Authors: Rachel Hore
A long, long second passed and it was Patrick who reasserted himself in her mind. What, after all, did she and Matt have in common? They were worlds away from one another.
She said carefully, knowing a thoughtless word would crush him, ‘Normally, I’d have loved to have come with you, Matt, but I promised Patrick I’d help him here this afternoon. I don’t know where he is, actually, he’s late.’
‘Oh, that’s a pity.’ Matt slowly stood up. ‘Another time then.’
‘Yes, another time. But, Matt, listen, I won’t be here much longer. I’m going back to London on Saturday. In fact, tell Carrie it looks as though I won’t have time to visit your great-aunt after all.’
‘I see. That’s a shame. It’s meant something to me, coming here.’
‘You can still come. Patrick will need lots of help.’
‘I didn’t mean that . . .’
‘Matt . . .’ He looked at her and she shook her head very slowly. He stood up and, was the sudden brightness in his eyes her imagination?
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’d best be getting along.’ But he loitered forlornly, looking around at the garden.
Mel watched him and said, ‘Matt, what’s wrong? You’re not your usual self at all.’
‘Oh, nothing,’ he mumbled. Then, when she waited, he turned round and added, ‘Oh, I’m just kind of confused at the moment.’
‘What about?’
‘I’m not sure which way life is pulling me. Mum needs so much help here, and I’m bored with the shop. I don’t feel it’s getting me anywhere. It’s funny – I didn’t used to mind, but recently . . . Then last night, Toby – you know, my friend the artist?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Tells me he’s getting married. Toby . . . I can’t believe it.’
‘I expect it’ll happen to you sometime.’
He shook his head. ‘You know, there’s never been anyone serious. I’ve always thought life’s supposed to be fun, but just now it seems full of responsibilities. And then you came along, and . . .’
They looked up at the sound of a car in the drive beyond the house.
‘Patrick,’ said Mel, standing up quickly. She forgot what Matt had been saying now, busy as she was shuffling on her shoes. Damn, her hair needed a good brush. ‘I hope I’ll see you before I go home, Matt.’
‘I’m sure you will.’ Matt’s tone washed over her like an icy wave. She looked up but he was already walking away. What was
that
all about? she thought, but deep down inside she knew.
‘Mel.’ Patrick was hurrying down the garden. He caught sight of Matt disappearing up the lane and slowed his pace. His expression hardened.
‘Matt came to give me a message,’ Mel said, too quickly.
‘He’s always popping along, isn’t he?’
She shrugged. ‘I thought you liked him.’
‘He’s not a bad bloke.’
‘Then what’s the problem?’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘Isn’t there?’
Patrick said nothing to this. Instead he sighed impatiently and said, ‘Sorry I’ve been so long. Complications with the damned website, as ever.’
Mel fetched him a can of beer from the fridge and then sat down, wary. But while she was inside Patrick seemed to have shaken off his bad mood because he said, ‘How did you get on this morning?’ and she described her meeting with Smithfield briefly, allowing a certain coolness into her voice. He had no right to be jealous of Matt; she was free to do as she liked. But Patrick didn’t seem to notice her frostiness so she gave up.
‘Not much then about the pictures,’ he said. ‘A pity, but I suppose I didn’t expect anything.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘The whole thing is still a mystery.’
‘Have you been up to admire the skips then?’ he said.
‘Not yet,’ she yawned, forcing herself up out of the chair, her limbs suddenly heavy. ‘I meant to – I forgot. Come on, I suppose we ought to get to work.’
‘Are you sure you want to this afternoon?’ he said. He reached out and brushed her shoulder quickly and it was as though he was deliberately breaking something forbidden.
‘Yes, why not?’ Her voice thickened at his touch and she couldn’t help but turn towards him. ‘You’ve only got me here for a few more days, so you’d better make the most of the fact.’
‘I know.’ He was studying her. ‘Don’t imagine I haven’t been thinking about it. Mel. Please. You can stay on, you know, as my guest.’
‘You’ve said. That’s kind,’ she said lightly.
Their eyes met, unreadable emotions struggling in his face. ‘Mel, I can’t stop thinking about it, to be honest. I . . . I wish you would stay. Do you need to go back yet? I mean . . .’
‘Patrick, I have commitments. I have to visit some libraries, see my friends and family.’
