The Unfinished Garden (8 page)

Tilly gave a fake cough. “My mother tells me you’re living in
Bramwell Chase, Sebastian?”

Sebastian stopped giggling. “I’m renting Manor Farm.”

“Yes,” Tilly said slowly. “My mother told me that, too.”

“I didn’t tell you first?” Rowena stretched against the
steering wheel. “Sure I had. But since you don’t answer my emails, I have no
idea what you know.”

Tilly bit her lip. Challenging Rowena was not an exercise for
the jet-lagged.

“Anyway. It’s a brilliant story, so I’m happy to repeat it.”
Rowena tailgated a BMW and flashed her lights, while Tilly sank lower in her
seat. “I was in town for a meeting at the bank. No offense, Sebastian, but ruddy
bankers. It’s always something. I walked in and there he was. Well, I about
died.” She smacked the steering wheel and the baubles around her wrist tinkled.
“Can you imagine?”

Yes, Tilly could. Rowena would have shrieked and people would
have gawked. Sebastian would have been embarrassed, but would have concealed it
and kissed both her cheeks. He certainly wouldn’t have stood and stared as he
had done with Tilly. She yanked a tissue from her pocket and shredded it.

“I had absolutely no idea he was back from Hong Kong not that
he’s ever handled the Roxton account have you Sebastian but we went to dinner—”
jeez, was she going to pause for breath? “—and Sebastian told me he needed
somewhere to stay and I thought the Farm with all that fresh air for the
children and here we are.”

Tilly glared at Rowena’s headrest. Rowena’s recent emails had
been full of chatter about finding her gamekeeper passed out with an empty
bottle of whiskey, and about Sunday lunch at Woodend with roast lamb and the
first new potatoes of the season. But no mention of Sebastian. And Rowena didn’t
keep secrets. She didn’t know how.

Rowena twiddled with the heat controls, and Tilly breathed
through a surge of nausea. Was no one else suffocating in this car? If she threw
up that would be interesting: Sebastian was vomit-phobic.

Tilly shrugged off her cardigan. “Back for good,
Sebastian?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you were in Hong Kong for the long haul. What
changed your mind?”

“Who, not what. Fiona.”

Tilly sat up and watched the silver belly of an airliner soar
above them. “She’d had enough of Hong Kong?” Was the plane full of
holidaymakers, businessmen and women? People fleeing?

“She’d had enough of me.” The front passenger seat groaned as
Sebastian swung around. “Mind if I smoke? In front of Isaac?”

He never managed to quit, then. And yes, she did mind him
exposing Isaac to secondhand smoke. But she hadn’t studied Sebastian’s face
until now, hadn’t looked beyond the grooming to notice the purple welts under
his eyes. She shook her head and prayed she had misunderstood, because Sebastian
single plus Tilly single equaled a complex math problem. And she hated all
things math. Sebastian cracked open his window. Cellophane crinkled, a lighter
flipped open and she heard him breathe.

Tilly rubbed at a crust of strawberry jam on her jeans. “Fiona
left you?”

“Yes.” Sebastian dragged on his cigarette.

“I’m sorry.” So, she didn’t plan to forgive him, and she didn’t
want to hate him. Could she settle on indifference with a soupçon of pity? She
could feel that for a squished squirrel on Creeping Cedars, and squirrels were
public enemy number one.

A counterpane of fields ripped past, retreating from the
invasive ground cover of London. What a different view this was to the one from
I-40, where wide banks disappeared into acres of forest. Her body tingled with
something that felt strangely like longing. But before Tilly could muse further,
a sense of unease prickled, and she turned from the window.

Sebastian had angled the rearview mirror toward himself and
appeared to be rubbing his eye. But it was a ruse; he was watching her. His eyes
delved deeper—with curiosity, lust, wistfulness? Or was it need? Did he need her
the way she had needed him after David died? If she were closer, she could
concentrate on Sebastian’s eyes. Were they gray, the color stated on his
passport, or murky green, the color of ocean reflecting storm clouds? Before she
could decide, he looked away.

Terrific, she’d have to forgive him after all.

