The Knot Garden

  Anna rang the doorbell, and when no answer came, set off round the base of the house to see if she could find a way in. The curiously angled roofs and gable ends of Nonesuch bulked above her, black against the racing clouds. Apart from the rhythmic drip of rain from the lower branches of the great cedars, the gardens were eerily silent. Vindicated at last in her choice of footwear, Anna stumbled across the soft earth of lawn and parterre. There were no lights on in Stella’s apartment; the windows of the Painted Room were dark. All the ground-floor doors were secure. Many of them, she knew, needed no locks. They had been warped or rusted shut for years, or gave entry to disused pantries and closets which were themselves bricked off from the rest of the house. But as she made her way along the back of the house, she came upon an open French window, and heard voices from the room inside. She thought that one of them said, ‘I don’t remember,’ to which the other answered:

  ‘You will. You must.’

  It was Stella and John. They were quarrelling. For a moment, their voices became indistinct, as if they had moved away from the window. Then she heard, quite loudly:

  ‘None of this means anything to me. It’s all in the past. Why can’t you leave me alone? Why do you always meddle in my life?’

  Anna backed cautiously away. The French window opened on to a stiff, formal little arrangement of clipped and topiaried box-hedges – the Herringe knot garden, with its inevitable sly encodement of the family initial: here, she hid herself. Nothing happened for a moment. A long white curtain bellied in and out of the room in the damp wind. Then there was a clever little laugh, some inaudible exchange, a feminine shout of rage. The sound of a glass breaking against the wall. ‘Do what you like,’ said John Dawe. ‘It’s only money.’ A moment later, he rushed out, pursued by his cousin. Almost immediately, the knot garden brought him to a halt. He stared at the hidden shape in the box hedges, as puzzled as a pony, while Stella approached him with care, as if he might kick or bolt, to lay upon his shoulder the infinitely patient hand of a woman who has grown up with animals of all kinds. She was still wearing the pewter lame evening gown. Even with the rain making rats’ tails of her unpinned hair, she looked amazing.

  ‘This is our past,’ she said. ‘No one can share it with us.’

  John shrugged her off. ‘Yet you go off to London and drag back this bloody violinist. He’s in her house. I saw them there. It looked as if they were kissing.’

  ‘And that’s such a good thing,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it? If you think?’ She stepped in close to him and, before he could react, ran the fingers of her left hand lightly down the side of his face. He stiffened for a second under her touch, but then it seemed to relax him. ‘Because she’s not a permanent part of the pattern. London’s their world. They’ll go back to it. They’re safer where they belong, aren’t they? Isn’t that true?’ She looked intently into his face. ‘She’s a flimsy little thing, John: she’s on a visit. Enjoy her while you can.’

  The clouds parted briefly to reveal a sky as iridescent as fish-skin. Moonlight poured down on Stella’s face and seemed to spread a fine web of lines and wrinkles there.

  ‘I’m the strong one,’ she said. ‘You always come back to me. I’m the only you always need.’

  ‘What does she mean?’ said Anna loudly.

  Stella gasped and covered her face with her hands.

  Anna stepped out of the dark. She hadn’t meant to speak. She hadn’t meant them to know she was there.

  ‘John, what does she mean?’

  He stared at her. His eyes were flat with surprise. The three of them stood there in a triangle in the knot garden in the bright moonlight, two at the centre, one at the edge, and everything was held suspended, like sediment in clear water. Everything between them was held in abeyance. Their shadows were fixed. Then the clouds fell back across the moon, and Stella Herringe let drop her hands. She smiled. She said:

  ‘Look at her, John. Is that what you want? Wincyette and wellingtons?’

  The cousins regarded her silently. Anna could sense contempt radiating towards her like cold fire.