‘But there’s nobody . . .’
‘Special?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You know about that,’ she said in a flat voice. She stepped away from him, as nervous as the ginger cat.
‘It’s just a thought,’ he said, his smile rueful. ‘I . . . love having you here. It feels good, just knowing you’re here. Mel, I’m sorry I made a fool of myself the other night . . .’
‘Having me here?’ Mel snapped, unable to stop herself. ‘Like a next-door neighbour?’
‘No, no, more than that. You know I mean more than that. I’m not putting it very well, am I?’
‘Patrick . . . what are you saying then?’
What about Bella?
she wanted to ask, but found she couldn’t. He shrugged.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she said unhappily. ‘Come on, let’s go and look at the skips.’
‘Don’t you love the sound of breaking glass?’ Mel was feeling more cheerful after two hours of physical hard work.
Patrick had just torn away a great net of creeper from the biggest greenhouse and, as they had feared, half the structure fell inwards.
‘Completely rotten,’ he grunted, jabbing the pruning shears into the frame. He picked up a shovel and began hacking the joints apart. Mel, glad of her thick gloves, trudged to and fro, hefting loose beams into the giant skip that stood beyond the tumbledown wall.
They had hardly spoken to one another for the previous couple of hours, but they hadn’t needed to. The silence had not been uncomfortable, it was just that each was involved in their own private thoughts. Often, though, when Mel glanced at Patrick it was to find him looking at her in such a way she felt she wanted to drop what she was carrying, walk over and wrap her arms around his neck.
Why had her resolve to leave been so easily shaken?
Here, working in the shelter of the walled garden with Patrick, the place cast its spell over her once more. London life was receding. A voice inside kept asking, what would she be missing if she stayed here a little longer, a week, a few weeks? Why would it matter?
On the practical side, there was money coming into the bank – the college were paying her regular salary throughout the sabbatical. Cara upstairs was keeping an eye on her flat. The garden would be a wilderness, but a few weeks wouldn’t make that much difference. Her friends, her family, what about them? They would still be there for her. Then there was the matter of her book. She had to admit, she could just as easily write it here. In fact, if she stayed down here she might find out more about P.T., and have new material to include. The whole thing might also, of course, turn out to be a wild-goose chase, but it would still be fascinating to see how far the trail took her.
Much more worrying was the question of the paintings’ owner. She straightened from her task of shovelling debris into a wheelbarrow. This had to be the most important thing to consider. Patrick, too, might be a wild-goose chase, yet another man leading her astray . . . ‘
But from what?
’ came the voice. In London, she had felt bewildered – cut loose by the loss of her anchors, her mother and Jake. Merryn was a haven, so why shouldn’t she stay? But had it now done its work? Havens were for the short term. She had to set sail again sometime, get on with her life. Should she stay and risk her peace of mind, or was it time to go back?
She glanced at Patrick, who had moved over to the wreckage of the gardener’s shed and was beginning to pull away a fallen roof. He looked up from his task and smiled at her with such warmth she felt suddenly giddy. This afternoon she had felt so comfortable with him again. But there was something secret, unknowable there. Merryn was a haven for him, too. He was like an animal that had come to a place of safety to tend its wound, a deep wound, she knew now. But whereas she would eventually have to return to her normal life, he had decided to stay here, to hide away from the world.
It might be dangerous to stay, to be swallowed up . . .
A bird’s warning cry.
She just glimpsed a shape flying across the garden into the dazzle of the afternoon sun. ‘Look!’ she cried.
This time Patrick had seen it. ‘Extraordinary. A white bird. Not a gull.’
‘Or a pigeon or a dove?’
‘No, smaller than that. There it is again!’ He pointed through the gateway to the Vegetable Garden, to where it had perched in a bush.
Mel crept over to look. It was a bit bigger than a budgerigar, but with a straight orange bill.
‘It’s a blackbird, surely,’ she whispered.
‘But it’s pure white.’
The bird once more gave a stuttering cry, and took off in the direction of the rhododendrons.
A shadow streaked across the garden. Mel shaded her eyes against the sun. High above circled the silhouette of a bird of prey.