* * *

She wanted to stay asleep, but hushed voices intruded,
waking her before she was ready. Where was she? Oh, right, still ensnared in the
Discovery. Rowena whispered, “Want me to tell her?” and Sebastian replied, “No,
I’ll take care of it.” And Tilly decided to play possum.

“Doing all right?” Rowena asked. “Sorry. Bloody stupid
question.”

“Yeah.” A lighter flicked. “Bloody stupid question,
darlin’.”

Darlin’? Said in jest and the dropped
g
made all the difference, but a term of endearment passing between Ro and
Sebastian? Tilly held her breath, hoping that for once Sebastian would spill his
emotions, not conserve them. But he remained silent, curled in on his thoughts
like a turtle marooned in the middle of the road. And Tilly had to move; her
buttocks were numb.

“Aha,” Rowena said. “Sleeping Beauty and my little prince stir.
Did we nap well, my darlings?”

“Not especially.” Tilly’s neck cricked and she tugged on
it.

“We’re here, Mom! Look!” Isaac grabbed at her. “We’re
here!”

The road dipped under an arc of overhanging beech trees.
Ivy-covered banks rose on either side of the car, and they were thrown into a
leafy tunnel of silvery shade. Tilly wanted to scream her happiness, to rush
from the car and kiss the ground.
Who gives a monkey’s
about anything!
She was home, back in the place where life waited for
her, unchanged. She lowered her window and inhaled cool air and the smell of
fresh-cut grass. No heat, no humidity, no cicada buzz, nothing but the bleating
of sheep.

They emerged into brilliant sunshine as the bank slipped into a
hedgerow of hawthorn, bindweed and elder knotted with blackberry brambles. A
blue tit churred, and Tilly’s heart answered with a symphony of joy. Isaac’s
first English summer! He was in for such a treat.

A woman clopped by on a piebald horse and touched her velvet
helmet in greeting, but Rowena, ever the sun-slut, was oblivious. “The sun!” She
pointed and bounced like a child tied up with excitement on Christmas morning.
“Oh, the sun!”

Rowena continued to pay more attention to the sky than the
road, but thankfully, drove below the speed limit. Not that she would ever speed
through a village.

“Now, poppet. What shall we do for this trip’s outing?” Rowena
said. “Isaac and I always have a day out,” she explained to Sebastian. “Of
course, being here in the summer has so many more possibilities. Tilly and Isaac
normally come back for Christmas. Well, not to celebrate Christmas, since they
don’t.”

“You gave up on Christmas?” Sebastian held his cigarette to the
window, but turned briefly.

“My husband was a practicing Jew.” Tilly watched a streak of
smoke leak out through the open window. “And since we have a liberal rabbi,
Isaac’s been raised in the Jewish faith. He thinks Jesus lives at the North Pole
with twelve reindeer, don’t you, Angel Bug?”

Isaac rolled his eyes. “Mom! I haven’t believed that since I
was young.”

“I converted after David died. It made sense for Isaac.” Which
was true. A five-year-old could hardly go to synagogue alone. At the time she
had told herself she was giving David a final gift, and maybe, back then, she’d
believed it. But today she saw her conversion for what it was: an act of
atonement.
No.
She shoved the thought aside, but
there it was again, coiling in her gut: guilt, the universal motivator for every
major decision she had made in the past three years.

They crawled around the curve of the church wall and passed the
yew trees that marked the mass graves of medieval plague victims. Beyond, fields
dotted with chestnut trees and grazing sheep tumbled over the horizon. Tilly
held her breath and waited. Nothing must taint this happiness percolating in her
heart, because any minute…
yes!
She exhaled as they
emerged on a small rise. Waves of pink and red valerian poked out from the
foundations of the ironstone cottages hugging the High Street, their thatched
roofs spilling toward strips of garden stuffed with lupines, delphiniums, fading
roses and gangly sweet peas. Tilly’s eyes scooted over every plant. How she had
missed the gardens of Bramwell Chase, with untamed perennials rambling into each
other and lawns dotted with daisies and clover. These were real gardens, not the
landscaped yards of Creeping Cedars with squares of chemically enhanced grass,
rows of shrubs lined up like marines awaiting inspection, and the gag-inducing
smell of hardwood mulch.

