The Storyteller's Daughter (10 page)

“Lay another table place, won't you, Meg?” my mother asks, prodding the chicken with a fork, “Ewan's joining us for dinner.”

“The gardener! Why?”

“Because he's been working hard all day and I insisted he should stay for a meal, that's why. And he does have a name, you know. He wasn't christened The Gardener.”

“But we don't invite people for dinner. We never have.”

“Well,” she says, shoving the chicken back in the oven and slamming the door, “it's about time we started, isn't it?”

I don't know what makes me feel more uncomfortable, the fact that my mother gets on so fantastically well with the gardener, or the fact that Mark so blatantly hates him. Having asked the gardener to remove his boots at the back door, Mark then made no effort to disguise his horror at the state of his tatty socks, or the mud under his fingernails, or the rip in his faded tshirt. There is something about Mark's manner which makes me feel uncomfortable. Yes, the gardener is scruffy, a daydreamer, naïve, and no doubt extremely uneducated, but I would never intentionally make anyone feel inferior. I would never try and make myself feel better by asserting my intellectual superiority. Would I? No, I'm sure I would never do that.

To be fair, the gardener is surprisingly polite and, for most of our meal, Mark and I appear to be superfluous. My mother is fascinated by his accounts of growing fruit and vegetables, and, unless he is a very good actor, he is fascinated by my mother's accounts of cooking them.

“I never use chemical pesticides,” he tells her, chewing on a mouthful of roast potato.

“I completely agree!” She exclaims, banging her wine glass down on the old oak table and sloshing wine over the rim. She is rosy-cheeked and louder than usual. Definitely tipsy. “But how do you keep slugs off your lettuces without pesticide? I've tried the trick with egg shells but it can be a bit hiss and mit.”

Past tipsy, in fact.

“Slugs respond well to honest explanations,” the gardener tells her. “They have soft hearts and soft brains. They don't mean to do any harm, they just don't realise they're intruding on your turf.”

My mother nods understandingly, as if this is a perfectly reasonable explanation. “I see.”

Mark and I exchange looks of indignation.

“You can't seriously believe that!” scoffs Mark.

The gardener shrugs. “Sure. Just tell them you don't want them around, that they're your lettuces and you don't appreciate other creatures eating them. Don't get into any legal stuff about property boundaries though, that just confuses them.”

He looks Mark square in the eye, perfectly at ease. Mark, in turn, eyes him suspiciously, trying to work out if he's joking or not. Slowly, a smile spreads across the gardener's face.

“Oh, I see. You're kidding,” says Mark, clearly not amused.

But the gardener shakes his head.

I have no idea if he's serious or not, and neither does Mark. The difference is that I'm not bothered, whereas Mark takes it as a personal insult if people manage to confuse him.

“I'm surprised you have any time for chatting with slugs,” says Mark, snidely, “aren't you too busy talking to apple trees?”

I think the wine may also be going to Mark's head. Until now he has managed to bite his tongue, contenting himself with quiet sniggers and scornful glances. He made no comment when the gardener suggested that envy can be cured with a mixture of lavender and lemon balm, or that native Indian chants encourage rain, or that spitting on a cabbage patch can rid it of ladybirds. But he has no patience with people who spout mumbo-jumbo.

“You can talk to trees, Ewan?” asks my mother, slouching on the table, leaning close to him. “How fascinating.”

“It's not fascinating, it's crazy!” Mark protests.

“That depends on how you see it,” says the gardener.

“I see it from the point of view of a sane person,” laughs Mark, leaning back in his chair.

“I'd like to talk to trees,” muses my mother, dreamily.

“You should,” the gardener tells her, “they like it. It helps them grow.”

“No, Mother, you shouldn't,” I say, angry at the suggestion. The last thing she needs is encouragement to act strangely.

“But Darling, if they like it and it helps them grow – ”

“There is absolutely no scientific reason why trees should grow better just because you're nice to them,” says Mark, interrupting.

