The Gardens of the Dead (41 page)

When
Nick got back to St John’s Wood he went to the Green Room and opened
The
Following of Christ.
He hadn’t noticed before, but the incisions had
created a window around a quotation:

The humble
knowledge of thyself is a surer way to God, than the deepest searches after
science.

Nick closed the book. He
didn’t know about God — or science any more — but he was convinced, with
gratitude and joy that his mother had known herself intimately that she must
have found her heart’s desire.

8

It was completely by
chance that Nancy spotted the monk’s entry in the notebook. They were in the
Snug Room at the end of a busy day. Having put the remaining five thousand
pounds into ten envelopes, she glanced at George, who, true to his routine,
was refreshing his memory. Nancy picked out: ‘If you meet this gentleman,
please contact …’ It was like one of those tags put on a family pet. Nancy
smarted at the condescension, but quickly discovered that she couldn’t come up
with a better alternative. When George excused himself to answer a call of
nature, Nancy noted the number. And when he came back, she retired to her room,
ostensibly worn out by the rigours of the day Apprehensively Nancy rang the
monastery and a sort of hell broke loose. The monk on the switchboard lost his
marbles, another one said, ‘Hang on,’ and then a fellow called Father Anselm
turned up panting. He took Nancy’s number, saying he’d contact Mrs Bradshaw,
but rang back in a tizzy saying there was no answer. He said he’d go here,
there and everywhere, on a train or in a car, and Nancy being a decisive woman,
told him to calm down and stay put. ‘We have our own steam,’ she said. ‘When we’ve
completed our business, I shall bring him to your premises.’

Nancy
went to bed quite sure that something good was about to happen. At breakfast, she
had another kipper, but said nothing of her intimations. Her time, and that of
George, was given over to hearty meals, long walks and senseless giving.

On the
morning of the seventh day using funds set aside for the purpose, Nancy paid
the bill. She rang Inspector Cartwright for a chat, and then, by train and cab,
and with George at her side, she went deep into the Suffolk fields.

The
monastery was like something from a fairy tale. The roofs were
higgledy-piggledy with russet tiles and slate tiles. There were pink walls,
stone walls and brick walls. It seemed as if the ancient builders had made it
up as they went along. Nancy was overwhelmed by the sight of the place …
because it was holy. So she asked the driver to pull over. ‘Let’s say goodbye
here, George,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to go any closer.’

They
stood awkwardly on the path, and she appraised her friend, with his coat over
one arm, and his small blazer all buttoned up. The blue and yellow tie — and
she’d told him — was too bold.

‘Thank
you,’ she said cheerily ‘for a wonderful week by the seaside.’

He took
her hand and kissed it. ‘I shall never forget it.’

Uncle
Bertie had always said, don’t hang around saying ta-ta. Get it over and done
with. So Nancy urged him on, with a shove. It was a painful sight, looking at
his back, and those white cuffs peeping out of the sleeves, for Nancy knew that
this would be the last she’d ever see of George Bradshaw.

Nancy asked the man in the
taxi to cut the engine, just for a moment. She’d seen a wooden sign for the
information of visitors.

Following
the arrow took her closer to the monastery, but the temptation was too strong.
Behind a broken gate Nancy saw the wildest herb garden she’d ever seen. She was
so entranced by the mess, by its abundance, that she didn’t hear the monk’s
approach. She only heard his voice.

‘Hello,
Nancy’ he said. ‘We’ve met once before, many years ago — in my old calling. I
represented your husband.’

Nancy
wasn’t quite sure what to say. But you have to be honest with a monk, so she
said, ‘Well … no offence, but you didn’t do him any favours.’

‘No, I
didn’t,’ he replied, moving beside her. He, too, looked at the tangled herbs. ‘But
this time — if he wants — I will.’ He became shy but forceful. ‘Is there
anything I can do for you?’

Glancing
at the taxi, and getting itchy feet, Nancy said, ‘When it’s all over’ — her
heart began to run, and her face became warm; she’d turned all serious — ‘if I
stick by my man … will God turn him away?’

The
monk seemed mildly stunned, like Uncle Bertie when he checked the final results
against his betting card. He reached for a pair of glasses and, thinking better
of it, put them back.

‘Surely
I can’t be less constant than God?’ she persisted.

‘No,
you can’t,’ he said. He was staring at her, thinking through his own answer.

Nancy
was surprised: she hadn’t expected to give a monk some guidance on his own
turf. I mean, she thought, it’s all fairly obvious, isn’t it? But then again …
Babycham had said, ‘He’s not worth it,’ and her dad had said, ‘There has to be
give and take, and he doesn’t give.’ They were both right. But no one seemed to
understand. It wasn’t about her gaining or him deserving.

Nancy
wished the monk a very merry Christmas and clambered into the taxi.

‘Wormwood
Scrubs,’ she said, leaning forward.

The
driver frowned his disbelief. ‘The prison … in London?’

‘Yes,’
said Nancy gaily ‘my husband’s a guest on D-wing.’

‘It’ll
cost you a bomb … it’s hours away.

‘I’ve
got my problems,’ said Nancy with a sigh, ‘but money isn’t one of them.’

They pulled
out of the monastery and Nancy’s chauffeur began to chat, just like Cindy at
the hairdresser’s. Nancy was a ‘somebody’, of course. She was the wife of a
villain. He wanted to know what he’d done, but was too scared to ask outright.
But he’d get there, like Cindy long before they got to London.

According
to Inspector Cartwright, Riley had already received one visitor: a
lieutenant-colonel in the Salvation Army.

9

George didn’t look back
after leaving Nancy He followed the path towards Larkwood with a growing sense
of loneliness and loss. It was blinding, for he trudged on, losing sight of his
surroundings, save for the small stones underfoot. Birds whistled in the trees
that were banked tight against the verge.

