The Gardens of the Dead (35 page)

Anselm
rolled fresh cigarettes for them both, fumbling with the paper. He could hardly
keep up with Sister Dorothy’s rolling narrative. She’d gathered speed, speaking
towards the empty chairs in the common room. Elizabeth had stayed at the hostel
for months. Refused to go home. Wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t talk. Finally she was
prepared to let Sister Dorothy act as a messenger. But she was very clear that if
steps were taken to send her home, she’d disappear once and for all.

‘So I
knocked on the door,’ said Sister Dorothy slowing as if she’d just tramped
across London. ‘I told Mrs Steadman that her daughter had run away but was safe’
— she glanced at Anselm, her eyes narrowed and moist — ‘I did this kind of work
for years, and I always had to manage hysteria and anguish … the lot … But
this time, and neither before nor since, I met with instant and complete
resignation.’

She
motioned for a light, because the cigarette had gone out. Anselm struck a
match. ‘What of Mr Steadman?’ he asked, after a short silence.

Accidental
death,’ she replied, through a breath of smoke. ‘Mrs Steadman wouldn’t speak of
it, but the coroner’s certificate was required when the authorities were
convened to plan Elizabeth’s future — that’s how I found out. In all the years
to come, Elizabeth never referred to him.
Not once.’

With
court approval, it was agreed that Elizabeth would attend the Carlisle school,
and Sister Dorothy would act as a go-between to Mrs Steadman. The court order
was kept in an office upstairs because, technically speaking, Camberwell became
Elizabeth’s home address.

‘After
she went to Durham, I never saw her again,’ said Sister Dorothy ‘but I received
a postcard when she decided to become a barrister.’ With the cigarette between
her teeth, she wheeled herself across the room to a sideboard. She returned
with a breviary on her lap. Wincing at the smoke, she leafed through the pages
until she found her bookmark.

The
picture showed Gray’s Inn Chapel on a summer’s day beneath whose tower Anselm
had waited for Nicholas. Written on the other side were these brief words:

Tuesday week I
shall be called to the Bar. Thanks to you alone, I am happy The girl we found
in ribbons shall spend her days on the heels of the wrongdoer.

With my love,

Elizabeth

‘That same day I gave
Roddy a cold call,’ said Sister Dorothy taking back the card. ‘I hoped he’d
remember me from my veil.’

‘Did
he?’

‘Oh
yes.’

They
both smiled, quiet for a moment at the recollection of Mr Roderick Kemble QC,
who’d wheedled his way into Elizabeth’s aspirations, and fulfilled them.

Darkness
had fallen completely outside. The rush of traffic on Coldharbour Lane sounded
like the tide, sure but fitful. When George had accused Riley thought Anselm,
Riley had turned to Elizabeth. The three of them met in court. The symmetry
was appalling. And I stood among them, unseeing.

Sister
Dorothy stubbed out her cigarette and said regretfully ‘I’ll tell you now about
the boy who sent me towards that street light.’ (Anselm had wondered about him.
A sympathetic hotelier had given him a bed for the night.) ‘He was named after
his grandfather — a revered man in the household.’

‘To use
the language of the day’ said Sister Dorothy wearily ‘the lad discovered that
his namesake had
interfered
with a neighbour’s child. It was the word
he used when he told his mother, who didn’t believe him … and when he told
his father, who couldn’t … so the lad went to the police. The victim denied
it, so the lad was ostracised. Then, one morning, Granddad took a train to
Scarborough and walked into the sea, leaving his medals on the beach.

‘That’s
why he left home,’ mumbled the old nun, ‘why he had to.’ She was heavy with
remorse, not wanting Anselm to see the place into which he’d stumbled (the
place where, unknown to her, Anselm had found the lawyer’s grail: a win against
the odds). ‘He wouldn’t tell anyone who he was,’ she admitted, quietly ‘It’s
Elizabeth’s tale all over again. Start afresh, I said. Use your other name. I’ve
often wondered what became of young George.’