Patrick was off after the white bird, trampling a way through the Vegetable Garden, cursing as his shirt caught on brambles. Mel watched him disappear beyond the ruins of the far wall, then leaned her shovel against a wall, deciding to walk the sedate way round to the rhododendrons. She found Patrick crouched amongst the dead leaves under a tree in spectacular pink flower, staring intently into the gloomy greenery.
She sank down beside him.
‘It’s there,’ he whispered, and she caught sight of a flash of white flitting away through the bushes. ‘I saw it quite close for a second. It is like a blackbird, but white and with pink eyes.’
Patrick put out his hand to pull Mel through the thickening undergrowth after him. Past the little stone seat and through the hedge at the other side, the bird’s cry of alarm still sounding ahead of them. Mel, blinded by the foliage wrapping itself round her face, was glad of Patrick’s strong warm hand to steady her. Suddenly the hedge released her and she opened her eyes. She was walking over a springy bed of dead leaves and straw, then a crunch of broken something. To the right the ground rose suddenly in a hummock, about shoulder height.
Patrick stopped, dropping her hand. Then he edged forwards, peering ahead into the dense undergrowth, listening. ‘I’ve no idea where it’s gone now,’ he said, leaning against the hummock, arms folded.
‘What was it, do you think?’
‘I think an albino blackbird.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s rare a bird like that has survived into adulthood.’
‘You mean because they’re easy prey, standing out like that.’
‘Exactly. You saw the hawk.’
‘Is that what it was?’
‘Yes, you can tell by the wing shape.’
‘One of your boyhood interests?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes, I was fascinated by birds.’
‘The feathered ones?’ she asked in mock-innocence.
‘Both types,’ he said, and she laughed. Then something caught her attention, where his shoe had scuffed the ground cover.
‘Don’t move,' she said, and bent to pick up the piece of white and blue. ‘Look, it’s china – porcelain, in fact. And here’s another bit. From a plate or saucer, look.’ She scrabbled about in the leaves, but her search revealed only two or three more pieces. Not enough to fit together into something recognisable.
‘I wonder which part of the garden this was,’ said Patrick, brushing a hand over the mound’s pelt of moss and ancient ivy. He grabbed a hank of ivy and pulled. Underneath was rock. Several beetles scuttled away. He yanked at some more creeper.
‘Looks like we’ve found the rockery,’ he said. ‘It’s quite extensive.’ He pointed out how it sloped up towards the boundary of the garden.
‘You’d have thought the rockery would have been over in the ravine, the other side of the garden,’ Mel said. ‘I think that’s what your old gardener man said.’
Patrick was pulling at the ivy again. ‘My mistake. It’s actually one huge piece of rock,’ he said. ‘Probably too big ever to have been dug out and moved. So they just left it here, made a feature of it.’ Resting his right hand on it he began to force his way round it, stamping down brambles as he went. ‘There’s a bit that sort of juts out here,’ he said after a moment. ‘Like a cairn. Wait.’ He was almost out of sight now, hidden by the rock. Then, ‘Hey, Mel, come and look at this!’
Mel made her way carefully along the track he had trampled and round to the other side of the rock. For a moment she couldn’t see him, and then she did. He was crouched in a hollow under a great lip of rock. Around him, on several ledges lining the sides of the cave, was arrayed a number of assorted small pots, several dozen perhaps, and he was examining one in his hand. She knelt down beside him. There was room for both of them side by side on the sandy floor which was crisscrossed by tiny rock plants. The pot she picked up contained a small stub of candle and when she scratched the foggy surface she saw that the pot was glass.
‘It’s the grotto,’ she said, gazing across the arch of the roof. ‘Carrie mentioned this. What was it? Something her aunt said.’
‘A niche in a rock, filled with candles?’ Patrick’s tone was unimpressed. ‘Looks more like a shrine.’
‘It does a bit,’ she said, looking about. ‘But imagine it on the night of a summer party.’ She sat back on her heels, trying to picture the scene. ‘It must have been magical to a generation that hadn’t seen movies or holograms. Even now, there is something special about candlelight, isn’t there? The sense of awe. Fire against the primeval darkness. And the intimacy, the way it picks out the essential shapes of things and softens them. Bathes them in beauty.’
Patrick carefully replaced the candle pot on the ledge and sat with his back against the rock. ‘They must have generated considerable heat, too, a few dozen candles.’
‘We could do it, Patrick. We could clear a path here and fill the grotto with light again.’