When
George looked up, he saw a woman coming towards him. At first he didn’t
recognise her because she was out of place. A monastery was not her normal
stamping ground, although, that said,
The Sound of Music
was her
favourite film. He became confused in a terrible way a way that had come with
the beating to his head. For there were times, now, when he doubted what he
experienced, when he tramped through a world that he didn’t fully understand.
Such is the importance of memory, and the things it saves; for, as George well
knew, it’s only by remembering the lot that we can hope to grasp the lot. And
when you cannot grasp the lot, you become very circumspect indeed. But Emily
was there, right in front of him, advancing along the same imaginary line as if
they were on the top corridor of the Bonnington. Father Anselm appeared behind
her … he ran past him, asking of Nancy and George mumbled something, keeping
his eyes on this apparition from his past that was crying.

In the same drunken spirit
of doubting — and of terror that someone would shortly explain what was really
happening — he said goodbye to a parade of monks as if he were the Pope. The
boot of Emily’s car was open … robed figures carried a crate of apples, two
bottles of plum brandy and some preserved pears. He was mumbling to himself
while someone took his arm by the elbow The passenger door banged shut. He
opened the window as if he needed the air to breathe. A small crowd smiled and
waved and Emily was at his side unable to get the key into the ignition.
Someone did it for her, and she laughed into a handkerchief. A long corridor of
oak trees passed slowly as if the car were standing still. The lane opened out
onto gentle hills with a scattering of houses, and the place that had given him
shelter was gone.

‘Emily’ said George, very
sure of himself now, ‘are we going home?’

‘Yes.’

He
looked at the hedgerows, thinking of the other man he’d seen in Mitcham. ‘I
tried to come back, once.

‘I
know,’ said Emily She understood. ‘No one has ever taken your place. Peter was
nothing more than a friend. He was to me what Nancy was to you. And God knows,
George, we have needed friends, if only to bring us back together.’

Emily
explained that the house would look very different, that it was new and clean.
The neighbours hadn’t changed but someone round the corner had bought a dog
that they let loose at night.

‘Why do
you want me back?’ asked George, pulling at the sleeves of his blazer.

‘Because
I found you again, in your notebooks,’ she replied, reaching for the gear
stick, but not changing gear. ‘I don’t know how I could have ever let you go.
Maybe I lost sight of the right and left of things, the front and back, the top
and bottom … everything that brought us together. I didn’t only find you,
George. I found myself.’

George
slept — not the sleep of exhaustion through labour, or the fatigue of strong
emotion. A great weariness had taken hold of him, as though a whole life had
ended. He woke somewhere in London, unsure again of his senses until the car
parked outside the home he’d left so many years ago. It was very dark.

‘Can we
start again?’ asked Emily her voice heavy with hope.

‘No, I
don’t think so.’

They
both looked through the windscreen at the antics of a stray dog. George had
strong views on dogs — especially those that barked.

‘Can we
carry on from where we left off?’

‘That
makes a lot of sense,’ said George. ‘Of course, I can’t remember what’s
happened in between.’ He took her hand. ‘It’ll be as though nothing ever
happened.’

That,
of course, wasn’t true. It was a joke to bridge the distance between honesty
and expectation. Emily unlocked the front door and George came home, as he’d
gone, without any luggage. What did he have to show for it? Nothing you could
put your finger on, he thought merrily except apples, plum brandy and some pears
in ajar.

10

A long-forgotten
Gilbertine once had the wild notion that Larkwood’s dead should be broken up by
aspen roots. The proposal had been enthusiastically endorsed without a mole’s
breath being spent on the implied logistics: the need to dig
through
the
roots for each internment. But perseverance with the shovel won out. And so,
years later, white wooden crosses lay sprinkled between the slim trunks, as if
they’d grown with the dandelions. A railway sleeper had been sunk into a facing
bank for the comfort of visitors. Anselm and the Prior sat in the middle,
wrapped in their cloaks.

‘When I
look at everyone involved in this case,’ said Anselm, ‘Mrs Dixon, Walter
Steadman, Elizabeth, George, Nancy me … we’re all, in varying degrees,
responsible for what happened; but in varying degrees were not to blame.’

‘You
left out Mr Riley’

The
omission had not been deliberate, which, thought Anselm, was telling. It showed
that Anselm was undecided on something of great importance. Inspector
Cartwright had, with a marginal lapse of propriety, shown the text of Riley’s
interview to Anselm. There were hardly any questions. He just spoke into the
tape machine, sometimes so fast that the transcribing typist couldn’t catch the
words. Each page contained multiple ellipses. It was (in their joint
experience) a unique mixture of honesty, insight, right thinking and,
fundamentally a defining self-regard. At the end, when he’d recounted all he’d
done, and how and (most strangely of all) why he said to the officers at the
table, ‘Look, I’m crying.’ With a hand he’d touched his face as if it belonged
to someone else. Inspector Cartwright said he kept saying it, looking around
the room. It was as though he were announcing an achievement.

‘The
passages that unsettled me most,’ confided Anselm, ‘were those where he seized
the blame. Repeatedly he said he’d made his choices, that no one had twisted
his arm, that he was his own man. It read like vanity or a kind of vicious
pride; as though he was holding on to what he could of himself, however ghastly
it might be. And yet, in one place — almost inaudibly I assume, because the
typist had put questions marks on either side — he seems to have said, “I never
had a chance.” He strangled his own mitigation before it could see the light
of day’ Anselm wrapped his cloak tighter, hugging his knees. ‘Was he free, even
though he claimed his actions for his own? Can you be responsible if you’re so
injured in the mind? I’m filled with dread at the thought that today’s capacity
to choose might already be forfeit to yesterday’s misfortune.’