Paradise City (20 page)

When they’re sitting down on the wooden chairs on the café terrace, Carol takes a sip of her tea, looks at Archie sipping his Coke through a straw and fiddling with some setting on his binoculars, and she plucks up the courage to ask, ‘Who are you on the phone to?’

Vanessa stares at her blankly.

‘Mmm? Oh, no one. Just a work thing.’

Vanessa works for a property company. Letting out luxury apartments to businessmen for short-term stays – that kind of thing. She earns a good salary, but most of it is on commission.

‘At the weekend?’

Vanessa rolls her eyes.

‘Yes, Mum. Just an email I had to reply to.’ She makes an elaborate show of putting her phone back in her handbag, then zipping it up. ‘There. Now I’m all yours.’ She ruffles the top of Archie’s head and he smiles, grateful at last to have his mother’s attention.

‘How’s your tea?’

‘Lovely, thanks.’

‘And how are things . . . you know, generally? Should we be worried about you?’

Vanessa looks over the top of her sunglasses. Carol can see her pale blue eyes and, beneath them, dark circles the colour of hyacinth petals. She marvels, once again, at her daughter’s unexpected beauty. She pats Vanessa lightly on the hand.

‘I’m fine, love.’ And then, because she knows that Vanessa is trying, that she is really making an effort, she adds, ‘Thank you for asking.’

‘You know you can always come and stay with us—’

Archie nods. ‘Yeah, Grandma. You can have my bed.’

Carol laughs. ‘And where would you sleep? No, honestly, I’m very happy on my own. Besides, I’ve got to water my next-door neighbour’s plants. He’s off on holiday.’

‘That’s nice,’ Vanessa says distractedly. The phone is vibrating in her handbag, sending out pulsations of sound.

‘Yes, Alan. Lives at Number 12,’ Carol continues, making a point of carrying on the conversation despite her daughter’s attention wandering. ‘Odd fellow.’

‘Why?’ Archie asks, finishing the last of his drink and sucking on the straw until it starts to make a bubbling noise. Vanessa tells him to stop and he does so immediately, with a meekness that makes Carol sad.

‘Just . . . I can’t put my finger on it . . . just something about him that doesn’t seem to fit.’

They lapse into silence. Carol finishes her tea, savouring the sweetness of unstirred sugar at the bottom of the cup. She winks at Archie and he grins at her. There are two small patches of pink on the apples of his cheek. She wonders if Vanessa has put any lotion on his face but can’t quite bring herself to ask, knowing that, if she does, a curtain of defensive silence will fall around them and the rest of the afternoon will be ruined. She’s ever so sensitive about things.

‘Shall we go then?’ Vanessa says, checking the time on her watch. ‘Bird feeding starts in five minutes.’

A woman wearing thigh-high waders with a jolly, weather-beaten face introduces herself as Sally, the bird-feeder. A small group of parents and children has gathered under a gazebo at the central meeting point. Sally shows them a wheeled trolley containing buckets filled with various pellets and tells them that this is for the birds only and should on no account be eaten by humans, at which point a toddler in a blue Boden dress and tiny Converse trainers leans forward and scoops out a handful with podgy fingers.

‘Milly, no,’ says a blousy brunette, smiling stupidly as though Milly has just done something terribly charming. ‘Put that back, darling. It’s for the birdies. Yes, it is. The little ducky-wuckies.’

Carol grimaces. Baby talk. Can’t abide it.

The child looks at her mother stubbornly, then lets the pellets drop to the ground.

‘It’s fine, honestly,’ Sally says generously. ‘Let’s get going, then we can give the birds something to eat.’

Archie stoops to pick up the scattered pellets and his binoculars graze against the gravel path. Vanessa is on her phone again so Carol bends over to help him, feeling a dull ache in her lower back as she levers herself gradually closer to the ground.

‘We’ll have more to give the birds now,’ Archie says, clenching his hand tightly in a fist. He has never liked untidiness.

‘Good idea.’ Carol is so close she can smell shower gel on his T-shirt, mixed in with the scent of freshly sharpened pencils. She gives him the pellets she has gathered and they set off, trailing behind Sally and her wheeled trolley.

