The thirteenth tale (29 page)

From time to time he spent half an hour in the topiary garden,
but le could not enjoy it. The pleasure of being there was overshadowed by
worry about what might be going on indoors, in his absence. And besides, to do
it properly required more time than he was able to give it. In the end, the
only part of the garden that he kept up was the kitchen garden and the rest he
let go.

Once we got used to it, there was a certain comfort in our new
existence. The wine cellar proved a substantial and discreet source of
household finance, and as time went by, our way of life began to feel
sustainable. Better really if Charlie were just to stay absent. Unfound and
unreturning, neither dead nor alive, he could do no harm to anyone.

So I kept my knowledge to myself.

In the woods there was a hovel. Unused for a hundred years,
overgrown with thorns and surrounded by nettles, it was where Charlie and
Isabelle used to go. After Isabelle was taken to the asylum, Charlie went there
still; I knew, because I had seen him there, sniveling, scratching love letters
on his bones with that old needle.

It was the obvious place. So when he disappeared, I had gone
there again. I squeezed through the brambles and hanging growth that masked the
entrance into air sweet with rottenness, and there, in the gloom, I found him.
Slumped in a corner, gun by his side, face half blown away. I recognized the
other half, despite the maggots. It was Charlie, all right.

I backed out of the doorway, not caring about the nettles and
the thorns. I couldn’t wait to get away from the sight of him. But his image
stayed with me and, though I ran, it seemed impossible to escape his hollow,
one-eyed stare.

Where to find comfort?

There was a house I knew. A simple little house in the woods. I
had stolen food there once or twice. That was where I went. By the window I
hid, getting my breath back, knowing I was close to ordinary life. And when I
had stopped gasping for air, I stood looking in, at a woman in her chair, knitting.
Though she didn’t know I was there, her presence soothed me, like a kind
grandmother in a fairy tale.

I watched her, cleansing my eyes, until the vision of Charlie’s
body had faded and my heartbeat returned to normal.

I walked back to Angelfield. And I didn’t tell. We were better
off as we were. And anyway, it couldn’t make any difference to him, could it?

He was the first of my ghosts.

It seemed to me that the doctor’s car was forever in Miss
Winter’s drive. When I first arrived in Yorkshire he would call every third
day, then it became every other day, then every day and now he was coming to
the house twice a day. I studied Miss Winter carefully. I knew the facts. Miss
Winter was ill. Miss Winter was dying. All the same, when she was telling me
her story she seemed to draw on a well of strength that was unaffected by age
and illness. I explained the paradox by telling myself it was the very
constancy of the doctor’s attention that was sustaining her.

And yet in ways invisible to my eyes, she must have been
weakening quite seriously. For what else could explain Judith’s unexpected
announcement one morning? Quite out of the blue she told me that Miss Winter
was too unwell to meet me. That for a day or two she would be unable to engage
in our interviews. That with nothing to do here, I may as well take a short
holiday.

‘A holiday? After the fuss she made about my going away last
time, I would have thought the last thing she would do would be to send me an a
holiday now. And with Christmas only a few weeks away, too!“

Though Judith blushed, she was not forthcoming with any more
information. Something wasn’t right. I was being shifted out of the way.

‘I can pack a case for you, if it would help?“ she offered. She
smiled apologetically, knowing I knew she was hiding something.

‘I can do my own packing.“ Annoyance made me curt.

‘It’s Maurice’s day off, but Dr. Clifton will run you to the
station.“

Poor Judith. She hated deceit and was no good at subterfuge.

‘And Miss Winter? I’d like a quick word with her. Before I go.“

‘Miss Winter? I’m afraid she…“

‘Won’t see me?“

“Can’t see you.” Relief flooded her face and sincerity rang out
in her voice as at last she was able to say something true. “Believe me, Miss
Lea. She just can’t.”

Whatever it was that Judith knew, Dr. Clifton knew it, too.

‘Whereabouts in Cambridge is your father’s shop?“ he wanted to
know, and ”Does he deal in medical history at all?“ I answered him briefly,
more concerned with my own questions than his, and after a time his attempts at
small talk came to an end. As we drove into Harrow-gate, the atmosphere in the
car was heavy with Miss Winter’s oppressive silence.

ANGELFIELD AGAIN

The day before, on the train, I had imagined activity and noise:
shouted instructions and arms sending messages in urgent semaphore; cranes,
plangent and slow; stone crashing on stone. Instead, as I arrived at the lodge
gates and looked toward the demolition site, everything was silent and still.

There was nothing to see; the mist that hung in the air made
everything invisible that was more than a short distance away. Even the path
was indistinct. My feet were there one moment, gone the next. Lifting my head,
I walked blindly, tracing the path as I remembered it from my last visit, as I
remembered it from Miss Winter’s descriptions.

My mind map was accurate: I came to the garden exactly when I
expected to. The dark shapes of the yew stood like a hazily painted stage set,
flattened into two dimensions by the blank background. Like ethereal bowler
hats, a pair of domed forms floated on the cloudlike mist, the trunks that
supported them fading into the whiteness beneath. Sixty years had left them
overgrown and out of shape, but it was easy today to suppose that it was the
mist that was softening the geometry of the forms, that when it lifted, it
would reveal the garden as it was then, in all its mathematical perfection, set
in the grounds not of a demolition site, nor of a ruin, but of a house intact.

Half a century, as insubstantial as the water suspended in this
air, was ready to evaporate with the first ray of winter sun.

I brought my wrist close to my face and read the time. I had
arranged to meet Aurelius, but how to find him in this mist? I could wander
forever without seeing him, even if he passed within arm’s reach.

I called out “Hello!” and a man’s voice was carried back to me.