“Actually,” says the gardener, scratching at his stubble with jagged, grubby fingernails, “there's been quite a few studies showing that plants respond to human emotion. Cleve Baxter's report – ‘Evidence of a Primary Perception in Plant Life' – is probably one of the most famous. You should read it. He tested his plants on a polygraph machine and found that they react to thoughts and threats. And over a thousand different species of plant have been shown to be sensitive to human touch. Darwin started the ball rolling by suggesting that plants possess a central nervous system, based on his observations of the
Dionaea
Muscipula
. That's the Venus flytrap, by the way.”

Mark and I stare at him, speechless.

“I might sometimes have my head in the clouds,” he says, looking straight at me, “but that doesn't mean I don't have my feet on the ground.”

I feel my face flush and look down at my plate. Mark, clearly annoyed at being shown up by the gardener's knowledge, takes a swig of wine.

“Isn't it fascinating?” says my mother sweetly, entirely unaware that anything is amiss. “Would you like some fruit salad, Ewan?”

“No thanks,” he says standing up and patting his stomach, “if you'll excuse me I've got a bit of work to finish in the garden before it gets too late.”

“Oh, no, you've worked so hard all day!”

“Please,” he says raising his hands in protest, “I don't like to leave jobs half done. I'll let myself out the back gate when I'm finished. Thanks a lot for dinner. It was fantastic.”

By the back door he pulls his muddy boots on and thanks my mother again, before heading back out into the garden.

“Well, wasn't that lovely!” she beams.

Mark and I sit in glum silence, like the losing team at a sports match.

My mother finally senses the tension and her smile fades. “Well, perhaps I'll go and lie down for while… ” she says awkwardly, disappearing out of the room.

I start to gather up the plates and run a sink full of water. Mark sits silently at the table, sipping his wine and nursing his bruised pride, before suddenly announcing: “I've never heard of this Baxter experiment, have you? I'll look into it. Probably not a scientifically conclusive study. I'll contact John Stokes at the university, he'll know. Who is Baxter anyway? Not a name I've heard of… ”

I am barely listening. Instead, I am watching the gardener through the open kitchen window, digging in the dirt, pulling up weeds and chucking them in a pile on the grass. The sun is just starting to go down, giving a golden-glow to the sun-kissed skin of his sinewy forearms. I see him pick up a frog from among the bean poles, hold it in the palm of his hand and begin talking to it. He points at the garden gate, as if giving the frog directions, then sets the little creature gently down on the grass. It hops away and the gardener resumes digging, trusting that the frog will find its own way out of the garden.

“Meg?”

I suddenly realise I haven't been listening to a word Mark has been saying, and that soapsuds are about to spill over the rim of the sink. I quickly turn the taps off.

“Sorry?”

“He's clearly a complete lunatic, isn't he? That gardener bloke?”

Gazing out into the garden again, I just catch a glimpse of the little green frog as it hops out thorough the open garden gate as directed.

“Oh, yes,” I agree, dutifully, “of course he is.”

Chapter 6

‘What keeps the clouds up?' I asked you one day.

‘The sky, silly,' you told me.

We were lying on our backs in our local park, side by side, finding patterns in the clouds. I remember pointing at one that looked just like a rabbit, although you insisted it was a birthday cake and that the rabbit's ears were candles. Everything always looked like food to you.

‘Then what keeps the sky up?' I asked.

You were quiet for a moment. ‘Air,' you said, eventually, ‘like a soufflé.'

‘A soufflé?'

‘Yes, a soufflé. Place your hand in front of your mouth and breathe on it, like this.'

You breathed into the cupped palm of your hand and I copied you.

‘You feel how warm your breath is? Well, with all the people in the world breathing at once that makes a lot of warm air. And you know how warm air makes a soufflé rise?'

I nod, solemnly, pretending to know.

‘Well, all the warm air from people breathing makes the sky rise in the same way.'

I was young, too young to question you. You could have told me the sky was held up with safety pins and I would have believed you. I believed everything you told me.

‘What would happen if everyone stopped breathing?' I asked.

‘I don't think that would happen, Sweetheart.'