“Now, dear heart,” Rowena said to Isaac. “Name your outing. But
not Legoland again. That gift shop bankrupted me last time. What about the Tower
of London? You can see where they chopped off heads. And the crown jewels are
good for a quick look-see.”

“How about Woburn Safari Park?” Sebastian gave a shrug. “Archie
and Sophie—” aha, that was his daughter’s name “—love it. Monkeys climb on your
car, parrots take nectar from your hand.” Isaac sat still, mouth open. “And the
gift shops are terrific.” Sebastian gave Rowena that smile, the one that was
more of a twitch at the right corner of his mouth. Tilly twisted her legs around
each other.

“Fab idea. I—” A mechanical rendition of “Rule Britannia”
chimed from Rowena’s lap. “Bugger. Phone.” Rowena rootled around in the folds of
her skirt. “Sebastian? Take the wheel.”

Cigarette dangling from his mouth, Sebastian shook his head in
disapproval, but reached across and grabbed the steering wheel while Rowena
chattered into her cell phone. Sebastian had grown up fawned over by women—his
grandmother who had lived with the family, his mother, his two older sisters—and
yet he’d always been oblivious to sexual cues, incredulous when confronted by
lust. His effortless movements, however, suggested that he was finally
comfortable with his sexuality. Which was good for Sebastian—Tilly gulped—bad
for her. Life was so much easier when she had thought of him as dead. God, she
needed out of this car.

“Cool,” Isaac said. “Rowena can drive without any hands.”

“Not cool.” Tilly raised her voice. “Dangerous and
illegal.”

“That was Daddy. Thanks, Sebastian.” Rowena snapped her phone
shut and reclaimed the steering wheel. “Sends oodles of love. He and Mother are
scheming to open a rest home for aging ex-pats. Think we should invest, Haddy?
You could wheel me around in my bath chair while I find us a couple of geriatric
Adonises. So many men, so little time.”

Flashes of Rowena’s ex-lovers whizzed through Tilly’s mind.
Poor Ro, she could never find enough love, whereas Tilly had had more than her
share.

“But Isaac’s my main squeeze.” Rowena fired off a string of
air-kissses. “Aren’t you, poppet?”

“Yes. I. Am.” Isaac thrust out his chest with eight-year-old
machismo.

Tilly stretched and yawned.

“Feeling icky?” Rowena asked.

“Bit tatty round the edges.”

“Rats. So you won’t want to join us for lunch. Well I did
say—didn’t I, Sebastian—that you’d be too tired. We’ve a table for two booked
for noon at The Flying Duck. I could easily make it four. But I can see you’re
both pooped.”

Isaac sprang up and down silently as if to contradict her.

Tilly rubbed her temples.
A table for
two?

“Nope, much better plan!” Rowena thumped the center of the
steering wheel, and the horn sounded. Tilly and Isaac jumped. “Come to Sunday
lunch at the Hall! Tilly, bring your mother. Sebastian, bring the children.
Isaac? It’s time Aunty Ro taught you croquet. Croquet? What am I saying? Ever
played cricket?”

“No. But isn’t it the same as baseball? I’m good at that.”

Sebastian doubled over and appeared to be choking.

“Poppet, we need to educate you in the ways of cultural
diversity. And it just so happens that this man sitting next to me, the one
who’s about ready to pop his clogs—” Rowena smacked Sebastian between the
shoulder blades. “Which, by the way, is an excellent reason for never taking up
smoking, filthy habit.” Rowena grabbed Sebastian’s cigarette and sucked on it.
“This man was the youngest pupil in the history of Rugby School to make the
first X1, which is V.I.S.”

“Very Important Stuff!” Rowena and Isaac squealed in
unison.

Tilly didn’t join in the laughter. She was chewing on her
thumbnail, wondering why she had forgotten about Sebastian and the first X1, and
why Rowena had remembered.

Chapter 9

Tilly watched the Discovery tear out of the driveway
and tried not to feel like the duped heroine in an episode of
The Twilight Zone.
Ro and Sebastian were locked in
some conspiracy, and her mother? They hugged, and Tilly’s fingers touched bone.
Her mother had lost more than weight since Christmas. She had shrunk in on
herself; she had aged.