19

Charles Glendinning’s
interest in Lepidoptera did not extend to catching examples for display. They
belonged out of reach. And because they rarely kept still, occasions of
extended observation were rare, always unforeseen and thereby on each count,
prized. Perhaps, then, it was out of respect that Charles had acquired several
antique collections: long, shallow boxes lined with green baize, fronted with
glass. The specimens were laid out in neat rows, each with a label bearing a
name in brown copperplate. These cabinets lined the walls of Charles’s study.
It had always been known as the Butterfly Room.

After
parking the VW in the back lane, Nick moved through a dark and silent house to
find his father. His lungs were tight, as if they were too small for the job.
With a shaking finger he pushed open the door to the study Charles was leaning over
a display cabinet, hands behind his back, his face artificially bright from
phosphorous illumination.

Nick
let the door clip shut. He wanted to be a child again, to sit on someone’s
knee, and to be told it was just a dream; to be ushered back into a world
without demons. The leather armchair was cold to the touch.

‘That tench
was nauseating,’ said Charles, without shifting his gaze. ‘The wine, on the
other hand, was divine.’

‘Dad,’
said Nick, ‘I’ve just met Graham Riley’

Charles
placed an arm on either side of the cabinet under review His knuckles turned
white. The examining gaze, however, remained intact. He is a man preparing
himself, thought Nick, wanting him to be strong and bigger than his own
revelations.

‘That,’
said Charles faintly ‘was a remarkably foolish thing to do.’

Yes, it
was, thought Nick. And now I know what I do not want to know. It did not belong
in the garden of their shared memories. Every year they’d gone to their
cliff-top cottage at Saint Martin’s Haven, facing the Jack Sound and the island
of Skomer. As a boy he’d follow his father in the dark of summer nights, shining
his torch on the island’s protectors, a militia of toads. They’d sat on the
paths, fat-necked and smiling. Once, his mother had come. They’d gone looking
for these lazy squaddies but had halted, awestruck before a patch of heathland
lit by glow-worms.

‘He
said Mum was no better than him …’ Nick was pleading for the innocence of
Skomer, the Barrier Reef, Christmas Day … all of it. He wanted the lot
restored. He wanted his father to tell him something that would put things back
into position.

Charles
had closed his eyes. He was like a man praying, horribly fervent and yet
strong.
Nick had always seen the duffer — the gentleman with raised eyebrows in the
provincial museums of half-term holidays — but never
this.
This was a
different kind of strength, and it was not the kind he was looking for or
wanted.

‘Did I
ever tell you how I met your mother?’ asked Charles ingenuously.

‘Of
course,’ said Nick, wanting to scream. Charles’s employer had retained
Elizabeth to bring a claim for money paid under a mistake of fact — that is to
say Charles had authorised payment of a cheque to an individual notwithstanding
the countermand of the person who had drawn it. Elizabeth won on a technicality.
The same day Charles rang her chambers, he sent her flowers … he did all the
things that he’d thought he was constitutionally incapable of doing. Such was
the transforming power of forgetting yourself, and being unable to forget someone
else. Such was the received wisdom.

‘Well,
let me tell you another version,’ said Charles. He motioned to his son with his
hand — warmly like he’d done upon the heath on Skomer.

Nick
came to the display cabinet and looked down at the specimens, lined up and
labelled. His father’s arm was suddenly heavy on his shoulder.

‘See
this one, top right?’ With his free hand Charles pointed through the glass to a
butterfly with large, dark reddish-purple wings trimmed with a buttery gold.
Reserved but ardent, he said, ‘This lady came to be known as White Petticoat
and Grand Surprise. The labels suggest that she’s naughty … a shameless gal,
a trickster. She’s had lots of names. They tell you something, but they never
quite capture her.’ He glanced at Nick, as he used to do in those fusty
museums. ‘She’s not a city girl. She likes the woods … willow, birch and elm.’

‘Where’s
she from?’ Nick scarcely heard himself, because he thought his father had gone
raving mad.

