Flowers in the Rain & Other Stories

  But Abigail did not wear the red dress. She was keeping the dress for … something. Some person. Some special day. She put on, instead, a brown dress that Yvonne had seen a dozen times before. She arranged her hair, made up her face, went downstairs. In the hall, Tammy’s picture, still in its untidy wrappings, lay on the chest by the telephone. Its presence was somehow pathetic, like a cry for help. Unless I exhibit, I’m never going to sell anything. Unless people saw his extraordinary pictures, he was never going to hope to get started. An idea occurred to Abigail. Perhaps Yvonne and Maurice would be interested. Perhaps they would like it so much that they would buy a picture of Tammy’s for themselves. And they would hang it in their sitting-room, and other people would see it and ask about him.

  It was a faint hope. Maurice and Yvonne did not go in for patronage of the arts. But still, it was worth a try. Decisively, Abigail pulled on her coat, did up the buttons, gathered up the parcel, and set off.

  * * *

  Maurice’s friend was called Martin York. He was a very large man, taller than Maurice, and extremely fat. His head was bald, fringed with greying hair. He had come down from Glasgow for a meeting, he told Abigail over sherry, and had actually booked into a London hotel, but Maurice had persuaded him to cancel the booking and instead to spend the night at his home in Brookleigh.

  “A charming little village. You live here?”

  “Yes, I’ve lived here all my life, on and off.”

  Maurice chipped into the conversation. “She’s got the prettiest house in the village. And quite the most enviable garden. How’s the new gardener doing, Abigail?”

  “Well, he’s not so new now. He’s been working for me for some months.” She explained about Tammy to Martin York. “… he’s really an artist—a painter.” This seemed as good a moment as any to broach the subject of the picture. “As a matter of fact, I brought one of his paintings with me. I … I bought it from him. I thought you might be interested…”

  Yvonne came through from the kitchen and caught the tail end of this remark. “Who, me? Darling, I never bought a picture in my life.”

  “But we could look at it,” said Maurice quickly. He was a kind man and always ready to make amends for his wife’s forthright remarks.

  “Oh, I’d like to look at it…”

  So Abigail set down her sherry glass and went out to the hall where she had left Tammy’s picture along with her coat. She brought the parcel into the sitting-room and untied the binder twine and pulled aside the paper. She handed the picture to Maurice, who set it up on the seat of a chair, and then stood back, the better to inspect it.

  The other two also arranged themselves, standing around in a half-circle. Nobody said anything. Abigail found that she was as nervous of their reaction as if she had herself been responsible for creating those little figures, that brilliant mosaic of colour. She wanted desperately for them all to admire and covet it. It was as though she were the mother of a cherished child being examined, and found wanting.

  Yvonne broke the silence at last. “But it’s all upside down!”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Darling, did you really buy it from Tammy Hoadey?”

  “Yes,” lied Abigail, not having the nerve to disclose the arrangement she had made with Tammy.

  “However much did you give him for it?”

  “Yvonne!” her husband remonstrated sharply.

  “Abigail doesn’t mind, do you, Abigail?”

  “Fifty pounds,” Abigail told them, trying to sound cool.

  “But you could have got something really good for fifty pounds!”

  “I think it is really good,” said Abigail defiantly.

  There was another long pause. Martin York had still said nothing. But he had taken out his spectacles and put them on, the better to inspect the picture. Abigail, unable to bear the silence a moment longer, turned to him.

  “Do you like it?”

  He took his spectacles off. “It’s full of innocence and vitality. And I love the colour. It’s like the work of a very sophisticated child. I am sure you will have great enjoyment from it.”

  Abigail could have wept with gratitude. “I’m sure I will,” she told him. She went to rescue Tammy’s work from the others’ unappreciative gaze, to bundle it back into its crumpled wrapping.

  “What did you say his name was?”

  “Tammy Hoadey,” said Abigail. Maurice passed around the sherry decanter once more, and Yvonne started to talk about some new pony. Tammy was not mentioned again, and Abigail knew that her first tentative attempt at patronage had been a dismal failure.