“You look washed out,” her mother said.

“And you look tired. The life of leisure too much for you?”

“You know me. I rarely sit. Having this much time—” Her mother
cleared her throat. “Makes me feel old and dependent.”

The shrill cry of magpies accompanied by a throaty
cuckoo-cuckoo
sneaked up from the paddock. As a child,
nothing delighted Tilly more than the first cuckoo of the season. And everything
in Tilly’s favorite garden was as it should be. The cherry tree was wrapped in
stockings to keep birds from the fruit, the herbaceous border was a mass of
pinks, blues and lavender, and clusters of white rambling rector blooms
smothered the stone wall. Her father had planted that rose. How he loved his
roses! How her mother interfered when he tried to tend them. But today, Woodend
was a flat canvas; it didn’t soothe.

In Tilly’s mind, her mother was always forty years old, plowing
through the black waves off the coast of Cornwall with her neck rigid and her
hair dry. This morning, however, Mrs. Haddington looked less like a woman
defying the Atlantic Ocean and more like an old dear who hadn’t noticed that the
left side of her silk blouse hung over the waistband of her skirt.

“I was so bored yesterday, I attempted to knit a tea cozy for
the church bazaar.” Her mother tucked in her blouse, then puffed up her thick,
white bob. “Which is utterly ridiculous, given this.” She waved her bandaged
hand. “How was it, seeing Sebastian again?”

“Mum.” Tilly issued a warning.

Her mother nipped a leaf from the Lady Hillingdon rose that
snaked around the back door. “Black spot.” She tutted. “You’ll have to spray.
Marigold says it’s a nasty separation. Between Sebastian and Fanny.”

“Fiona.” Tilly watched a pair of sparrows frolic in the stone
birdbath. “And Marigold knows this how?”

“She heard it from Sylvia, who heard it from Beryl, who has the
same woman-that-does as Sebastian—Mabel Dillington. There’s more.”

Tilly had always wanted eyes like her mother’s. Eyes you
couldn’t ignore. Eyes that were the bright blue of a Carolina sky. Tilly’s eyes
were pale and translucent, the color of porcelain brushed with a robin’s-egg
wash. They made her look ethereal, when she yearned to be an Amazon.

“There’s evidence of a relationship.” Her mother had yet to
blink.

Tilly scuffed her Doc Martens boot through round, evenly sized
pebbles in coordinating sand tones. Unlike Tilly’s gravel, which was made up of
lumps of quartz and splinters of gray rock, her mother’s driveway was perfect.
“I’d forgotten how rumors fly in this place. Shame on you for listening.”

“Hardly rumor. And there’s no need to be sanctimonious. Mabel
saw the Discovery parked outside Manor Farm yesterday at 6:00 a.m. Now. Where
did Isaac and Monty disappear to?” Her mother hobbled up the stone step and
through the back door.

Tilly raised her face into the damp, morning air. The sun had
vanished, replaced by a fine Scotch mist.
So they’re having
sex. Big whoop. I just need to figure out how to avoid them for six
weeks.

An empty truck rattled along the High Street. Empty trucks—when
did she stop calling them lorries?—sounded different from heavily loaded ones.
It had to do with the way they hit the dip on the corner. She gazed through the
gateway, the place where she had met David. And then she stared back at the
house, the place she had longed to run to after he died. After he died because
of her. She’d grown used to the guilt, but it was always lurking. And when she
was tired, as she was now, it thudded inside her skull like a migraine.

“Tilly! Phone!” her mother called from the kitchen. “A James
Nealy?”

* * *

“Good flight?” James grabbed the rail on the treadmill,
let go and repeated. Six times. Would she shriek? Accuse him of being a two-bit
stalker? But despite what the voice had told him yesterday—over and over—he
wasn’t a stalker. Although he had memorized the state harassment laws just to
make sure.

“Are you an insomniac?” Tilly said. “It can’t be much later
than 5:00 a.m. your time.”

