Page 10
Story: The Garden
8
It did disappear overnight.
When Evelyn woke, she went to check the tin and found the tea towel had been thrown to one side. A little of the juice had leaked from the bottom onto the work surface, and there were flecks of charred pastry scattered about. The tin itself was completely empty. She picked it up, turned it over, and then began to search the rest of the kitchen. She checked the cupboards, checked Lily’s side of the bedding. Lily woke while she was rummaging through the blankets.
“What’s got into you?” she said.
“What have you done with it?” said Evelyn.
“With what?”
“Don’t play silly buggers.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Evie.”
“The pie. Where’ve you hidden it?”
“I’ve not touched it!”
“You’ve hidden it, haven’t you? Or maybe you haven’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d scoffed the lot.”
Lily laughed, but the sound of it died quickly. She got up and went over to the empty tin. She picked it up and popped out its base.
“I don’t understand,” Lily said. “Is this a joke, or are you trying to teach me a lesson?”
“Me?”
“You were up before me.”
“Why would I want to teach you a lesson?”
“I don’t know. Because you think I’m a greedy-guts.”
They stared at each other for a moment.
“Well,” said Evelyn, “if you don’t show me where you’ve hidden it, then the ants will.”
“Maybe the ants took it in the first place.”
“Lifted it from the tin and carried it away? Clever ants.”
“Or rats. Could be rats.”
“We don’t have rats.”
“Of course we have rats.”
She gestured vaguely at the ceiling, and Evelyn looked up, as if she might, at that moment, see the house swarming with vermin.
Lily went back to her bed and sat examining the cuts and grazes she’d received from the apple tree.
“Well. Let me know when you’ve finished doing whatever it is you’re trying to do to me,” she said. “I’m starving.”
“Stop this, Lily.”
“Stop what?”
“I’m serious.”
Lily laughed. “I know, Sissie,” she said. “That’s always been your problem.”
She licked the scratches on her forearm, and Evelyn went back to staring at the ceiling, not wanting to admit the other conclusion that lurked unspoken beneath their squabbling.
“I’m going to see Mama,” she said at last.
“To dob me in?”
“No. To tell her about it. And about the wall. And everything else.”
“I’m coming with you, then.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I insist. I want to make sure you’ve got your story straight.”
Their mother was buried to the west of the house, in a plot near their tiny patches of wheat and barley. A round stone marked the spot, like the stones in the wall, rough and etched with lichen. In front of the stone was a profusion of their mother’s favorite flowers, transplanted from beds all around the garden: lupins, snapdragons, cornflowers, dog violets, pale colors that belonged in dreams. Lily had painted them once. Then a few years ago she had turned the canvas upside down and starting using it as a tray to carry tea and sandwiches.
It was another hot day, but the light was hazy and the sky seemed too low somehow. They were both still in their nightdresses, but Lily had decided to wear a beret, too, and her sweat was already beading beneath the headband. They were halfway to the grave when Lily said:
“I reckon we might get another storm soon.”
Evelyn walked another few paces in silence before she replied: “Don’t say things like that.”
“Feels like it, though, doesn’t it?” said Lily. “Dry heat. Maybe we’ll just get a little one.”
She stuck out her tongue and smacked her lips as though tasting the air.
“I hope not,” said Evelyn.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing one again. I mean, from afar. Like the last one. Jolly exciting, watching it racing along like that.”
Evelyn knew Lily was trying to provoke her. She succeeded, too. It terrified her to remember it. A huge black mass seething along the horizon, as if some outer god were slowly rolling up the edge of the world. The storm had lasted a month. Lily had found the whole thing utterly captivating, and every evening had put on her sunglasses to watch the catastrophe unfold from behind the garden wall. They’d had a handful of dustings since, and each time Lily had seemed disappointed at how puny they’d been by comparison with the first storm. Evelyn hoped never to see anything like it again.
“Don’t say that,” she said.
“Say what?”
“You shouldn’t wish for it. Even as a joke. It might just come racing in this direction, and we’re hardly in the kind of shape to dig out this whole garden again.”
Lily had a ready reply for this, but Evelyn chose not to listen and walked a little faster so that she was soon out of earshot. She arrived at their mother’s grave first. Lily caught up and stood slightly behind her. They waited for a moment to compose themselves. Evelyn dabbed her brow. Lily removed her beret and held it before her. As if they were approaching an altar.
“Hello, Mama,” Evelyn said eventually, and then could find no more words.
She wanted to tell her about the pie, the wall, the beehive, their troubled night of wassailing, but to state all these things out loud, all at once, seemed too troubling an admission. Evelyn herself would not be able to bear it, let alone her mother. And then there was Lily. If they really were no longer alone in the garden, her little sister would need to understand what that meant. Things would have to be explained to her that Evelyn had hoped never to explain. The facts of life, decades too late.
