Life Class (42 page)

‘Till now I’ve been the one making excuses for
you.’

‘You make it sound like it was months! I only missed a few. So, what
was
the problem yesterday? And why was your mobile switched off? Are you ill?’

There was a pause, as if Dory was debating how to answer. ‘No. Just wasn’t in the mood, and …’ Again, a pause, ‘… things on my mind.’

‘Things you can’t or won’t tell me about?’ Fran said, hearing the aggrieved note in her own voice and hating herself for it. ‘Something to do with your mysterious jaunt up to London on Monday?’

‘Indirectly. Just leave it, Fran. It’s nothing serious. I
will
talk to you when I’ve sorted a few things out. It’s been a strange week.’

It was useless to pursue the subject. Perhaps Dory would be more forthcoming tomorrow.

‘I almost wish I hadn’t gone,’ Fran said. ‘I did rubbish drawings and your friend was back to Mr Grumpy mode. Apart from him cross-questioning me about where you were, whether you were all right, we could hardly get a word out of him. Hello? Dory? Are you still there?’

‘Was anything said about Dom’s interview?’ Instead of her sister correcting her for referring to Stefan as
her friend
, she’d changed the subject.

‘What interview?’

‘On Wednesday. He was due to have an interview about getting into the Art Access course at the college.’

‘No one said anything to me, but Dom was definitely chirpier than I’ve known him. He may have told Rachel. They were in a bit of a huddle for a while. Even seemed to be sharing a joke at Michael’s expense.’

‘Really?’

‘Talking of Michael, I hope you haven’t forgotten his open garden thing tomorrow.’

‘Oh!’ It was apparent she had forgotten.

‘Don’t let me down on this,
please!
I’ve been looking forward to it. I’ve precious little else to entertain me at the moment.’

There was another long silence. Fran was biting her lip, predicting the refusal she thought was about to come. She heard her sister’s release of breath.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Dory, it was
your
idea that we go together!’

‘Was it? I’m sorry. I’m really not in the mood …’

‘You sound weird,’ she interrupted. ‘You sure you’re all right, Dory?’

‘… to socialise. I’m OK. Where is it again? What time?’

‘Combeside,’ Fran said with a relieved smile. ‘I know where it is. We can travel together. It’s open all afternoon so if I collect you at 2.30, we’ll be there by three.’

‘No.’ Having sounded vague and preoccupied, Dory’s refusal of a lift was instantaneous. ‘I want to go separately. And an hour earlier. I need to go on … somewhere afterwards. Give me the address. I’ll find it. I’ve got a Satnav.’

‘Where are you going?’ Dory wouldn’t say. They didn’t argue about it, but a wave of loneliness and self-pity swelled inside Fran. What was wrong with Dory these days? Why was she behaving so oddly? Just when she needed a friend for support and comfort, her sister was either off with the fairies, mysteriously unavailable, or making trips to London for who knew what purpose. Dory had even missed life class for the first time, without forewarning her, and had then been unreachable by phone.

All she’d asked of her was that they share a car to Michael’s place. Not only was it a more sensible pooling of energy use, but it was friendlier – they could have had a natter on the way. They could have discussed her situation. But oh no! Why was she so determined to go separately?

Thank goodness the charity event was well sign-posted. Despite having claimed to know exactly where Michael lived, Fran was unfamiliar with this particular corner of the county. It was off the beaten track and more deeply rural than the Strouley area. But the outskirts of Combeside, as she drove down into it, were anything
but
rural. The narrow lane had wide, manicured verges and was lined by large houses set back in leafy gardens. Now that she was so near, the open-garden was more liberally advertised with posters. Several hundred yards beyond the village centre, Fran saw a home-produced sign with a large P and a red arrow. Twenty or so vehicles were already parked in this field, but not Dory’s. Of course not! Fran had known this would happen. But within five minute of switching off her engine, she saw her sister’s car turning in.

Fran was pleased with what she was wearing – white cotton cut-offs with a skinny, black-and-white striped top. Trendy, but not trying too hard, she thought. She was obscurely put out to see her sister looking so pretty. These days, Dory hardly ever wore anything but jeans, but today she’d chosen a floaty, bias-cut skirt which she’d teamed with a pin-tucked, teal blue camisole. Unable to formulate a reason other than envy as to why Dory shouldn’t wear this particular ensemble on a hot summer afternoon, Fran held her tongue.