He had prepared for incredulity or hostility, nothing else. And
yet she’d asked about his sleep habits. What did that mean?

The treadmill whirred beneath him. “I exercise every morning
from four-thirty to six-thirty.” That was probably more information than she
needed.

“You get up at four-thirty? Are you crackers?”

What the hell did
crackers
mean?
Who knew, but it didn’t sound good. So yes, clearly he had given her too much
information. She was probably freaking out at this very moment, dialing 911 on
her cell phone to report him for infringing the state harassment law that
included:
To telephone another repeatedly, whether or not
conversation ensues, for the purpose of abusing, annoying, threatening,
terrifying, harassing or embarrassing any person at the called
number.
Was he annoying her?

“Have you made a decision?” He spoke quickly, a preemptive
strike in case she was considering hanging up.

“James.” Her voice dragged with exhaustion. He should’ve waited
another hour at least, given her a chance to unpack. But it had taken all his
restraint to not call her at 4:30 a.m. “I promised you an answer in
September.”

“Can’t wait that long.”

“You’re worse than a child. Isaac was never this demanding,
even at three.”

His pulse slowed as her accent, soft and warm, soothed him. He
actually thought about crawling into bed and going back to sleep. After he’d
showered, of course. “Do you talk to all your clients this way, or just me?”

“I have wholesale customers, not clients, for this very reason.
And no, I haven’t given your project one iota of a thought. I just walked in the
door after twelve hours of traveling, and all I care about is where I packed my
toothbrush and whether there’s a pair of clean knickers nearby.”

“Is that so?” An image assaulted him, of Tilly wearing nothing
but a scarlet thong and gardening gloves. He shook back his hair and upped the
speed on the treadmill.

“How did you track me down?” Tilly asked.

Sari ratted you out.
Once he
discovered her sons were fans, he had all the leverage he needed.

“You can find anything,” he said, “if you’re determined.” That
wasn’t a lie, even though the voice told him it was.

“I’m trying to be patient. Really. But I’m dangerously close to
telling you to jump off a pier. Only with a few choice expletives thrown in.”
She paused. “How’re the silent hiccups?”

“You really want to know?” His voice was almost a whisper.

“Sadly, yes. I do.”

“Worse.” The treadmill creaked an indignant rhythm as he upped
the speed a second time. He’d never taken it this high.

“So you’re going to keep calling me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Time for a deal, Mr. Nealy. You get an answer in one
week—if, and only if, you agree to abide by my decision. And no calling in the
interim.”

Was that a yes? Or a no? Or a nothing? He hated nothings. But
it could turn into a yes, right? “Agreed.”

“And—”

“Addendums?” He panted. “Already?”

“I’d like the adult explanation of your hiccups.”

“Will it…affect your…decision?” He was running hard now. Racing
against the voice, which was stuck doing a circuit of:
If
you tell her, she’ll think you’re a fucking weirdo.
James tried to
drown out the thought with the lyrics of “Psycho Killer,” but he couldn’t get
past the line that basically said, leave me the hell alone because I’m a live
wire.

“Labels are merely a way of lumping people together like plants
on a stall,” Tilly said. “I don’t much care what yours is.” She was smiling. He
could hear it in the pitch of her voice. “Okay, gloves-off honesty. I’m
curious.”

“What’s…your…label?” His sneakers pounded the treadmill
belt.

“I thought we were talking about you.”

“I’m not…all that…interesting.”
Once you
edit out the crazy bits.

“Okay, fine. I’m game for a little transatlantic
show-and-tell.” She gave a huge sigh. “I’m a guilt-ridden widow. No, that’s too
strong. I’m not drowning in guilt. It’s just there, in the background.”

James blew out a couple of breaths and slowed down to a fast
walk. “You have to be careful with guilt.” So, Tilly understood the horror of a
damaged mind, which couldn’t be good either for her, or for Isaac. “Guilt can
become an intrusive thought. And that’s my world. Thoughts that drag you back
and under. Thoughts that never let go. Obsessive thoughts that lead to
compulsive actions. Look up OCD on Wikipedia and read about cognitive-behavioral
therapy. It’s a way of redirecting unwanted thoughts. You might find it
helpful.” He shut the treadmill. At 5:16 a.m. the day was already too long.
“I’ll call one week from today. Same time.”