  * * *

  The next Monday Tammy did not turn up for work. At the end of the week, Abigail made a few discreet inquiries. Nobody in the village had seen the Hoadeys. She let another day or two pass before getting out the car and driving down the rutted, rubbish-strewn lane which led to the old quarry. The dismal cottage lay by the lip of the cliff. No smoke rose from the chimney. The windows were shuttered, the door locked. In the trodden garden lay a child’s abandoned toy, a plastic tractor missing a wheel. Rooks cawed overhead, a thin wind stirred the black water at the base of the quarry.

  “I know you won’t let me down.”

  But he had gone, back to Leeds with his wife and children. To start teaching again, and to forget his dreams of becoming an artist. He had gone, taking Abigail’s fifty pounds with him, and she would never see him again.

  She went home and took his picture from its wrapping and carried it into the sitting-room. She laid it on a chair, and went, with care, to take down the heavy canvas of some Highland glen that had hung forever above the mantel-piece. Its departure revealed a plethora of dust and cobwebs. She fetched a duster, cleaned these up, and then hung Tammy’s picture. She stood back and surveyed it: the pure, clean colours, the little procession of figures, walking up the walls of the canvas and across the top, like those old Hollywood musicals when people danced on the ceiling. She found herself smiling. The whole room felt different, as though a lively and entertaining person had just walked into it. Enjoyment. That was the word that Maurice’s friend had used. Tammy had gone, but he had left part of his engaging self behind.

  * * *

  Now it was nearly a month later. The autumn was truly here, cold winds and showers of rain, the beginning of frosts at night. After lunch Abigail, bundled against the cold, went out to tidy the rose-beds, dead-head the frosted blossoms, cut out the dead wood. She was wheeling a barrow of rubbish towards the compost heap when she heard the sound of an approaching car and saw a long, sleek black saloon come quietly around the curve of the lane and draw up at the side of the house. The door opened and a man got out. A tall stranger, silvery-haired, bespectacled, wearing a formal, dark overcoat. He looked almost as distinguished as his car. Abigail set down the wheelbarrow and went to meet him.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “I’m so sorry to disturb you, but I’m looking for Tammy Hoadey and I was told in the village that you might be able to help me.”

  “No, he isn’t here. He used to work for me, but he’s gone. I think he’s gone back to Leeds. With his wife and children.”

  “You haven’t any idea how I could get in touch with him?”

  “I’m afraid not.” She took off a gardening glove and tried to push a stray lock of hair under her headscarf. “He didn’t leave any address.”

  “And he’s not coming back?”

  “I’m not expecting him.”

  “Oh, dear.” He smiled. It was a rueful smile, but all at once he looked much younger and not nearly so intimidating. “Perhaps I should explain. My name is Geoffrey Arland…” He felt inside his coat and produced, from an inner breast pocket, a business card. Abigail took it in her earthy hand. Geoffrey Arland Galeries, she read, and beneath this a prestigious Bond Street address. “As you can see, I’m an art dealer…”

  “Yes,” said Abigail. “I know. I came to your gallery about four years ago. With my father. You had an exhibition of Vi
ctorian flower paintings.”

  “You came to that? How very nice. It was a delightful collection.”

  “Yes, we enjoyed it so much.”

  “I…”

  But the wind had blown a dark shower cloud over the sun, and now it started, suddenly, to rain.

  “I think,” said Abigail, “it would be better if we went indoors.” And she led the way into the house, through the garden door, directly into the sitting-room. It looked pretty and fresh, the fire flickering in the grate, an arrangement of dahlias on the piano, and over the mantel-piece, the brilliant mosaic of Tammy’s picture.

  Coming behind her, he saw this at once. “Now, that’s Hoadey’s work.”

  “Yes.” Abigail closed the glass door behind them and unknotted her headscarf. “I bought it from him. He needed the money. He and his family lived in a gruesome cottage down by the quarry. It was all he could find. They were always on the breadline. It seemed a dreadfully hand-to-mouth existence.”