  That’s not fair, Anna thought. I came out as I was. I just put these things on: I didn’t choose them. In London, I was proud of how I looked. In London, success had given her a fine finish, added a kind of sleekness to her hair and skin. Success was more than cuts and cosmetics: it was confidence, running daily through you like a hormone, to rebuild and reaffirm. I lost that when I left, she thought. I lost that when I lost Max. True or false, this admission was like opening a door. She tried to turn away from what came through, but in the end could only stand helplessly, cold water trickling down her back, her feet chafed and hot in her boots, and allow Stella’s scorn to usher it towards her, something huge that came rushing out of nowhere like a physical blow. There was an epileptic flash in her head. Then double vision. Some prior defeat, some old humiliation, imposed itself on the present and began to play itself in starts and flickers, like a damaged video recording. In quick succession she saw a room, a window, a frieze of trees black against enamelled winter skies. She heard raised voices, a man and a woman; she heard her own voice hoarse with shouting. Was it Nonesuch? Was it the Painted Room? But how absurd! She felt faint and sick, staggered, bent at the waist to vomit—

  Only to feel a powerful grip first upon an elbow, then her waist. John Dawe’s face, knotted with emotion, was thrust into hers.

  ‘Do you need me, Anna?’

  ‘What?’

  Her tongue filled up her mouth. She was still stuck somewhere in the past. Figures danced in her head, they were in outlandish costumes and bizarre wigs. Firelight; moonlight; cats wailing. Then it was all gone, and she was staring at John and Stella with a contempt of her own. What are you? she thought. A woman trying too hard to look young; a man who never found the adult focus of his life.

  ‘Do you need me?’

  She pushed him away. ‘No,’ she said. ‘What I need is a hot bath, a dry towel and a whisky.’

  She turned her back on the knot garden and walked away.

  John Dawe must have made some move to follow her, because Stella suddenly shouted: ‘Go on, then! Give up on the last four hundred glorious years. Go after her, if you think that’s what you want. But don’t come whining back to me the next time the money runs out—’

  There was a scuffle, a slap, a scream.

  Anna quickened her pace. She would not look back. She felt the cousins staring after her for a moment, then the corner of the house cut them off. It was a relief to be away from them. She wrung water out of her hair, turned up the collar of her coat. By the time she reached the end of the drive, she had stopped trembling. She cast a brief glance up at the great gates, the rain-blackened Herringe arms. Behind them the walls of Nonesuch leaned away at strange angles among the dripping cedars. How oppressive it all is, she thought. I’ll never come back. Not after this.

  She thought: if he loved me he wouldn’t have let me go.

  And then: What did she mean, ‘four hundred glorious years’?

  *

  John Dawe caught up with her about half a mile down Allbright Lane, where the trees joined overhead to make a dark, groined tunnel. She heard a shout, then the sound of heavy footsteps behind her. She winced away in surprise, calling out, ‘No! No!’ but he pulled her to him and kissed her hard. His hands were tangled in her hair, he was cramming her mouth painfully against his. Rainwater dripped from his face on to hers. ‘I don’t want you,’ she tried to say. She closed her eyes and shuddered helplessly. She felt a savage wash of triumph. Do you see, you old cow? some part of her thought: Do you see this? She was appalled. Several minutes later, breathless and confused, she rested her head against his shoulder, felt the thin, quick pulse of his heart through the wet cloth of his shirt. The rain fell on them unabated.

  ‘Am I mad?’ she heard him wonder aloud. ‘I think I must be.’ Then he said: ‘I’ve drunk more than I should.’

  ‘That’s all very flattering,’ she said. She heard her
self add: ‘You never have to go back there, if you don’t want. Tear the cheques up. You can earn a living anywhere.’

  ‘Is it so simple?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s more than money involved. She knows me too well. Like all family, she knows which buttons to press.’

  ‘How fascinating, that you work by buttons. Did you hit her? Back there in the knot garden?’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘She hit me. When I stepped out of the way, she got off-balance and fell down.’

  ‘Goodness,’ said Anna. ‘Fancy trying to get mud out of that dress.’

  He stared at her thoughtfully. ‘That’s not kind.’

  ‘I don’t feel very kind at the moment.’

  They walked in silence for a while. Then Anna asked, ‘Why did you go back there?’

  He shrugged. ‘I was angry with you.’

  ‘I thought you must have been.’

  ‘I saw you and the violinist together—’

  ‘—and you couldn’t think of anywhere else to go but Nonesuch. My, you’re independent.’