James hung up and crumpled across the front of the treadmill.
He had told her! Told her he was crippled by an anxiety disorder that popular
culture equated with people to ridicule or fear: a television detective
incapable of navigating life without a wipes-carrying assistant; a monster
driven to murder by odd numbers; a billionaire recluse who couldn’t touch
doorknobs and died in squalor. James banged the heels of his hands into his
temples.
Bang, bang. Bang, bang. Bang, bang.

He never told anyone he had OCD—not family, not lovers, not
close friends. His buddy Sam guessed years ago, but it was understood, not
discussed, which was what James wanted. It was no one’s business but his own,
because to say those words out loud was to brand himself. Tilly was right—OCD
was a label, and with labels came stigma, and weakness, and pity. Everything
that James detested, everything that reminded him how it felt to be ten years
old, standing by his mother’s grave, scared of the future, terrified of the
thoughts unraveling in his brain, and desperate not to be the object of people’s
stares. Desperate to blend in and disappear, to be the person you never quite
remembered, when he was more likely to be the person you wished you could
forget.

She hates you, she’s scared of you, she
thinks you’re a kook.

No, no.
James pressed down with his
palms. He was done with doubt. It would not pull him under again. He would not
revert to the person he had been before he had decided to sell the business, the
apartment, the farm. Before he had decided to save himself.

Besides, Tilly? Scared of anyone? He didn’t think so. And yes,
he was weird. He was weird! So what? He should be able to shout to the world
that he was obsessive-compulsive, to do so without dreading other people’s
reactions. Maybe opening up to Tilly was the first step, and no different from
his dad attending an A.A. meeting just so he could announce, “I’m a drunk.”

That was a good theory and one James desperately wanted to
believe. Acknowledging weakness gave you strength, but he’d slipped up, released
personal information without having intended to, and that was out of character.
Other people said things they shouldn’t; he didn’t.

But when he’d hinted at the truth that day at the farm, hadn’t
a small part of him dared to trust, dared to believe that he had met someone,
finally, who might understand? How would Tilly treat him now that she knew?
Would she look at him and see the OCD, not James? Was it even possible to
separate the two?

His psychologist always said, “It’s the OCD, not you,” but the
lines weren’t distinct for James. OCD may have twisted up his mind, but it had
crafted him, made him James, pushed him to succeed and bequeathed the only gift
that mattered: the ability to perceive pain in others. He didn’t always act on
that knowledge, didn’t always want to, but he was drawn to people in dark
corners, could empathize with them. So now he was being altruistic.
Truthfully, you enjoy living alongside people who are more
fucked-up than you.
That wasn’t true of most of his friends, but it
had been his M.O. in love.

His thoughts circled him back to Tilly. She would take him on.
She would. But once they started working together, once they had regular
contact, he would have to be more careful. Because if she saw behind the label,
if he revealed the biggest truth of all, she would never understand. The end.
The end.

* * *

An airlock rattled through the radiator, and Tilly
peered into the disemboweled duffel on the twin bed with the patchwork bedspread
garish enough to stimulate a corker of a headache. She enjoyed the nostalgia of
sleeping in her childhood bed but not the experience. The mattress sagged in the
middle, and she had to relearn how to sleep in a huddle, not stretched across
her queen-size bed. Tilly had always wanted a king, the biggest bed imaginable
so she could cover it with down-filled pillows and cushions of every size and
color. David had refused; he said he needed Tilly closer.

“What do you know about OCD?” Tilly asked her mother, who was
settled in the old nursing chair with a cup of Lady Grey tea and the
Daily Telegraph
crossword.

“Isn’t that what Howard Hughes suffered from? A fear of germs,
I think.” Mrs. Haddington stirred her tea, then tapped the spoon on the lip of
the china cup. “Does this have something to do with that James chap? He sounded
rather nice.” The spoon clattered onto the saucer. “And you can wipe that smirk
off your face. I may be old, but I’m not dead. I can still recognize a sexy
voice.”