  “Is this the only picture you have?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this the one you showed to Martin York?”

  Abigail frowned. “Do you know Martin York?”

  “Yes, he’s a good friend of mine.” Geoffrey Arland turned to face Abigail. “He told me about Tammy Hoadey because he thought I would be interested. What he didn’t know was that I’ve been interested in Hoadey’s work ever since I caught sight of a couple of his pictures in an exhibition in Leeds some time ago. But they were both sold, and for some reason I was never able to make contact with Hoadey. He seems to be an elusive sort of man.”

  Abigail said, “He gardened for me.”

  “It’s a beautiful garden.”

  “It was. My father made it. But he died at the beginning of spring and our old gardener didn’t have the heart to go on without him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yes,” said Abigail inadequately.

  “So now you live alone?”

  “For the moment I do.”

  He said, “Decisions are difficult at such a time … I mean, when you lose someone close to you. My wife died about two years ago, and I’ve only just had the courage to up sticks and move. Not very far, admittedly. Just from a house in St. John’s Wood to a flat in Chelsea. But still, it was something of an upheaval.”

  “If I can’t find another gardener, I suppose I shall have to move. I couldn’t bear to stay here and watch it all go to rack and ruin, and it’s too big for me to manage on my own.”

  They smiled at each other, understanding. She said, “I could make you a cup of coffee.”

  “No, really, I must be on my way. I’ve got to get back to London, preferably before the rush-hour. If he does come back, you could get in touch with me?”

  “Of course.”

  The rain had stopped. Abigail opened the door and they moved back out onto the terrace. The flagstones shone wet, the rain clouds had been blown away, and now the garden was suffused in misty golden sunlight.

  “Do you ever come up to London?”

  “Yes, sometimes. To see the dentist or something boring like that.”

  “Next time you come to the dentist, I hope you’ll visit my gallery again.”

  “Yes. Perhaps. And I’m sorry about Tammy.”

  “I’m sorry too,” said Geoffrey Arland.

  * * *

  November passed and then it was December. The garden lay grey and bare beneath the dark wintry skies. Abigail abandoned the garden and moved indoors, to write the first of the Christmas cards, do her tapestry, watch television. For the first time since her father died, she knew loneliness. Next year, she told herself, I shall be forty-one. Next year I will be decisive and competent. I must find a job, make new friends, have people for dinner. No one could do any of these things except herself, and she knew this, but at the moment she had hardly the heart to walk up to the village. She certainly hadn’t the energy to undertake a trip to London. Geoffrey Arland’s card remained, just as she had left it, tucked into the frame of Tammy’s picture. But it was beginning to grow dusty, to curl at the corners, and soon, she knew, she would throw it into the fire.

  Her low spirits turned out, inevitably, to be the onset of a bad cold and she was forced to spend two gloomy days in bed. On the third morning she awoke late. She knew it was late, because she could hear sounds of the vacuum cleaner from downstairs, which meant that Mrs. Brewer had let herself in with her latchkey and started work. Beyond Abigail’s open curtains the sky was filling with light, turning from early grey to a pale, pristine, wintry blue. The hours stretched ahead of her like an empty void. Then Mrs. Brewer turned off the vacuum cleaner, and Abigail heard the bird singing.

  A bird? She listened more intently. It was not a bird. It was a person whistling Mozart. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Abigail sprang from her bed and ran to the window, holding back the curtains with both hands. And saw, below her in the garden, the familiar figure; the red-tasseled cap, the long green pullover, the boots. He had his spade over his shoulder; he was heading for the vegetable garden, his feet making tracks on the frosty lawn. She threw up the sash, regardless of the fact that she was wearing only her night-dress.

  “Tammy!”

  He stopped short, turned, his face tilted up towards her. He grinned. He said, “Hello, there.”

  She bundled herself into the nearest clothes to hand and ran downstairs and out of doors. He was waiting for her by the back door, grinning sheepishly.