It is a beautiful day. Only the faintest wisps of cloud in a sky shot through with glistening threads of sunshine. The river water throws up shards of refracted light. There is something about parkland that makes Carol feel secure. It is the manageability of scale, perhaps: the knowledge that there is a boundary in the distance, unseen and yet definite. She has always found the idea of untrammelled wilderness frightening. When, in the past, Derek had encouraged her to swim in the sea on holiday, she could never fully relax. She was aware, all the time, that a vast wave could rip her away from land. That she could go under. She relied on Derek to chivy her along, to make her go on a camel ride in the desert and to do things she wouldn’t normally because he was there and that meant she didn’t need to be afraid. And now he wasn’t with her, so she’s scared all over again.

‘Mum! It’s a little ringed plover.’ Archie is pointing excitedly at a bird. To Carol, it seems to look just like any other feathered creature. Vanessa squints her gaze and follows Archie’s hand.

‘Oh yes,’ she says, putting her arm around Archie’s waist. ‘Can I use your binoculars?’

Archie nods. The binoculars are still hanging around his neck. Vanessa leans across and puts them up to her face.

Carol hangs back, just to look at them. From the back, they could be siblings.

‘These are great, Mum,’ Vanessa cries. ‘What a fab present.’

Carol beams at them both. Whatever she might think about the way Vanessa chooses to live her life, her childlike glee can be a wonderful thing. A warmth rises up from the tip of Carol’s toes, all the way to her neckline and then to the roots of her scalp. For the first time in months, she remembers what it is to experience the uncomplicated joy of a brief, simple moment of happiness. She is relieved, more than anything, that she still has the capacity, that her heart is still open enough to allow a chink of it through. She had been worried, after Derek’s death, that she’d never be able to feel anything again.

Later, they all go back to Lebanon Gardens for tea. Carol makes Archie’s favourite – tuna fishcakes with green beans on the side. He doesn’t care for junk food. Apart from ice cream, he hardly has a sweet tooth either.

‘He’s started watching
MasterChef,
’ Vanessa says, as Carol is topping and tailing the beans. ‘Cooking is his new big thing.’

Carol laughs. ‘It’s hard to keep up.’

‘Yeah,’ Vanessa agrees, pouring herself a glass of orange juice. Carol puts a pan of water on to boil. Her daughter has never been one to offer help unless it is explicitly pointed out to her that it might be needed. She wonders why this is, exactly. Had she and Derek spoilt her? Would she have been more thoughtful if they’d had another child?

And yet there were times when Vanessa was extremely loving, as if her affection could manifest itself only in sudden, demonstrative squalls.

‘Love you, Mum,’ she will say, in the middle of a chat about something entirely mundane. Or she will come up behind Carol and clasp her tightly in a hug, head pressing against her mother’s back. Or she will write a beautifully effusive card, after months and months of never saying thank you. The unpredictable nature of these events left Carol vaguely suspicious each time. Why did everyone have to go around saying they loved each other anyway? What was this modern fashion for weeping and wailing at the slightest provocation? In her day, they didn’t need to vocalise any of it. They just got on with things. It was actions that counted.

Archie devours his tuna fishcakes in a few rapid bites, then asks if he can get down to watch television. Vanessa stays seated, toying with the food on her plate.

‘Not hungry?’ Carol asks.

‘Sorry, Mum,’ Vanessa says with a tired smile. ‘Too many sweets at the Wetlands Centre.’

She says that and yet Carol knows she’s hardly eaten a thing all day.

‘You’ll disappear if you’re not careful.’

Vanessa suppresses a sigh.

‘Mum, I’m forty-six. I can look after myself.’

‘Sorry I spoke.’

There is an uneasy silence.

After tea, Carol remembers that she hasn’t yet watered the plants next door. She wonders if she can get away with not doing them, just for one day, but her Presbyterian guilt gets the better of her. The last two days have been hot and dry. His hydrangea will be wilting by now.