  ‘What’s your history with him?’

  ‘I’ll tell you that,’ she said, standing in front of him to make sure she had his attention, ‘if you’ll tell me your history with Stella. Otherwise, no more questions.’ He tried to kiss her again. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’

  It took him some minutes to frame a reply. They resumed walking; passed a row of dark cottages, the village school, the vicarage. Anna’s house was almost in view when he finally said:

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  She laughed. ‘It won’t do, John. Try me.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This isn’t fair on you.’

  ‘Just what is it, exactly, that isn’t fair?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Family history, I suppose.’ He laughed. ‘Only here there’s no family, just history.’

  ‘Four hundred glorious years?’

  ‘Four hundred glorious years. Pathetic, isn’t it? All those desperate old matriarchs in the graveyard over there, outlasting everyone else by sheer willpower, driving their feeble sons to an early death! And those portraits in the Long Corridor! Not one of them had an ounce of compassion when it came to getting what they wanted.’

  He seemed to consider this.

  ‘It’s all so binding,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not a Herringe,’ Anna reminded him, ‘you’re a Dawe—’

  ‘Bloody good job, too!’

  ‘—And you aren’t feeble, and you’re certainly not her son. Kiss me again.’

  ‘I will.’

  They went the rest of the way with their arms around one another. By the time they got back the moon was out and the rain had stopped. Her cottage remained as Anna had left it. The front door hung open. The uncurtained window, still yellow with light, revealed Max Wishart sprawled on the sofa with his mouth open, like someone in an American Gothic painting. There was a sense of disarray, of ordinary life suspended. At the gate sat Orlando, as sorry for himself as only a wet cat can be, giving his sodden fur a half-hearted lick.

  ‘You look like a loo-brush,’ Anna told him. ‘Have you gone mad? Why didn’t you sit inside?’

  ‘We’ve all been a bit mad tonight,’ said John Dawe.

  He knelt down to stroke the cat. In return, Orlando sniffed and sniffed at his boots, his hands, his trousers.

  ‘Look at him!’ said Anna. ‘He likes you.’

  ‘He can smell Liddy.’ John Dawe got up again. ‘She hasn’t been home lately, and I’m a bit worried about her. I think I’ll go home and see if she’s back. She’s a tart—’

  ‘—but you miss her,’ Anna finished.

  ‘Bless her crooked little heart.’ They smiled at one another. After a pause he asked: ‘Will I see you tomorrow, Anna Prescott?’

  ‘You will.’

  ‘And the man asleep on your sofa in there?’ he reminded her.

  ‘He’s an old friend, John. Nothing more to me now. Nothing less.’

  He nodded. ‘I will have to take your word for that,’ he said.

  ‘You’d be a fool not to.’

  She watched him walk off down the road, then, shooing Orlando along in front of her, went inside and closed the door. The cottage was cold. Max had woken up at some point and, unable to find anything else, taken the old woollen blanket off the cat’s favourite chair and draped it over himself. His long legs hung over the armrest of the sofa. If she listened carefully, she could hear his steady breathing. He seemed more at ease with himself, but how could you tell? She wondered what the future held for him. ‘Goodnight, Max,’ she whispered. She crept past him, turned off the lights and, slipping carefully into bed next to the snoring Dellifer, fell into a deep if dream-filled sleep.

  *

  Early the next morning she woke puzzledly, to the sound of voices.

  The whole cottage smelled of coffee and fried bread. In the kitchen she found Alice Meynell – whose idea of cooking was to have the stove turned as high as possible – banging pots around in a haze of superheated fat, the cats weaving round her feet with their tails up and hopeful expressions on their faces. Max Wishart sat at the table, an empty plate in front of him, watching her with an amused expression on his face. Alice’s flying jacket lay on the floor in a corner. Despite the change in the weather, she had chosen to wear underneath it a pink mohair crop-top which left three inches of bare skin above the waistband of her black leather motorcycle trousers.

  ‘I made myself at home,’ she said. ‘Do you want coffee?’

  Anna took the proffered mug and held it in both hands.

