Eden's Garden (5 page)

‘Perhaps I’d better go,’ said Carys, slightly regretfully.

‘And not see the babies?’ Poppy waggled a finger at her. ‘Don’t think you can escape that quickly. Stuart will never forgive you. You’ve never seen a man so proud of his achievements. You’d think he’d given birth to them himself. I’d finish your tea, though. Once they arrive, chaos reigns.’

Above them came the soothing sounds of Stuart relapsing into baby-speak as a second wail erupted to echo the first.

Carys giggled. She had known Stuart through work for years, almost as long as she had been friends with Poppy. The transformation of Mr Sex-on-Legs, smart-suited alpha male into doting dad from the moment Poppy’s bump appeared, never ceased to amaze her.

‘I know,’ said Poppy. ‘Architects don’t change nappies.’

‘Suits him,’ said Carys. ‘To be honest, I thought you were mad when you two got together. I’d never have put him down as the fatherly type.’

‘Oh, he’s an old softie really, underneath all that strut,’ said Poppy fondly. ‘Bit of an old-fashioned family, that’s all. Got to keep the front up, don’t you know? His dad would throw a fit if he knew anything about our real lives.’ Her grin was mischievous. ‘I’m always careful to appear ever so dutiful whenever we visit, and I haven’t sworn once.’

‘Never.’

‘Hey, it keeps the family peace, so no skin off my nose for a couple of days every now and again. The least I can do for Stuart loving the real crotchety, loud-mouthed with serious issues, no-holds-barred, me. It’s a manhood thing.’

Above their heads, the wails had softened more towards burbling, to much creaking of floorboards and running of water, along with encouraging mutterings from Stuart, who was clearly taking on single-handed the heroics of a double nappy-change to give them a few more minutes in peace.

Carys sighed. She and Poppy were almost exactly the same age, only a few days between them. It was strange to think now that at their joint thirtieth birthday party, just three years ago, neither of them had even considered the whole settling down and having children thing. They’d eyed without envy the friends nursing fractious babies, or chasing toddlers with minds of their own and an ability to get into all kinds of trouble. They’d pitied the ones who left before the dancing really got going to relieve the babysitter and get as much sleep as they could before the next day began. What kind of life was that? they’d whispered to each other over their champagne. Especially when compared to the three weeks backpacking round Thailand that stretched in front of them to mark this momentous milestone in their lives.

It seemed that the crossover from their twenties to thirties had changed them both in more ways than simply the appearance of the first fine lines and a B&B unaccountably gaining in appeal over a sleeping bag in a tent.

‘Joe said it was just hormones, when I first started thinking about children,’ she said. Women were like that, he’d informed her sagely, she remembered with a wince. It was the approaching thirty-five and the biological clock ticking that did it, according to Joe. ‘Maybe he thinks he can get me to change my mind about that, too.’

‘I thought you said he’s become quite misty-eyed these days whenever you’ve visited friends with kids?’

‘That’s true.’ Carys gave a wry smile. ‘But that’s when we’ve been able to hand them back after a few minutes. He likes the idea of taking them to football matches and teaching them how to surf. I’m not entirely sure he’s got his head around the rest of what having a family means.’

Above their heads, nappy changing appeared to have been successfully completed, and was being followed by a tuneless, but enthusiastic rendition of ‘Hickory dickory doc’, accompanied by fresh-nappy squeals and chortles.

‘At least Tylers have been good about me working away from the office for a couple of months,’ Carys remarked, attempting to regain her optimism. ‘I have to admit, I didn’t think they’d be that reasonable.’

‘And risk losing you?’ Poppy, she discovered, was watching her closely. ‘You underestimate your skills, Cari. Where else are they going to find someone as efficient and experienced in dealing with accounts? And I know from Stuart that you’ve a really good reputation for building relationships with clients. I’d have thought letting you do accounts over the internet, rather than you using up your holiday and taking the rest as unpaid leave, was a price worth paying, as far as Tylers are concerned. Pity about your course, though.’

