A Bit of Earth (27 page)

‘He looks like a tractor in a cartoon ran him over,' said Felix, and they all laughed, but Guy could see how uneasy they all felt.

‘Who was that slimeball?' asked one of the fairies.

‘Professor Swatridge. History department,' said Oberon.

‘Would you like a drink?' Phoebe asked Felix. ‘We have some nice pink lemonade.'

‘Um, no thanks,' said Felix. ‘I don't really like fizzy things.'

‘We're going to tea somewhere anyway,' said Guy. ‘We might as well go now. Thanks, all of you.'

As the students left he heard them muttering, ‘Swatridge … History … followed the little boy into the woods … grabbed him … Lucky escape … Lucky we were all here … should be reported … locked up …'

Professor Swatridge took a long slow route back to his car. By going round the backs of buildings, and by cutting around behind the bike sheds and the bottle banks, he managed to avoid meeting anybody he knew. He took off
his jacket and carried it, he raked at his hair. The trousers were hopeless. If only he were like some of his colleagues and kept a complete change of clothes in his office. Lots of them had toothbrushes and shampoo and soap, the philanderers and those who might sometimes find it necessary to sleep on their office floors. If he went home now, Patricia wouldn't be back yet. The kids didn't even look up when he went in.

In the shower he replayed the scene again and again. How could he have been so stupid? It would follow him like a vile stray dog on a holiday. It would thump along behind him like a knot tied in the tail of a rat, a knot that could never be untied. He would now have to make sure that the garden was left alone. The committee must back off, or the story might come out.

He emerged from the shower fresh and determined. He bundled the muddy clothes into a bag for Patricia to take to the cleaner's. On second thoughts, he would take them himself, although he'd have to find out which one they used. Then, in the comfort of his study, he composed an email to everyone on the working group.

From: Professor Martyn Swatridge
Rare and protected species of newt in botanical garden. Also unusual water snails. Development plans likely to result in costly public enquiry & defeat. Student body may be hostile following article today. Suggest we now explore other options. Believe local school may have excess playing fields. Derelict dairy buildings/site nearby also a possibility.

Just moments after he had sent it the phone rang. It was Dave Crickley (Sports Science).

‘Are you sure we aren't giving up on this one a bit easily? It's not as though there's that much space up for grabs around here.'

‘I've taken a good look at the site. It's really treacherous terrain. Real potential landslip problems. And with that stream. Could be disastrous. They've got the fucking newts on their side. We might have to think again.'

‘Maybe. I'll have to take another look too. And get back to you.'

‘There's more potential in the garden as a garden. Could be a real asset. Future agenda item here. Enhancement and proper management of botanical garden. Creation of possible small-scale attraction. Potential venue for receptions, etc. Would attract funding plus good PR. We could shunt more resources into Botany. But we'd have to get some fresh blood in. Really make something of it.'

‘Shouldn't that be fresh sap, ha ha.'

‘Yeah. Cut out the dead wood in that department. We'll talk next week.' Professor Swatridge put the phone down, poured himself a shot, and managed a small, slow smile.

They were sitting in Judy's garden, sipping cold beers, a pre-show drink. Felix was in Judy's old wicker rocker, which was peeling and cracked after too many summers. She should have been putting something SPF 15 or higher on it. It was so frail now that it wouldn't bear the weight of anyone much heavier than Felix. Next summer, thought Judy, I will get another. Felix, who seemed much less shaken than Guy, was gazing into Judy's pond.

‘It really is the world's smallest pond,' she told him, ‘but it is self-sustaining.'

‘I like it,' said Felix. ‘But I think you should get some fish.'

‘I don't know what they'd think of the fountain.'

‘You haven't got a fountain.'

‘Oh yes, I have. A solar-powered one. A present from one of my sisters.'

‘You've got millions of relatives,' said Felix. ‘I wish I had some more. Mine are all gone or far away.'

‘Oh Felix,' she said, and hugged him. But he just seemed
a bit startled, so she stopped and left him to the contemplation of the pond. She went back to where Guy was sitting, and decided that something had been unsaid too long.