‘But what if it did? What if just for a second we all stopped breathing at once? Would the sky fall down?'

‘I suppose it might.'

‘Then what would happen? Would we all get squashed? Would I get squashed like that ladybird when I dropped my book on it by mistake?'

‘No, I wouldn't let you get squashed. I'd gather you up in my arms and run to the edge of the earth, and then I'd jump off the earth and out of the way of the falling sky.'

‘Would we make it in time?'

‘Of course. The sky would fall very slowly, like a soufflé when you stick your fork in it and all the air goes out. Plus, I'm a very fast runner.'

‘You're not that fast,' I said, ‘I'm faster than you. And anyway, what if you weren't there with me? What would happen to me then?'

You rolled over onto your side to face me, and tickled my chin with a daisy.

‘I'll always be there with you, silly,' you said.

And as always, I believed you.

“The thing that attracted me to condensed matter physics,” Mark is telling my mother, “is that it's about the stuff that surrounds us every day. It's not about dealing with the very tiny, like particle theory, or the very large, like astrophysics or cosmology, but about all the stuff that comes in between. The good old, everyday, run-of-the-mill stuff.”

“Well, that sounds fascinating,” my mother smiles half-heartedly, tracing the rim of her coffee cup. “Ah, good morning Darling!”

She looks relieved to see me as I join them at the kitchen table.

“Mark's just been telling me all about quantum conductivity and super mechanics.”

“Quantum mechanics and superconductivity,” he corrects her.

She laughs, nervously. “Silly me! I'm not very good at all this science stuff, am I Meggie? I never understand when Meg's telling me about human gnomes.”

“Human genomes, Mother, not human gnomes.”

“I take it Meg didn't get her scientific mind from you then, Mrs May?” Mark asks my mother. He says it with a charming smile, but I know he finds her lack of scientific knowledge frustrating. ‘How can people not be interested in the world around them?' he is always asking me, indignant. He cannot comprehend anyone who cannot grasp the complexities of physics as easily as he can.

“Oh goodness no, she didn't get it from me,” says my mother, absent-mindedly adding sugar to her coffee, “science was her father's thing.”

I stop pouring orange juice and hold the carton in midair, suspended over my glass.

“My father liked science?” I ask, astonished at this revelation. “You said he was a chef.”

My mother starts spreading butter onto her croissant with such ferocity that half of it breaks off and flies across the table, landing on Mark's lap.

“There is a scientific element to being a chef you know, Darling,” she says, hurriedly. “Weighing things. Mixing them together. Ovens. Ovens are scientific, aren't they? All those metal bits and electricity and stuff. Who would like some toast? Coffee? I'll make a fresh pot.”

She stands up quickly, taking the coffee pot with her. Mark places the piece of croissant back on her plate and raises his eyebrows at me, enquiringly. I have told Mark very little about my father, other than the fact that he is a deceased pastry chef. I have failed to tell him that this is practically
all
I know. Mark's family are so perfect that I'm sure he would find my ignorance about my own father shocking and confusing. He would tell me to demand details, access to family connections – where, when, who, why. It's your right, he would tell me. But he doesn't understand how hard it can be, making sense of my world. He doesn't understand what it's like to come up against one brick wall after the other, to live in the murky grey somewhere between black and white.

“Well, wherever she gets her brains from, Meg will certainly be a great scientist,” says Mark, stroking the back of my head affectionately.

He smiles proudly at me, and I feel my heart flutter, just like it always does when I win his approval. I have sat in on a couple of the lectures Mark has given at the university, discussing the findings of his research, and I have seen how the female students gaze at him, as if he is the source of all knowledge, the oracle. I have seen the way their hands shoot up when he asks a question, desperate for his attention, dying to impress him with their intelligence. But I am the one he has chosen. I am the one whose mind has impressed him, and continues to do so day after day. This is the ultimate commendation. With Mark I know I am smart enough, bright enough, good enough. There is no way any girlfriend of Mark Daly – soon to be Dr Mark Daly – could ever be considered laughable.