you to everyone else at Canongate, but particularly Jamie Byng and Jenny Todd, for the enthusiasm, passion and understanding. Vybarr Cregan-Reid, Ariane Mildenberg, Amy Sackville, David Flusfeder, Emma Lee and Charlotte Webb, thank you so much for your friendship, support and inspiration. Thanks to staff and students on the MSc in Ethnobotany at the University of Kent, who taught me everything I know about plants. Florence and Ottilie Stirrup, thank you for confirming that kids still say the same stuff (more or less) now as they did in the eighties. Christopher Hollands and Toby Churchill, thank you for helping me bring Holly back. Dorice Evans, thank you for introducing me to the
Course
. All my research students teach me something, but particular
thanks to the ones who read and commented on my manuscript: Amy Lilwall, Gonzalo Cerón Garcia, Karen Donaghay and Hristina Hristova. I am also grateful to Tom Ogier, Charlotte Geater and Chieko Trenouth for constantly reminding me why I love writing.