‘I know.’ Carys swirled the remains of her tea, gloom threatening to descend once more. ‘Brilliant timing, eh? It would be just when they’re going to be doing so much of the practical stuff. I haven’t said anything to Joe yet, but I can see me having to redo the entire year. We were planning to start looking at smallholdings this summer, but now it looks as if we’re going to have to put it off for another year, at least.’

‘Gardening,’ announced Poppy.

Carys blinked. ‘Gardening?’

‘Set yourself up as a gardener while you’re at your mum’s. I know it’s not the same as working on a farm or in the grounds of some grand mansion, but at least you’ll be doing practical stuff, and you’ll be learning.’

‘I’m not sure…’ began Carys.

‘It can’t take much to set up, surely? We’ve got loads of tools in the shed Stuart and I aren’t going to use for years. Better they get used than rot. That was one of the first things we decided on, when we knew we were having twins: hire a gardener to mow the lawn and cut things back for the duration. It wasn’t easy to find one. A really good one, that is. You can choose your own hours, fit them around Tylers stuff and your mum. At least you’ll know you’re making a start along the way you want to go. Sorted.’

‘Oh, it’s not the practical side,’ said Carys. ‘It’s just I’m just not sure they have gardeners in Pont-ar-Eden. It’s not that kind of place.’

‘Rubbish. We’re not talking major landscaping here. There’s bound to be someone who wants a lawn mowed or a hedge trimmed. I bet lots would prefer a woman, especially an older woman living on her own. There have to be some posh houses. And didn’t you say there was some big house next to the village. Garden of Eden, or something?’

‘Plas Eden,’ said Carys, slowly.

‘There you are.’ Poppy was triumphant. ‘Didn’t it have a famous garden? One with a funny name?’

‘Blodeuwedd’s Garden,’ provided Carys.

‘That’s it. I knew there was a garden there, somewhere. Blod-’ Poppy struggled. ‘Blod- what was it?’

‘Blodeuwedd.
Blod-ay-weth
. The woman made of flowers.’

‘Even better.’

Cary smiled. ‘She’s not a real woman. And there aren’t even many flowers in the garden. At least there weren’t the last time I was there. It’s the story from the Mabinogion.’

‘The what?’ said Poppy, who made no bones about the gaps in her education, largely due to a youthful habit of truanting in favour of various unsavoury pastimes. She had more than made up for this lack since, but clearly not as far as Celtic culture was concerned.

‘The Mabinogion. It’s a series of really old Welsh myths? They’re supposed to go right back to ancient Celtic gods and goddesses. Blodeuwedd was a woman created out of flowers by a magician, for a man who’d been cursed by his mother never to have a human wife.’

Poppy snorted, loudly. ‘Yeah, right. Old man makes woman for some geek who’s never been kissed. You can just see what they’d come up with: porno starlet with a permanent Brazilian and no brains. Stepford wives, here we come.’

‘Not quite no brains. He was supposed to be un-killable, but she fell in love with somebody else and worked it out anyhow.’

‘Yeah, well,’ said Poppy, scornfully. ‘Live by the robot, die by the robot.’

‘Except he didn’t die. Not really. But she got punished, all the same.’

‘Typical.’

Carys swirled her tea again. ‘I always felt sorry for Blodeuwedd, being made to be only what someone else wanted, with no choice and no chance of living her own life at all.’

‘Not exactly a happy story to call a garden after, if you ask me.’ Poppy gave a wicked grin. ‘I’ll bet you it was some lord of the manor telling his womenfolk what to expect if they didn’t toe the line.’

‘Probably,’ replied Carys, gloomily. Out of the corner of her eye, she became aware of an exceedingly sharp-eyed gaze from Poppy, who was sitting bolt upright and quite clearly gearing herself up for the interrogation of the century.

‘Oooh, aren’t they gorgeous,’ cooed Carys hastily, as a creak of the stairs heralded the arrival of Stuart balancing one
fluffy-haired
, slightly damp-faced and wobbly-smiling twin on each arm, each clutching a very dog-eared cloth animal of the vaguely bunny variety.

