The Scent of Water (4 page)

It was a high bed with damask silk curtains. Those at the side hung from brass rails that could be folded back against the wall or drawn forward to exclude drafts. Behind the bed head they hung in long folds. The many pillows were piled high and an old patched bedspread of the same silk covered the bed. Mary looked fixedly at the pillows and could almost see the old dying woman propped against them. Don’t be a fool, she said to herself. A bed’s a bed however many people die in it. What’s a bed for? Sleep and death, and each is as natural and right as the other.

“The curtains and bedspread have been cleaned,” Mrs. Baker encouraged her. “The carpet the same. And Baker and I, we’ve papered this room, seeing the old paper looked a little dingy.” She gave Mary a glance of kindly reassurance. “And we kept the bills for the paper, and for the cleaning, for you to pay. We knew you’d wish that.”

The paper was white, patterned with small golden stars, and looked strangely bright and innocent against the worn old carpet, made of little pieces stitched together. It had once been the same red as the curtains and counterpane but like them it had faded to a soft dingy rose. The dressing table, wardrobe and chest of drawers were of heavy mahogany, polished till they shone like glass. Suddenly Mary realized that she was happy in this room, happy in spite of the bed. It was a long low-ceilinged room, quiet, filled with the scent of flowers and the echo of birdsong. “I shall like sleeping here,” she said to Mrs. Baker.

O
N the top of the wall that divided the two gardens three children were sitting. It was not difficult to get to the top because their old mulberry was the easiest tree in the world to climb, and you just had to step from the fourth branch to the wall. And then, if you wanted to go down on the other side, there was a crab apple tree to help you. The trees, with their fresh and heavenly blossom, made the same sort of magical pattern about the children that the birds made, weaving their gold and silver songs in and out, but they could look through it and see the pond, the lawn, the willow that was now golden green and the window where the woman had been, leaning and looking out.

But they hated her. Sitting there in silence they would have done murder if they could. For this was their garden. The one behind them, utilitarian and impeccably tidy, was Father’s garden, but this was theirs and they had played in it ever since they came to live here. The old lady hadn’t minded and after she became too ill to leave her room it had become more their own than ever. Provided they avoided the times when Mr. and Mrs. Baker came they had had it all to themselves, and what it had meant to them, with its wild beauty and deep quiet, only Edith of the three of them would be able to express in years to come.

For only she would really remember this garden. The other two with their happy, objective minds would always be absorbed in the moment but she would look backward and remember, and look forward and be afraid, and the present would always confuse her because she would never entirely live in it. She sat a little apart from the others, her chin cupped in her hands. She was a brown girl with smooth acorn-colored skin, no color in her cheeks and straight dark hair cut in a fringe across her forehead. She was small for her nine years, her body all sharp angles, her eyes a greenish-hazel fringed with dark lashes. She was the adopted sister of the other two, and though the children’s parents took great care that it should make no difference yet it did. She felt unsure of herself and she hated her old-fashioned name, Edith. People said it suited her and that made it worse. It was difficult to remember that Rosemary, whom they called Rose because she was so round and pink, glowing and good-humored, was a year younger than herself. It was always Rose who seemed to be the eldest, for it was she who decided what they should do. Jeremy was six, sandy, fat and freckled. He was a comfortable child at present but he had a will of his own and might not be so comfortable later.

“It’s been our garden for years,” said Rose. “And now
she’s
come. I’d like to put poison in her tea.” She tried hard to speak venomously but venom being foreign to her nature she could never manage to sound nasty however nasty she wanted to be.

“I could shoot her with my catapult,” suggested Jeremy.

“Perhaps she will let us still play in the garden,” said Edith.

“What will be the good of that?” demanded Rose. “It won’t be ours any more.”

Edith wondered. A garden had to be your own before it would let you in, and even your own garden did not give up its secrets unless it liked you. But if a garden had once been your own, did it disown you when somebody else took possession of it? She did not think so.

They were silent until Jeremy turned his head toward home and sniffed. The open kitchen window was not very far from the mulberry tree. “There’s a cake baking,” he said hoarsely. He was always hoarse when desire consumed him, and just at present in his growing state he yearned after food like a saint after heaven. Luckily he had the kind of mother who did not use her palette knife too efficiently when transferring her cake mixture from the mixing basin to the tin. The forefinger of her youngest, if washed first, was expected to have a good wipe around. Jeremy silently disappeared. Though possessed of an astonishing capacity for noise he could be as silent as a Red Indian in pursuit of food.