‘Another
land, far away … she’s a rare vagrant.’ He looked more closely drawing Nick
down with him. ‘She has another label: the Mourning Cloak. But when she was
first sighted in Cool Arbour Lane’ — his voice dropped, as if he’d come to the
secret — ‘she was called the Camberwell Beauty.’

Charles
was holding his son tightly across the shoulder, but all the time he looked
down into the cabinet of phosphorescent light. His grip was almost fierce.
There was no escape.

‘Your
mother was a Grand Surprise,’ said Charles, confidingly ‘She moved warily as
if she’d been netted once … and was forever mindful of where she’d been. When
I first saw her at court, I had to follow her. There was something about her
eyes, the movement of her arms. So I tracked her progress. Nothing could keep
me away neither nettles nor thorns, and I went through the lot, barelegged
without a net, never wanting to trap her, only hoping to be near by That’s how
it was when we got married. I had to keep my distance, all scratched and
swollen.’ His grip on his son eased, but only slightly ‘But when I least
expected it — many years later — she came to me … I could barely breathe; I
could only look at her broken wings with wonder, with astonishment, that she
could still fly and that she had deigned to rest on me.’ His blue eyes began to
move, checking labels. ‘Nothing Riley told you could come between me and the
love I have for your mother.’

Gently
Charles pulled Nick round, placing a hand on each of his son’s shoulders. ‘The
mother you knew has vanished, I know, and I grieve for you. But if you just
wait’ — he was distressed, but strong in this newly discovered way — ‘the labels
— those tabs that hang on what we’ve done, that can never sum up who we are
—they’ll all fade and find their place. And then someone infinitely more
wonderful will appear.’

Charles
strode across the room to a drinks cabinet and poured two glasses of scotch. ‘Will
you drink to that?’ he asked.

20

At any one time,’ said
George distractedly ‘there were roughly ten of us living in that squat.’

He
picked up a jigsaw piece and angled it towards a small lamp. The map of the
known world was almost complete.

‘News
of a place to stay travels on the street,’ said George, ‘and that is how I met
Elizabeth. I first saw her huddled by a fire in the manager’s office. On her
lap was a small red suitcase with a gold lock. We became friends, though I
never heard her story, and I never told her mine. Riley was kind … helped her
settle in … he
watched
her. At that stage, he seemed no different to
anyone else. But then a change occurred.’ George knitted his fingers on the
table. ‘I don’t know whether Riley started it, or whether he moved naturally
with the downward drift, but talk moved from cold and hunger to quick money
Either way Riley became a leader … feverish … and, in a way
ambitious
…
and that’s when I left. For reasons I will never understand, Elizabeth refused
to come with me.’

Anselm
sat very still, arms folded on the edge of the table facing George. The room
was dark, save for the pool of light thrown between them.

‘After
Sister Dorothy found me a place for the night,’ George continued, ‘I came back
to Paddington. What I saw, I’ve never forgotten. There she was, beneath a
street-light, completely still. Ahead, and to the left, in shadow, stood the
squat. On the right, behind a wall topped with broken glass, ran the railway
line. Against the sky I could see a footbridge leading from the station. The
street was empty. And then I saw some movement on the bridge … two people …
one larger than the other. They paused midway and I knew it was Riley looking
over towards Sister Dorothy Even back then, he was bony and stooped, strangely
angular. He was leading someone by the hand. They came down the steps and onto
the road. Again he stopped, facing Sister Dorothy … with Riley holding a
hand, and carrying a bag. Slowly with side-steps, he moved into the squat,
tugging the arm of another runaway.

George
returned to his jigsaw, tapping edges that wouldn’t stay down. He wasn’t
concentrating, because some pieces became detached and he left them misaligned.
Remotely he said, ‘It was … awful … you see, Riley went to the station
because
Sister Dorothy had come to the street. It’s as though he’d taken her place
on the platform, and, coming back to the squat, he’d let her see the
consequences of her choice.’ George found Anselm’s troubled gaze and said, ‘That
night I vowed that if I ever got the chance to name Riley for what he was, to
bring him down, then I’d seize the day’