  ‘You look recovered,’ she told Max.

  Before he could open his mouth, Alice said: ‘He needs a lift to the station. I said he ought to have some breakfast before I took him.’ She examined Max as if she had never seen a man before and added off handedly, ‘Egg on bread, nothing special.’

  ‘You’re taking him on your bike?’

  ‘Well, the Rolls-Royce is being mended just now.’

  ‘Do you think that’s wise?’ Anna asked Max.

  Max Wishart lifted an eyebrow. ‘Do you remember me as wise?’ he said. He was still tired round the eyes, but he seemed less depressed. He had the air of a man who had made decisions about himself in the night. He looked at his watch. ‘London calls. If I want that train I think I’d better kiss and run.’

  She smiled at him. ‘You were always good at that. Max.’

  ‘Wasn’t I, though?’

  Anna went out to say goodbye, stood with her arms folded under her breasts. The motorcycle exhaust steamed in the cold air. The sun was out, and she could see the edge of the downs again. Balanced incongruously on the back of the Kawasaki in his suit and overcoat – his knees cocked at strange angles, Alice’s spare helmet on his head – Max looked up at her and said: ‘Take care of yourself. You know what I mean.’

  ‘You take care of yourself too. Max—’

  They tried to kiss, but the helmet got in the way.

  ‘—and let me know what happens.’

  ‘I will,’ he said.

  ‘As soon as you know.’

  ‘I will. Come and see me play next month. I’ll send you tickets. Queen Elizabeth Hall: three viols and a soprano. Very beefy.’

  He thought for a moment.

  ‘The programme, that is. Not the soprano.’

  *

  Shortly after they had gone, Ruth Canning phoned.

  ‘How’s life in green welly paradise?’ she said.

  ‘Bloody,’ Anna told her.

  ‘So we can expect you back in Hackney when?’

  ‘Don’t tempt me,’ said Anna. ‘What’s all that shouting?’

  ‘Half term. Oh, and we decided to put the computers in the boys’ room and boys in the loft. For some reason it’s meant a lot of carpentry.’

  ‘Everyone has their cross to bear,’ said Anna.

  There was the shortest of pauses. ‘Oh,
we do OK, me and Sam,’ Ruth said. Suddenly she shouted, ‘Put that thing down and leave your brother alone!’ Another pause, in which a child’s voice could be heard debating the point. ‘Or I’ll kill you,’ she answered it reasonably. ‘Is that clear enough?’

  Anna said: ‘Are you all right, Ruth?’

  ‘Oh you know. Sam wants to change his job again, I want to go back to work full time, the boys want a Dreamcast, we all need a bigger house. Nothing a lottery win wouldn’t cure. Listen,’ she said, ‘I can’t talk long. I called because I picked up something rather peculiar last night, talking to Charlie Royle in some appalling gastropub somewhere. Remember Charlie? Got sacked from Benedict-Beiderhof for being too clever with hedge funds, and landed his own column for some broadsheet’s business page two days later? Well I thought I’d have a sniff round him to see what he knew about the Herringe operation. As soon as I mentioned the name, all he wanted to talk about was Engelion Cosmetics. They’d been doing so well everyone thought they were going to float. There was a lot of quiet support for going public. But suddenly they’ve been blacklisted by some animal rights organisation, and people are pulling back. No one wants to buy shares in another cruelty scandal.’

  ‘Blacklisted? What on earth for?’

  ‘Testing on rabbits. Charlie was full of it. Though I know for a fact the bugger spends his weekends down in Hampshire, shooting anything that moves.’

  Anna frowned. ‘But Stella’s worked for animals all her life.’

  ‘Look, this kind of thing is really easy to track down on the web. I’ll give you some addresses, and you can follow it up for yourself if you want to. I’d do it,’ she said rather sadly, ‘but I just haven’t the time. God save me from motherhood, wifehood and the Financial Times.’

  ‘Ruth – thank you.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go. Bedlam’s broken out. Sam’s supposed to be looking after them, but all that means is he encourages them to watch football all day, and it makes them hyper.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Ruth?’