  “Tammy, what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come back.”

  “All of you? Poppy and the children too?”

  “No, they’re still in Leeds. I’ve gone back to teaching again. But it’s the school holidays, so I’m here now on my own. I’m back in the Quarry Cottage.” Abigail stared in puzzlement. “I’ve come to work off that fifty pounds I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything. I bought the picture. I’m going to keep it.”

  “I’m glad of that, but even so I want to work off my debt.” He scratched the back of his neck. “You thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you? Or scarpered with your money? I’m sorry I went off like that, without letting you know. But the little boy got worse, he got flu and Poppy was frightened of pneumonia. His temperature was up, so we took him away from that house; it wasn’t healthy. We went back to Poppy’s mother. He was very ill for a bit, but he’s all right now. Anyway, a teaching job came up. They’re hard to get nowadays, so I thought I’d better grab the chance.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “I’m not much of a one at writing letters and the local telephone-box was always being vandalized. But I told Poppy that these holidays I’d be coming back to Brookleigh.”

  “But what about your painting?”

  “I’ve put that behind me…”

  “But…”

  “The children come first. Poppy and the children. I see that now.”

  “But, Tammy…”

  He said, “Your telephone’s ringing.”

  Abigail listened. It was, too. She said, “Mrs. Brewer will answer it.” But it kept on ringing, so she left Tammy standing there and went back into the house.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Haliday?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Geoffrey Arland speaking…”

  Geoffrey Arland. Abigail felt her mouth drop in astonishment at the extraordinariness of the coincidence. Naturally unaware of her gaping amazement, he went on, “I’m very sorry to ring you so early in the morning, but I have rather a busy day ahead of me, and I thought I’d have a better chance of getting hold of you now rather than later. I wondered if there was any hope of you getting up to town between now and Christmas. We’re mounting an exhibition which I would particularly like to show you. And I thought we could perhaps have lunch together? Almost any day would suit me, but…”

  Abigail found her voice at last. She said, “Tammy’s back!”

  Geoffrey Arland, interrupted in mid-flow, was naturally dis
concerted. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Tammy’s back. Tammy Hoadey. The artist you came to look for.”

  “He’s back with you?” Geoffrey Arland’s voice was at once quite different, imperative, and businesslike.

  “Yes. He turned up today, this very morning.”

  “Did you tell him I’d been to Brookleigh?”

  “I haven’t had the chance.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “I’ll bring him up to London,” said Abigail. “I’ll drive him up in my car.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow if you like.”

  “Has he got any work to show me?”

  “I’ll ask him.”

  “Bring anything he’s got. And if he hasn’t got any work at Brookleigh, then just bring him.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “I’ll expect you in the morning. Come straight to the galleries. We’ll have a talk with him and I’ll take you both out for lunch.”

  “We should be with you about eleven.”

  For a moment neither of them said anything. And then, “What a miracle,” said Geoffrey Arland and he did not sound businesslike any longer, but pleased and grateful.

  “They happen.” Abigail was smiling so widely, her face felt quite strange. “I am so glad you called.”

  “I’m glad too. For all sorts of reasons.”

  * * *

  He rang off, and after a while Abigail put down her receiver. She stood by the telephone and hugged herself. Nothing had changed and everything had changed. Upstairs, Mrs. Brewer continued to move ponderously about behind her vacuum cleaner, but tomorrow Abigail and Tammy were driving to London to see Geoffrey Arland; to show him all Tammy’s pictures; to be taken out for lunch. Abigail would wear her red dress. And Tammy? What would Tammy wear?

  He was waiting for her, just as she had left him when the telephone started to ring. He was leaning on his spade, filling his pipe, waiting for her to return. As she appeared, he looked up and said, “I thought I’d start in on the digging…”

  She very nearly said, To hell with the garden. “Tammy, did you take your pictures with you, when you went back to Leeds?”

  “No, I left them behind. They’re still at Quarry Cottage.”