“I just wanted to say a few things,” she said, then stopped again.
A bumblebee went about its business. The sisters watched it in silence, as though it might be eavesdropping. Their mother’s flowers bowed their heads under its weight, and then it droned on its way.
“Listen, Mama,” Lily said quickly, “Evelyn’s going to tell you a whole lot of nonsense about how I stole an apple pie, but it has nothing to do with me and I’m sure I don’t know why she is being such a horror .”
Evelyn turned and looked at her and then turned back to the grave. “I was going to say no such thing.”
“I think she’s trying to punish me for something, but goodness knows what.”
“Of course I’m not punishing you. I’ve never punished you for anything. More fool me.”
“I’ve been watering the garden and fixing the wall and cooking all our meals. Doing everything I’m told.”
“Please, Lily.”
“What?”
“You’re speaking very loudly.”
Lily glared at her.
Evelyn thought she might approach the truth obliquely, and groped about for the words.
“We’ve planted onions and garlic and the cabbages,” she said to the grave. “Did our best with the slugs, but I’m sure they’ll be back.”
“Tell her about the rhubarb.”
“Oh, yes. We stewed Lily’s rhubarb. It was quite something.”
“Best we’ve ever had. No doubt about it.”
“Petunias are late and the camellias are early. And the roses are both, somehow. I know we’re not meant to be deadheading until next month but there are some rather sad-looking blooms on the trellis. Between the arches. You know the one I mean.”
“You should ask her about the almanac.”
“One thing at a time, Lily.” Evelyn paused. “What else? The apples are very early. Some of them are rotting already. I don’t know.” She stopped again and began to feel nervous. “Things just feel a bit off.”
“Oh, stop mincing your words! Mama, Evelyn wants to make some changes to the almanac.”
“Lily! That’s not what I’m getting at!”
“It doesn’t make sense anymore. She said it herself. Summer’s barely started round the lake. And it’s autumn here.”
“This is Lily’s idea, not mine, Mama.”
“So much for not dobbing me in.”
“Why would I want to change it? All that work we put into it. That you put into it, I mean. There’s nothing wrong with it at all.”
“She said it was out of step, Mama.”
“I didn’t.”
“She did. The whole garden’s gone to pot. Everything’s changing. She wants to write her own almanac, but she won’t because she thinks if she replaces your one, you’re going to shout at her.”
Evelyn held her breath for a moment, and behind her breastbone rose a kind of cold dread she hadn’t felt for a long time. She waited for it to settle. Around them the grass clicked with insects. An opalescent beetle crept steadily over the headstone. Evelyn cleared her throat.
“I didn’t come here to talk to you about the almanac.”
Lily tutted. “Oh, here we go,” she said.
“Some other things have happened that you should know about.”
“Get it over with, Evelyn, we haven’t got all day.”
Evelyn turned and looked at her coolly. She was furious with Lily, but then was not in the habit of causing a scene as her sister was. She took a few deep breaths.
“Part of the wall fell down. We put it back up, though. Both of us.”
She heard Lily shifting from one foot to the other.
“There was something with one of the beehives, too. It was moved. I don’t know how.”
“She moved it and forgot, Mama. Head like a sieve.”
“And one of the eggs was…One of the eggs had something wrong with it.”
“She forgot to candle it.”
“And then there was this business with the apple pie.”
“Here we go. Business , she says. For crying out loud, Evie, listen to you! I’d rather you just accused me outright.”
“I’m not blaming you. That’s the point.”
“What’s the point? Spit it out, Evie!”
She did not. The thing could not be spoken aloud. There is something else in the garden. Evelyn shook her head and stared at the stone. Some days it seemed as if their mother was present to hear their questions and supplications, but not today. The grave was silent, and there was the feeling that she had abandoned the sisters to their squabbles. The bee returned and stayed this time, digging furiously in the purple depths of one of the lupins. Evelyn wondered if she should return later. If her mother would be more receptive if she came without Lily in tow.
She was about to say as much when there was the sound of glass breaking somewhere in the kitchen. Even from so far away, it sounded as if the house itself had cracked in two.
“Bird’s probably got into the house,” said Lily. “Silly thing.”
“That didn’t sound like a bird.”
“Maybe it’s Eddie!” Lily laughed. “Coming home after all this time.”
Evelyn looked at Lily and found she could no longer indulge her little sister’s naivete, or her denial. Without replying she turned and hobbled back up the path. She heard Lily calling after her:
“Evie? You’ve not said goodbye to Mama.”
And then, when she didn’t reply:
“I’m sorry, Mama. Honestly, sometimes you’d think she wasn’t brought up properly.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10 (Reading here)
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49