Archie is curled up on the sofa, watching something that involves adults doing an obstacle course. A ginger-haired man in a Lycra one-piece is attempting to leap onto a rotating rubber wheel, while being doused in water from a series of high-pressure jets.

‘Do you want to come and do the plants next door with me?’ she says hopefully.

Archie stares at the screen, seeming not to have heard.

‘Archie?’

He nods, turns off the television and comes with her, silently. Sometimes she wishes he weren’t so well-behaved. He seems too adult, as though the spirit has already been ground out of him.

She takes Alan’s keys from the hook in the hallway and goes next door, with Archie trailing a few steps behind. As soon as she opens the front door to Number 12, Archie’s curiosity gets the better of him and he bowls past her into the hallway, excitedly looking into each room and comparing the layout to her house.

‘He’s got a smaller kitchen,’ Archie shouts.

‘I don’t think he’s got his side return done, has he?’

‘Ugh. His fridge
stinks
.’

‘That’s not nice, Archie,’ she says, but she follows him down the corridor and peers into the fridge. A plastic bag from a supermarket deli is on the bottom shelf, filled with pinkish lumps that she assumes are prawns. A gelatinous liquid is seeping out from underneath. She reaches in, takes the bag and throws it in the pedal-bin.

‘Eww, gross!’ Archie says.

‘He must’ve forgotten they were there.’ Carol makes a mental note to empty the bin before leaving. She doesn’t want the prawns smelling out the entire house before Alan gets back. She leaves Archie exploring the upstairs and makes her way through the double doors into the garden. She bends to fill the watering can from an outside tap, feeling her knees ache with the movement. Once the can is brimming with water, she has to spend several seconds gathering enough strength to stand upright again. She’s so much more tired in the evenings now. As she straightens, Carol emits an unintentional groan, supporting the small of her back with her one free hand. She can remember her mother standing in exactly the same way. It’s true, she thinks, I’ve finally turned into her.

She starts, methodically, in the far corner of the garden by the small apple tree and works her way round clockwise until she gets to the potted plants on the patio. The tiles are evenly placed and scrubbed clean. There are no weeds in the cracks, Carol notes approvingly. Each plant has a small handwritten label stuck into the soil next to it, identifying its genus. There’s no doubt that Alan takes good care of his garden.

‘Grandma!’

She turns to see Archie leaning out of an upstairs window, waving at her. She smiles, in spite of herself.

‘Get down here, nosy parker! And close that window properly. I don’t want Alan thinking I’ve been snooping around.’

After a few minutes, Archie emerges in the garden. She has done most of the plants by then: the rhododendron, the camellia and the mixed herbs in the trough by the window. Her shoulders are tingling with the exertion.

‘Oh heavens, I forgot the jasmine bush at the back,’ she mutters.

‘I’ll do it,’ Archie says, grabbing the watering can from her.

‘All right then, love.’ She sits down on one of Alan’s outdoor chairs, sighing with the comfort of it. She watches her grandson run to the end of the garden. The back of his neck has caught the sun. There is a strip of paler flesh from where the binocular strap would have been. She should give Vanessa some lotion for that to take home. A drowsiness creeps over her. Her eyelids droop downwards and she is unable to stop her vision from stuttering so that all she can see is the thin sliver of Archie’s trainers in the grass. Just a few seconds, she thinks. I’ll just shut my eyes for a few seconds.

‘Grandma!’

She jerks awake. Archie is beckoning to her, pointing at something in the ground. Still half-asleep, she walks to where he is standing and because everything still seems a bit dreamlike, a bit shrouded in shadow, it takes a while for her gaze to click into focus. When it does, she isn’t immediately sure what she’s looking at.

‘What is it?’ Archie is saying and then he is holding her arm, shifting back from the edge of a flower bed where the soil has recently been turned over and there is something in the ground, something that looks like a bunch of twigs but, at the same time, the twigs are too angular, too precise in their delineation and soon Carol is kneeling down, reaching out to clear them away. Just before the tip of her finger makes contact with whatever it is, she stops herself. And suddenly, she knows. She knows, beyond doubt, what she is seeing.