“I think I’ll put Martha to bed,” said Rose. Martha was her hamster, who lived in a mansion with stairs on top of the bookcase in the living room. And Rose too disappeared, leaving Edith alone.

She got to her feet, walked along the wall and climbed into the branches of a stout crab apple tree. She could climb trees as nimbly as a cat. Even now, all sharp points and angles as her body was, she could move with a sure-footed ease that would presently be grace. She climbed down the tree without even faintly disturbing the thrush who was singing in the highest branch. The birds seldom took any notice of her as she came and went smoothly as a sunbeam among them. At the foot of the tree she was on the rough grass and primrose leaves that carpeted the little copse, spun around with birdsong and gossamer shadow. In her smoke-blue slacks and blue jumper she looked like a shadow herself as she slipped through the trees, ran a few steps over the bright green grass and sat down on the edge of the pool.

She sat with her hands linked around her knees and her feet in the empty moss-grown basin. She did not look toward the house, for she knew it was all right. There were no faces at any of the windows. They had gone away. She always knew if she was being looked at, for she felt at once awkward and unsure of herself. When no one could see her she was relaxed and happy. She looked up at the boy, one of the best friends that she had, for he could be relied upon never to look at her. He looked only westward, for he aimed his arrow always at the heart of the sinking sun, that on some evenings would poise itself like a flaming orange on top of the garden wall. His smooth limbs were of greenish bronze and his face was absorbed and remote. Close curls covered his head and his wings were spread. As soon as he had loosed his arrow he would be gone. Yet Edith was sure he knew she was here and liked to have her sitting on the edge of his pool. She had shared the ownership of the garden with him only, for though she had acquiesced when Rose and Jeremy said the garden belonged to the three of them yet in her heart, with a small secret scorn, she had repudiated their ownership. And with an angry leap of the heart she denied even part ownership to that woman with the clear pale face and gray hair whom she had seen at the window. I was here first, thought Edith. She can walk in it if she likes, I’ll let her, like I let the old lady, but it’s mine, not hers. And the little things are mine. All of them. Not only Queen Mab and the ivory coach and the tea set of blue glass but all of them.

She looked toward the house, remembering the day when she had first seen them, when the old lady had been still alive but upstairs in her bed. Jeremy had sent his ball in through the open door of the little conservatory where the vine grew and she had crept in to retrieve it for him, and through the window she had seen the little things. She had gazed at them with her heart beating in her throat, and then she had picked up the ball quickly and gone away again because she did not want the other two to know. They must not know, for they’d want them. And they were hers. No one must know about them but her. She came back again when she was alone, came back again and again. Kneeling in the green shade of the vine leaves, her arms propped on the low sill of the closed window, she would go into a sort of trance, staring and staring. She knew every one of the little things by heart, knew the number of them and how they looked when the sunbeams came through the vine leaves and how they looked when there was no sun. She adored them all, but especially Queen Mab in her ivory coach and the blue glass tea set. They were more to her than anything in the world.

And then the old lady became very ill and soon after that she woke up one morning with a sense of threatening danger. She had been dreaming about her little things and it had been a confused and unhappy dream. Were they safe? Had anything happened? She had felt sick with fear and later in the day she had been able to escape from the others, climb over the wall, and run to the conservatory unseen. They were there. As she sank to her knees she felt as sick with relief and joy as before she had felt sick with fear. They were there and for the first time since she had found them the window was open at the bottom. She climbed in and removed the glass shade. Now she could not only see them but with the tip of her finger touch them. She touched the ivory coach and the blue glass tea set, and then somewhere in the house beyond the little parlor a door closed and she heard a step on the stairs. Her heart leapt and then sank. Someone was coming to take away the little things.

It was then that she had committed her crime, the sin that had been secretly corroding her ever since, making her thinner than ever, giving her nightmares and sudden unexplainable attacks of sickness, and making her afraid of going to church because of that phrase “descended into hell.” Sometimes she forgot it and was happy, as she had been happy just now sitting by the pond, and she tried hard to forget, and then suddenly she would remember again. Yet she was glad she had done it, and she would have done it again, for when she had next crept up to the window the little things had gone.