‘I knew your wife a little,' she said. Guy froze. ‘Just from being in the library. She was lovely, wasn't she? I'm so sorry that you lost her. I do think you are doing so well with Felix. He's a delightful little boy.'

‘Uh,' said Guy. ‘Thanks.' Even at this distance of years he still felt liable to start crying if someone said something kind to him about it.

‘It must be terribly hard for you,' Judy went on.

‘Uh,' said Guy, and looked down into his beer.

‘I was so sorry when I heard about it, and saw it in the papers. And I realised that I'd seen her on the morning that it happened.'

‘Oh?' said Guy, suddenly sitting up.

‘Yes. In the library, and then afterwards. I was on my way home, she was waiting at the bus stop. She told me she was going to get something for Felix for starting school. I remember thinking that she was very well organised as it was still only July.'

‘Really? Did you really? You see,' he took a big gulp of beer to hide the crack in his voice, ‘I don't know what she was doing. I've never known … why she was in that car. If there was something …'

But this is terrible, thought Judy. I have, perhaps, been sitting on a clue, something that can help him, something that he didn't know. ‘She told me she was going shopping for school clothes,' she said firmly. ‘I expect he just came along and gave her a lift, showing off that new car. I expect that was all.'

‘Thank you,' said Guy. ‘Thank you.'

‘I'm so sorry. I should have said something before. I didn't realise it might be important. I'm so sorry. I should have mentioned it when I wrote with my condolences. I didn't realise.'

‘Really, you weren't to know. It's only a tiny detail,' said Guy gruffly. He took another swig of the beer. ‘You weren't to know. There were no clues that anything was wrong. It's just that I've never known …'

‘Perhaps that was all there was to know,' said Judy. ‘He happened by and gave her a lift.'

‘I guess I'll never know,' said Guy.

For a long time they sat in silence, watching Felix watching the pond.

‘I lost someone once,' said Judy. ‘Two people really.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘He was a poet, a visiting lecturer. Chilean. We were in love, at least I thought so. He went back to Chile. The coup happened. I never heard from him again. He seems to have been what they call “disappeared”.'

‘I'm so sorry,' said Guy.

‘I sometimes feel that I am doing the dance that Chilean women do, La Cueca Sola, to show that their men have been taken away. It's the most elegant form of protest. The saddest too. Of course I'm not that elegant; but my arms are empty.'

‘Oh, I'm so sorry,' said Guy. ‘And you said two people …'

‘Yes, Eduardo and a baby. I was pregnant. I had a miscarriage. He never knew.'

‘How bloody awful.'

‘It's longer ago for me, of course,' she said with a kind little smile, ‘but you never stop being sad, do you, missing them … I don't suppose I'll ever find out what happened to him.'

‘But it might be good to try,' said Guy.

‘Or at least to see the place he came from.' Guy nodded. After a few minutes Judy asked, ‘What are you doing this summer?'

‘I don't know,' said Guy. ‘I guess I ought to take Felix away somewhere. We went to Cornwall at half term, but we might as well go away again.'

Why not go with Erica? Judy thought. Why not get married? But she only smiled. Here came Felix.

‘Would you like another drink?' she asked him. ‘Or something to eat? That ice cream was a long time ago. I have some lemon drizzle cake. Actually, I think I'll just do us some sandwiches before the play. I thought that Erica would be here by now.'

‘Yes please,' said Felix. Judy went inside. Guy blew his nose very loudly. Felix went back to the rocking chair and the pond. When the chair was upright he saw the pond, when he tipped it back he saw blue sky and house martins.

As Guy sat there he felt his chest loosen and sink. Guy breathed. He watched Felix watching the dragonflies and the fountain and the blue sky and the house martins, and he breathed. It felt an age since he had breathed out. He closed his eyes and breathed. He slept.

In the kitchen Judy buttered bread, thinking, I am an imbecile. The pain I could have spared that poor man.
Oh, but it was all supposition. Of course I didn't know what Susannah had been doing. Perhaps she had been waiting for her lover when … but most likely not … Oh, what a fool I am. I should have rushed in, I should have trod! If only I had mentioned my tiny bit of information before. If there were any way I could help make things right now …

She made some of the buttered slices into cucumber sandwiches, and spread lemon curd on others. It really didn't go with cold beer. I am losing the plot here, she thought. She opened a bag of vegetable crisps. Felix would think they were lovely, the colours if not the taste. She put a piece of Cornish Yarg and some crackers on another plate. Felix would think the nettles were funny.