Arm in arm, they crossed the lane. Two more of the ubiquitous posters were attached to wooden gates open to a surprisingly unostentatious driveway. Fran had half expected stone pillars with lions, or at the very least stone balls, surmounting them. The house itself was obscured as they descended the curve of the sloping drive. She’d conjured images of extensive landscaped gardens through which a tree-lined avenue led to a stone-built Palladian house, but when it came in sight, it was evident that Combeside Manor – an asymmetric, red-brick miscellany of styles and periods – had never been classically graceful. From some of its barley sugar chimney, Fran guessed it had started life as a Tudor dwelling.

Following the signs which led them to the back, the sisters paid their entrance fee to a man at a canopied stall where plants could be bought. They were given a leaflet each, with a plan and description of the garden. Dory pushed hers into her bag.

‘The Orangery,’ Fran said, reading the first heading. ‘I feel I already know about as much as I need to.’ Looking up at the much discussed extension, she saw the wide terrace outside it laid with tables and parasols where visitors were already sitting. Through the multiple glazed doors, grey-haired ladies in pinafores hurried in and out with trays. Within moments, Fran was spotting famous faces, and not just local celebrities. People in the media, even an actor and an ageing musician, were attending this charity event. As an attractive woman holding a champagne flute passed them, Fran gripped her sister’s arm.

‘I’m sure she’s a TV presenter,’ she whispered. ‘Trust Michael to know all these
types!’

The view from the back of the house was not what she’d envisaged. Instead of rolling parkland, there was a lawn that didn’t look much longer than her own, although the grass here was billiard-table smooth and weed free. Yet there were some formal elements which claimed it as the garden to a house with pretensions. Banked at either side of the steps from the terrace, oriental poppies and frill-headed peonies, from deepest crimson through to palest pink, were in full bloom. From the bottom of the steps a wide-flagged path edged by a budding lavender hedge, led down to a large, formal pond with a fountain. Either side of this path, about halfway down, were two plinths. On one was a classical sculpture of a woman. Green with verdigris, she was pockmarked and missing an arm. On the plinth opposite stood the sandaled feet and calves of a man. The rest of him was missing. What the fountain was meant to represent was impossible to tell from here. The metal looked deformed and twisted.

‘They almost look war damaged,’ Dory said.

‘In a way, they were! The story is told here,’ Fran read from the guide. ‘In 1914, the youngest son of the family lied about his birth date and enlisted. He was sent out to France where his older brother, Charles, was already serving as an officer. Their father had friends in high places and was able to pull strings and get his under-age son sent home, just before the first big battle of Ypres. In those days, there were a couple of Boer War cannons on the terrace here. The son, Edward, was so outraged by his treatment that after getting tanked-up one evening, he came home with a gang of friends and managed to fire off several rounds, before being subdued by his father and the household retainers.’ She looked up with a grin. ‘He was obviously a pretty good shot.’

Dory was staring at the vista. ‘What are they?’

‘Perseus and Andromeda. The fountain is …
was
… the legendary sea monster.’

‘I mean the material?’

Fran frowned. As far as she was concerned, what they were made from was the least interesting part of the story. ‘Bronze. Why do you …?’

Pulling her phone from her bag, Dory descended the steps and walked towards Andromeda. She began to take pictures.

‘I bet Edward thanked them in the end,’ Fran said, when she caught up. ‘Charles was killed.’

Dory glanced around from her study of what remained of Perseus. ‘Who?’

‘The brother.’ She got no answer. Dory turned back and, muttering something about lost-wax, inserted her hand into the hollow calf of a broken-off leg. Fran sighed. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

Moving on to the fountain, Dory resumed taking photographs. Fran followed. Close up, it was more obvious that it was once meant to be a sea creature. She could see scales on the least mangled sections of the metal. Water shot out unevenly from the gaping hole where its mouth might once have been, reaching a height of several metres before falling back into the pool. Why did her sister want pictures of the ugly, broken thing? Sure that she’d get another of those distracted non-answers, Fran didn’t bother to ask the question. Beneath the lily pads, her eye was caught by a metallic glint of orange and white sliding slowly through the dark, spray-pocked water.