Had they been put back to greet the new lady? She must know, for if they had not been put back then perhaps they had gone forever. She got up and moved toward the house, a wraith in the gathering dusk. Her way led her obliquely under the branches of the willow tree, for she would not have dreamed of crossing the lawn without going through the willow tree. Inside it was another of her special places. She stood for a moment with the gold falling all about her, as though she stood in the secret place under a waterfall, and then she parted the golden water and went on to the conservatory and kneeled down at the window. The table was empty. She felt very desolate and getting up she drifted sadly away through the willow branches, through the copse and over the wall, and the boy was left in sole possession of the garden.

I’m too tired to do any more, thought Valerie. She put down her brush and paintpot and straightened her aching back. Then turning around she leaned her arms on the top of the gate. There was no one to be seen, and nothing to be heard except that thrush singing in the little copse between the Talbots’ garden and the garden of The Laurels. For a moment she thought she saw a gleam of blue in the Talbots’ mulberry tree and thought, Those wretched children, but then it was gone. The silence oppressed her. They might all be dead, she thought, and then with a pang of bitterness, I wish they were. Paul too.

A few years ago, when such thoughts had trickled into her vacant mind, it had shocked her that she of all people could think such things, she whom everyone admired so much for her selfless devotion to her blind husband. She had pushed them down to wherever they had come from but they had kept coming up again, and now she no longer cared. What did it matter? They were not really her and no one knew, for Paul couldn’t see her face or read her thoughts. So long as she cooked his meals and slaved for two, that was all he cared about. Other blind men did things, earned good wages. With all the wonderful gadgets invented for them the blind could be as useful these days as the sighted. But Paul was idle, content to spend his days tramping through the woods with his dog or drinking with his cronies at the local, and his evenings droning into his tape recorder in the tiny room he called his study, or just mooning, imagining he was working and pleased as Punch if he was paid a small sum for a poem or article once in six months. Meanwhile they were poor, with nothing but his disability pension and the bit of money that Grannie had left her. They hadn’t even been able to afford a child, but for that she was thankful, for Paul would have been a rotten father. She flattered herself no one knew about the poverty. To keep the cottage and its tiny garden pretty as paint, herself smart and up-to-date and Paul as tidy as was possible for a man who had been born untidy, was what she lived for. But unable to afford any help in cottage or garden, she was sure the work was killing her. Let it. She didn’t care. When she was dead Paul might be sorry.

She glanced across at The Laurels. What was that woman like? She had caught a glimpse of her passing in her car. Old, as they all were. There was no one young here except Joanna and Roger Talbot and they were so wrapped up in each other and their wretched kids that they were no use to anyone. Old, it went without saying, but good-looking and a marvelous suit. But probably she was no use, and anyhow she wouldn’t stay. Anyone would go around the bend living in that ghastly house. No, she won’t stay, thought Valerie, and if she does I wouldn’t have time to be friends, I’m too tired to bother.

She picked up her paintpot and carried it to the little garage beside the cottage. Their car was a secondhand one and she was ashamed of it. However much she cleaned and polished the thing it still looked awful. But it was all they could afford and she had to have a car for the shopping. She wasn’t strong enough now to bike everywhere. She wished they could move to the town but Paul would not budge. A blind man was best in the country, he said, it was less confusing and he needed the quiet for his work.

Valerie came around to the front of the cottage again and her habitual mood of sullen endurance was warmed by a glow of pride. It really looked very pretty, with the new turquoise paint against the pink walls, the small latticed windows and the steep hillocky old roof. It was a tiny place, and sometimes when Valerie complained of the vast amount of work she had to do her friends silently wondered why. For the garden was as small as the cottage. Behind the clipped escallonia hedge and the wrought-iron gate there were only two flower beds, filled now with tulips, and a paved path to the front door, and at the back of the cottage a little vegetable plot bordering on the orchard of the Dog and Duck. Yet her friends had to agree that there was never a weed to be seen in Valerie’s garden, or a speck of dust in her perfect rooms. One had to hand it to her that she did everything she did supremely well.

She went in to her sitting room, with the charming chintz curtains and covers that she had made herself and the horse brasses hanging over the old fireplace, consumed by a longing for a cup of tea, but when she glanced at the little gilt clock on the mantelpiece she saw there was no time if she was to have supper ready punctually. She cooked exquisitely and elaborately. In the early days of their marriage Paul, who had simple tastes and a shocking digestion since the war, had put in a plea for steamed fish and an occasional rice pudding, but Valerie had been so terribly hurt that ever since he had dutifully eaten whatever she set before him and taken bicarb afterward.