‘This is Miranda, and this is Miriam,’ announced Stuart, bending each appropriate arm towards her with irrepressible pride. ‘Say hello to your Auntie Carys. Tea-time, I think.’ He handed his lavender-smelling parcels over to Poppy. ‘I’ll just put the kettle on.’

Carys watched as tiny, perfect little fingers, with tiny, perfect little pink nails, clutched at her outstretched hands, with the general intention of directing them towards one mouth or the other. Somewhere near her heart, a terrible ache had begun. The ache of the full realisation of what this illness of Mam’s could mean, and of a future maybe lost forever.

‘There’s a story there, somewhere.’ She looked up to find Poppy still watching her. Maternal adoration hadn’t quite banished the sharpness of her gaze.

‘I’ll take the cups through, shall I?’

‘Don’t think you’ll always escape that easily,’ called Poppy after her, as Carys fled.

 They put me in with one of the maids, in a room at the very top of the charity hospital. It was small, with just space enough for two beds tucked either side under the eaves, with a small chest of drawers dividing them.

Lily her name was. I took her to be no more than eighteen. At first, she appeared a little afraid of me, but as she grew accustomed to my presence she began to chatter in the brief moments we spent there between our work and sleep.

I had never thought myself as old before, but Lily made me feel ancient with her constant talk of the pair of winter boots she was saving for and sighing after a fashion plate she had purloined from a discarded newspaper. And when it was not her hair or her clothing she was fussing over, it was the young man she was stepping out with each Wednesday afternoon, her half-day off.

The questions she asked! As if, in my supposed state as a widow, I knew everything there was possibly to know about the male sex. I could hardly say I felt I knew nothing at all, and even less, if possible, than I had known before. But at least, for the most part, she didn’t stop to listen, any more than in other of her ramblings, leaving me to murmur something every now and again but mostly left free to pursue my own thoughts.

And I had been, as ever, too quick to dismiss her. A few days taught me that, when it came to essentials, Lily’s head was screwed on. Her Tom might bewilder her at times, but she knew enough to keep herself out of serious trouble. Helped, maybe, by the sight of so many wretched women and their tiny, sickly babies too weak to cry, and who died, more often than not, in the few steps between the gateposts and the infirmary. Perhaps it was the girls, some no older than twelve, who came in disfigured with the disease already eating away at them. Enough, it had to be said, to kill even the most reckless of youthful ardour.

And she had a kind heart. In so intimate a space, it was impossible to hide my lack of even a nightdress. My story of my bag being stolen as I reached Paddington – which was true enough, the money in my stolen purse having been intended to buy an appearance of luggage – touched her immediately. Within hours she had begged and borrowed a few bare necessities – although I didn’t dare question the source of the threadbare, but spotlessly clean, nightdress – with a promise to take me to the best places to stretch my wages, as soon as they arrived.

At the time, I have to confess, I had my doubts I would last long enough in my new post to see such a thing as wages. Had it not been for the shortness of my cropped hair, I doubt whether I could have escaped for more than a day without being seriously questioned about my former occupation.

‘Fever,’ I explained to Lily, when she couldn’t quite contain her horror at my non-existent locks. I considered adding that it was the same fever that had killed my husband. It seemed a nice touch. But maybe one too far. So I let it rest.

Lily, however, accepted the fact without question, as did Matron and the rest of the staff at the hospital. After all, it was a charity hospital, and more than one of the nurses and the domestic staff had arrived as patients.

And meanwhile, I learnt to use muscles I had never used before. I had never thought there could be so much fetching and carrying, scrubbing and cleaning in the entire world. And the steps! Wherever I went, there seemed to be steps for buckets of clean water to be carried up, and dirty to be carried down. Every part of me ached so I could scarcely move.

By the third day, my little reserve of strength had all but given out. I carried on as best I could, with fear clenching itself hard in my belly that if I could not sustain myself in this place, then what would I do? The river, by then, had lost its appeal.