‘Look at the size of those Koi carp!’ Fran shuddered. ‘Don’t you think there’s something sinister about them?’ More fascinated by the fountain than the pond’s inhabitants, Dory failed to reply. ‘There’s an arboretum at the end of the lawn,’ Fran persisted, reading again from the garden guide. ‘But the majority of the garden is over here, to the side of the house, where the ground rises. Before Michael bought it the house was owned by a spiritual group of some kind, and it was used as a retreat.’ Fran walked towards an arch in a yew hedge. Not knowing if she spoke to anyone or no one, she said, ‘From here on the garden is divided. So …’ As she emerged on the far side, she stopped dead. Dory cannoned into her from behind.

‘Oh!’ Fran half turned. ‘You decided to follow after all? This is the Zen garden.’ A large, electric-blue Buddha sat solidly at the centre of swirls of gravel. A variety of smaller, Buddha-like figures were dotted around, and stylized monkeys peeked out from behind boulders or clumps of oriental grass. ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,’ Dory said, a wry twist to her mouth. Not wanting to tread on the raked patterns, the sisters eased around the edge and past stone benches. Before they could leave the area they had to pass another oriental sculpture. The wasp-waisted red figure was standing. Forming a kind of crown on its head was a multitude of replica miniature heads.

‘Give me the heads-up on this character?’ Dory asked.

‘Ho ho. Kannon Bosatsu. Obviously needs a bit of head room. Seems an indecisive deity. Male or female, he or she is a god of mercy … or compassion. Take your pick. Can’t say it’s my kind of thing.’

Dory nodded. ‘If I’d been asked to guess what kind of sculptures Michael would have in his garden I’d have plumped for modernist, but safe. You know? Organic shapes with holes. After Moore or Hepworth.’

‘So why do you want photos of these …?’ Fran hesitated, unable to come up with a term.

Her sister shrugged enigmatically. ‘As a record.’

They passed the god with the heads, climbed a couple of steps, and went through an open door in the high brick wall.

‘The Garden of Tranquillity,’ Fran read. It was a lush and pleasing space, bordered by an old-fashioned herbaceous scheme against the old brick walls. At the centre of this garden, where all the dissecting paths met, was a sundial.

‘This is sweet. Like an Allingham watercolour. You could almost imagine a couple of little girls in mob-caps in here. Just a minute. This sundial isn’t a proper sundial.’ They stood and stared at the sculpted hands, clasped in prayer, in place of the gnomon. Dory glanced at her watch as if checking that the shadow cast was indeed too large and uneven to accurately record the time.

‘Is that bloke at the back supposed to be Saint Francis, do you think?’ At the feet of the green-robed figure were Disneyish squirrels, bunnies and birds.

‘Definitely.’

‘This must be the Christian garden. Note the hideous Mary and baby Jesus tucked into the embrasure behind the bench.’ Shaking her head, Fran waited for Dory to take a picture of the Madonna and child. Their candyfloss pink skin looked blistered with eczema and the virgin’s china blue shawl was flaking.

They moved on, up some more steps, and passed through the opposite door. Here, box hedging clipped into a formal geometric layout enclosed low growing roses. A vast, ivy-entwined urn was at the centre. In amongst the blooms of scarlet, magenta, and tangerine, more sculptures had been arranged. This time they were groups of small wrestling figures. Only they weren’t wrestling. Fran bent for a closer look.

‘For heaven’s sake,’ she spluttered, checking with the guide to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing.

‘The Porno Garden?’ Dory queried. Fran started giggling.

‘It is, it’s the
Kama Sutra
Garden!’

‘What kind of religious order did you say owned this house?’

‘Unspecific spiritual. Pick and mix.’ By now, they’d caught up with another sight-seeing group and could have followed them though a further arch, but in wordless agreement, the sisters turned and ascended a longer flight of stone steps to the highest level. ‘Three guesses what’s up here.’ Fran had looked at the guide and knew what to expect. Even so, the reality took her breath away. For a split second, the world turned upside down.

‘Gaia, astrological symbols, elves, and pixies?’ Dory ventured, before reaching her side. ‘Wow!’

The sky was at their feet, its blue and white reflected in the still surface of a large swimming pool. Crouching, Fran dipped her fingers in the water. ‘Heated,’ she said, straightening with a sigh. ‘What I would give … Just need that measly million-pound lottery win.’