‘Hello!“

Impossible to tell whether he was distant or close by. “Where
are you?”

I pictured Aurelius staring into the mist looking for a
landmark.

‘I’m next to a tree.“ The words were muffled.

‘So am I,“ I called back. ”I don’t think yours is the same tree
as mine. You sound too far away.“

‘You sound quite near, though.“

‘Do I? Why don’t you stay where you are and keep talking, and
I’ll find you!“

‘Right you are! An excellent plan! Though I shall have to think
of something to say, won’t I? How hard it is to speak to order, when it seems
so easy the rest of the time… What dismal weather we’re having. Never known
murkiness like it.“

And so Aurelius thought aloud, while I stepped into a cloud and
followed the thread of his voice in the air.

That is when I saw it. A shadow that glided past me, pale in the
watery light. I think I knew it was not Aurelius. I was suddenly conscious of
the beating of my heart, and I stretched out my hand, half fearful, half
hopeful. The figure eluded me and swam out of view.

‘Aurelius?“ My voice sounded shaky to my own ears.

‘Yes?“

‘Are you still there?“

‘Of course I am.“

His voice was in quite the wrong direction. What had I seen? It
was not Aurelius. It must have been an effect of the mist. Afraid of what I
might yet see if I waited, I stood still, staring into the aqueous air, willing
the figure to appear again.

‘Aha! There you are!“ boomed a great voice behind me. Aurelius.
He clasped my shoulders in his mittened hands as I turned to face him.
”Goodness gracious, Margaret, you’re as white as a sheet. Anyone would think
you’d seen a ghost!“

We walked together in the garden. In his overcoat, Aurelius
seemed even taller and broader than he really was. Beside him, in my mist-gray
raincoat, I felt insubstantial.

‘How is your book going?“

‘It’s just notes at the moment. Interviews with Miss Winter. And
research.“

‘Today is research, is it?“

‘Yes.“

‘What do you need to know?“

‘I just want to take some photographs. I don’t think the weather
is on my side, though.“

‘You’ll get to see it properly within the hour. This mist won’t
last long.“

We came to a kind of walkway, lined on each side with cones
grown so wide that they almost made a hedge.

‘Why do you come here, Aurelius?“

We strolled on to the end of the path, then into a space where
there seemed to be nothing but mist. When we came to a wall of yew twice as
high as Aurelius himself, we followed it. I noticed a sparkling in the grass
and on the leaves: The sun had come out. The moisture in the air began to
evaporate and the circle of visibility grew wider by the minute. Our wall of yew
had led us full circle around an empty space; we had arrived back at the same
walkway we had entered by.

When my question seemed so lost in time that I was not even sure
I had asked it, Aurelius answered. “I was born here.”

I stopped abruptly. Aurelius wandered on, unaware of the effect
his words had had on me. I half ran a few paces to catch up with him.

‘Aurelius!“ I took hold of the sleeve of his greatcoat. ”Is it
true? Were you really born here?“

‘Yes.“

‘When?“

He gave a strange, sad smile. “On my birthday.”

Unthinking, I insisted, “Yes, but when?”

‘Sometime in January, probably. Possibly February. Possibly the
end of December, even. Sixty years ago, roughly. I’m afraid I don’t know any
more than that.“

I frowned, remembered what he had told me before about Mrs. Love
and not having a mother. But in what circumstances would an adopted child know
so little about his original circumstances that he does not even know his own
birthday?

‘Do you mean to tell me, Aurelius, that you are a foundling?“

‘Yes. That is the word for what I am. A foundling.“

I was lost for words.

‘One does get used to it, I suppose,“ he said, and I regretted
that he had to comfort me for his own loss.

‘Do you really?“

He considered me with a curious expression, no doubt wondering
how much to tell me. “No, actually,” he said.

With the slow and heavy steps of invalids, we resumed our
walking. The mist was almost gone. The magical shapes of the topiary had lost
their charm and looked like the unkempt bushes and hedges they were.

‘So it was Mrs. Love who…“ I began.

‘… found me. Yes.“

‘And your parents…“

‘No idea.“

‘But you know it was here? In this house?“

Aurelius shoved his hands into the depths of his pockets. His
shoulders tightened. “I wouldn’t expect other people to understand. I haven’t
got any proof. But I do know.” He sent me a quick glance, and I encouraged him,
with my eyes, to continue.

‘Sometimes you can know things. Things about yourself. Things
from before you can remember. I can’t explain it.“

I nodded, and Aurelius went on.

‘The night I was found there was a big fire here. Mrs. Love told
me so, when I was nine. She thought she should, because of the smell of smoke
on my clothes when she found me. Later I came over to have a look. And I’ve
been coming ever since. Later I looked it up in the archives of the local
paper. Anyway—“

His voice had the unmistakable lightness of someone telling
something extremely important. A story so cherished it had to be dressed in
casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be
unsympathetic.

‘Anyway, the minute I got here I knew. This is home, I said to
myself. This is where I come from. There was no doubt about it. I knew.“

With his last words, Aurelius had let the lightness slip,
allowed a fervor to creep in. He cleared his throat. “Obviously I don’t expect
anyone to believe it. I’ve no evidence as such. Only a coincidence of dates,
and Mrs. Love’s vague memory of a smell of smoke—and my own conviction.”

‘I believe it,“ I said.

Aurelius bit his lip and sent me a wary sideways look.

His confidences, this mist, had led us unexpectedly onto a
peninsula of intimacy, and I found myself on the brink of telling what I had
never told anyone before. The words flew ready-formed into my head, organized
themselves instantly into sentences, long strings of sentences, bursting with
impatience to fly from my tongue. As if they had spent years planning for this
moment.