‘I hope this is substantial enough,' she said, putting the tray down on the little white wrought-iron table. The clatter woke Guy.

‘Felix!' she called. ‘Come and have something to eat.' They heard voices coming down the side passageway.

‘Judy!' Erica called. ‘Sorry I'm late. I've got a surprise visitor for Felix!' They came through the gate. The visitor was tall and blond. He carried a rucksack and a laptop in an expensive leather case. He had grown a beard, and was more weathered than when they'd last seen him.

‘Good God!' said Guy, looking, Judy thought, as though he had seen a ghost.

‘Hey Guy, and is this giant grown-up kid Felix?'

Felix stared. The man was familiar. He stared some more.

‘Uncle Jon!' he yelled, and ran to him. Jon swooped him up and hugged him and swung him round. Guy got up, and they shook hands.

‘I've a conference in Oxford. A night to spare. Meant to ring, but I wasn't sure if I'd be getting away in time. Thought I might just stop by to see how you are. Nobody at home, checked out your little department, Guy, and Erica here kindly led me to you.'

‘Great to see you,' said Guy (and not so much of the ‘little department'). ‘Judy, this is Jon Ingram, Felix's uncle. Jon, this is Professor Judy Lovage. Gothic Architecture. Fellow gardener.'

‘Nice to meet you, Judy. Nice garden you've got here. Nice verbascums.'

‘Thank you. Would you like a cup of tea, a glass of beer? Erica?'

‘Beer,' they said with one voice, and laughed. Judy didn't like the vulpine way this man was looking at Erica. Perhaps, she thought, he's a bit of a bad lot. And she certainly didn't like the way that Erica was paying him so much attention. Oh dear, oh dear.

‘My niece Jemima will be here soon. We're all going to see
A Midsummer Night's Dream
in the botanical garden.'

‘Please come, Uncle Jon,' said Felix.

‘Sorry, mate, I can't,' he said, smiling. Oh good, thought Judy. Felix's face fell, but he soon realised it was a trick. ‘I'd love to come but my rucksack's too heavy. Perhaps you could take something out of it for me.' Felix undid some of the many straps and found an airport shopping bag on top of everything else. ‘That's for you, nephew.'

‘Thanks,' said Felix, holding the bag as though that were the present.

‘Open it!' said Erica. They all looked at him.

‘Don't you think that there's sometimes a terrible
pressure in opening presents in front of people, knowing that you've got to gasp with delight and say that it's just what you've always wanted,' said Judy.

‘It probably is just what Felix always wanted,' said Erica. Jon had clearly been asking her opinion. Felix opened the bag.

‘Wow! A personal CD player! Thanks!'

‘No, it's a personal DVD player. You can take it on the train, on car journeys, wherever.'

‘Wow, thanks!'

‘And there's these,' said Jon. ‘I didn't know what you had, but you can exchange them or swap them with your mates.' Guy didn't say that they had no DVD player or DVDs at all. Felix didn't say that he didn't have the sort of mates that you swapped DVDs with.

‘Let's see, then. What have you got?' asked Erica.

‘
The Blue Planet,'
Felix read.
‘Life of Plants. Aristocats. Lady and the Tramp.'

‘That was one of your mum's favourites,' said Jon.

Felix stared really hard at it as though it might have some special information to impart. He ran his finger around the edges and corners of the box, then put it back into the bag with the air of somebody who was saving a chocolate bar for later.

Madeleine was packing up her room. There wasn't really much stuff. She had chucked so much away. Jo came in, saying, ‘I'm really stuck for boxes and bags and things. I seem to have tons more stuff than I arrived with. And what are we going to do about all the food and cleaning things? I
can't fit any of that in. Maybe we can leave it for the next people.'

‘We should chuck it all out,' Madeleine said. ‘Nobody really wants other people's opened bags of rice and dysfunctional salt and pepper mills. If we leave it they might say we didn't clear up properly and not give us back the deposit.'